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daylighted · 4 months ago

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LIVEWIRE — jj maybank x reader.

livewire (n) — an energetic or unpredictable person; a force of nature. ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤthat boy is a livewire; he'll ruin you, or die trying.

. . . or, jj's crashout — featuring you.

includes, SEXUAL CONTENT! MDNI. kinda pwp. crashout!jj. best friend!fem!reader. forced proximity. high stakes. dirty talk. jj is vocal. p in v. unprotected sex ( do not do this they r just so ridiculous & horny ). ( semi ) public. he has absolutely no pullout game but he's forgiven for it </3

NOTES. if the door logic doesn't make any sense realistically ... that's not my business. i'm not writing for realism i'm writing for the JJ GIRLS who want 2 fuck CRASHOUT JJ. also my apology for the quote in the tagline ik its too soon still but i joke 2 cope.

Red and blue littered the autumnal afternoon sky, sirens overshadowing the lyrical chirps of the birds, the scattered winds blowing red and orange leaves down the Kildare streets.

JJ Maybank is a fucking force to be reckoned with. In his wake, town hall’s alarms reared their deafening screeches, the aforementioned chilly winds blowing in handfuls of leaves to scatter the podiums and the foldout chairs. There’s a lone chair on its side in the middle of the well-kept grassy front courtyard. There’s glass burrowing itself in the dirt, reflecting the golden sun’s light at every which way when you turn your head.

The other pogues are screaming at him to go, to run, and he’s shocked for a moment. Stood like a deer in headlights at the actions that he took. Who knew how much one boy was capable? All of the destruction that two hands could elicit?

Oh, and what an empowering thought it is, too: realizing what you are capable of doing when you are pushed to the brink.

There’s that look in his eyes, before he turns on his heels and takes off into the wood, disappearing like a speck in the small bit of forestry separating town hall from the rest of the downtown area.

You know what that look means. This is merely the first in his rampage. Fire burns blue in the thin line of his irises, everything else overtaken by adrenaline and fucking rage.

“Someone has to—” Kie starts, and you realize that you’ve been staring straight ahead at the trees he vanished into, eyes locked on the exact path he took. “Someone has to go, go make sure he’s okay—”

Sarah’s eyes lock on yours. John B grimaces for a second, like he’s considering it, before he looks at you, too. Kie’s words, albeit vague, had never sounded so directed before. Pope—

Pope is getting tossed against the hood of a cop car, and suddenly, the pogues aren’t looking at you anymore. Their gazes break and shatter away from you like the shards of the window surrounding your feet.

Your heart is racing. You. Chase him down. And what did they expect you to do? To tell him that this wasn’t him, and to stop while he’s ahead, and to hold his hand and guide him back to safety away from the cops’ sirens and cars that had already broken away from the crowd to hunt for him?

No. This was JJ, and he wouldn’t stop while he was ahead, and he was going to take the cops on his tail like a challenge to keep going until he cracked — or they did.

You were the only one that ever understood him, really. That was why their eyes immediately shifted to you when the topic came up that someone had to find him, because even while they wanted to help, they would only drive him further away. Not you. Never you.

You’re turning on your heel and sprinting before anyone can realize what you’re doing. Not the screaming kooks, demanding lawyers and justice to the unlistening winds. Not the pogues, banging on the remaining cop cars to free him, free Pope, stop this fucking madness—

It’s like a thin line is painted on the ground between you and JJ. An invisible rope, loose but growing more taut the closer you follow on his tail.

You follow it. Follow that red string into the trees, letting it tug you along until you break out of the shadowy wood and onto main street.

A car alarm blares. Glass shards on the trunk of it, surrounding the asphalt around it. You slow to a stop to avoid catching any of those sharp, loose pieces in your shoes. Even now that the imaginary red line has faded, you can see traces of where he went in the path of destruction he made.

A shop’s window busted a few feet away from the car. A street pole sparking and buzzing lowly, electricity humming through the air like a siren’s song, tempting anyone it came across to touch it. Touch the livewire.

Just a few feet away, there he is. JJ has an outdoor seating chair in his two hands, and he’s seconds from tossing it through the glass window of the cafe it was in front of.

“JJ!” You shout, your voice faint beneath the sound of the car alarm, the sparking of the electrical fire, the hum of electricity buzzing all around you.

His head swivels to look back at you, and he looks fucking vicious. He looks like no matter what you say, he’s not going to stop. Not here. The electricity coming from the dented-in box on the street pole is feeding directly into his veins.

“Not supposed t’be here,” he calls back, and now that fury is directed at you. As if he ever could have stopped you from following the breadcrumbs he only ever left for you. “Can’t fuckin’ stop me.”

You crunch glass beneath your feet as you run toward him. It’s too late to do anything about the cafe window; its pieces spill onto the glossy wood floor, some splayed onto the sidewalk.

“Who said I’d try and stop you?” You ask him once you’re close enough. His hand runs through his mussed blonde hair, tugging the strands straight up.

His eyes flit to you, eyebrows raised behind the loose strands falling back down over them. “M’not letting you get into this shit, too,” he says just as sternly. “It’s my fuckin’ life I’m ruining.”

“Why?” you ask him, and it is a genuine question, even though you don’t think he’s going to answer. So you start to spit out your own theories. “Because of your dad? Because of what Luke did?”

His eyes drop to the ground, squinting like he’s looking for something through the shards surrounding his feet. The bat. The end of it sticks out in front of your shoes.

You bend down to grab it, holding the hitting end out toward him. His eyes are so dark when they glance at it, and then back up to you. His eyes were always oceanic, but now they seemed to be drowned out by the stormy black clouds that were his pupils.

JJ’s eyes linger on yours. He’s never really made an effort to read you before, more of a take it on the chin sort of guy when it came to how people were, and what they meant to him. But he studied you now, and it was almost unnerving, trying to guess what exactly he saw reflected back to him.

His fingers close around the hitting end of the bat in a tight grip, using it to pull you closer to him. He’s holding it out to the side, just so that it can’t go taut and rigid between the two of you, allowing you to be tugged closer than you would have been able to be.

His breaths come in furious pants, audible once you were close to him. He was a livewire. He was sparking, burning everything he touched, trying to take it all to the ground.

Destruction was always so pretty when it was at his hands. He did everything with purpose, whether it was for the good of who he cared about, or for his own grievances.

And this sort of destruction, the kind you saw his eyes fall into once you were close enough to share breaths? It was golden and fiery, and full of promise that would break the thin line between your friendship and something else.

You knew it in the same way that you knew how to follow that red, invisible line to him. Red because it was a bad idea, a waving red flag, telling you to stop, stop, stop. But it connected the both of you, regardless of its color; so how were you expected to?

“Feelin’ hungry?” JJ asks, voice low and almost sinful with the way that it rasped.

You don’t mean to balk, but you do. It wasn’t a question you expected him to ask, but the double meaning in it, the innuendo laced words, had you stifling on your own words. “For what?”

The bat slips from his grip, and it falls to hang loosely at your side. “We broke it, we buy it,” he says with a nod toward the shattered gap in the cafe’s window. “Or… not buy it.” His eyebrows bounce when he looks at you, and he leans in, his lips grazing the shell of your ear. “Did you think I was talkin’ about something else?”

Your face flushes. Then, you drop the bat to shove at his chest with both hands. “Shut up.”

“What, you feelin’ all hot and bothered, sweetheart?” he asks, a teasing lilt to his voice. “Tryna get some fugitive dick before it’s tossed in the slammer?”

Your face is hot, the trail of heat from your reddened cheeks traveling like a river stream to your lower stomach. “Shut up, JJ,” you seethe, though it has none of the fire you wish it did. You didn’t know why; you had so much of it running through your blood then that it should have made you sound more fiery than you did.

“Uh huh,” JJ cackles, his hand lifting to the back of your shoulder, pushing you toward the broken window. Once you’re a few steps ahead of him, his hand claps on your ass. “Andele, andele! Cops on the horizon.”

It takes every bit of your willpower to not whirl around and smack him back. You don’t, because unfortunately for you, the sting only adds to your stomach becoming molten liquid, and for the other, more pressing matter, of the cops’ lights glowing red and blue at the very end of the street.

You duck into the hole in the glass, feet crunching down on pieces of glass and debris. He follows immediately after, though when he slips into the building, it’s more stumbling than anything graceful.

“Head t’the back,” he huffs, nodding toward the push-to-open door behind the front counter. “M’not gettin’ fucking caught before I fuck up that goddamn realtor’s house.”

Arguing with him is a bit useless. JJ’s never been one to listen to anyone when his mind is set on something. You knew this from the moment that you took off in his direction to find him. Still, you almost open your mouth to make the effort to stop him, so at least you could say you did try.

He cuts in front of you, stepping around the chair he tossed through the window, hopping over the countertop. He stops when he’s leaned against the door, holding it propped for you.

“I’d say ladies first, but someone’s takin’ their sweet ass time,” he prods, nodding in gesture to the kitchen.

You scoff, shaking your head, as you circle around the counter, shoving your shoulder into him when you duck underneath his arm. “Some of us aren’t so akin with vandalism.”

“Some of us,” JJ mocks, his fingers digging into your ribcage as he falls into step behind you, “need t’lighten the hell up.”

“I’m sorry, but are the cops not literally outside? End of the road?” It’s useless to humor him and his pestering, but it makes your heart beat a little bit faster, so who are you to make it easier for him and just go along with his ploys?

He tsks. “Semantics.” His head spins around as he takes in the room surrounding them; typical bakery style kitchen, mixers and cutting boards and ovens, sinks lined up on the back wall. There’s tall fridges and deep freezes on one side of the wall, and parallel to it was— “Aha, there we go.”

JJ cuts in front of you again, doing a little hop and a skip as he bumps his hip into this new door, tugging the handle down as he opens it. “Pantry, or whatever,” he scoffs, his face twisting up, “doesn’t matter to me what the hell it is. Gonna have to camp out in here, you and I.”

Of course you were. You’d signed up for this, getting involved in this round of his criminalistic habits, but that didn’t mean you didn’t have the right to be annoyed. Weren’t you lot chased by the police enough as is?

Still, you step into the pantry, the smell of chocolate chips and something else sugary hitting your nostrils the moment you’re inside. Boxes of ingredients line the shelves, including the ziploc bag of chocolate chips.

JJ’s snatching it up before you can even process it, diving his hand into it and popping the handful between his plush lips. “Told you. Break it, we bought it.”

Your eyes roll. Vandalism and theft. Probably a hefty sentence, nothing that either of you could afford with Poguelandia on the brink of destruction and your debts already piled high.

He zips the bag back up and tosses it back on the shelf. “Walkin’ around like you got a stick up your ass, sweetheart,” JJ muses, his fingers closing around your elbow. “Told y’to relax, didn’t I?”

“No,” you say slowly in response. “You told me to lighten the hell up.”

One side of his mouth quirks in a half smile, dimple gracing his cheek in the process. “Semantics,” he repeats, and he uses the grip he has on your arm to tug you back into his chest. “I could help you lighten the hell up.”

“I sincerely doubt it, JJ,” you huff, your expression as unimpressed as one’s could be. “You’re the entire reason—”

His mouth crashes against yours before you can finish that sentence. His mouth is as soft as it looks, the inner shell of his lips chapped. He tastes like weed, like the taste of it is so familiar in his mouth that it embedded itself into his taste.

You almost don’t kiss back. It’s one of those things that feels like a bad idea because it is. That pointless rule about no kissing on other pogues went out the window the moment Kie and Pope got their hands on each other, but it still felt wrong, to break one of the rules that cemented the glue that held this group together.

You kiss him back anyways. The moment that you start to respond to his advances, his tongue sweeps across the seam of your lips, pushing his way in. He starts walking the both of you backwards, deeper into the pantry, until your back hits the wall.

JJ’s hands drop to your thighs, lifting you up effortlessly to wrap your legs around his waist. Your fingers curl into his shirt, tugging him further in until his chest presses against yours.

His hands let go of you, the press of his body against yours on the wall and your legs tight around his waist keep you held up. His fingers close around the hem of your dress’s skirt, tugging it up.

Your eyes pop open, falling down to your exposed panties pressed against his denim jeans. When you glance back up at him, lips still lightly pressed to his, they’re blue again, and glimmery.

“Tell me to stop if you want me to stop,” he murmurs against your lips, stealing another kiss in the process. “Just… tryna get your mind off of—”

“The manhunt?” You finish for him, and he laughs breathlessly against your mouth.

“Mm, m’not doing a great job at distracting you, then,” he teases, one of his hands letting go of your dress, the other fisting the fabric as he holds it up. The free hand’s fingers slide down, down, down, until their tips are pressed on the edge of your panties. So close he could probably feel the slickness leaking through the fabric.

“This all for me, baby?” he asks with that infuriating amusement curled around his words. “Or is it the danger of all this, too? Like bein’ an outlaw with little ol’ me?”

You aren’t even going to dignify him with an answer. Your bottom lip wedges itself between your teeth, your hands curling into fists against the fabric of his shirt.

His middle finger starts to rub slow, lazy circles over your swollen clit through the damp fabric of your panties, his lips parted like he’s going to say something stupid about the whine that falls from your mouth—

When the sirens get so loud that it echoes around the small pantry. They don’t dissipate, either, which means…

“The door,” you choke out, nodding behind JJ to the pantry door. He’d shut it behind the both of you, but there’s a lock by the top of it, one of those chain link ones. “The lock—” You try to clarify, your brain a bit muddled.

JJ’s head turns to glance behind him, and you watch his eyes dance up to the chain, too. He lets out a heavy sigh. “Such a damn worrier.”

“I’m not—”

Always useless arguing with him. He cuts you off by gripping at your thighs again with his lithe fingers, lifting you off of the wall and tugging you into his chest.

You grab fistfuls of his shirt so you don’t fall backwards at the sudden movement, your lips curled into a scowl.

He doesn’t seem to notice. He holds you in his arms as he walks to the door, pressing your back against this one so he can remove one hand from your leg, and lifts it to chain the lock.

“Better?” he teases, and you’re about to scowl at him again when you watch the smile drop from his lips.

Just as suddenly as he’d yanked you from the wall, he’s dropping to the ground, your body falling right along with him, knees crashing into the hardwood floors as you land into straddling him. Your mouth opens to gasp, or swear, or gasp and swear, when his fingers close over your lips.

The cops. You hear them, then, the muffled voices and muddled words. Through the crack beneath the door behind JJ’s planted ass, you see their flashlights, too.

His eyes meet yours, and he nods once, his expression grim. You blink, and his eyes are again filled with that glimmering mischief that never, in his life, has meant something good.

And it was truly delinquent of him this time, as his hands drop to the button and fly of his jeans. Your mouth opens and closes in protest, because there’s no way he’s thinking that you two are going to fuck on some cafe’s pantry’s floor with cops right there—

“Oh, get that look offa your face,” he whispers, nosing your chin up and stealing a kiss when you’ve met his eyes again. “As long as you be quiet, what’s the big deal?”

“You have nothing but awful ideas in that head of yours,” you snap in a low whisper, through your gritted teeth. “I’m not having sex with you right now—”

JJ’s eyebrows raise. His eyes fall down to your slickened thighs, to the panties beneath the dress pooling his waist that he knows are wet with your arousal.

“Fuck you.” It’s so pathetic to say, such a weak argument, but it’s the only thing that you can even think right now. Your heart is pounding in your chest with adrenaline and need and the fact that you can feel his hard dick straining in his jeans against your pussy.

JJ tips his head in a nod, his lips still quirked. “Aye aye, captain.”

He undoes the restraints on his jeans, and his fingers disappear into the flyguard. Your eyes bounce between his face and his hands, his expression contorted in pure concentration that would be adorable if it wasn’t so seriously not. His tongue’s poking between his teeth, panting like an excited puppy, and you just want to—

“Hop on, baby,” he says triumphantly, and those stupid lips curl into an even more stupid grin. His hands pat his thighs to draw your attention downward.

Fuck.

Your eyes must darken at the sight of him, hard and leaking precum, because he starts cackling like there aren’t police on the other side of the door, trying to cuff him and throw him in the backseat of a police car. “C’mon. Don’t be stingy now, baby, I see how bad you want it.”

There are rare moments that JJ is right. Broken clocks right twice a day, or something like that. When he’s right, he’s always dead on, and it’s infuriating.

You glance up at the little window in the door, and for then, at least, it’s clear. No shining flashlights beaming into the pantry you’re both camping in…

You make bad decisions far less than JJ does. Still, like broken clocks, you both align sometimes.

Lifting your hips off of his lap, his hands grasp at the backs of your thighs, guiding you onto his waiting cock, slapping it lightly against your pussy a couple of times before he lines himself up and drags the swollen head of it down your folds beneath your panties. He doesn’t give any warning before he pushes himself into you, a hard thrust that brings him all the way to the hilt at once.

Your lips fall open in a sharp gasp, and just barely does his hand make it over your mouth before the moan falls out of your mouth. One hand over your mouth, the other on your ass, guiding you into moving.

“As much as I love that mouth of yours,” JJ groans into your ear, low and rough like the words are being pried out of his lungs and torn through his ribs, “gonna have to keep it down this time.”

He’s such a fucking hypocrite, though — the moment you adjust to the size of him filling you completely, stretching your inner walls to accommodate to him, and you start to move on your own? His head tips back against the door, guttural moans underneath his breath.

“Fuck, baby, just like that,” he manages, and you slam down on him again, his hand dragging your hips forward to grind your aching pussy against his pelvis in slow circles. “Oh, fuck, baby—”

“Shut up,” you muffle through his hand, even though it’s getting to you too, his palm stifling every gasp and breathy whimper before it leaves your parted lips.

His hand clasps tighter around your mouth, his heavy, half-lidded eyes boring into yours. “You’re not the one in control here, baby.”

It’s easy to forget, with him stretching you out and being relatively gentle right now, that he’s higher than he’s ever been. Adrenaline turns people into carcasses of themselves; wearing them down to the bone, using every scrap of energy available.

His blown pupils are glimmering with it. He’s daring you with nothing but a look to see what happens when you keep running your mouth. His hand relents its hold on your mouth, and the other stills your hips as you stay suspended halfway down his cock.

The whine you let out is something you’ll deny later. The gravelly laugh he lets out is something that indicates he won’t let you.

JJ smears his hand across your mouth, taking the saliva from the corner of your lips and spreading it across them, your cheek, before his two fingers slide into your mouth. “Not so bossy now, are you, baby?” he asks under his breath, as he thrusts his fingers in and out, as he slams his hips up in that same relentless pace as them. “Not so bossy when I’m fucking that mouth and that pretty little pussy.”

His words burn from your lower stomach to up your spine, electric everywhere they reach. You can do nothing but take it, your hands on his shoulders for some sense of stability.

Each thrust has the tip of his cock against your cervix, has his fingers clawing along your tongue as he presses them down on it just enough to pry your jaw open.

“Lemme see that smile, sweetheart,” he murmurs, those two fingers spreading out into a V, forcing the corners of your lips up and into a wide grin. You sneer, and all that does is make him pound into you harder. “Don’t act so fuckin’ fussy, you’re gettin’ what you wanted, aren’t ya?”

His fingers press on your tongue again, and your lips close around them again. It’s a good distraction from the way you want to scream. Not like you’d ever put that thought in his head with his ego.

JJ slows his pace, but each thrust is just as hard, so deep in you that you can feel each of them, each minute detail; the thick head of his cock against your cervix, every inch that stretches you further with each of those thrusts, the obscene sound in the silent room of skin slapping against skin.

“Baby, m’not gonna last much longer,” JJ pants into your ear, his voice still as rough but with an air of desperation. “Not like this, not with how fuckin’ good you’re bein’ for me, nice and quiet while I fuck your juicy pussy— fuck, baby.”

He drags his fingers over your lips again, this time down, down the valley between your breasts, your stomach, your navel, until they’re planted right in the hot wetness of your folds. They find your clit and begin to rub the swollen nub, slow and gentle and completely at odds with the brutal fucking.

You’re good, though, even without his hand covering your mouth. Even with—

A flashlight beams through the glass window above the both of you. Your eyes glance up to see it, and JJ’s staring at the spotlight of gold in the center of the room, just inches from his extended legs.

It flicks left, right, and you see the glimmer in the eyes of the officer right there, face pressed to the glass, hear the doorknob jangle against the chained lock—

JJ doesn’t stop. His pace becomes quicker, more erratic, more desperate. Your jaw trembles with the effort to keep your parted lips from making any sound at all, the precipice so close that you’re terrified of whatever noise is going to come out of your mouth when you cum.

The beam from the light swings away, disappearing as the officer walks away, muffled words through the walls separating you and JJ from them.

It’s just in time, too, because you cum with a soft and breathless gasp, your walls pulsing around his cock, your head falling forward to bury into his collar. His moans begin to shudder in your ear, and you know that he, too, is cumming. Feel it seconds later, when your head starts to clear from the haze of ecstasy, as the warmth of his cum fills you, his cock twitching inside of you.

JJ lifts his fingers from between your legs and pops them into his mouth, the sound of him sucking the essence of you off of them making your legs tremble around him. “Like fuckin’ sin,” he whispers reverently.

He’s so pretty like this. All spent and molten, softening cock inside of you like an extension of you now. His hand lifts to cup your cheek, thumb brushing stray hairs off of your face in the process.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says, just as reverently as before, voicing the same thoughts you’d been having about him.

“You’re so stupid,” you say in response, not capable of telling him how much you love him, feeling it to be the wrong time, too cheesy, another thing he’ll tease you about later.

It’s there, though, on the tip of your tongue. I love you. And you do, so much that it aches. This man that’d been your best friend since you could remember anything. This man who sacrificed everything constantly for everyone.

He wouldn’t have to sacrifice anything anymore, you wanna say. He could rest now, you wanted to say, too.

But it feels wrong. And there’s always another time to tell him when it doesn’t just seem like bliss-driven thoughts. There’s always another day.

notes, thoguht my grief was over but the ending made me cry for some reason that's how u know this death hit deep bc why am i crying over like four lines in a Smut pls

#dahlia's ☆ journal #dividers by cafekitsune #pogue!reader #jj maybank x pogue!reader #jj maybank #jj maybank one shot #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank x you #jj maybank x y/n #outer banks #obx #outer banks one shot #obx one shot

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alsofoundinpeas · 2 months ago

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The View from Here

Summary: After a few chance encounters, Spencer finds himself developing a crush on Y/N. When he discovers she lives across from him, he spends countless hours admiring her from a distance, too nervous to make the first move. But when her package is mistakenly delivered to his door, it sparks the beginning of something more than just a crush and stolen glances through the window. (Part Two)

CONTENT WARNINGS: 18+ MDNI!! This fic is intended for adult audiences. This could be considered dubcon (Spencer watches reader through her window but doesn't realize that she actually wants him to) so please be aware of that! Masturbation (both m and f). Use of a sex toy/penetrative use of a sex toy (f!receiving). Perv!Spencer (he means well truly, but alas he is a man) but also a hint of Perv!Reader (since she's intentionally doing things to grab his attention?? I'm not quite sure how to label that I'm sorry!!) Themes of voyeurism/exhibitionism (they both watch each other get off). Sub!Spencer (gotta squint for it now but it'll be more prevalent in part two). Both fluffy and smutty

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!reader/afab!reader

A/N: This was started to fill a request for sub!Spencer but I got carried away forgive me LMAO but part two is almost complete and will be out soon :') I wrote this with season two Reid in mind before the writers (further) traumatized the absolute fuck out of him. This is a bit different from my usual writing, so I truly hope you guys enjoy it! As always, please let me know what you guys think and if you do enjoy it then please like, reblog, and share it with your friends. <3 I truly do appreciate each and every single one of you and the feedback I get from you guys, I promise :') <3 Thank you and I love you all!! :)

The door slammed behind him as Spencer stormed into his apartment, tossing his satchel onto the couch with an angry groan. The stress of work had been wearing him down for weeks, but today had pushed him over the edge.

He’d just wrapped up the reports for their latest case and was on his way to deliver them to Hotch when an oblivious agent from the sex crimes unit collided with him. The force sent the cup of scalding coffee in her hands flying, drenching him and his case files. Instead of responding to her blubbered apologies, he had just stomped off to the bathroom to clean himself and calm down. Not only was it painful and humiliating, but it also destroyed all of his hard work. Work he'd now have to redo tomorrow.

Spencer exhaled sharply, fingers raking through his hair as he trudged toward the bedroom. All he wanted was to strip off his coffee-stained clothes and lose himself in the pages of his new book, anything to escape the tension of the day. Once inside, he moved to close the curtains but stopped short, his eyes landing on something unexpected just before he pulled them shut. His body went rigid, his heart racing as an unfamiliar warmth spread through him. He blinked, barely able to believe what he was seeing.

There, in the apartment directly across from his bedroom window, was Y/N.

Spencer had bumped into her a handful of times—their first meeting happening at the library just down the street when they'd both reached for the same book, then a few chance encounters after that at his favorite coffee shop, and the most recent interaction being one of the most mortifying moments of his life.

He’d stumbled over the sidewalk on his way to work, and he’d never wanted to disappear into the ground more than in that moment. But she had been there, her smile warm and gracious as she helped him gather the scattered books and case files that had spilled from his satchel, her kindness leaving him flustered and breathless. He’d been captivated by her the first time they met, but it was that moment that truly cemented his fascination with her.

Spencer’s breath caught in his throat when he realized how wrong it was to be watching her through her bedroom window. But despite the guilt creeping in, he couldn’t bring himself to look away. It was as if he were under some kind of spell, captivated by the sight of her spinning around her room, carefree and radiant.

She wore a loose t-shirt that slipped off one shoulder and the tiniest pair of shorts he’d ever seen, completely at ease in her own space. She held something in her hand, singing into it like a microphone, completely lost in the music. Spencer didn’t realize when it happened, but a smile tugged at his lips, the stress of the day forgotten as he watched her. Her joy was so genuine and infectious that it pulled at him in ways he hadn’t expected, leaving him momentarily breathless.

His thoughts were interrupted when Y/N twirled around, singing as she faced her window. Spencer released a startled yelp, frantically yanking the curtains shut before she could catch him staring. His heart raced in his chest as he dared a quick peek through the fabric, anxious to see if she had noticed. Thankfully, she seemed oblivious, still happily dancing around her room, unaware of his presence.

"Oh my God," Spencer muttered, a wave of relief washing over him as he realized he hadn’t been caught staring like a complete weirdo at the woman he’d developed a crush on, despite having barely exchanged five sentences with her.

He was sure she didn't even remember his name. Why would she? All he'd managed to do during their brief interactions (besides busting his ass on the concrete the one time) was stutter out barely audible attempts at conversation before hastily retreating, his face scarlet and slacks uncomfortably tight.

Spencer had assumed Y/N lived nearby, but he hadn’t realized she was this close.

The day's weight melted away as Spencer peeled off his work clothes and slipped into his pajamas. He grabbed his book from the nightstand and sank back into his pillows, propping himself up against the headboard. But as he tried to focus on the pages, the image of Y/N dancing in her room kept invading his thoughts. His mind refused to settle, consumed with ideas of how he might run into her again now that he knew that not only was she just a building away—she was right across from him.

As the weeks passed, Spencer’s routine began to mirror Y/N’s more and more as he grew increasingly familiar with her schedule.

He began waking up earlier, noticing that she typically left her apartment an hour before he needed to head to work. With the extra time, Spencer found himself watching her with quiet awe each morning while she got ready, fascinated by how the soft light from the window seemed to illuminate her features as she did her hair and makeup. He also started visiting his favorite coffee shop daily instead of just once a week, hoping for a chance encounter before his workday began.

Night after night Spencer found his gaze inevitably drawn to her window, the soft glow of her bedroom lighting luring him in like a moth to a flame. He would trace her movements, pretending to read his book as it shielded his face, should he need to feign innocence. Something was alluring about her, even in the simplest moments—whether she was folding laundry or typing away on her computer, she was impossible to look away from.

Spencer couldn’t shake his curiosity about Y/N’s habit of leaving her curtains open.

Did she know he could see her? Was it intentional? Their apartments, situated at the ends of the buildings on the top floors, offered a level of privacy that made him feel certain (or at least, he desperately hoped) that no one else could be watching. Perhaps she’d noticed his frequent absences and simply stopped caring about keeping them shut.

The first case away from D.C. after Spencer learned Y/N was so close was more difficult than he expected. As he lay awake in his hotel room, his thoughts kept drifting to her, and the longing grew with each passing hour. He missed her. The only thing driving him was the need to finish the case quickly so he could return to the familiar comfort of his bed, where he could silently admire her from a distance.

The longer he thought about her, the tighter his boxers got. Spencer huffed out a pitiful whine, his hands clenching and unclenching beside himself as he tried to fight his shameful thoughts. This wasn't the first time he'd had these thoughts about her since meeting her, no. But it is the first time he's had the mental image of her undressing to go along with his fantasies.

The first time it happened, Spencer had all but thrown himself off his bed in his haste to close his curtains. His heart had pounded so hard his chest ached as he'd squeezed his eyes shut, willing the sight of her raising her shirt over her head and tossing it carelessly to the ground out of his mind. The second time, he took a little more time to slink over to his window and draw his curtains, his pulse racing at the sight of her bare back and the smallest glimpse of lacy panties as she began to shimmy out of her pants. The third time, he had crouched by his window, peeking out despite having pulled his curtains closed, and watched as she stripped completely before heading into her conjoined bathroom.

That was the first and (so far) only time he'd touched himself to what he'd seen.

The moment her bathroom door had clicked shut, Spencer sprang to his feet and hurried into his own bathroom, tearing his clothes off before stepping underneath the stream of hot water. One of his palms smacked the wall while his other hand frantically pumped his aching cock, whimpers and groans flowing freely from his lips as he imagined Y/N's hand around him instead of his own. It didn't take long for him to spill into his hand, and unfortunately, it took even less time for the guilt to slam into him at the realization of what he'd done.

After that night, Spencer had vowed to himself that he wouldn't let it happen again, knowing just how inherently wrong it was to jerk off to the sight of his neighbor (the woman he secretly admired) getting undressed when she had no idea she had even been watched.

But tonight, alone and frustrated in his hotel room, he was struggling to stick to that vow.

After another hour of tossing and turning in bed, Spencer released a resigned sigh. "Just this once," he murmured to himself, swallowing hard. He let his hand slip underneath the waistband of his boxers to push them down his thighs before spitting in his palm, hissing at the contact as his hand wrapped around his arousal. His eyes fluttered shut as his imagination began to take over, his hand slowly increasing its pace as images of Y/N and her lacy panties raced through his mind.

Spencer's mouth hung open as his thumb swiped over the swollen tip of his cock, a bead of precum oozing out and aiding his movements. He pictured her hovering above him, her gaze teasing as she stroked him faster and faster. He imagined how she'd sound as she talked him through it, her sweet voice luring him closer and closer to the edge. His hips bucked into his hand as his climax took hold of him, a choked moan of Y/N's name ripping its way from his throat as he painted his heaving chest with his cum.

With shaky hands, he cleaned himself, still dizzy from the aftershocks of his orgasm. After wiping himself off, he collapsed onto the bed, surrendering to the exhaustion that weighed him down. That night, his dreams were filled with Y/N—her radiant smile, her captivating voice, and the tenderness in her eyes whenever they met his. When he woke the next morning, breathless and murmuring her name, he realized he was in deep.

What Spencer didn’t know was that Y/N had known exactly what she was doing all along.

From the moment she reached for the same book as him—an act carefully planned to give her an excuse to talk to him—she’d been captivated by the stuttering genius. New to the neighborhood, she had noticed him a few times before finally gathering the courage to make her move. All it took was his flustered "Oh! I-I’m so sorry, here—" paired with furrowed brows and those wide, innocent eyes, and she was utterly entranced.

When Y/N discovered that Spencer lived right across from her, it felt like she’d hit the jackpot.

After their previous encounters, she’d quickly noticed the effect she had on him, and from that moment, she devised a plan to capture his attention. She began with subtle moves, leaving her curtains open one night so he’d realize she was the one across from him. She chose an outfit she was sure would draw his gaze, and when he nearly ripped his curtain rod off the wall, convinced she’d caught him looking, she knew she’d succeeded.

When Y/N noticed he was waking up earlier, watching her get ready with curious eyes over what he clearly thought was a cleverly placed book (which, in reality, did nothing to hide his attention), she decided it was time to raise the stakes.

The first time she undressed with the curtains open, she sank to her knees cackling at how quickly Spencer had scrambled out of bed to shut his own. The second time, she relished in how he hesitated before shutting his curtains so he could catch a glimpse of her lacy panties (ones she’d chosen with him in mind), but it still wasn't enough. By the third time, she was done teasing. She’d stripped down completely bare in her room, grinning smugly as she turned to walk into her bathroom because she’d seen Spencer not-so-subtly peeking through his curtains.

When Spencer still didn’t make a move after that, Y/N decided she was done waiting.

With him away on a case for the past three days, she saw the perfect opportunity to set her new plan in motion. After work one evening, she made her way to his building, quickly locating his apartment number—a detail that, to her surprise, matched hers. Smiling to herself, she placed her order and waited for him to return, ready for the next phase of her plan to unfold.

After nearly twelve grueling days away, Spencer finally returned late Friday night, aching for the comfort of home—and, more importantly, the sight of Y/N. Exhausted, he stumbled up the stairs to his apartment, eager to collapse into bed and wake up to her face rather than the grim case photos that had dominated his thoughts. His eyes half-lidded with fatigue, he fumbled with the key, unlocking the door before shoving it open.

“Oh! What the-“

Spencer cursed under his breath as he stumbled, his eyes dropping to the package at his feet. Frowning, he bent down slowly to inspect it. He hadn’t ordered anything, and there was no reason to expect anything from his mom. So... what was this?

The package was a light pink, medium-sized bag. Spencer nudged it onto its other side to check the sender, and his breath caught. It was addressed to Y/N, though she’d written the wrong number in the street address, causing it to end up at his door. He instantly recognized the name of the online boutique, having (unfortunately) heard Emily, JJ, and Penelope brazenly talk about ordering sex toys and such from this place.

What could Y/N have possibly ordered from there?

Spencer was wide awake now, his pulse quickening as he grabbed the package, slammed the door shut, and locked it. He carried it into the kitchen, turning on the light as he went. There was no way he’d open it—he knew that would be both illegal and downright creepy. But his curiosity got the best of him, and he couldn’t resist running his hands over the package, trying to guess what was inside.

His tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth as he carefully handled the package, giving it a slight squeeze. He could feel the soft outline of fabric inside a smaller plastic bag, his mind spinning with possibilities about what kind of set Y/N might have ordered. A small, involuntary gasp escaped him as his fingers brushed against something hard, separately wrapped from the lingerie. Was that… a dildo? Vibrator, maybe?

A quick glance at the clock told him it was far too late to return her package now. He swallowed, setting the bag down on the table with a mental note to take it to her first thing in the morning. He had the weekend off, and he knew she didn’t work weekends, so it wouldn't be a problem bringing it over. The only problem was going to be looking her in the eyes without turning into a complete mess.

Spencer rushed to his room, his excitement growing as he headed to bed, knowing he’d finally see Y/N tomorrow—in person, not just through her window.

The morning arrived quicker than he had expected, but for the first time, he was happy to hear his alarm. It was 9:30 a.m., giving him enough time to shower and get dressed before making the short walk to Y/N's apartment. More importantly, it would give her a chance to wake up before he just showed up at her door with her package in hand and rambling like a nervous mess.

Spencer’s nerves began to take over as he finished his shower and started getting dressed, his hands trembling as he pulled on his sweater. The last time they'd spoken was when he'd all but face-planted into concrete in front of her and then practically bolted off once she'd helped him gather his things (after a lengthy, awkward apology of course). What if she thought he was a freak?

Before he could talk himself out of it, Spencer took a deep breath, grabbed the package, summoned the last of his courage, and walked out the door.

A hesitant knock at her front door had Y/N grinning smugly as she rose from the couch and headed toward the door. She’d been waiting for this since she’d seen Spencer’s light come on late the night before. Her package was finally here.

The door opened to reveal a nervous Spencer, his eyes lighting up when they landed on her. He instinctively adjusted his glasses, his nose twitching as a small, shy smile appeared on his face.

"Spencer! Hey! What brings you by?" Y/N beamed, stepping aside to let him in. She had to suppress a giggle at her innocent act—she knew exactly why he was here.

Spencer blinked in surprise, both at her invitation and the fact that she remembered his name, pausing briefly before stepping into her apartment. His gaze wandered around, taking in the cozy surroundings with quiet admiration. When he realized she was waiting for him to speak, he cleared his throat, his face flushing as he held up the package.

"I, uh… I just wanted to return this," Spencer stammered, his words tripping over each other. "You had one number wrong on the street address, and, funny enough, we have the same apartment number, so it ended up at my door. I thought the least I could do was bring it over, especially after you helped me when I… well, fell." He offered a shy smile, his nerves still running rampant.

Y/N accepted the package with a smile, her fingers brushing lightly against his before he quickly pulled his hand back. "I could’ve sworn I got the address right this time," she said with a teasing laugh. "You’d think after a few months here I’d have it down by now, I'm sorry."

Spencer quickly shook his head, trying to ignore the rapid beating of his heart and the lingering sensation of her touch as he waved it off. "You don’t need to apologize, Y/N. It happens," he said sincerely, his fingers nervously twisting the ends of his sleeves now that the package was no longer in his hands. "Honestly, I wouldn’t mind bringing your mail by anytime. I just hate the thought of it sitting at my door or in my mailbox while I’m away," he chuckled, his eyes crinkling as he gave her a warm smile.

"Well, aren't you quite the gentleman?"

Y/N placed the package on her coffee table and then headed toward the kitchen, gesturing for Spencer to follow. He blushed profusely, swallowing hard as he willed away the dirty thoughts that were caused by that simple comment before trailing after her. She turned to look at him over her shoulder as she reached into her cabinet for two mugs, smirking to herself as she noticed him quickly avert his gaze from where it had landed on her ass.

Y/N placed the mugs on the counter, then turned to Spencer with a genuine smile. "Thanks for bringing it to me instead of just sending it back like most people would," she said. "How about a cup of coffee as a small token of my appreciation?"

Spencer nodded, thanking her as she fixed them both a cup. She raised an eyebrow, watching him add enough sugar to send a horse into cardiac arrest, but she kept quiet. Once they’d both prepared their cups to their liking, they headed back to the living room, Y/N sitting close enough that Spencer could feel the warmth of her body radiating toward him.

"So... did you take a peek inside of it?"

Spencer coughed violently, choking on the sip he’d just taken, his face turning a deep shade of scarlet as he frantically shook his head. Y/N’s expression shifted to concern as she patted his back, gently rubbing in soothing circles to help him catch his breath.

"What? N-no, I would never! That's literally illegal and so invasive—" Spencer sputtered, his eyes wide as he stared at her, clearly taken aback.

Y/N's brows furrowed briefly before she erupted into laughter, her head tilting back as she laughed loudly. Leaning in, she rested a hand on his thigh, her tone softening. "Spencer, sweetheart, I was just joking," she said, wiping a tear of laughter from her eye.

He relaxed immediately, fighting the urge to lean into her touch as her hand lingered on his leg. "Thanks for that," Spencer said with a playful roll of his eyes. "Just what I needed this morning—choking on my drink and desperately hoping you knew the Heimlich maneuver." His cheeks were still flushed, a mix of embarrassment from her teasing and the aftereffects of his coughing fit.

After a pot of coffee and hours of conversation, Spencer left with a grin so wide his cheeks ached and Y/N’s number saved in his phone "just in case any more of her mail ended up at his door." He silently thanked whatever force had kept him from backing out earlier that day, grateful for the time he’d gotten to spend with her because of it. He’d found himself falling even harder for her, already yearning for her company despite having just left her place.

That night, as Spencer climbed into bed, something caught his eye from his window. He frowned in confusion as he noticed Y/N’s curtains were open even though they’d been closed just an hour ago. He’d assumed she’d already gone to bed, but apparently, he was mistaken.

He craned his neck, searching for her. She wasn’t in her room, as she usually was when the curtains were open. Where could she be? His jaw nearly hit the floor when she finally appeared, his eyes widening in awe at the sight of her.

Y/N walked into her room from the bathroom, wearing the most stunning lingerie set Spencer had ever seen. The lilac fabric complemented her skin in a way that had him almost drooling on himself, and the thin lace left little to the imagination (though he'd already seen what was underneath it once before and knew exactly how incredibly sexy her body was bare). The sight had his cock stiffening in his boxers, and his teeth dug into his lower lip in anticipation as he watched her.

Spencer nearly toppled out of bed as he watched her crouch down to grab her torn-open package, her hand reaching inside to pull out a light-blue rabbit vibrator. He knew he should get up, close the curtains, look away—do something. But he couldn’t bring himself to move.

Instead, he watched in an almost trance-like state as Y/N crawled onto her bed, swallowing hard as she settled back against her pillows. His hand wandered down his body, palming at his erection over his boxers as a whimper slipped from his lips while he watched her legs spread slowly open, propped up and giving him the perfect view of her clothed pussy. He felt overwhelming guilt, especially after the morning they'd shared, but he was powerless against the pull she had on him.

The close proximity of the buildings had always annoyed Spencer, the narrow space between them so tight he swore he could reach out and touch the other building if he tried. But now, he couldn’t have been more grateful. His bed was on the opposite side of the room that Y/N’s was, leaving her perfectly positioned for him to see her from his spot.

Y/N dragged the tip of the vibrator up and down her inner thigh, teasing herself as the fabric of the lace dampened with her arousal. Her head lolled back against the pillows, and her chest rose and fell with a sigh as she finally placed the vibrator against her clit through her panties. Her back arched at the touch, and her lips opened around a moan he desperately wanted to hear.

Spencer considered himself a sane man (for the most part). But he had never been more tempted in his life to leap through a window than he was right now. If it meant landing in her room so he could at least have the chance to beg for a taste of her, he'd happily do it.

His hand halted its movement, instead moving to his waistband so he could wriggle out of the constricting fabric. He kicked his boxers to the floor like they'd scorned him before his hand wrapped around his cock once more. He leaned forward, letting saliva dribble from his lips to coat himself before stroking himself slowly, teasing himself the way Y/N was right across from him in her room.

When Y/N dipped the vibrator into her panties, Spencer's breath hitched in his throat. He watched in rapt fascination as she paused her movements, her free hand shoving the lace down her thighs before she continued. With the fabric now out of the way, Y/N began to run the tip of the vibrator up and down her slit, collecting her arousal and spreading it around before she slowly eased the toy into herself.

An obscene moan ripped its way from Spencer's throat at the sight, and his hand sped up while his eyes struggled to stay open. He watched through hooded lids as she began to fuck herself in earnest now, her hips rocking into the toy and her eyes squeezed shut in pleasure as she brought herself to the edge. Spencer whimpered as his body began to writhe against his sheets, sparks of pleasure zinging up and down his spine as he worked himself toward his climax.

All it took to send him over the edge was the sight of Y/N's legs thrashing as she came around the toy, a sight that left him both so aroused he couldn't breathe and so jealous of a toy he debated just how truly sane he considered himself to be after this. With a swipe of his thumb over his flushed head, Spencer came in spurts across his tummy, his hand pumping gently through the aftershocks until he was trembling and gasping Y/N's name like it was a mantra.

Once Spencer could finally open his eyes, he looked over at Y/N's window and saw she was no longer in bed, the soft light spilling from under her bathroom door the only sign of where she was. He rolled out of his bed to indulge in what was now becoming a routine walk of shame to his bathroom to clean himself off, his head spinning from what he'd just seen. He knew the shame of his actions would catch up with him in the morning, but for now, exhaustion and elation kept him from caring.

Spencer stumbled back into his room, half-asleep and ready to crash when his phone buzzed. Crawling into bed, he reached for it, curious about who would be contacting him at this hour. His heart stuttered in his chest, eyes widening in shock as he read the message on the screen.

Glad to see that you enjoyed the show, sweetheart. Next time, just come over. <3

Continued A/N's: AHHH I truly hope you guys enjoyed that! The next part gets FILTHYYYY and I can't wait to finish it hahahaaaa. Please let me know what you think because I'm thinking of doing more in the future that would be similar but of course I want to make content you guys will actually enjoy as well <3

REMINDER: I do not give permission for my work to be re-uploaded to any other platforms (c.ai, Tiktok, ao3, etc.) under any circumstances. If you'd like to translate my work, then please just ask me before doing so. I know it sounds whiny, but I (as well as many other fanfic writers) spend so much time on these and it's genuinely not okay to take credit for work that isn't yours. It's insulting and completely unnecessary. If I do see my work uploaded anywhere without explicit permission, I WILL say something.

#Spencer Reid smut #Spencer Reid fanfiction #Perv!Spencer #Sub!Spencer #Spencer Reid x reader #Spencer Reid x self insert #Spencer Reid x fem!reader #Spencer Reid x you #Spencer Reid x y/n #Spencer Reid fanfic

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devotedlyandrogynousyouth · 4 months ago

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genuinely tweaking over your OlderBF! Bruce headcannons omg. do you have any more Older BF! Bruce thoughts to spare? (I adore you and your writing <3)

I alwaysss have more Bruce thoughts to spare. I think this man takes over my mind more than my boyfriend does (not complaining :) )

OlderBF! Bruce Wayne (Part 2)

Sensitive content: Brief mention of kidnapping and stalking

OlderBF! Bruce Wayne who is so utterly devoted to you. This man is at your side and obeying your every will as often as he can. You saw a pretty dress you wanted in a shop window? It's laying on the foot of your shared bed when you come home. You need attention after an argument? He's cancelling his work meetings, if he can, to spend a bit of time with you.

OlderBF! Bruce Wayne who underestimates just how loud and angry he can get. There is never a moment where he isn't stressed, even when he's with you. And, as much as he tries to hold back, he loses his temper so easily with you.

"Im just saying, Im concerned, alright-?" You start, arms crossed over your chest as you take a seat on the edge of your lavish shared bed.

"What, that Im cheating?" He snaps back almost immediately, head whipping around to face you as he stops pacing. In all honesty, he regrets it as soon as he sees the look in your eyes, but he's far to stubborn to ever admit that.

"Bruce, you know that's not what I mean." You respond softly, choosing not to further escalate the situation by simply laying back on the bed and picking up your book from the nightstand. "You come home every night covered in bruises and disappear out of nowhere, so forgive your girlfriend for worrying about you."

OlderBF! Bruce Wayne who would rather you think that he's cheating on you than spilling his guts about being Batman. It absolutely kills him inside every single time you get misty eyed askinf if he's cheating, but he knows better than to risk your safety with the burden of knowledge.

OlderBF! Bruce Wayne who, god forbid, if you were ever to get kidnapped due to his line of work would push you away for good. All of your stuff would be packed away before you could even calm down for the situation. He wouldn't give you a proper goodbye, either. It would be too risky for him to ever be near you again.

OlderBF! Bruce Wayne who would absolutely develop a nasty habit of stalking you after a separation like that. He tells himself that it's to ensure your safety when he watches you walked into your favorite coffee shop every morning, but he's having a hard time convincing himself.

OlderBF! Bruce Wayne who knows just how unloveable he makes himself. Every woman he has ever been with has either been put in danger because of him or left. He doesn't think he could go through something like that with you, so he instinctively pushes you away like he always has with everybody else.

OlderBF! Bruce Wayne who, despite what he told himself about keeping his distance, finds himself knocking on your apartment door late at night. In his hands are a bottle of wine, your favorite flowers, and gold sheet-covered chocolates.

"Im sorry." His eyes are filled with utter guilt as he glances at your exhausted features. Bruce didnt even give you a chance to process that it was him at the door before he started throwing out apologies.

And the most you can really do for a moment is just look at him, your eyes not entirely focused as you stare out into space a little. "Thought you told me to stay away." You mutter softly, trying to blink the physical and mental exhaustion away.

"I..." How could he even deny that? He did, in fact, tell you to stay as far away as possible for your own safety. "I know." He continues after a moment or two. "But I'm selfish... I can't stay away. I... I want to explain a few things to you, if you'd consider letting me in.

Of course, you caved.

OlderBF! Bruce Wayne who can't bring himself to look you in the eyes as he explains himself and his nightly activities as Batman. He feels so guilty about ever putting you in danger in the first place, but he can't bring himself to stay away like he eventually learned to with Selina.

"I was scared." His quiet, honest response when you ask why he never chose to tell you about his double life. You want to be mad, you really do, but his fingers in your hair as he holds you against his chest after a few glasses of wine was just too good to resist.

"And you think I wasn't?" You ask softly, craning your neck to look up at him a lottle better. "I could handle the thought of you with other girls, Bruce..." You whisper, leaning your head back onto his shoulder. "But you have no idea how worried sick I was seeing those bruises every night. You have absolutely no idea how worried I was that they had gotten to you, too, when they took me."

OlderBF! Bruce Wayne who lets himself get a little tipsy that night with you, which is rare because he always finds excuses not to drink to stay in peak physical condition for his duties. Neither of you drank enough to be intoxicated, but just enough for everything to feel warm and fuzzy. And enough for you to forgive him.

"So sorry, gorgeous..." He mutters between slow, lingering kisses. Despite seeming so brooding and tough, his lips are absolutely divine and you missed them more than you'd ever admit.

OlderBF! Bruce Wayne who ends up getting a little frisky when he's drinking. His hands are almost everywhere, no matter where you are. You were honestly thanking god that it was just the two of you relaxing in your apartment. Hell, he practically had you seeing god with how well he fucked.

"I love you so much..." His eyes are closed as his hips slowly slot into yours yet again, face buried into your shoulder. Normally, you'd be begging for a bit of a quicker and brutal pace, but everything was just too sweet to want anything else. The prolonged sliding of his cock into your weeping hole allowed for you to feel absolutely everything, including his utter adoration and love for you.

OlderBF! Bruce Wayne who tries to keep you away from the paparazzi as much as possible after the kidnapping. Sure, he hated the prying eyes of tabloids trying to disect your relationship before, but he was just so much more paranoid and anxious afterwards. He barely lets you out of Wayne Manor without him or somebody else in the family.

OlderBF! Bruce Wayne who still struggles to communicate with you, even after he's told the truth about his vigilantism. He often finds himseld lying to you without even noticing it, even about the little things like how many thugs he took down on last night's patrol. But he tries to work on it, he really does. He's started writing things down on scrap pieces of paper or notebokks that he found himself being dishonest about.

Masterlist

#batfam #batfamily #batman #dc #bruce wayne x reader #bruce wayne fanfiction #bruce wayne fluff #bruce wayne smut #bruce wayne #batman fanfiction #dc comics

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jonivngel · 4 months ago

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𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐢𝐧. (𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞.)

𝐬𝐮𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐮 𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐨 𝐱 𝐟𝐞𝐦! 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐱 𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐮 𝐠𝐨𝐣𝐨

part 1: sharing is caring; part 2: dinner; part 3: devotion.

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲:

"So you made dinner that Friday, set up a table for two, candles, and your favorite silver cutlery, and dressed in a pretty satin dress with a low back. The evening would be a little too perfect considering Suguru wouldn't be there..."

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 6,603

𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭: 18+ ONLY, NSFW! CONTENT, MDNI, infidelity, unprotected sex, cucking (just a lil), polyamory, threesomes, drunk sex, a bit of degradation, praise kink kinda, oral (male on male and male on female), mxmxf sex, mxf penetration, overstimulation, edging, bath sex, kitchen sex, exhibitionism, just overall filth ngl, satosugu is bisexual so gay stuff, fluffy at the end (q up another warning for my sloppy writing lowk)

a/n: hope you enjoy... (part 2 is still my fav but this ain't half as bad ngl). it was supposed to have more plot, but it doesn't because my mind has been reduced to nothing but filth.... my apologies. also sorry for taking so long uni has me dead fr.

𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧.

The ‘dinners’, as you began calling them, became a regular thing.

Every Friday, like clockwork, Satoru would text Suguru the name of the restaurant and the time at which you were set to meet. Suguru would ask if you were willing to, to which you always said yes. It was seemingly a one-sided arrangement, he wanted Satoru and you wanted him. A messy conundrum that had you stressing about how long it was going to last and what the outcome would be.

Your relationship with Suguru certainly wasn't the same. The atmosphere assumed a lingering tension caused by a passing thought or mention of Satoru, the sweet scent of his skin remaining infused into your bedsheets, your hair, your clothes... He became a ghost, haunting you day and night until you'd meet again and all your worries would disappear with the scalding feeling of his fingertips exploring every dip and bump of your body. He knew how to make sure you wouldn't forget what it felt like to be had by him, to be so helplessly enchanted by pleasure that nothing else mattered.

It made your head muddled with jealousy conflicting with the growing affection for the shared time between the three of you. It was sinful and depraved, the raw need consuming you entirely until you surrendered fully every time you'd spend the night with them. Satoru became a habit. He became someone to you and you were slowly losing the ability to view him as the other.

He wasn't just someone Suguru convinced you to bring to your bed. It showed in little moments, words of endearment, the way your name would drip from his lips like honey. He was sweet to you. He'd look at you with his beautiful tranquil eyes and your skin would set ablaze with a burning need to feel him deeper, to connect, to get lost in him. You'd forget Suguru was even there. It was a thrill, a newfound nuance to the relationship you three shared. Because in moments like that, when Satoru would kiss you and touch you and look at you with pure devotion, you felt like he didn't care only for Suguru, but for you too.

It scared you, though. How intensely you began feeling for him, how he'd appear in your thoughts during a moment of silence while you washed dishes or did laundry, like it was so mundane, just a thing to be thought about. You would catch yourself remembering the way it felt to be under that intense gaze and you'd scold yourself. You shouldn't be thinking about him, you'd tell yourself, Suguru cheated on you with him, why would you think about him like that?

Then you'd get pissed at yourself because you've gone through the motions a thousand times, your thoughts were looping in circles. He isn't the other - he is, though - but why would he be so sweet… - but, but and but. Over and over again, it drove you insane. And you knew it wasn't like that, that Suguru didn't just cheat mindlessly. He loved you both, and you would've been fine with it had it not been for the nagging feeling of what someone else might think if they found out…

That's why you were terrified beyond words when Suguru suggested you meet Satoru alone.

“I'm sorry, honey,” he sighed, holding your face in his hands and kissing you so sweetly, disarming you of all the bitter words on the tip of your tongue, “I have an important meeting this Friday, it can't be helped.”

Your stomach twisted at the thought. You hadn't been alone in the same room with Satoru, let alone slept with him. Was that what Suguru expected to happen? Why couldn't you simply cancel? Then again, you didn't want Satoru to get the message that you didn't enjoy the time he spent with the two of you… Because you did enjoy it. Thoroughly.

“Okay,” you sighed, tugging on his shirt to bring him closer, his heat warming you to your core, “I'll make him dinner, it's the least I can do to apologize for changing plans. Plus he always takes us out.”

Suguru's smile made your heart skip a beat. “That's a beautiful idea. So sweet. Thank you, baby.” He kissed you again and you smiled, glad that he was okay with it. Not only okay, he seemed happy.

So you made dinner that Friday, set up a table for two, candles, and your favorite silver cutlery, and dressed in a pretty satin dress with a low back. The evening was going to be a little too perfect considering Suguru wasn't going to be there. But if the conversation led you to discuss how you've been feeling about the entire situation, the atmosphere would be at ease with the home-cooked candle-lit dinner.

You finished setting everything up about an hour before he arrived and had been on the edge of your seat ever since. The minutes were passing so slowly, your hands fidgeting with the satin pooling in your lap while you checked eagerly on the time every few minutes. You were secretly hoping he'd be a little late so you'd have more time to mentally prepare yourself. Your hopes were not fulfilled, however, because he showed up right on time, the doorbell startling you and making you jump off the couch.

Opening the door you were met with the sight of Satoru dressed in a white shirt and black pants, white hair fluffy and messy just the way you liked it. His eyes peered at you over the rim of his glasses perched on the tip of his nose, taking you in with the same intensity you’ve grown to revel in. He held a beautiful bouquet of deep purple hydrangeas in one hand and a bottle of pricey champagne in the other.

Your stomach fluttered in delightful excitement, “Hi,” you smiled and let him get in through the door, “Welcome, Satoru.”

He smiled back, the sly smile that told you he was having the time of his life, “Hey,” his voice was smooth, husky, a lilting cadence that made your skin tingle with anticipation. He bent down as he handed you the flowers, warm breath tickling past your ear when he pressed a chaste kiss to your cheek. The gentle nature of the action had you wanting to jump out of your skin because it didn't feel nearly enough of what you needed from him. His scent invaded your senses, drowning out all else as you reveled in the sweetness of vanilla and cinnamon you’ve come to love so much.

Then you realized that moments ago you were stressing about him, about this, and yet here he was, and all your mind and body did was crave his touch.

You were in for a rude awakening by the end of the night, it seemed.

“Thank you, ‘Toru…” you blushed and swiftly showed him to the dining room, which was divided from the kitchen only by a long kitchen island. You took the bottle from him to put in some ice and let him take his seat at the head of the table, which was usually Suguru's seat, but that's what he gets for leaving you alone.

“So, how are you, sweetie?” He asked, crossing his long legs and giving you a once-over, eyes as shameless as ever while they drank you in. His smile only seemed to grow wider.

Your heart started beating faster in an instant once you turned around to plate the food, unable to look at the mischievous glint in his eyes as they devoured you entirely. You were aware that cooking this man dinner and dressing in one of your prettiest dresses was a bold move, a calculated one at that. You were just afraid that you'd let his intoxicating energy get the best of you before you even managed to finish your meal.

“I'm doing well,” you sigh, “Suguru pissed me off cus’ he said he couldn't be with us tonight. Other than that I'm great.”

Satoru chuckled, his chair scraping the floor slightly when he stood up and made his way over to you. “It's okay,” he muttered, appearing next to you, paying close attention to the way your fingers worked skillfully as they arranged the food, “I'll appreciate you for the both of us tonight.”

Was he even aware of the way his words sounded? They made your cheeks flush with the deepest crimson color, your fingers cramping up suddenly and almost making you mess up the food arrangement.

You let out a breathy laugh, nervous with him standing so close and watching you prepare the food so intently, “Thank you, but don't feel like you have to make up for it on his behalf.”

He hummed in response, “Should I take the salad and champagne to the table?”

You nodded and thanked him, finishing up the plates and carrying them to the table as well. He had already opened the bottle of champagne, pouring you a glass and then himself, waiting for you to sit down before he lifted it in cheers.

His smile turned soft and his eyes were full of adoration as your glasses clinked and he said, “Thank you for the dinner.” You could've sworn his cheeks were a tiny bit flushed, he seemed bashful in comparison to all the other times you've seen him, possibly shy because of the genuine act of service you prepared for him.

You smiled, “No problem, sweetheart,” you took a sip of your drink and gestured at the food, “Let's eat before it gets cold. And tell me your honest opinion.”

He nodded eagerly, taking a large bite immediately at your command. His eyes widened and he looked at you like he was about to fall madly in love with you. “This…” he couldn't even finish his sentence, taking another bite like a little child stuffing their mouth full of sweets. He resorted to letting out a stifled groan as he pointed at the food, causing you to laugh at the ridiculous theatrics he was performing to show you how much he liked it.

“Calm down, Satoru, it can't be that good…” you chuckled and took a bite, impressing even yourself at the taste of your dish. “Okay, maybe I outdid myself this time.”

He chuckled, continuing to eat his food as if it was his first meal in a thousand years. It warmed your heart to see him enjoy something you cooked for him and it completely dissipated the tension you felt before he arrived.

You two chatted idly while you finished your food, he brought up how he became a teacher and you brought up your work at a bakery downtown. The matter of jujutsu society and picking sides was understandably a topic too heavy for a friendly dinner, but you found a way to mention you had resigned from the jujutsu world altogether. He didn't dwell on the topic too much, choosing to appreciate the moment of normalcy he was afforded and discuss your recent workplace drama instead. He seemed interested enough in such a mundane topic, perhaps more than that. He was fascinated by it.

“So she was caught with the manager and then he fired the girl who caught them?!” he gawked at you in disbelief, amazed at how messy non-sorcerers could be. The jujutsu world was messy in a different way, everybody was too busy fighting curses to be bothered with such trivialities as who was seeing who. They were also infinitely more skilled at hiding it. The little rendezvous between Satoru, Suguru and you is a case in point.

You explained the rest of the drama while you finished your third glass of champagne, Satoru still being on his second. You switched to a different topic soon enough; time was flying by quickly, and at some point, you had gotten up to wash the dishes while he told you about his favorite bakeries and sweets kiosks.

He got up with you without question, bringing over the remaining plates you couldn't carry, and continued talking, until a comfortable silence fell upon the two of you. You washed the dishes and handed them off to him to dry off and place to the side. His eyes watched you studiously, observing every twitch of your muscle as you worked.

Such a mundane thing it must've been for a sorcerer as great as Satoru Gojo. Washing dishes. It dawned on you that Suguru must've done this on purpose, made you spend time alone with Satoru to get to know him better. In that moment you hated how brilliantly calculated Suguru could be because he was right- being alone with Satoru created space for you to think about him as a person and not just someone to compete with over Suguru.

“What are you thinking about?” He whispered next to your ear and you realized you'd been washing the same dish in silence for about two minutes.

“N-Nothing, sorry…” you muttered, feeling your skin tingle with the sudden proximity of his body.

He hummed, moving your hair gently to the side, exposing your neck to him. He was so close, yet your bodies weren't touching, your entire body contorting with deep yearning just to get a feel of him pressed against you. He chose to tease you instead, his lips ghosting over the curve of your neck, warm breath eliciting goosebumps all over your skin.

“You think Suguru would mind?”

You wanted to fall apart right then, crumble into pieces because you didn't want to stop him. Somehow it felt so wrong to do this without Suguru, but his lips brushing against your neck most tenderly was making your mind fall short of reasons to stop.

“I-I don't know, Satoru-” your words turned into a whiny mewl once he finally kissed you. It was embarrassing how easily he could control your mind with just one kiss. Yet there was no time to dwell on it because he didn’t stop, pressing his lips down your exposed neck and shoulder, giving you loving kisses that had your insides melting.

“You're so pretty,” he muttered, his hands coming to rest on your hips, his body finally pressing up against yours and pinning you against the kitchen counter. “Is this okay?” He asked innocently, fingers tracing the curve of your body, from your hip over the side of your torso and over the neckline of your dress.

“Oh my-” you dropped the dish you were holding in the sink as his hand gently wrapped around your neck and pulled you further into him, your head falling back on his shoulder. He had you caged in place, unable to run or move or resist- at least that's what you told yourself. He had you wrapped around his finger, gasping at every feathery touch over your dress, so light you felt like bursting into tears from the rattling heartbeat in your chest.

“You didn't answer, baby.” He muttered into your skin, words a hushed whisper but fingers getting more bold as they pulled up your dress to reveal your panties and the skin of your abdomen. “Should I touch you more?”

You whimpered and swiftly wrapped your hand around his wrist, guiding his fingers to sink below the waistband of your panties. “Please, ‘Toru-”

“Eager, hm?” He kissed your cheek and ear, making you shudder once his fingers started circling your clit slowly, painfully slow, trying to make you fall further into madness. “Should I just fuck you right here, then?”

You nodded without second thought, the champagne and his fingers both messing with your impulse control until you didn't know how to say no anymore. “Y-Yes, ah- please.” You rocked your hips into his fingers, lips parted in delight as he continues to press his lips to your neck. He was making you fall apart only with his lips and fingers, heavy breaths and whimpers next to your ear making your knees weak for him. He seemed so needy, hips rolling slowly against your ass so you could feel the tightness in his pants, feel how much he wanted you.

“Take your panties off for me, pretty.” He mutters and a sound of his belt unbuckling clinks behind you, but his other hand never leaves your clit as you slide your panties down and let them fall to the floor. You're a whimpering mess, dripping over his fingers and down your thighs, already soaking wet from the tension lingering in the air. The languid, delicate kind of tension that makes your heart beat faster in expectation.

He’s pressed up against the soft flesh of your ass, hard and warm, eager to feel you wrap around him. His hand stops toying with you, guiding his thick tip to slide against your pussy instead. You're half bent over the kitchen sink, holding yourself up with hands on each side of it, your eyes screwed shut. Despite the loud thrum of your own pulse in your head, you can hear the faint gasps of desperation coming from Satoru as his needy hands spread you from behind so he could easily sink into you.

Once he finally does, stretching you so delightfully, you feel like you're about to pass out. He was filling you out completely, your eyes rolling to the back of your head and a groan slipped past your lips.

“F-Fuck-” he mutters and his cock twitches inside of you, sliding so slowly against your insides it made you even more drunk than you already were.

“’Toru-” you whine as he bottoms out, legs quivering from having him nestled so deep.

He starts moving slowly as he pulls you back into his chest, head falling back to its place on his shoulder. “Let me feel you, baby, I just want to feel you, p-please-” he whimpers next to your ear, hips unmoving while he relished in the feeling of your tight pussy swallowing his cock and begging for more. His hands roam over your body, one squeezing your breasts under your dress that he was too impatient to take off, the other coming up to wrap around your throat once more. “So good, baby, ah-”

His hips begin moving languidly, his cock sliding in and out of you so painfully slow that you could feel each and every shape of his thumping veins. It felt intimate, slow, and sweet, something you weren’t used to from Satoru. He was rough and liked to get mean so he could hear you whine and complain. But in that moment he was so lost in you he couldn’t find it in his heart to be mean. You were everything to him in that moment, so beautiful that he had to make love to you as tenderly as he could, show you just how much he liked you. Oh, he didn’t like you- he loved you.

He showed you that with gentle touches and kisses, whispering into your ear about how much he needed you all to himself for once, “S-Suguru can have you any day- ah- any day of the week, I was so happy he’d be away.” His hips crash into your own, making you yelp out at the sudden change in force, “I needed this so bad- f-fuck-” he picks up the pace, the smacking of skin against skin filling the quiet space of the kitchen.

“’Toru…” you whine, feeling him deeper inside of you, your whole body quivering along with your voice, “I-I can’t stand like this-” Your legs and hands were weakening by the second and you couldn’t keep yourself up any longer.

“Sorry, baby, sorry-” he mutters and swiftly picks you up, places you to lay on the kitchen island, and slides back into his place molded deeply into you before you could blink. His hands tugged your dress off and returned to your bare body as you shivered on the cold kitchen counter, groans of delight erupting from deep within his chest at the sight of you laid out for him like a full-course meal.

“T-Toru, Suguru will be-” you gasp as he slams his hips forcefully into yours again, grabbing you by your cheeks to look him in the eyes, a scathing glint flickering to light at the mention of his best friend, “Sorry, I-”

“I don’t give a fuck about him right now,” he spits, lips inches away from yours as he keeps steadily pumping his thick cock into you. His flushed face leans in front of yours, hot breath fanning over your skin, smelling faintly of champagne and mint, “It’s time we get to know each other better, huh?”

You nod, eyes rolling to the back of your head immediately as he starts thumbing circles into your sensitive bulb of nerves, your legs spread as far as they could go while he bullies his cock into you repeatedly. You chant his name, your voice echoing like a prayer through your empty house, Suguru slipping from your mind entirely. You fall apart again and again for him, tears brimming in your eyes as he whines and whimpers your name into your skin. His teeth sink into the soft flesh of your breasts, cock jolting up into your g-spot once you squeak in pain.

“I’m c-close baby, fuuck you feel so good-” he groans, kissing your chest and collarbones, worshiping your body with his hands as they grab and squeeze at every soft part of you, memorizing the feeling by heart.

“’Toru- ah- please, please, please- I need you inside plea-” a loud scream rips your throat and his thrusts become even more merciless than before, your helpless pleas creating a savage monster out of him. He’s pummeling into you so deep and with such force that he pushes you across the kitchen island, your head dangling off of it and making you even dizzier than you already were from the numerous times you came on his cock.

He chokes out your name as he buries himself inside of you, hips stilling while he fills you up to the brim with his cum, your insides sticky and warm, taking everything he’s got. It felt so heavenly that all you could do was whisper his name over and over again, hands gripping feverishly at the unbuttoned shirt he forgot to take off, pulling him to lay atop of you and warm you with his entire body.

You try to catch your breath, letting your head hang off the counter, eyes fluttering open slowly as you calm down from your high. You almost don’t register the dark silhouette leaning against the wall across the dining room, but your heart almost stops in panic as you realize Suguru got home already.

“S-Sugu-” you try to say and he chuckles at your raspy voice, strained from screaming Satoru’s name for the past thirty minutes.

Satoru is too spent to look up, but he mumbles against your skin, “Tell him we’re not done.”

You lift your head to look at him, inspecting the fluffy white locks of hair sticking to your dewy skin with his face buried into your chest. Surely he wasn’t being serious? You’ve already messed up enough by doing this without Suguru, who now watched you with that dangerous, calculating sparkle in his eyes.

“Satoru-”

“Then I’ll just keep fucking you in front of him.”

He didn’t give you a second to think before pulling out and slamming back into you, the concoction of your messes letting out a dirty squelching sound that make your face heat up with embarrassment at Suguru hearing that. “Let him watch, baby, since he dared leave you alone- hah- with me-”

Suguru’s tie came undone and he draped it over one of the dining chairs, eyes never leaving yours as Satoru kept ramming into you, his fingers gripping your hips so tight they would surely leave your skin bruised for days. Your eyes brimmed with tears once again, guilt swelling up in your chest- but not from letting Satoru do this without your beloved Suguru- it was because you didn’t let him do it sooner.

“Tell Suguru h-how well we got along-” Satoru chuckles and you don’t know whether or not you’re glad that he’s being mean again because it feels so good to be tortured by him.

You whimper and cry out as he fucks you, looking at Suguru who is still standing in the same place, cheeks flushed red from seeing the filthy debauchery unfold right in front of him. Satoru bites your nipple and you squeal, finally finding your voice to say, “W-We got along so well, Sugu-” Another cry rips through your throat and Satoru grins with your other nipple between his teeth, drool pooling in his mouth from the sweet taste of your skin.

Suguru’s words are venomous as they reach your ears in a low grumble laced with lust, “Couldn’t even wait for me to get home, huh? Must’ve gotten along really well-” he chuckles breathily, barely containing himself from pulling out his cock and stuffing it down your throat. He notices the tears falling into your hair with your head being upside down. “Don’t cry, honey, I’m glad.”

“Your sweetheart feels so good ‘n’ tight around my cock, Suguru, you’re missing out-” Satoru chides, feeling your walls flutter desperately around him at the praise. He chuckles, continuing to whisper dirty things about you as if you weren't even there, talking only to Suguru. “Such a good, sweet little pussy, taking me s-so well… She came for me so much, you would’ve loved to see it.”

Suguru looks up at Satoru and you raise your head to see the white-haired man with a grin on his face, your ankles on his shoulders, sweat dripping down from his forehead and down the side of his face. He looks so majestic that it makes you forget Suguru for a second once again, but Suguru’s heavy footsteps tread over to the kitchen island and shift your focus swiftly back to him. He stands next to Satoru, looking between your legs to see the mess you’ve made, eyes darkening with desire.

“Show me.”

Satoru whines while he pulls out of you, stepping back to let Suguru inspect your leaking hole, Satoru’s cum mixed with your slick gushing out of you slowly for him to see. And you knew your lover was just as depraved as you, if not more, but it still caught you by surprise when he bent down to bury his tongue inside of you, making your back arch off the kitchen island when it made contact with your abused clit.

“Sugu- ru- please- n-no-” you choke out, pushing his face back in futile attempts to disconnect his mouth from you. He’s relentless though, lapping up every last drop of your and Satoru’s cum mixed together, groaning in delight as he tastes you two on his tongue.

Satoru is watching it unfold with hazy eyes, spent and unwilling to let himself use his RCT to regain his stamina. It’s way better to watch you cry and beg Suguru to go easy on you, his cock still aching from the overstimulation from your heavenly pussy. “You’re going to break her, Suguru,” he chuckles and finds his pants, deciding it would be best to draw a bath for the three of you while Suguru finished punishing you for- well, for doing exactly what he wanted you to do in the first place.

“You've been bad without me, hmm?” the tone of his words is both scornful and loving, half pouty as he thinks about all the fun you got to have before he got there. And he could see that you were tired, he didn't want to push you too hard. So he pulled back, lightly smacking your clit to see you jump and whimper one last time.

You catch your breath, allowing him to help you sit up and drape his suit jacket over your shoulders. He looks at you with a smug expression, as if he knows he's finally managed to orchestrate your undoing in terms of jealousy and dislike for Satoru. He does, it's evident by the flush on your cheeks and your tired arms that wrap weakly around his neck so you can pull him into a comforting hug. You smell much less like yourself and more like Satoru, vanilla, and cinnamon tangled in your hair and champagne on your breath. He almost understands what it was like for you when it all started.

“You wanna go take a bath with Satoru while I change?” He grins. His eyes fall to your collarbones, peppered with red marks of Satoru's teeth and he chuckles, “He really can't keep doing this…”

You huff and roll your eyes, already pissed at what you're about to say, “Fine,” you mutter, your swollen lips in a pout, “I was wrong. He's nice.”

Suguru's eyes light up in a way you've never seen before, his smile soft and loving, excitement visible on his face for the first time in ages. It makes your heart flutter and your eyes widen in disbelief, mind reeling as it tries to process the beautiful smile on his face that shines through with happiness.

“I'm glad you like him, my love,” he leans in to give you a quick peck before he picks you up and carries you to the bathroom, “Now take a bath, you must be tired.”

You sigh, arms wrapping tightly around his neck while you kiss him on the cheek. “Join us.” you say, “Please?”

He looks at you, his expression still containing that childish excitement you saw earlier. An ache erupted within your chest, a bittersweet feeling at seeing your Suguru smile so brightly. He’d been so melancholic ever since you’ve met him, it worried you if he was just depressed and unable to be helped. Although, it seemed he cared deeply for Satoru and a burden finally fell from his shoulders once he was able to include the white-haired menace back in his life. He was finally content to see you and Satoru getting along. No matter how messy and depraved the method for sorting out your differences was.

Satoru is already in the bath, long legs bent at the knees to be able to fit in it. “You two done talking shit about me behind my back? You know I can hear everything right?”

You stick your tongue out at him before you join him in the bath, splashing him lightly. His nose scrunches up and he splashes you back, making you gasp out in faux shock at his rudeness.

“Stop it, you two…” Suguru grumbles, “You're gonna make a mess.”

You giggle, “You should see the kitchen…”

Satoru huffs, pulling you to lay against him, “You gotta check the pipes, they must be leaking everywher- ah!” he jolts in surprise when you pinch him to shut him up from saying any more embarrassing things.

“Is this how it's gonna be from now on? You two just being unbearable-” Suguru's sarcastic remarks are cut off by both you and Satoru putting all your might into splashing him with as much water as you can. His pants are ruined along with half of his shirt. They stick to his toned body, revealing the outline of his achingly hard cock in his pants.

“Oh, Suguru, you pervert-” Satoru mocks, “You're getting hard just from seeing us together in a bath?”

“Maybe we should put on a show for him again, what do you say?” You turn around to kneel between Satoru's legs, taking his face between your hands. Your lips brush against Satoru's, water splashing as you manage to sit in his lap, tongue darting out to slide against his own in a deep and sensual kiss that has you aching for his cock once again.

Suguru is at a loss of words at how unbelievably sinful the two of you behaved now, his mind reminding him of the times you were too shy to even mention Satoru by name. And now here he was, watching you devour Satoru with just one kiss, your back arching so you could sink further into the warm feeling of his body against your own. It truly was a sight for his sore eyes.

“I-I thought you two were done-” he clears his throat once his voice comes out an octave higher than his usual laid-back tone.

Satoru whimpers as you buck your hips to grind against his cock, head falling back in delight, lips curving into a satisfied grin, “Seems like we’re not.” He chuckles, hands gripping your ass to guide your movements while you kiss and bite his neck to muffle your honeyed whimpers.

“Fucking brats-” Suguru mutters angrily, stripping all of his clothes in a few seconds and stepping into the tub to sit across from Satoru. He can’t believe he’s being excluded and that he’s pouting about it like an ungrateful child.

You glance at him over your shoulder, letting him watch as you wrap your delicate fingers around Satoru’s thick length and guide it back into you- groaning loudly on purpose to see Suguru’s cock jump involuntarily. “You’re so thick, ‘Toru,” you mumble coyly, mouth falling open in pleasure as you start moving up and down his length, “Sugu’ was so mean for leaving me alone… I felt soo empty-”

Before either you or Satoru could react, you’re being ripped away from him, pulled back, and made to stand on all fours in the tub facing Satoru.

“Oh, shit-” Was the last thing you heard Satoru say before Suguru plunged into you without warning, bottoming out immediately.

“You want to be a slut, sweetheart?” He growls next to your ear, malice dripping from his glossy lips, “I’ll show you how sluts should be treated.”

He pulls back his hips, giving you a second to wonder where he went before ramming into you again, and again, and again until you feel like your insides are about to be rearranged. You whine and cry, his name falling from your lips, eyes squeezed shut so you wouldn’t have to look at Satoru who was gazing at you in pure shock and astonishment at what he’d gotten you into.

“Suguru, she’s-” his words are interrupted by Suguru’s fingers being shoved down his throat.

“Hmm, seems like a- hah- good place to shove my cock- fuck- after I’m done with this pussy, i-isn’t it, baby?” He smacks your ass with his free hand while he pounds into you from behind, your walls clenching around him in encouragement.

All you can do is squeal and mewl in response, mind fucked empty with the raw force of Suguru’s savage thrusts. Your arms shake as they hold you up desperately so you don't fall into the water face first, you feel yourself nearing yet another peak, Suguru's cock ravaging you the only thing occupying your thoughts.

Satoru is drooling over Suguru’s fingers, looking at him with those pristine eyes, daring him to do as he promised. And he does. Once you cry out and your legs shake, your walls clenching around him from your orgasm, he pulls away cruelly and pulls Satoru by the hair to fill his mouth up. He whimpers weakly, muscular thighs flexing as he bucks his hips one final time and releases the sticky white spurts down Satoru's throat. He throws his head back and you marvel at the sight of his long hair falling over his broad shoulders, eyes shut tightly and cheeks flushed a dusty pink.

Once he lets Satoru go, the white-haired man gasps for air, swallowing everything Suguru gave him. “Rude.” He mutters, but he's grinning up at Suguru who gives him a scornful look. “You ruined our bath.”

You would've laughed if you weren't so fucking tired from getting used by them like you were their toy. “You two gotta do it without me next week, I deserve a break.” You mutter weakly as you lean your head on Satoru's shoulder, letting his arms wrap around you to keep you steady.

“Why are you acting like you don't enjoy this?” Suguru asks and settles on the opposite side of the tub, sighing out in exhaustion.

You roll your eyes, “I do enjoy it.”

“Then stop complaining.”

You glare at him, “You were complaining about us starting without you a bit ago.”

Satoru snickers, “And you thought we'd be jealous…”

“Whatever.” The dark-haired man huffs and closes his eyes, ignoring you and Satoru entirely.

“Wanna get out of the tub ‘n’ continue without him?” Satoru whispers to you, not caring whether or not Suguru heard him. Which he did.

“Enough.” He growls.

You giggle at him, “You were enjoying the show in the kitchen.”

“You gotta clean that up. Who's idea was it to fuck in the kitchen?”

“I needed my desert,” Satoru shrugs and you roll your eyes.

“You're cleaning it up.”

“Fine.”

The three of you mellow out into a comfortable silence, all three tired from the strenuous activity you've been through that night. Satoru is tracing soft circles into your shoulder, holding you with your face nuzzled into the slope of his neck.

You almost fall asleep when Suguru's voice jolts you awake. “You stayin’ the night?”

Satoru nods, “If you'll let me.”

“Of course.”

You find yourself lying between them on your king-sized bed once you are cleaned up and dressed in your sleepwear, Satoru dressed entirely in Suguru's clothes. It's warm and relaxing, and you think about how nervous you were at the beginning of the night. The warmth of their bodies spreads to your chest and you know in your heart this is the only place you'd want to stay forever.

“I love you two,” you mutter in the dead of night, thinking they're already asleep.

Satoru nuzzles his nose into the back of your neck, arms wrapping around you even tighter, “Love you, too.”

Suguru presses his lips to your forehead in a gentle kiss and you can feel how widely he's smiling, “I love you, too.”

You chuckle giddily as you realize Satoru became your favorite person just as much as Suguru's.

“But you really gotta clean up the kitchen tomorrow morning-”

“Shut uuup-” you and Satoru whine, both pinching Suguru, making him laugh before he gives you both a kiss and says goodnight.

tags: @minzxec @thattbitchwiththehair @tykaii @tojbnuy @ilovesugurugeto69

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urinarythreatinfection · 8 months ago

Note

YOO what up!! You should def do some luffy x reader stuff. Safe for work plz I’d love angst or just some good hcs. I always wondering how he’d react when you like argue with him and you like flinch or back down and how it’d play out.

Thx pookie

Sorry for taking a bit, it's the weekday and I have school (I also stayed up watching videos on bloodborne lore on sunday). Anyway as apology I'll let you choose how this goes. Option'll be at the end.

Kindness Isn't Spineless.

Luffy x gn!reader angst. 1,088 words. Part 1.

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

“Again…” You look inside the fridge and sigh, the leftovers you had got eaten again. You know exactly who it was . This had been happening for a while now, the first time it happened you told yourself it was okay, the second you said it was okay again, the third you finally talked to Luffy to ask him to stop, this is now the 4th time. You don’t even know why you bother at this point. Closing the door to the fridge you leave the kitchen and see Luffy fishing with Usopp, seeing them talking happily makes you feel worse; like you’re the dumb one getting upset over some missing food while he’s unaffected. “Dammit…” You end up just leaving to go to your room, not wanting to sour their mood with your own unhappiness. After shutting the door behind you, you flop onto the bed and sigh. You keep telling yourself the same things you have before, it’s just food, Luffy is more important than some leftovers, no need to get upset over something so small… but it’s not making you feel any better. Not when something so simple as continuing to eat your leftovers shows so little respect. “Maybe.. Maybe I should try telling him again, maybe he’ll listen this time.” You mumble to yourself and get up, walking out of your room and going back to where Luffy and Usopp were fishing. “Luffy?”

“Mm?” He hums.

“Can we talk for a bit in my room?” You ask him and he’s silent for a moment before turning his head to look at you.

“Can you wait? I’m fishing right now.” Is his response, your heart sinks and you consider saying yes, but decide to steel your heart and refuse.

“No, the fish aren’t going to disappear. You can continue fishing after we’re done.” You manage to muster out. He sighs and gets up, following you to your room. Once you’re inside, closing the door, you confront him. “You ate my leftovers again.”

“Oh, yeah I did. Oops.” He says, way too casually for him to care.

“Luffy I told you it wasn’t nice to do that, I don’t want you eating my leftovers. Sanji already makes you a lot of food and those leftovers were ones I got from the last island we went to. I was really looking forward to them since it was a specialty there.” You explain.

“Yeah, they were really good.” He responds, and you frown. Luffy’s acting so uncaring about all of this, he isn’t even being stupidly happy about it. Usually when he’s caught eating something that wasn’t his he fights about it, trying to weasel his way out of getting scolded; but this is just straight up rude.

“Luffy…?” You call his name, not believing what you’re hearing.

“Yeah?” The captain yawns. “Can I go now?”

“Luffy, what's wrong with you? You’re acting weird.” This is stressing you out.

“You’re the one acting weird, it’s just food. You can just get something else, maybe ask Sanji to make you something.” His words make you scowl slightly, you’re trying to stay calm but he’s being so disrespectful it hurts. It hurts and it’s making you angry.

“Why are you being so rude, did I do something?”

“Hmm…” Luffy puts a hand to his chin. “Well I mean it doesn’t matter anyway.” You tilt your head in confusion. “Cuz you’re just gonna forgive me, even if I keep doing it. So there’s no point in being all sorry about it, yeah?” You stare at Luffy in shock, he can be selfish at times sure but not like this; and not to a crewmate, this isn’t mentioning that you too are lovers as well.

“Luffy you’re being really mean, don’t say that.” You say, your eyebrows furrowing into a pained expression. “You’re hurting me.” Black eyes look away, not even bothering to meet your gaze. “Look at me, Luf, don’t just look away. Please?” He doesn’t respond. “Luffy! Please don’t do this to me. I’m sorry for getting mad at you, don't just ignore me like this…”

“You’re so spineless.” He finally responds with a frown and your heart sinks. “I don’t like it, you’re not even trying. It’s kinda um…” Luffy looks for a word in his head before it pops into his mind. “You’re really pathetic!” A smile forms on his face.

“Luffy!” You yell

“It’s true though. I liked you because you never backed down for what you believed in, but now that we’re dating you don’t even do anything to me. It’s annoying seeing you so much of a coward where you back down at any argument with me. I don’t like it.” Once he’s done there’s silence for a bit, Luffy’s about to try and continue when you stop him.

“You’re right, I’m sorry.” You apologize and he perks up, but you don’t end it there. “I should’ve known, you don’t like cowards or crybabies. I don’t blame you, so we don’t have to be together anymore.”

“Wait, you-” He’s interrupted.

“No Luffy, I get it. You’ve made it clear enough that you don’t like me.” You talk as you start to move him out of your room. He tries to reach for you when you go to shut the door on him but you flinch away like he’s lashing out. It shocks him to freeze, giving you the chance to shut the door and lock it.

The captain stares at the door, spaced out before he snaps out of it. ‘...I think I messed up.’ Luffy thinks to himself and knocks on the door, but you don’t answer. He continues this for a while and considers breaking the door down but the image of you flinching away from him like he’d do something as horrible as hitting you is shaking his resolve. ‘I don’t want to see them do that again.’ He frowns, unhappy. His plan was to make you mad enough that you would gain confidence and grow a spine, but this went wrong. He made a mistake, or maybe this is really just you? Luffy doesn’t know, he hasn’t been in a relationship before, but he wants to know; and he wants you to tell him. You did so well when you didn’t back down and told him to follow you to talk, even when he was fishing. He was so relieved he even sighed, but now it’s all messed up and he’s stuck outside this door wondering if breaking it down will make things worse.

_____

The options are if he breaks down the door or not and whether you want this to have a happy or bittersweet ending (asker only). You dont have to say if you dont want tonyou can also just tell me to continue if you dont want the choice.

#one piece #luffy x reader #angst #monkey d. luffy #fanfiction #one piece x reader

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merakiui · 1 month ago

Text

HALLOWEENIE. [3]

skully j. graves x (female) reader cw: nsfw, retail au, smoking, modern au (no magic), cheesy workplace romance, may be ooc (some creative liberties were taken for various aspects of skully's character and may not align with characteristics shown in tnbc event), characters written as 18+ note - skully returns for another season of work at fellow honest's halloween store. is this the year he finally musters the courage to confess to his cherished coworker, or is it going to be another year spent with his nose buried in his poetry journal? // split into three parts due to size. read part one and part two.

Fellow saves everyone from the nail-biting tension by not scheduling you and Skully together, which takes the duo out of his prized Dynamic Duo. Now you’re just a disaster. Skully doesn’t fade into obscurity, though. Rather, he’s ever-present in your thoughts. You think about him when you drag yourself down the halls at school, occasionally sticking your head into the drama club or the music room in hopes of spotting him. You’re not sure why. You’ve never had anything to do with either of those spaces, but now you’re haunting them like a pesky poltergeist in search of something just out of your grasp.

That’s what it feels like to have this cavern open up between you and him. As if you’re confined to separate worlds. You dwell in the realm of the dead and Skully exists in flesh. It’s impossible to cross paths like this.

No one seems to know of him either, which makes him seem more cryptid than he actually is. When you interrupt a drama club meeting with, “Which one of you nerds knows Skully J. Graves?” they blink owlishly at you.

You’re beginning to think he really is the ghost and you’re actually the living person.

You’ve considered visiting him during one of his shifts, but then you’d be no better than Salad Fingers.

This is so lame. Why do I care so much? I shouldn’t, you think, scrolling on your phone while Rollo does inventory for Fellow. You search for Skully’s number before remembering you never exchanged contact information.

“Your moping is bringing sales down.” Fellow raps his cane against the linoleum to get your attention.

“I’d argue it’s bringing in more business. Not often the customers get to see me without my usual swag.”

“That’s what she’s calling it?” Rollo mutters from behind his clipboard.

“Miss (Name), it pains me to see you in such a tizzy. Skully hasn’t been any better, I assure you.”

You perk up at the mention of him. “What does he say? Does he talk about me? Does he hate me? Should I disappear forever and never return to this town?”

“Whoa, whoa! Where is this coming from? Honestly, the youth are so complicated nowadays.” It’s a whack from Gidel’s hammer that sets Fellow straight. “Ahem! Right. What I meant to say was that it’s obvious this situation is causing a fair bit of trouble for both of you. These conditions limit your ability to work as you normally would. As your boss, I should only intervene when it’s truly detrimental, but as someone with a brain I think we’d all benefit from a quick solution to this mess.”

“Believe me—if I could wave my magic wand and fix this, I would. But we can’t just kiss and make up. I hurt his feelings.” You run your finger over your phone and catch your shattered expression in the cracked screen. “No amount of apologizing can undo that.”

“You ought to know he asks after you.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“It’s true,” Rollo adds. “Incessantly.”

“Why?” When all three of them look at you like it couldn’t be more obvious, you throw your arms up. “No one answer that. I’ll take you out back and curb you if you do.”

“I won’t speak on Skully’s behalf, but I believe it’s rational to assume he would never want you to disappear.”

“And he certainly wouldn’t hate you. Goodness, I don’t think that boy has the heart to harbor hate.”

“No, he does. He definitely does,” comes your and Rollo’s swift correction.

Gidel opens to a page in his notebook, where he’s doodled you and Skully holding hands in a heart. It reminds you of the flower wreath, which still resides on your desk even though the flowers are beginning to curl up and wilt.

You groan and slump in your chair, arms hanging limply at your sides. “Halloween’s in two weeks! If I can’t find some way to make it up to him, he’s gonna spend his favorite holiday sad and miserable.”

“Heartbreak isn’t something you can simply mend with goodwill. It’s a process. You heal over time.” Melancholy descends on Rollo’s face. You get the feeling he’s weathered the woes of a broken heart before. If anyone understands loss, it’s Rollo Flamme.

He loves me and I crushed him.

“You don’t think I gave him false hope, do you?”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“Even though it was as clear as glass to anyone looking in,” Fellow murmurs, and you choose to ignore that. “Well, what’s done is done. Cliché as it sounds, you can only move forward from here.”

You lift yourself off the chair and stretch. “I’ll grab the broom and get to sweeping.”

“Don’t bother. We won’t do all of that tonight.”

“Ooh, looks like someone was bitten by the bug of benevolence. How sweet.”

Fellow chuckles and collects the completed inventory from Rollo. “You’re free to go. I’ll see you tomorrow. And, Miss (Name), try to get some sleep.”

Immediately, you open the camera on your phone to check for any noticeable signs of sleep deprivation. Finding none, you scowl at Fellow.

“Not funny. I actually thought you were being serious.”

“But you checked.”

“That she did,” Rollo notes with a small grin.

“Because you—ugh. You could’ve just said my shoes are untied.” You click past the both of them in your Mary Jane pumps. “What does it matter if I’m losing sleep?”

“Are you?”

“I’m not. Shut up.”

You’ll bury yourself alongside the worms and maggots before you confide in them about your recent sleepless nights, each one punctuated with a replay of your fight with Skully and all the ways it could’ve gone differently had you just been honest.

There are two sides to your honesty: the lies that can pass as the truth and the actual truth—the truth you were keen to shelve ever since it cropped up.

The truth that feels a little like the onset of…

You won’t dwell on it or the profound consequence it has on tonight’s dreams.

You’d praise the convenience that is small town logic if it applied to Skully. In this foothill town enshrouded in trees and mountain peaks, everyone knows everyone. Students only have one choice for university, and it’s a dinosaur-aged institution that’s probably seen every era and more with countless graduating classes having been fostered in its brick walls. If you’re searching for someone, you shouldn’t have to look very far. Inevitably, you’ll stumble upon someone who knows someone who knows someone who can get you into contact with that person. Everyone’s stapled into the paper chain here.

Everyone except Skully, apparently.

It continues to baffle you that no one—not even any of the students in his classes or club—knows of his existence.

“Skully J. Graves,” you stress to the head of the drama club, who stares absently in reply. “He’s literally in your club. White hair, glasses, tall, kinda nerdy but overall really sweet. Does any of that ring a bell?”

When you’re met with silence from him and the rest of the club, you smack your hand against your face and groan. “Jack Skellington.”

A murmur of collective consideration sweeps through the group.

“You mean that weird guy who keeps to himself?” a girl pipes up.

You give her a censorious look. “You’re gonna hafta be more specific, girlfriend. You’re naming, like, a decent chunk of the school’s population.”

“Always has his face in his books,” another offers. “Not really friendly, that one. Definitely on the quiet side.”

“And he’s usually scribbling stuff in a journal during club meetings, right?” a third student asks.

“Yes!” You clap. “That’s my guy!”

“Ohh, you’re talking about Halloweenie,” the head of the drama club says, snapping his fingers once the descriptions finally click.

Halloweenie?

You’ve known Skully to go by all kinds of nicknames at the shop: Skulls, Skeleton, my boy, and (from snotty Salad Fingers), Prince of Darkness. This one, however, is brand-new. You don’t need a thesaurus to get the general gist of the meaning behind that self-explanatory name.

“What do you want with him?”

Apple-red lips curl up into an impish grin, and you lift your finger in shush. “It’s a secret.”

“Well, good luck finding him,” he says with a snort. “Halloweenie’s practically a ghost when he isn’t working on props for the shows. He could be anywhere on campus.”

The rest of the club confirm this with mechanical nods. It’s so synced it’s almost like they’re a group of mind-controlled marionettes.

I can’t believe none of these losers know where Skulls is.

You remember browsing the drama club’s website with Rollo. Skully was noted as an ordinary stagehand there. Once more, it seems like fate is having a grand time keeping the two of you apart. Maybe it’s better that way. Maybe you don’t deserve a friend like Skully.

Before you can sink into self-deprecation, you whirl towards the door.

“You come by looking for Halloweenie a lot, y’know,” a member accuses, arms folded like some hard-boiled detective. “You into him?”

What the fuck? Why is everyone assuming that?

“Nooo—oh, hey! What’s this?” You point to the poster pasted on the door. The words Drama Club Presents: A Thrilling Tale of Treacherous Love and Music! are printed in fancy font above an infamous mask. “Is this what you’re putting on for this year?”

“For Christmas, yes. It was either that or an actual Christmas play. Like ‘A Christmas Carol’ or something equally festive. Majority wanted the charming and dangerous Opera Ghost.”

“Good taste. So where can I audition?”

“Can you sing?”

“In the shower.”

“Can you act?”

“What is life if not the stage we play on?” you counter, stealing a philosophical page from your boss’s book of esoteric wisdom.

The head of the drama club isn’t impressed. To be honest, you’re not either. An actor’s life is not for you.

“Why? No offense, (Name), but you’ve never been interested in us or the work we do. You’ve gotta have passion and soul to put yourself on that stage—something you so clearly lack. If you’re only doing it for Halloweenie—”

“That stings, Prez. And here I was ready to dazzle my way to stardom.”

“Sure.” He rolls his eyes. “If you have no other business with us, have a good day.”

Are all the presidents in this school hard-asses?

Sensing your presence is no longer welcome, you wink and take your leave.

Now left to aimlessly wander the halls, you think back on Skully’s lamentations from before: I was all alone before you moved here—nothing more than a quiet, transparent existence.

You know what that’s like because that’s exactly how you lived when you were growing up. There is no trick to surviving the devils of childhood. You just have to hope that if you’re silent enough they’ll leave you alone. Because hiding beneath the covers only works when they’re figments of your imagination. When they’re very real and oh-so-tangible, they can dismantle the seemingly impenetrable blanket fortress you put so much faith in.

If you lived as a ghost back there, then this dreary town was your resurrection.

Perhaps she, sitting solitary on her throne, is lonely just like me.

Skully was right. As it happens there is no truth in being accessible to everyone in your infamously obnoxious, effervescent way. You’ve built yourself up on flowery lies—a faux Spider Queen who isn’t so venomous as she’d like everything to believe. The (Name) who smiles and flirts, who holds every bed partner at arm’s length because she’s too scared to let them into her embrace, is a phony.

The Spider Queen is scared of loving and being loved.

That’s why she strings everyone up in her web, never letting them know what hides beyond gossamer strands woven so meticulously thick.

Because once they start to disassemble her messy masterpiece they’ll see its flaws and insecurities woven into unmistakable patterns.

Get it together, (Name). No way were you about to throw yourself into a school play all for some guy! Be more swag and less dramatic.

But just as you admonish yourself with that, a discordant note rings out. You failed to realize you were traversing random halls until now, where you find yourself in a desolate corner of the building, just outside the music room. Shaken from your self-doubt, you peek into the room out of plain curiosity…and immediately come to regret it when you spot a familiar head of white hair.

His back is turned to you, head bowed, and he plays according to the sheet music propped in front of him. You linger in the doorway to listen and it hits you then—what he’s playing.

A piano rendition of “The Music of The Night.”

Transfixed, you allow yourself to creep in closer. The soft, soulful melody lulls you into a state of serenity. Watching him and his fingers waltz along the keys, you can’t help but feel like you’ve missed your chance. What that chance might’ve been, you don’t have the guts to name.

Just when he’s about to reach the chorus, he misses a chord and the entire piece falls apart.

“Consarn it!” He slams his hands down on the keys.

You wince at the strident smash that echoes through the room, but nothing is more jarring than his language. You’ve never heard Skully, the quintessence of chivalry, curse so openly, even if it’s very 1800s. But after your argument with him, you’ve acquainted yourself with his temper and all that boils within it.

“It needs to sound just like the song.” The sound of shuffling sheet music follows. “If I can’t get past this chord…” He sighs and taps a few keys in random succession. “My dear will never be impressed with my lousy performance.”

Your heart flips over in your chest, knots itself like Ouroboros, and then collapses into your stomach. Any confidence you had in approaching Skully vanishes in a blip. Of course he’s still into you. Why wouldn’t he be? Rejection and a few weeks of separation aren’t going to undo years of infatuation. Silently cursing the world, you press the heels of your palms into your eyes, realize you’ve just ruined your eyeliner, and drag them away with an aggravated breath.

“Is someone there?”

Skully turns on the bench right as you stumble out of sight. Your sneakers squeak on the tiles as you make your escape, darting around a corridor just in time to avoid the confrontation. That’s all you’re good at. Salad Fingers’s criticisms play in loops. You hasten your steps. Running away.

Rollo’s slender fingers work deftly to lace up your corset. In the background, faintly pouring in from the kitchenette, Halloween music plays.

“Tighter,” you hiss at him, bracing yourself on the edge of your vanity desk, hips jutted out and ass raised high. “Make it so I can’t breathe—like I’m getting disrespectfully choked by the latex. None of that ‘Love Me Tender’ shit. I need to be fighting for my life in this fit.”

“This is foolish. You should prioritize your comfort over…whatever this is.”

“Aww. You really are an angel, looking out for me and my lungs.”

In retaliation he yanks on the ribbons and the corset cinches around your ribs, effectively stealing your breath. You crumple against the desk with a wheeze.

“Is that tight enough for Her Majesty?” he asks, smirking at you in the mirror.

“P-Perfect…” You raise a weak thumbs-up. “Thanks, Uriel.”

Rollo rolls his eyes. He looks every bit the modest angel in pure-white robes with accompanying gold accents. The look is finished off with feathery wings, a halo headband, and a pair of open-toed sandals. He adjusts one of the aureate cuffs around his wrist and scrutinizes his reflection in the cheap material. Conversely, you’re dressed as a sexy succubus, all red, tight-fitting, skimpy latex and matching thigh-high stockings. The costume came with horn hair clips, an attachable tail, and a pitchfork. It was your creative idea to accessorize with a black choker, sheer, lacy gloves, and suede knee-high heeled boots. You even got your nails done for the occasion, and they drip in grisly patterns of blood splatter.

“It’s missing something.” You pull Rollo against your hip so he can see what you’re attempting to visualize.

“Your makeup looks fine, (Name).”

“Not that.” Your blunt-toothed, smiling reflection peers back at you. “Oh, I know!”

You rifle through your makeup box to find them: the packaged fangs you swiped from Fellow’s store just the other day. Your boss graciously gave you and Rollo the day off after it became clear he wasn’t very willing to shell out holiday pay. Knowing your erudite roommate, he would’ve debated Fellow into his grave until he budged. Day off or holiday pay? It would’ve been his losing battle no matter which side of the argument he fell on.

Gleefully, like a cannibal ripping into a corpse, you tear open the plastic and fit the fangs on over your teeth.

“What do you think?” you ask, flashing a wicked grin at Rollo.

“Appropriately hellish. Anymore and the Devil might come up here to give you his regards.”

“Aren’t I just the luckiest girl?” You giggle and nudge him. “You’re not half bad yourself, Bible Study.”

“High praise coming from Satan’s Sweetheart.”

“The Devil wears imitation Prada.”

“‘By all means,’” he quotes, draping a fuzzy jacket over your shoulders, “‘move at a glacial pace. You know how that thrills me.’”

With a snicker you follow him out the door, playfully poking at his back with the pronged pitchfork to hurry him along. He swipes the car keys on his way.

Paper lanterns and strands of amber-hued lights are strung up on low-hanging branches. In the very center, hollowed out into the ground and circled with sizable stones, is a bonfire pit. The flames lick towards the stars, wavering in time with the bass thumping through the trees. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think the swaying silhouettes were monstrous fiends gathered for Halloween night.

Having left your jacket in the car, you’re quick to pull Rollo towards the refreshments. You’re desperate to warm yourself with a few drinks before you make your way towards the fire and the throng of bodies. Rollo, while not the partying type, is very particular with his preferences, so you don’t expect him to jump at the sight of beer. It does, however, startle you when he slides the cloth covering away from the basket draped on his arm to reveal a bottle of sacramental altar wine.

Sometimes you forget your roommate can be cool.

“You’re the best.” You pull him against your side in another hug. He doesn’t fight it. The yellow-orange glow casts shadows on his face, obscuring his pleased smirk. “I cherish you, you know that?”

“Yes, well, I can’t allow you to indulge in this party slop.”

“Amen!”

You squeeze him once before releasing him from your constriction to grab two cheap chalices. After checking to make sure they’re clean and haven’t been tampered with, you stride over to Rollo. You notice he’s eyeing the pit warily, his haunted expression looking much more cadaverous in the firelight. Gently, you shake his shoulder and step in front to intersect his view of the fire.

“Hey, you okay?”

Rollo shakes himself out of his head and loosens his grip on the bottle. “Yes… Yes, I’m fine.”

You want to trust him, so you hold out the cups. “Wanna say our prayers and indulge in the Body of Christ?”

He taps your head with his fist, features drawn in a humorless lour. “Bread is the body. Wine is the blood.”

“My bad, Father.” You pout at him. “Forgive me for my sins and transgressions and everything else. I’m just sooo unholy.”

He spends a quiet moment staring at you—long enough that it has a smile spreading on his lips. He breathes a soft laugh. “What a peculiar choice of words for a demon.”

“Even more peculiar for an angel to be drinking on the job.”

“I suppose that makes us even.” He unscrews the cap and pours a generous amount in both cups. You watch the scarlet liquid slosh within. Capping the bottle, he tucks it away in the basket and takes the cup from you. “Merci.”

“A happy Halloween to us.” You raise your cup and his bumps against yours in toast. “Are you ready to be dead on your feet for tomorrow’s shift?”

“Only undead,” he replies, following you to a fallen tree. “I’m driving, so I mustn’t become too much of a zombie.”

“Who cares about coherency? Live it up tonight! We can sleep in the car. I’ve got pillows and blankets in there.”

“Mhm,” he hums around the plastic rim.

You plop down on the tree trunk and take a gulp, smacking your lips in approval. “If it’s cold, we can just cuddle.” You bump shoulders with him.

“I’ll pass. The last thing I need to earn is more of Skully’s frosty envy. I’d like for my plants to survive winter, if possible.”

“Ugh, right.” Your gaze drifts to your pitchfork propped against the tree. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I mean, I almost joined the school play for him. That’s bonkers even by my standards.”

“As if the club would allow that.”

“They hate me for my potential.” You click your tongue. “How can I make this…not worse? Because it feels like all I’ve been doing is making it significantly worse.”

“You should have a proper conversation. One that isn’t senseless screaming.”

“He was inside me, Rollo. How the hell am I going to have a ‘proper conversation’ when that’s our history?”

He peers into his chalice, contemplation burning behind his eyes. “Well, I wasn’t expecting you to lay with him. ‘Disprove his alleged crush,’ she said and then proceeded to do the exact opposite.”

“I mean, I don’t want him to think I hate him or that he has to avoid me. That’s not it. And I wasn’t trying to sound so cruel that day. Stuff just slipped out unchecked and he wasn’t listening. It’s not like we can go back to being friends with this whole cloud of unrequited romance hanging over our heads.” Sighing, you draw circles into the leaf-strewn ground with the tip of your boot. “I wish things weren’t so complicated. It’d be easier if he was terrible through and through, but he’s not.”

“What makes it so complicated?”

“His feelings.”

“Are you sure that’s all?”

You narrow your eyes at him, perplexed. “Why? Is there supposed to be something else?”

“What about yourself?”

You chug the rest of the wine in your cup. It burns the back of your throat and straightens out your thoughts. Not so much your heart, though. Rollo takes his time pouring to give you a moment. He even offers you half of a baguette from the depths of his basket, which draws a snort from you.

“What? You can’t drink on an empty stomach. Last time you did that, you sullied the car with your vomit. It took days to clean and freshen up the interior.”

“At least it was pink! That’s much prettier than non-pink barf.” You shake your head, unwilling to argue old news. “Thanks for your concern, Little Red Riding Rollo, but I’m not hungry.”

“I’ve brought an assortment of jams and cheese.”

“Oh, my gosh,” you say around a high cackle. Rollo doesn’t see the humor in any of this, but he still manages a pinched smile. “You’re amazing. The best roomie I’ve ever had.”

“I try.”

“Okay, Father, I yield. Break the bread and let’s give thanks.”

Between sips of altar wine, you and Rollo munch on pieces of baguette spread and topped with strawberry jam and nettle cheese.

“Why me?” you ask around a mouthful of bread. “I know Skulls isn’t sociable at school—drama club told me all about the unlikable Halloweenie—but I’m sure there are better candidates for him to crush on. I’m a mess. I can’t garden or look after houseplants like you do. I can’t do any of that cute shit girls do on their socials—like live aesthetically or be effortlessly adorable. I don’t think I’m Skulls’s type.”

“Hmm.”

“He said I’m the only one who’s ever understood him, but isn’t that what friends do? You and I understand each other and we’re friends.”

“Somehow that’s different.”

“How? What makes it different?”

Rollo shrugs. He looks like a mouse as he nibbles at his bread and cheese. “Perhaps it’s because my relationship with you is nothing like the one you have with Skully.”

You scowl at the crowd of dancing, costumed partygoers. It’s only different because of love and sex.

“Putting that aside, what makes you think you’re not his type? Have you ever considered what his type might be?”

You hadn’t given it much thought. Skully has never mentioned love and its variations at work. That’s your job—to complain about and commend all of your flings and situationships whenever it’s necessary. To flirt with customers who look wealthy, attractive, or like they’d be good in bed. To aim for a phone number or an exchange of socials when they’re funny, sweet, or just annoying enough to seem charming. Your list of past lovers is as long as a photo spread in a wallet.

“If we consider his poetry,” Rollo says, as if pushing you towards a cliff you don’t want to jump from, “his preferences aren’t so elusive.”

Even though there’s no reason for it, you feel an unusual warmth climbing up to settle under your cheeks. You hurry to tilt your cup back, putting your mouth on the same lipstick stain from earlier.

“So what sort of type is the Spider Queen?”

“She’s meant to be you, is she not?”

But you’re not sure what he sees in you—in the Spider Queen. You annoyed him during the first real conversation you had, back when he was just fifteen and you were an angsty eighteen-year-old trying to look like she hadn’t just gotten disowned by her family. What changed in the four years since then? You remember he absolutely hated the Halloween party and spent the entire time scribbling in a journal. You wouldn’t be surprised if the entry about his first impression of you was written that very night. He has every right to despise you for your rowdy spirit. What he sees in you, you clearly can’t see in yourself. Maybe you’d feel less guilty about the situation if he hated your guts, but that’s not the case.

“I don’t know!” You groan. “Maybe he’s in love with the character he’s created and not me.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“Do you have candy in there? I need something that’ll mess me up and make me forget all about this.”

I need to stop running away and face reality.

“I’m certain the alcohol will do the trick.”

And it is. You haven’t kept count of how many chalice-sized drinks you’ve had, and at some point you’ve even swiped the bottle from Rollo’s basket.

“Shall we address the facts?” he tries again, and you’re tempted to listen because he’s logical enough to sort through the emotions. “Skully is in love with you, a truth too blinding for you to notice, but we were all wearing sunglasses.” You smack him for that and he clears his throat. “Right. The two of you went on a ‘date’ and it ended in bed. You’ve told him you don’t love him. Really, (Name), if your feelings don’t match his, I see no other reason to stump yourself.”

And isn’t that the truth?

But there’s a niggling sense of something more that you can’t confront. You push it down to make room for the wine.

“I need a cigarette.”

“From one vice to the next. Very clever.”

Your acrylics tap anxious pitter-patters against the glass bottle. A distraction would suffice—anything to take your mind off of Skully. If you could saunter into the crowd and fall into the arms of a temporary thrill, you would. It’s what you plan to do as your eyes survey the crowd, cherry-picking faces from the firelight. And then, just past the flickering flames and undulating ghouls, you see him.

“Erik!”

You stand up so quickly that you lurch forward. The bottle almost slips from your grasp. Rollo catches your arm before you can fall.

“What?” Rollo blinks up at you in bewilderment. “(Name), sit down. You’re drunk.”

“Piss off. I know what I saw. Someone’s come as the Phantom.” You throw your head back to suck down the rest of the wine. “And it takes more than that to get me tipsy.”

“Congratulations. How’s the liver?”

“Ha-ha-ha,” you snap, sarcastic. “Unlike you, I’m about to tongue it with the Phantom. Not many can say they did that on Halloween night. Be back soon!”

“No one else is trying to accomplish that!” he calls after you, but you only catch part of it as you beeline for the fray.

Pitchfork in hand, you weave around kissing couples and clusters of friends. You have your sights set on the mysterious Phantom, his back turned to you. You call out to him: “Hey, you!” but your voice is lost in the deafening beats and the ecstatic, tipsy whoops from the partygoers.

“Excuse me! Pardon,” you hiss, pushing past a witch and a knight. “Move.”

You’re nearly there. But then someone knocks into you, and you stumble into another person. He catches you with a whistle, his palms strangely slimy.

“Hey there, little lady. Looks like it’s my lucky night. You sure you’re not actually an angel in disguise?”

You scrunch your face, looking past him. The Phantom is gone. “Fuck!”

“At least introduce yourself.” He laughs and spit speckles your cheek. “Then we can get there, yeah?”

“You want an introduction?” You slam your heel on his foot and are quite pleased when he draws back with a curse. “How’s that for angelic? Happy Halloween, asshole.”

Equipped with a mission, you disappear into the darkness. Stapled to your feet, your shadow stretches into the trees behind you. In hopes of locating the familiar mask or cape, you whirl to and fro. It seems like you’ll never find them, and for a second you wonder if they’re a hallucination birthed from your tumultuous feelings. Of course you’d be imagining the Phantom after that day in the bookstore with Skully. It’s like he’s everyone you look. How could he not be? Halloween is his day.

You hope he’s happy, even if it’s only for tonight.

This is a waste of time. I’m going back.

You pivot on your heel…and there he is. The Phantom of the Opera, hunched over between the trees, his gloved fingers splayed against the rough bark. The exact opposite of dignified and mystifying. More of a mess than a graceful, gothic beauty. Your mouth drops open, and then you cringe when you hear a not-so-musical retch.

Oh.

He’s sick.

“Uh, hi…” You inch closer. “I recognized your costume. You’re supposed to be Erik, right? The Phantom. You know—that guy from the opera?”

He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and turns to look at you, woozy and mechanical. Your heart rushes into a gallop when those infamous orange eyes fall upon you. Even with the mask hiding half of his face, you know it’s him. You think he’s worked out your identity as well because he straightens to his full height on unsteady feet, as if he’s been slapped sober. The only indication he’s inebriated is the way he sways like a spinning top on the verge of falling over.

“Skulls—”

“(Name)—”

“Ah, um. My apologies. You should go first.”

“No, it’s nothing.” You wring your hands around the length of the pitchfork. “Um. You… You came.”

“I was looking for you.” He gestures to the crumpled can at his feet, sheepish. “Found that instead.”

“Why?”

Skully twists the hem of his cloak in his fists. “I wanted to wish you a happy Halloween and show you my costume.”

His costume? You remember he told you and Rollo he was going to dress up as something scary, and while the Phantom is technically a fearsome villain… It’s not the first thing you’d think Skully would go for. Did he dress up for my sake? What if he had another costume planned but changed his mind after—stop that. Don’t go down that rabbit hole.

“But you hate parties.” You poke at the can with your pitchfork. “And you don’t drink.”

His eyes glaze over. You watch his lip tremble. “I’m sorry. I… I thought that if I… If I could just—” He inhales a rattling breath. “If I was more like you—like Mr. Rollo or any of your partners—you might… Y-You might want to—” He breaks off from that sentence with a choked cry and sinks to his knees.

“Skulls…” Lowering to his height, you reach out for him, hesitate for a strained breath, and then gingerly peel the mask away to reveal his teary, snotty face.

“I’m so s-sorry,” he continues, his voice breaking more and more. “I yelled at you. I wouldn’t listen. I pushed you into a corner and provoked you, and that wasn’t right. I was no better than Salad Fingers.” He places his palms on the ground to steady himself. A sob shudders through his body. Salty globs pool along his lash line and slide down to his chin, landing in steady drops on the leaves below. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair, not fair, not fair! All of those undeserving people who get to behold you! Those… Those foolish, idiotic bastards—none of them are worthy of you. I don’t understand. They never see you. They’re so attached to flimsy, vapid pleasure that they don’t even cherish you properly. Why?”

You manage to find your voice then. “I don’t care about them. I mean, I did. I always care. Just not like…that.”

“So then why? Why do you let them—why won’t you let me—”

Love you?

“Skully, you’re drunk.” Hardening your heart, you stagger to your feet. “Now’s not the time for this.”

Running away again. Typical, Salad Fingers jeers. She’ll eat your heart if you aren’t careful. Save yourself while you can.

You swat his influence away.

A twig snaps behind you. You almost don’t hear it over Skully’s sniveling.

“Do you know how many fools have been pointing me to ‘Grandmother’s House’ whenever I ask after you?” comes Rollo’s voice, every accented syllable threaded through with annoyance. “I’m sick of this asinine nonsense. It’s not even funny. I’m very clearly an angel, and yet everyone thinks I’m on my way to see—oh, Skully’s here. Ahem. Pardon me.”

“It’s just not fair,” he’s mumbling to himself, over and over, like a broken record. He doesn’t even acknowledge Rollo’s arrival or greeting. “Not fair, not fair, not fair.”

“Is he…all right?”

“Does that look ‘all right’ to you, brainiac?” You knock Rollo upside the head with your plastic pitchfork, and he rounds on you with an indignant glare.

“You tell me! I only just found you.” Rollo can’t hide behind his handkerchief, so his frustration is on full display. It twists his features into something loathsome.

“He’s drunk.”

“Clearly.” Sighing, Rollo stoops over him. “Skully, can you hear me? How did you get here?”

He pans his bleary gaze over to him and sniffs. “What’re you supposed to be?”

“God’s little lamb.”

“That’s not terrifying at all.”

“It is if you carry the guilt.” He takes a harsh elbow to the ribs for that, one he begrudgingly accepts with a scoff. “You should go home, Skully.”

“Did someone bring you here?” you ask, peering into his face. It’s hard to imagine him willingly coming with a friend or classmate.

Actually, it’s hard to imagine he came here at all.

He lifts an unsteady arm and gestures in a general direction. “Bicycle,” he says.

A silent debate mushrooms between you Rollo, wedged in the space where your eyes meet.

“He’s a liability,” you whisper after pulling him aside.

“A liability to your love life, maybe, but we can’t just leave him here.”

“I wasn’t saying we should! I just don’t think it’s gonna help if he comes home with us. He’s not thinking straight. And last time he was there…”

“So we drop him off at home and his parents can handle it. I know the way.”

“They’ll kill us. Are you looking to be lectured tonight?”

“He’s nineteen.”

“Doesn’t matter. That’s their baby—all two-hundred-something centimeters of him—and he’s drunk off his ass on Halloween night.”

“He risked a scolding all for you, didn’t he?”

“He…” You groan, unsure of what to say. “I’ve never met a guy like him. He’s in another league of his own.”

“And I don’t suppose he’s ever met a girl quite like you.” Smiling, Rollo cocks his head playfully. “You’re meant to be.”

“I’m meant to punch you in the mouth if you keep talking stupid. Just—ugh, fine, whatever! You carry him back to the car. I’ll get his bike. He can crash with us tonight. A slumbie is safer than getting him and ourselves in trouble with his parents.”

“So the demon’s secretly a good girl.”

“All that altar wine’s going to your head and making you cheeky, ‘God’s little lamb’. I guess you do care for your friends after all.”

Index pressed to his lips, he hushes you. It takes a few minutes of coaxing and “Lift your head, Skully. How else are you going to look up to Jack Skellington?” before Rollo manages to get him to his feet. He’s all gangly limbs as he drapes himself over your roommate, clinging like mildew to a damp corner. Grunting with the effort, Rollo hoists his arm over his shoulders and Skully flops against him like a worm.

Before the two of them begin the hobble to the car, Rollo asks, “Will you be okay on your own?”

“I’m the Devil. There’s nothing I can’t do!” You wave your pitchfork around and flash a fanged smirk. “They don’t call me God’s strongest soldier for nothing.”

“Uh-huh. Well, be safe. If you’re not at the car in the next five minutes…”

“Yeah, yeah. You’ll exorcise me on the spot. I hear ya.”

Rollo turns away then. “Could you be any more boneless, Skully?”

“Why, of course I can! Does this help?”

“Wha—hey! Don’t go limp! Stand up straight!”

After locating his bike and wheeling it through the woods to the car, where you and Rollo work together to load it in the back, you both head for the driver’s side.

“I’m driving.”

“No, you’re not. I am.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Don’t think I didn’t see you merrily sipping your little God juice like a sailor.”

“You had more than me, and it’s not ‘God juice’. It’s sacramental altar wine, sourced from the finest—”

“Blah, blah, blah. My name is Rollo Flamme and I—”

“My wonderful, spectacular, amazing…deeeaaarss,” comes Skully’s slurred voice. He pokes his head out from the back, half-leaning out the open door. “I can drive.”

Rollo stares blankly at the very inebriated Skully.

“Yeah, go on, Rollo. Let the Phantom drive. I trust him with my life.” You stick your arm out and present him with a cheerful thumbs-up.

“Skully, sit back down. And don’t even think of getting sick in the car.”

“Yes, sir.” You hear the click of a buckle and then, miraculously, he passes out.

“Walk a straight line and I’ll let you drive.”

“I got this. Watch.”

You shove your pitchfork at his chest and, looking to make sure he’s observing, walk along the strip that divides the road from the forest. It doesn’t feel like you’re doing it right, your feet blurring and crossing over each other clumsily, but somehow you think it must look straight to Rollo. Once you’re thirty paces from the car, you whip around to hear the verdict.

“Well? Straighter than straight, yeah?”

“About as straight as a rainbow. Now get in.” He opens the passenger side for you and tosses the pitchfork in the back next to a snoring Skully.

Wordlessly, you perform your staggering walk of shame back to the car. The drive home is punctuated by the sophisticated notes of Indila’s Mini World album. The song’s instrumental—the one where you can only parse the lyrics love story—reminds you of a music box. You sink into the worn polyester seat and paint yourself as a princess in a grand, glittering palace. Waiting for you in the gardens, haunting your head like your very own gothic ghost, is the too-tall, dorky Phantom of the Opera.

Maybe it’s the alcohol—it’s definitely more than just the alcohol—but you feel warm thinking about him. So warm you forget you’re not wearing your jacket.

Fuck. This altar wine is really hitting. How are they not partying during every sermon? Oh, wait, they only drink a pinky’s worth. Laaaame.

“I think, if I were to murder someone, I’d get your help getting rid of the body.”

“Please don’t,” Rollo mutters, awkwardly lifting Skully out of the car with your aid.

“Don’t ask for help or…?”

“Don’t make me accomplice to a crime and don’t murder anyone.”

By the time you’ve carried Skully up the stairs to your door, you feel the mawkish beginnings of affection weighing on your shoulders. That, and Skully’s arm.

“Hey, Rollo?”

“Mhm?”

“Thanks.”

“What for?” He fiddles with the keys in the dimness, half-listening.

For being my friend. For never getting tired of me even when I’m nothing but trouble.

“For being my roomie.”

His hand stills. “Don’t be foolish,” he says, clicking his tongue in chastisement. The key twists in the lock. He pushes the door open with his foot, revealing an apartment cloaked in shadow. “You said it yourself. We’re a team. We need to stick together.”

“How else is rent going to be paid?”

He exhales a short, authentic laugh. “That’s the million madol question.”

Skully is deposited on the sofa, snoozing away like it’s the middle of winter and he’s hibernating. After locking the door and flicking on the lights, where you then proceed to hiss like vampires as said lights burn holes into your eyes, you and Rollo roll your stiff shoulders.

“We should stay indoors next Halloween.”

“Agreed. Maybe introverts know what they’re doing. This was exhausting.” Plopping down on a nearby stool, you work to remove your heels. It’s more challenging than it seems, what with alcohol muddling your motor skills. “My feet are killing me.”

Rollo pulls the fridge open and pokes his head inside for mindless inspection. “Hmm. Whose turn is it to buy groceries?”

“Mine, probably.” You toss your boots across the room and flex your toes. “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“We can survive a little longer. At least until the middle of the week.”

You snort. “So are we leaving Skully out here? Should we call his parents?”

“I doubt they’re worried. Not truly.” Rollo shuts the fridge and comes to stand on the other side of the kitchenette peninsula. “It’s a small town with a middling population, and the majority are harmless elders.”

“But what if they think he got murdered?”

“Because someone’s itching to put Halloweenie in his grave. Sure.”

“Okay, fair point.” You glance over your shoulder at Skully, his legs hanging over the end of the armrest. “He’d make for a difficult corpse.”

“If two of us struggled to drag him back here, imagine how much more burdensome he’d be undead.”

“Ooh, a zombie. Something tells me he’d rather be bones than rotting flesh. Just like Jack.”

“Somehow—“ Rollo drums his fingers along the countertop— “I feel it’s poor manners to talk so morbidly of our very alive and well coworker.”

“Mm, probably.” You swivel in your seat. “More importantly, where’s he gonna sleep?”

“I’m keen to leave him here. We’ll dim the lights.”

“Kinda rude to make him sleep on the most uncomfortable couch in the world.”

“It could be worse.” Rollo walks around to the wall opposite of you to lower the switch. The lights lessen in their intensity, from searing to merciful. “Besides, where else is he going to sleep? There isn’t room on my bed.”

“He can sleep in mine,” you say without thinking, and you really aren’t because he looks at you like he can’t believe he’s hearing you right now. “He deserves a comfy bed, at the very least… It’s not gonna mend heartbreak, but it won’t give him stiff joints in the morning.”

“Where will you sleep?”

“On the floor.”

Rollo raises a dark brow. “The (Name) I know would never sacrifice her comfort for someone else.”

“For flings, fuck no. But he’s a friend.”

“All right,” he concedes. “Let’s get him to your room. He’s staying there, though. I’m not going to move him anywhere else.”

“Roger that, roomie.”

Like before, the both of you lift him from the sofa and, taking care not to disturb his slumber, transport him to your room. He’s lowered onto your unmade bed. You move with absolute precision, undoing the clasp around his neck to pull his cape from his person so it won’t tangle around him in sleep. And then you drag a fluffy quilt over him. His fringe falls over his face in a way that reminds you of Sleeping Beauty…only if she had been pie-eyed and prone to vomiting in the hours before her eternal slumber. He looks less of a prince and more of a pale monster.

Sleeping Liability.

You wince. That sounds a lot like something Fellow would say. You’re too young to start thinking and speaking like your boss.

It’s then when you realize you’ve been staring at him like you’re about to lean in for true love’s kiss.

“Are you going to bed?”

“No, I’ll be up.” Rollo rubs his tired eyes and stifles a yawn.

“Try to get some sleep. I’d say let’s watch a movie, but I don’t think I can stay awake for another hour.”

“Don’t force yourself. We all need the sleep for tomorrow’s shift,” he says, but you suspect he’ll be up late into the night and he’ll wake just as early.

“Ugh. Don’t remind me. I guarantee Fellow’s gonna be just as sleep-deprived as we are. Gidel probably kept him out as late as he could for trick-or-treating.”

Shaking your head, you begin to pick off pieces of your costume. The detachable tail, the horns, the little fangs. You prop your pitchfork against the vanity desk.

“So we all have valid reasons to complain.”

“I’m always ready to be a hater. No fair we have to go into work after a fun night. Why couldn’t he be nice and give us tomorrow off as well?”

“One can hope.”

“And one does.” You open your closet and retrieve a few spare blankets from within. “Good night, Rollo.”

“Yes. Good night to you as well.”

His footsteps pad down the hall to his room and then you hear him ease the door shut. It’s not even a minute later when your thoughts begin to buzz in your ears. You busy yourself with spreading out the blankets and creating a comfortable place for yourself on the floor, listening to the low hum of a fan in place of soothing music. The fairy lights strung around your bed shine soft light on the snoozing Phantom, who’s curled into your bed like it’s to become the chrysalis that envelops the squishy, vulnerable pupa that is Skully.

You don’t want to think about it. About why he was here tonight and why he came dressed as one of your favorite characters. And the last time he was on your bed was when…

Blotting that memory out, you snuggle into the blankets and rest your head on a sizable plush you’ve swiped from the end of your bed. If you can sleep all of this mess off, you’ll have a better time making sense of it once morning dawns.

That was your plan, but now that you’re in the position for sleep, eyes closed and mind racing, you find yourself unable to settle down. You turn one way and spend the next few minutes in your own head, tossing around Skully’s motives and what everything means. Maybe you’d sink into slumber if you were contemplating brain-bruising philosophy, but when every route leads back to that complex, confounding feeling it leaves your body crackling with nerves.

Shifting over on your back, you gaze up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry, Skully,” you whisper before you can stop yourself. “Salad Fingers was right. I’m only good at running away. I’m the best at being the worst. I’m, like, super, pathetically, abysmally bad at romance. I don’t know how to do it or what it means to feel it. I… I’ve never given myself that chance.”

I’ve spent too long pushing everyone who’s ever tried to love me away.

You feel around blindly for your goat plush and hug it to your chest. His name is Mini Rollo.

“The truth is that my worst fear isn’t even thunderstorms. I hate those, too, yeah, but it’s love that scares me the most. Which probably sounds really silly to you because you’re so…full of it. Full of love, I mean. And I was afraid. Afraid that you’d found something about me that’s worth loving. I mean, you kinda saw through me from the very beginning and not many people do that. It made me feel so itchy. Like, what the hell? Who does this guy think he is, solving me like I’m some lousy cube puzzle? How’d you do that?”

A weak laugh tumbles out of you then. You’re not sure where the humor is in any of this. Maybe you’re just laughing at yourself.

“What scared me most, though… I caught myself considering it. It’s all I’ve been able to think about, actually.” You bury your face in Mini Rollo to save yourself the embarrassment of addressing a dim room with an unconscious audience. “I really don’t know how you do it. You’re like an infection. Or, uh—hold on. That came out wrong. Ugh. Just as bad as the lice poem. What I meant to say is that you’re so good at making me feel happy. So I guess that means your energy is infectious?”

Sighing, you shut your eyes and place yourself in the memory of that day, swapping cruel cowardice for a real confession. Mini Rollo’s soft head is tucked beneath your chin. “No one’s ever danced in the rain with me before to chase away my anxiety. And they’ve never made me their muse or written pages and pages of poems about me. They’ve never made me smile and laugh as much as you do. They certainly didn’t come to my door to give me an entire handmade flower wreath. That’s the stuff you’d only find in romance novels. You’re seriously one of a kind.” You force another sad, pitiful laugh. “I don’t deserve you or your love. If anything, you’re the cool one. Definitely way more than a fly.”

You’re my Pumpkin King.

“Never mind. What am I saying? Ew, ew. Gross. This is so…yuck.”

Stop talking. You’re making it worse, (Name).

You yank the blanket over your head and stuff down whatever else is threatening to spill out in this moment of alcohol-addled vulnerability. Although you’re not sure how much of that was liquid courage.

Is love supposed to feel so…itchy?

Like a sweater woven from coarse wool. Like an irritating bug bite that’s just out of reach. Like an allergic reaction.

But then that same love is also so welcoming—a blanket fresh from the dryer, a flattering poem penned from the heart, a dance in the rain. A distinctly Skully-shaped love, one that’s cradled in the cobwebbed confines of his heart.

You don’t want to run away from that—from him.

Warmed by these revelations, made weightless from the truth, you drift away on a stream of waning consciousness.

Good night, Skully.

Morning trickles through the mountains, bringing with it strips of sun that shine through the thin part of ratty curtains.

Your body is strangely light when it should be heavy with a skull-crushing hangover. Even your mind, which is normally fuzzy and filled with an unshakeable pressure in the dawn of last night’s chaos, is the shape of a Zen garden. You think you hear movement in the kitchen, but your sixth sense tells you it’s still too early and so you roll over in search of Mini Roll, who somehow slipped from your embrace during the night.

You find Skully instead.

He’s squished in the space between your bed and the nest of blankets piled around you, and it leaves you wondering how he managed to get down here. From how soundly he slept last night, you didn’t take him for a restless sleeper. You realize then that his eyes are open, watching you, and suddenly nothing else matters.

Oh.

“H-Hey,” you whisper, cringing at the roughness in your voice.

“Hi.” His voice is no better. More of a crow’s call than fluttery birdsong. “Good morning.”

You’re not sure what to think at first. Is this real? How did he get on your floor? Why is he here? Where’s Rollo? Where’s Mini Rollo?

You reach out; your palm hovers over his head. To save you the trouble, he leans into your hand. He feels real. He looks real.

“There’s only 365 days left until next Halloween,” you blurt.

Skully blinks at you. “364.”

You start to smile. He follows your lead.

He’s real. It wasn’t a dream.

“Um… So,” you start, but he reels back before you can get the rest out.

“S-Sorry! I’m sorry! I’m much too close.” He scrambles to sit up, but the sudden change in position has him gripping his head. “Spinning… Oh, I feel ill… Please give me a moment and then I assure you I’ll be out of your hair.”

You bare your teeth in an awkward, sympathetic simper. Welcome to hangover hell.

“Why were you on the floor anyway?” you venture, sitting up with him, and then the shitty feelings descend. You hiss out a colorful word.

You realize you’re still wearing your costume from last night and, even though you think you should wrap yourself in a blanket, it’s nothing Skully hasn’t seen before. He’s seen all of you, as a matter of fact, and the knowledge of that sends a timid tremor ricocheting through your veins. You feel like you need to cover up now, as if you’re somehow exposed in your skimpy latex and sheer stockings, and it’s a ridiculous thought. The time for diffidence and modesty has long since passed.

Skully refuses to meet your stare, opting to gaze at a boring corner of your room instead. “I…” He sighs. “I heard you last night. And shortly after you retired… Well, I was struck with a jubilation like no other and I…”

“Rolled right off the bed?”

You picture it then: a squealing Skully squeezing the pillows and kicking his legs out, tangling himself in the sheets, every nerve alight with celebration.

“I’m sorry. I would’ve moved, but I feared I’d wake you if I wasn’t careful. You looked so relaxed… I couldn’t bring myself to risk it, so I remained there until now. Oh, but I promise I didn’t do anything untoward while you slept! I’d never!”

You exhale through your nose. “I trust you, Skulls.” And then you stiffen. “Wait. You heard me? H-How much?”

“All of it?”

You flop back onto the floor and muffle your groan in your hands. Not how you’d been hoping to start your morning. The hangover, you can handle. No problem. Whatever’s going on between you and Skully? Big problem. Massively heart-sized problem.

But you’re not going to tuck your tail and flee. Not this time. You’re better than that.

“I think…” Skully hesitates around the mouthful perched on his tongue. “I acted rashly last night. You saw such a terrible, immature side of me—and on Halloween, no less! There are no words in the dictionary to describe my shame.”

You remember his drunken meltdown. It’s not the prettiest image, but there’s no one else in this world you know of who’d go to such lengths for you.

“You’re upset. I get it. Alcohol will do that to you. Makes you ten times more of an emotional wreck than you already are. I would know.” You’re not sure where you’re going with this, but you peek through your fingers at him and hope the tenderness in your tone hits its mark. “What I’m trying to say is that I’d like to try. If you don’t mind. If you’ll have me.”

I think I understand now—what I want.

“Try?”

“This. Us.”

He stares at you with dinner plates for eyes. A few seconds of silence bloom between you, and all throughout it he’s growing more pink-cheeked.

“We don’t have to! I mean… I completely understand if you don’t want to after everything. I’m a mess and I haven’t treated this situation very well, but I’m willing to give it my best shot. Fellow always says there’s only one way out of a ditch and maybe—”

Skully’s outstretched arm is in your face next. You follow the length of it to find his encouraging expression. Tentatively, you place your palm in his and allow him to help you up from the floor. You sit in front of him on your bed, and it’s as if you’re the last two humans on the planet.

This is new. The anxiety and the nervous sweats. The rushing blood in your ears. You’ve never felt this way before.

Then again, you’ve also never done any of this before. It’s all instinct; you’re treading the path projected by your heart this time. It’s every bit the terror you imagined it to be, but it’s exhilarating and refreshing all the same.

He’s still holding your hand. When you look down, you notice it’s shaking. You can’t tell if that’s from you or him, but it settles once your fingers interlock.

And then, before you can prepare yourself, he’s yanking you towards him. The force of his pull has you falling, and your arm shoots out to prop yourself above him.

“MayIkissyou?” he babbles, hurrying through the question so it’s pronounced like one gasping breath. And then he catches himself. “Forgive me. I’m just…so relieved! Oh, I was terrified you’d hate me and think I was a rotten person.” He’s tearing up, but you surmise these are happy tears. “I thought we’d never end up together. Like in ‘Sally’s Song’! I thought we were doomed. I thought I wasn’t the one for you…”

“No, I couldn’t ever hate you! You’re not a rotten person. Never. I—” think I’m falling for you— “I’m feeling things for you. Like in-my-heart things. Good things. That’s a horrible way to put it, I know, but I promise I mean every word. I’m just not as eloquent when it comes to these things. Compared to your poetry, I probably sound so dumb and—whoa!”

His arms wind around you, and he traps you in a tight embrace.

“(Name)… My darling.”

“Y-Yes?”

He sounds so serious… Wait, wait. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit! Don’t tell me he’s gonna say it? The L word! I don’t know if my heart’s ready. It wasn’t the first time he said it. Will I be okay? This is fine, right? It’s normal. It’s just…love. Aaahhhh!

“I’m pleased we’re so close.”

“Uh, yeah. Me too.”

“Without my glasses, I can scarcely see anything. You’d be nothing more than an indistinguishable, blurry shape. A beautiful shape, of course, but still impossible to discern!”

“Oh.”

Never fucking mind.

Hand in hand, you emerge from your room as more than friends. A couple. Lovers. A pair. So many florid titles you could probably fill the remaining pages in his poetry journal with. You’re not sure which one you should use to describe you and Skully. You’re used to temporary affairs. But this—what you have with him—feels like more than that.

Us. It’s us, you decide, and it’s the cheesiest thing but you’ll be damned if you deny yourself this newfound sweetness.

Skully’s wrapped you up in his cloak. He’s also still clad in his costume, and he made quite the fuss about yours just moments ago.

“Now that we’re together,” he said with a childish pout, his face burning red-hot, “I don’t want others to see you like this. It’s selfish, but I can’t help it. I want to preserve these lovely sights for myself.”

“It’s just Rollo,” you argued.

“Especially Mr. Rollo.”

You find his possessiveness endearing. Maybe you’re crazy for thinking that, but it’s addicting to be wanted so robustly and appreciated in full. Honeymoon phase be damned. You want to giggle and blush over everything Skully says and does, even if it’s complete nonsense. He could tell you the moon is made of cheese and you’d turn gooey like fondue.

“Good morning, you two,” Rollo greets, a cup of coffee cradled in his hands. His pale lips quirk up knowingly. “And what a good morning it appears to be. Gidel and I are due for a payout.”

You level him with a glare that could wilt lettuce. “I can’t believe you. Your greed sickens me. Isn’t gambling a sin?”

What happened to being honest examples for the youth, Fellow?!

“When it’s a gamble you have every chance of winning, does it truly count as such?”

“It does if you’re betting money! And even Gidel got in on it? Are you serious?”

“Fellow owes him new art supplies. The fancy kind.”

“Well, if it gets the kid his crayons…”

“Might I ask what the bet was for?” Skully pulls out a barstool for you, ever the winsome gentleman. He seats himself beside you.

“Whether you and (Name) would get together on Halloween or Christmas.”

“In that case, my sincerest congratulations to you and dear Gidel! Isn’t that wonderful, my love?”

“H-How do you know we’re together? You don’t even have evidence to confirm…” You trail off. Skully props his elbows on the countertop, a moony look softening his eyes.

“Surely you’re not as blind as you are dense.” Rollo glances between the both of you, as if asking, Are you seeing this shit?

Before you can snap back with defensive vitriol, he sets a paper bag down. A sugary peace offering awaits. It works a little too well because you forget everything he’s ever done at once.

“Pastry day! You’re the best, Rollo.”

“I’m aware.”

“It looks and smells divine! Thank you graciously, Mr. Rollo.” Skully fishes something from out of the bag. “Shall we share this croissant, my dear? In honor of our first meal together as a pair of love-doves.”

Whoa. That’s so official. Hearing that is…really nice, actually. Kinda huge and a little scary, but nice.

“Skulls, I’d say let’s do it, but I’m way too hungry to go halfsies.” He’s quick to wither at that, his cuteness a weapon you’re unable to fight. You giggle and lean it to peck his cheek. “How’s that instead?”

“Not even a dozen sugar cubes could compare to how sweet you are.” He clutches his chest, swooning like a fanboy struck down by Cupid. “Aah, I adore you most ardently.”

Rollo fills two mugs with what’s left in the coffee pot. “There’s tea if you’d rather that.”

“It would be rude for me to turn down your hospitality. If it’s not too much trouble, tea would be much appreciated.”

“More for me.” You take hold of both mugs and are instantly soothed by the warmth bleeding through the ceramic. The caffeine will ward off the rest of whatever hangover symptoms might be encroaching.

While Rollo fills the kettle with water, Skully searches through the bag for a pastry that suits his tastes. You’re already licking your fingers clean of croissant crumbs.

“I must thank you for allowing me to stay here through the night. I apologize if I caused you any trouble.” Skully bows his head. “You must forgive me. I don’t quite remember much of last night’s escapades.”

“It was nothing. We weren’t gonna leave you in the woods.”

“We considered it.” Rollo sips idly, unbothered by the now distraught Skully.

“Don’t listen to him. Rollo’s being morbid on purpose. We’d never do that to you.” You take Skully’s hand beneath the counter and squeeze it. “We almost dropped you off at your house, but we decided against it at the last minute.”

An awkward chuckle rumbles through him. “I owe you more than my gratitude.”

“As long as you’re safe and comfortable, that’s all that matters. Make sure you let your parents know if they’re asking after you.”

“Mr. Rollo… Your kindness precedes you.”

“Rollo has a big heart today,” you tease around a bite of pain au chocolat. “He bought sweets, he made coffee, and he’s so chatty. Must be a lotta money Fellow’s coughing up if you’re in a good mood.”

He rolls his eyes, quietly amused. “We all have reasons to be pleased.”

You suppose that’s true. It’s a happily ever after for each of you.

“Oh, that reminds me!” You turn towards Skully. “Give me your phone. There’s something I owe you.”

He relinquishes it without a second thought, which allows you to input the digits for your number. You should’ve done this a long while ago—back when you first extended your hand in friendship—but as they say there’s no time like the present. You can move forward with this. It’s a stepping stone in a new direction!

You catch a glimpse of his contacts while you make one for yourself. He doesn’t even have ten contacts. Of the few saved, you spot his parents—named Mama and Papa separately—and then Rollo and Fellow. And then there’s the latest addition: you. You’re not sure what to call yourself, so you simply leave it as your name. You’re certain Skully has plenty of contact names in mind already. You won’t veto any of them because you’re positive they’ll stick.

“There.” You hand him the device. “My number’s saved.”

With a gasp, he stares at the screen with wide, disbelieving eyes. “Oh! Oh, how splendid! I will treasure this gift forever.”

“It’s not that special,” you start to say, but the rest of the argument dies in your throat. It is to him. Very special. You don’t want to take that away from him. “Don’t hesitate to text me. I’m always down to chat.”

“I shall text you every morning and night without fail. And every hour between then, too.”

“D-Don’t overdo it!”

“She says that, but she’ll enjoy every second of it,” Rollo cuts in, setting a fresh cup of tea down in front of Skully.

You hide in the ruffles of Skully’s oversized cloak. “I never said I was opposed to it…”

To think I was missing this all along. This warmth… It’s so sweet.

You waste the rest of the morning away with the both of them, laughing about whatever you can remember from last night’s Halloween.

“It may not have been very successful, and it certainly wasn’t my ideal Halloween,” Skully explains to Fellow and Gidel hours later, both of them rapt, “but it didn’t end in complete disaster.”

“All’s well that ends well,” Rollo applauds.

“Of course you would say that,” Fellow grumbles. “To be loved is to be changed apparently. What a scam.”

“Ah, that’s right. Seeing as our resident lovebirds have taken to the nest, I do recall someone owes me the sum we agreed upon. And Gidel is awaiting his art supplies. It’s only fair, no?”

Gidel, who is brimming with excitement on Skully’s behalf, a supportive mirror image of his joy, snaps over to give Fellow puppy eyes. To really sell it, he digs around in his pockets for a few halves of crayon. Your squirming boss is looking everywhere but at the two of them, sweating from head to toe.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” Fellow lifts his arms in timeout. “Why must we let our desires lead us? Shouldn’t we learn to live as minimalists? Repeat after me! Hi-diddle-dee-dee! A minimalist life for me.” When no one follows suit, he drops to his knees in desperate prostration. “Best two out of three? We can bet on whether they’ll stay together long enough to get married or if they’ll split along the way. How does that sound? Just peachy, yes? If we’re in agreement, just name the terms and then we shall see! I’ll double the payout. Gidel, you can have an easel and oil paints. Isn’t that much better than a few measly crayons? And Rollo—my fair friend, surely you’d rather pay rent for the next five months rather than just one?”

That was fast. He really has mastered the art of begging like a bitch baby, you think, folding your arms over your chest. A few customers glance at the spectacle, curiously attracted to the obnoxious whines of a grown man.

“You made a bet and you lost. I’m merely here to collect my promised payment, as is Gidel.”

“How’s about you get yourself something from the store? It’s on me!”

Rollo surveys the store and the major half-off sale that has descended over what’s left of this year’s stock. “I don’t celebrate Halloween.”

Gidel shoves the broken crayons at him. Neither is going to budge. It’s amusing in the way an old sitcom is, but the way they interact with each other makes them look more like puppets than people.

“Aaaaghh! You’re unrelenting!”

“Just give Rollo his money and Gidel his art supplies.” You prop your feet up on the counter, your back poised against the wall. Skully nods in agreement. “Begging only makes you look worse, Fellow.”

With a growl, he pushes himself up onto his feet. “Yes, yes. I suppose you have me cornered.” And then with a woeful sigh: “Skully, my boy, couldn’t you have waited until Christmas? The holiday is right around the corner according to every marketing scheme ever. Halloween isn’t even remotely romantic!”

Skully gasps, scandalized. “It is if you’re Lord Jack and Sally! Halloween is the most romantic holiday! Have you never heard of traditional gothic romance?” He huffs and turns his nose up. “You have much to learn, Mr. Honest.”

“You’d be ill-advised to argue Halloween with the Phantom of the Opera,” Rollo says, holding a hand out. He scowls behind his handkerchief. “My money, if you would.”

“All right, fine. Don’t give me any more trouble, you hear?”

“Perhaps next time you should have more faith when placing bets.”

He stuffs a handful of crumpled bills in Rollo’s palm, grumbling all the while. You watch your roommate count each one, double- and triple-checking to ensure it’s the correct amount.

Gidel blinks up at him, hammer raised in threat.

“Yes, Gidel, I’ll get you those supplies. You have my word.” Fellow heaves a withered sigh. “You little devils are so conniving.”

“You love us. Don’t lie.”

“We cherish you, too, Mr. Honest!”

“I suppose you’re not impossible to tolerate. A semi-sensible boss,” Rollo agrees, pocketing his well-earned cash.

Fellow huffs, face tinged pink, and refuses to look at any of you. “You’re all nothing but trouble. I can’t believe I’ve put up with you kids for another year. How many more can I take?”

That’s right. Halloween’s over. The store closes in a week, you realize with a start. It went by so fast, and so much has changed.

You look at your humble work family—because that’s exactly what they’ve become in the time you’ve known them—and feel a smile stretching. These are your people. Misfits who have struggled to find their footing in the world. You watch a smirking Rollo and Gidel playfully push all of Fellow’s buttons, with Skully occasionally chiming in with a comment of his own, and you can’t imagine working minimum wage with anyone else.

If someone told you you’d end this season with love, you’d have laughed in their face. Back then, the mere idea was preposterous! Lust has always been your prerogative—loveless desire placed on a towering pedestal, far enough from the blooms of romance cluttering at the base, desperate to claw their way up into your heart. It’s not a joke or an aversion anymore. It’s real. Your first relationship that isn’t built on intermittent sex.

You wonder if you’re still stuck in last night’s Halloween, drunk off your ass and on the verge of passing out. Maybe you did and this is all a surreal dream—a fantasy spun from the silky strands of your heartstrings.

It’s not. Thank the stars it’s not.

There’s a lot you don’t know about romance and what it takes to maintain a relationship with sentimental stakes. You’re not an expert and neither is Skully. Perhaps no one is. Perhaps there is no such thing as experts and perfection where love is concerned. It’s a mystery—one you won’t be investigating alone.

Glancing at Skully, who’s still without his glasses and has been squinting at things from afar ever since this morning, you realize he looks different like this. In his Halloween costume—something he wore exclusively for you—and with his autumnal eyes uncovered by his trademark shades.

He’s cute.

And he’s all yours.

What a magical thing.

The sticky, sweet smell of sugar cookies and gingerbread umbrellas the apartment, cloying like dew on grassy lands in the first rays of sun. A cinnamon-scented candle mixes with the natural scent of the balsam fir positioned in a corner of the sitting room. It reeks of Christmas in here—of commercialized cheer and festive fun—like Santa Claus crash-landed through the door and spattered against the walls in a smattering of good tidings and season’s greetings.

Rollo was against a real tree at first, grousing over the mess and all the work, but even he couldn’t remain a grouchy Scrooge for long. He always softens around the holidays, which makes it easier to exploit his tender heart. And so together, while blasting a playlist of Christmas tunes at full volume, you hung ornaments and strung lights and garland along the full, fragrant boughs.

“We used to do this a lot,” he told you as he placed the star at the very top, and you turned the speaker down to hear him. “Before my brother… Ahem. My father would lift him onto his shoulders and he’d be the one to put the star on the tree.” He smiled at it, his eyes glazed in reminiscence. “And what a luminous star it is.”

You pulled him in for a reassuring side hug. “It’s gonna be a good holiday. Your brother would love it. He’d like that you’re carrying on the star tradition, too.”

Rollo hummed, and for the next few minutes you stood and admired the tree in peace.

Now you’re weeks into December and basking in the break from school. Normally you’d take this time to catch up on lost sleep, wasting the hours away into late afternoon in a comforting cocoon of blankets, aimlessly scrolling through your phone, but today you’re up plenty early. Excitement buzzes through you, even more so when you sniff the air and come away with all kinds of mouthwatering smells. You jump out of bed at the sound of “Last Christmas” and throw on a slim-fitting white sweater and a red jumper skirt with fur trim. After gliding through your makeup routine, you pucker your ruby-red lips in the mirror and fit a Santa hat on your head. It matches the peppermint patterns on this month’s set of acrylics.

You find Rollo hunched over the counter, wearing an apron and garnishing the Yule log with red currants and fondant mushrooms. He sprinkles icing sugar over the cake to give the impression of snowfall.

“You’ve outdone yourself.” Whistling, you examine the counters crowded with all kinds of dishes—some native to Rollo’s hometown and others from your favorite recipes. “Santa’s Little Helper works so hard. I hope you got some sleep.”

He smacks your hand away when you reach to pluck a berry from the cake. “This is nothing. Besides, I’m almost certain Skully’s going to bring snacks.”

“Probably.” Pouting, you cradle your hand and feign hurt. It’s ineffective against the no-nonsense Rollo Flamme. “You should’ve seen the way his parents lit up when he introduced me last month. You’d think he was telling them about how he won the lottery or something—the way they couldn’t stop gawping. I guarantee they’re sending him over with a tray of something to repay the favor.”

“Good. And I hope that Fellow sticks to his promise of bringing an appetizer.”

“He will. Gidel’ll make sure of it.” You sniff your wrist and frown. “Do I look okay? Am I overdoing it? Too much perfume?”

Rollo glances at you. “It’s Christmas. Everyone overdoes it.”

“I know, I know. But… I dunno. It’s my first major holiday with Skulls and I don’t wanna look like I’m trying too hard.”

Rollo places the glass dome over the cake and sets it off to the side. “Isn’t that the whole point?”

“You’re not helping. Do I look nice, at least?”

“You look very nice.” And then he ducks down to check the cookies in the oven. “Why are you so worried? Skully will appreciate you and your efforts regardless.”

“That’s just it! What if I look just okay? I’m not saying he has to drool over me, but if he shows up looking like a prince and I look like a bog monster—”

A sharp rap at the door shakes you out of your spiraling ramble. You and Rollo look between each other and then at the door. He starts for it and you throw yourself into his path to intercept him.

“Wait! I’m not ready. Put a different song on—something to hype me up. Like Michael Bublé’s Christmas album! I need his confidence.”

“(Name), you’ll be fine.”

He strides past you, but you race the rest of the way to get to the door before he can. Wrenching it open, your heart sprouts wings like Icarus…and then immediately burns away at the sight of Fellow and Gidel. Temporarily relieved, you usher them in with a welcoming grin.

“Happy holidays!” You bend down to Gidel’s height and ruffle his hair. He beams up at you, his face half-hidden in a scarf that seems to swallow him whole. “Are you excited for Santa, Gidel?”

He nods and, digging through his pockets, pulls out a crumpled list. You read through the shaky misspellings (and the added corrections from Fellow) and your heart melts. It’s so wholesome. He wants art supplies, carrots for the reindeer, a new sewing kit for Fellow, books, a new hat…

“This is a great list! I’m sure you’ll get everything you want and more.”

“Now why can’t there be a Santa for adults?” Fellow huffs. “I’d love for the big man to come down and shovel my walkway or pay my bills. Winter Wonderland, they say, and yet I’m more frozen than the tundra!” He shakes himself out of his coat, which Rollo gracefully hangs on the nearby rack. He takes Gidel’s winter wear next. “Merry Christmas, both of you. I’ve brought apples.” Looking quite proud, he holds out the bag.

“Nice to see you, too, Fellow.” You lean in to embrace him and he returns the gesture merrily. “I hope the winter’s been kind to you and Gidel.”

“You’re too kind, dearie.”

“You didn’t think to do anything with the apples?”

“Now that, my fine friend, is where your imagination comes in! An apple is a very versatile fruit.” Fellow plucks one from the bag and, after shining it on his sweater, takes a greedy bite. “To some, it’s just an apple, but to others it could be candied or turned into pie. Limitless possibilities.”

“Hmm. Well, thank you for this. I’ll wash them and put them out with the rest.”

“Make yourselves comfy,” you add.

“Oh, and by the way… Would you assure (Name) she looks the furthest thing from a bog monster?”

“What’s this about a monster?” Fellow peers at you, incredulous, while he helps Gidel out of his winter boots.

Embarrassment flashes through you. “N-Not important! Don’t listen to Rollo.”

“She’s fretting over her appearance.”

You bark out a sudden laugh. “Who said anything about that? Me, fretting? No way. I’m just…conscious of today and everything. You know how it is.” You wring the hem of your dress. “It has nothing to do with fretting.”

The three of them—yes, even Gidel—look on with mutual disbelief. Fellow’s the first to break the silence.

“You’ve been together for—how long has it been now?—a month or so, and now you’re afraid of these things?”

“It’s been one month, three weeks, and three days, actually, and I’m not afraid.” You scoff. “Christmas is a big deal for couples. At least, I think it is. If the movies are to be trusted—”

“Miss (Name), take it from me—”

“I’m not sure I want to.”

“Holiday romance is a scam—ack!” Gidel jabs Fellow in the side for that. He clears his throat before carrying on. “But! But, but, but—I’ll be the first to tell you that that boy loves you more than anything, be it during the holidays or on a regular day. Bog monster or not.”

Nodding quickly, Gidel points at you, poses like Skully, and then forms a heart with his hands.

“Based on what we saw of his poetry, he’d probably salivate if you became a monster,” Rollo says, and you can’t refute his claim. “So what’s really plaguing you?”

Sometimes you hate how easily Rollo can read you.

“I haven’t told him I love him. We’ve been together all this time and he showers me in it—it’s obvious—but I haven’t been able to say those words myself. I don’t know why.”

You miss the way they all facepalm.

“I don’t want him to think I don’t feel the same—because I do! I love him to bits. Just…how? How to put those three words into a sentence, and how to say that sentence to him?”

“‘I love you, Skully’. Easy. Wouldn’t you agree, Gidel?”

He stalls around a nod.

“If only.” Rollo sighs. “You show your appreciation for him in other ways. I’m sure he understands.”

“But I think he’d like to hear it. Anyone would.”

“Lucky for you, Skully isn’t ‘anyone,’” Fellow remarks, patting you on the shoulder.

Still… It’d be nice to say it.

Just then, a rhythmic knock resounds. You look to Rollo for help, but he, Fellow, and Gidel have retreated to the oven to pull the cookies out. Why it’s a two-man-plus-spectator job, you don’t know.

The door opens to reveal Santa. A much thinner, lankier version, but Santa nonetheless. With a beaming smile and a hearty chortle, Santa Skully announces his arrival.

“Merry Christmas to you, my dear! You look as lovely as always.” He grabs hold of your hands and pulls you in, kissing each of your cheeks in turn. “Simply ravishing.”

You’re hot down to your toes. The cold air from outside helps regulate your temperature, if only for the moment.

We literally went on a date last week and yet I can’t stop myself.

“You look very handsome, as always.” You tug him down to your height to return his smooches with some of your own, placing one directly on his mouth. You linger long enough to leave him reeling with rekindled cravings. “I hope I’m on Sandy Claws’s nice list this year.”

“Let’s see,” he teases in a singsong, pretending to unfurl an imaginary scroll. He scans it for a few seconds and then leans in to whisper, “Sandy Claws says you’re just shy of naughty, but we can arrange a solution.”

“It won’t be an easy fix.”

“Then aren’t I lucky to have a wonderful soul such as yourself to call my own? A little naughtiness never hurts.”

Fuuuuck. I love him.

With a giggle, you release him and pat his suit down. “Everyone’s already here. Let’s get back inside before we freeze.”

“We wouldn’t want you to become Frozen Charlotte. Beautiful as you would be, I quite like you warm and alive.”

“As do I.”

You step aside to let Skully in. He hauls a red sack through the door. “Good day, wonderful people! Happy holidays and Merry Christmas!”

“Skully, my boy, you made it!” Fellow slinks over to shake his hand. “A very merry one to you as well.”

You shut the door to keep the cold out and watch as he takes his turn greeting everyone.

“I’ve brought gifts for everyone, and my parents sent me with a treat for today’s gathering. They send their well wishes and regards, each one baked into this tantalizing treacle tart.” Carefully, he pulls it from the bag, wrapped delicately in foil, and passes it to Rollo. “It’s my mother’s own recipe. I wish I could take the credit, but unfortunately I’m still learning how to bake.”

“I’ll be sure to send them a card to express my thanks.”

“Why, I’m honored, Mr. Rollo! They would love nothing more.”

“Ooh, a tart? Now that sounds scrumptious. What say we tear into the food, Gidel?”

Gidel agrees with two thumbs raised.

“If you fill up on sweets now, you’ll never have the appetite for dinner,” Rollo scolds.

“By the time the food’s done cooking, we’ll be plenty hungry. And we have lots of stuff to do to pass the time.” You make a vague sweeping gesture with your hand. “Decorating cookies, making gingerbread houses, watching movies… It’ll be fine.”

No one’s going to argue with that. And even if they were about to, the delightful Christmas music puts everyone in bright spirits.

While you and Rollo prepare the main courses, Fellow, Skully, and Gidel clear the table to make space for trays of now-cooled cookies and gingerbread. A rainbow of frostings and various toppings are set down next.

“A very smart use of your guests’ labor,” Fellow comments, but he doesn’t have any credibility when he’s clearly putting his soul into crafting a little bow for his gingerbread man. And then he catches Gidel’s arm before his sleeve can drape into one of the bowls. “Be careful! Now what have I told you about rolling up your sleeves when you’re going to be working?”

He sets his cookie down and turns in his chair to help Gidel fold his sleeves back. He’s given a grateful smile in return.

“What do you think of mine so far, dear Gidel? I’m recreating Lord Jack’s terrifying likeness in cookie form! Ooh, are you decorating yours based on Mr. Honest? How darling!”

Skulls, you’re a delight. I hope you know that.

“What is it?” Rollo asks.

“I’m thinking,” you reply absently, gazing at your reflection in the oven. The Christmas ham cooks within.

“How dangerous.”

“I really like him, Rollo. It’s one thing to show it, but I want to be able to tell him. I want to say it and not feel so…insecure. Yeah, that. That word fits.”

We’ve gone on dates, we kiss, we hold hands, we have sex. He tells me I’m pretty and I melt. I give him all kinds of things because I like spoiling him. I’m going to spend Christmas Day with him and his parents. Everything we do is lovey-dovey, so why can’t I say it? It’s not like it’s a forbidden phrase.

It was for most of your life, though, and that’s the crux of the problem. The phrase has negative connotations. It’s been weaponized in the past, a verbal dagger meant to carve at your chest. Even now, a month into your relationship, you can’t tamp down the surprise whenever Skully lavishes you with that three-word phrase. Over and over, as if it’ll imprint itself on your soul if spoken enough. He means everything he says—each iteration of fondness. You wish you could be so unfaltering in your approach. You wish you could just scream the words because they’re trapped inside your ribs and you desperately want them out. You want Skully to know.

“I’m glad everyone can come together like this,” you say instead, and thankfully Rollo doesn’t press the matter. “We should get together to celebrate the New Year, too.”

“So long as our schedules align.”

“As if Fellow’s gonna be too busy for a free meal.”

For the rest of the day, you decide it isn’t worth it to sweat over the complications of love. You can do that after the holidays. Or later tonight when you’re alone with your thoughts in the shower. Either way, now’s not the time.

I’m too pretty to stress over this.

Somehow it works. You’re beginning to wonder if procrastination (alongside a dusting of delusion) really is the solution to all of life’s issues. Maybe not a long-term fix, but it provides temporary relief from the demons haunting your every thought.

I’ll say it once I’m ready, you catch yourself thinking hours later while Skully feeds you. Mindlessly, you open your mouth to receive another spoonful of whatever’s on his plate. There’s not a time limit on stuff like this. It’s not like I have to say it today or tomorrow or two weeks from now.

“I really should capitalize on Christmas…” Fellow announces, mostly to himself, as he peers out the snow-frosted window. “This town grows so soft during the holidays. It seems far more profitable than Halloween.”

“We can dress Lord Jack up as Sandy Claws and have him pose in the very front!” Skully suggests, pausing midway to accept a bite from your fork. “Wouldn’t that be marvelous?”

“Hmm. There’s potential.” A flicker of mischief spots Rollo’s green hues. “You could play mall Santa and listen to everyone’s Christmas wishes.”

Fellow laughs and cuts into the slab of glazed ham on his plate. “Sounds to me like someone’s offering to stand in as an elf.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying!” You slam your hand down on the table. “He’s Santa’s Little Helper! Who’s with me? Gidel?”

Said boy is looking at Rollo with hope painted across his youthful face. Any initial objection Rollo had promptly vanishes at the sight. He sighs loudly behind his napkin.

“Ask me again next year and then we’ll see.”

“I didn’t hear a no! Did you, Skulls?”

“We can all dress up together! How lovely!”

“Then it’s settled. Santa’s Workshop will open for business next holiday season!” Fellow raises his glass in toast, and the rest of you follow suit.

“Cheers to that!”

Some time later, while you and Skully exchange gifts with Gidel, Fellow and Rollo slip out of the room. You don’t realize they’re gone until it’s just the three of you, Skully’s chatter filling the space and tricking you into believing there are more people present. It’s not like them to scheme so collaboratively, and they’re not going to pick at the desserts. Suspicion crawls up your back and spins its web in your chest. Those two are up to something. You’re sure of it.

“This one’s for you.” Skully’s voice draws you back to the present. He hands you a tiny box with a bow. “From dear Gidel.”

“For me? Oh, that’s very kind of you.” You peel the lid back and lift a beaded necklace with an accompanying drawing from inside. It’s of you and Gidel holding hands, happy smiles and flowers all around. “This is beautiful! Did you make this yourself?”

He nods, face flushed with pure happiness. You fasten it around your neck, swelling with pride the whole time.

“It suits you well. An excellent job, dear Gidel! And your art looks exquisite. You’ve captured my darling’s radiant smile.” Skully pushes his gift into Gidel’s hands. “Here—open mine next!”

The packaging remains intact for all of five seconds before it’s shredded to pieces. Inside are an artist’s sketchbook and a how-to art guide. Gidel’s mouth falls open at the sight of them.

“I thought you could use something a little more professional. Notebooks are great to start with, but a real sketchbook suits our budding artist even better!”

He hugs both books to his chest and then, setting them down, throws his arms around Skully.

“You’re very welcome! I await the masterpieces that shall soon grace these pristine pages.” He places his hat on Gidel’s head. “Nurture that imaginative spirit of yours and never stop creating.”

“Miss (Name), would you be a dear and come here for a second? Rollo needs you for something,” Fellow calls from just down the hall.

And then Rollo, in a hushed hiss: “Fool! You’re supposed to call Skully first!”

“Oh, pish-posh. They may as well be one body, the way those two fawn over each other.”

“Just be quiet!”

These idiots… you think and shake your head, amused with their antics.

“I’ll be right back.”

You kiss Skully’s cheek and pat Gidel’s head, and then you’re rising to your feet to tromp down the hall towards your bedroom. You’re not sure what to expect when you round the corner and find the both of them there. And nothing’s amiss. Your suspicion triples, and you cast a dubious glance between them.

“Okay, you two, what’re you doing? It’s not like you to plan…whatever’s happening here. Hold on. What is happening?”

“Call it a Christmas miracle, dearie.”

“Or a favor. Whichever is sweeter on the tongue.”

You roll your eyes and that’s when you spot it. The mistletoe hanging from your doorframe.

“All right, Gidel, you can bring Lover Boy over!”

Right on cue, Gidel drags a sputtering Skully along.

“What’s this about? Dear Gidel? Mr. Honest? Mr. Rollo?” He looks at each of them. “Is this a surprise? Am I meant to cover my eyes?”

He’s brought in front of you. Gidel grabs both of your hands and forces them together.

“Merry Christmas, you two,” Rollo says as he departs for the sitting room, where a few gifts still linger untouched beneath the tree.

“Three words,” Fellow reminds you with a hum. He mouths them to you as he passes: You got this.

Even Gidel offers you an encouraging thumbs-up before he, too, skips after Fellow.

“I’m not sure I follow…”

“Look up, Skulls.”

He turns his bespectacled gaze skyward and gapes at the mistletoe. “Oh… Ohhh! Did they put this up for us?”

“Seems like it.”

Awkward silence gathers in the hall.

“Should we kiss?”

“We should kiss.”

“Ah, sorry. You first.” You shrink away, but Skully holds firm to your hands.

“I would be honored to kiss you.” And then he squeals. “Aah, it’s really mistletoe! My first kiss under the mistletoe with my sweetheart!”

He leans in, but you’re not ready. You can’t kiss him until you’ve told him. Until you’ve uttered three magic words.

“Skully, wait!”

He pauses. “Is… Is something the matter?”

You steel yourself. “I… There’s something I want to tell you.”

“I’m listening. You can tell me anything, my dear. Anything.”

“Okay. Cool. Good.” Where the fuck am I going with this? Words. Love. Right. “I know we haven’t been together very long—I’m hoping we stay together forever—and you’ve always been so expressive about your feelings. Heart on your sleeve and all that. But I… I’m not the best at this and I know it’s painfully evident, but I’m really happy to call you mine because you get it. You get me. And I guess I’m the luckiest girl alive to have someone like you. No, not guess. I know I’m the luckiest. Wait, that’s not the point I’m trying to make. Ugh. This is so rambly. Sorry, sorry. The point I’m trying to make is…”

I love you. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone and I need to say it. I need you to know.

Skully’s hand grasps your chin and turns your head back to face him. The contact—his warm palm, soft fingers, gentle, magnetic touch—reminds you of why you feel these things. Tongue-tied, buoyant on a sea of clouds, always strung up in the wonderful web that is romance.

“I’m sorry I’m so bad at this. I wanted to say it the first day I realized it, but I couldn’t. I was scared and maybe I still am, but I want to tell you.” You inhale a deep breath. “Skully, I… I really, really… Really, really, really—”

He sweeps you against him, his lips on yours for but a breath. “I know,” he murmurs, closing his hand around yours. “I love you, too. And until you feel comfortable saying it out loud, I’ll continue to echo the sentiment. Now and onwards.”

You stare at him. The first tear tracks down your cheek and then another. Before you can stop yourself, you’re crying. He smiles in that sweet, sympathetic, Skully way. It sculpts your heart into a candle, and the wax organ weeps all over your ribs. Messy. But you wouldn’t have it any other way.

“No fair… You’re too cool and I’m a mess.”

Thumbing your tears away, he cradles your face in both hands like a saint. “The Spider Queen is always cool and so is my darling (Name). I will always think so.”

“Even when I’m a dreadful mess?”

“Especially when you’re a dreadful mess because that, too, is beautiful. Dreadfully beautiful.”

“You’re seriously amazing… I adore you, Skulls.”

Glassy-eyed and sniffling, you yank him in for a starved kiss underneath the mistletoe.

You might not be able to say those three words right now, but this comes close.

It’s love all the same.

#twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #skully j graves x reader #skully x reader #n/sfw

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takamimami · 4 months ago

Note

Hello!

Congratulations on your 100 followers 🥳!!!!!

I'd like to ask you Kid with prompt 12: "You make me a better person." f!reader please 😉

Hi anons!! I apologize for this taking so long - I got hit with some vicious PMDD the past two weeks and had ZERO motivation to do anything at all, let alone write. I wanted to make sure I could give you something I was proud of - and I can gladly say that I did just that :3 I hope you enjoy the read, and thanks again for your submissions!!

Kidd x F!Reader - SFW - "You make me a better person." - STORY UNDER THE CUT CW: FLUFF; kidd proposes, bro is a bumbling idiot in the cutest way ever, I'm so hopelessly in love with him help me, gentle kidd will be the death of me ---word count 1.7k

It’d been four days since you’d seen Kidd.

Four days.

The occasional disappearance of your captain had come to be expected, seeing as the man needed his alone time to decompress from time to time, but four days were impressive even for him.

Especially considering that the entire time the crew had been out at sea, meaning you were never more than a few yards away from him at any given point.

You’d begun to contemplate asking Killer if he had fallen overboard without anyone noticing when a disheveled head of red hair burst into the kitchen, grumbling in Killer’s direction and motioning for him to follow him.

You stood up and Kidd’s eyes snapped to you, the intensity in them causing your step to falter. When you stopped moving his eyes shifted to Killer, who then turned to face you and reached an arm out to rest a hand on your shoulder.

“Y/N, listen,” he starts, and Kidd disappears through the door as he blocks you from following after him.

“This isn’t going to make any sense, but just… don’t follow him right now, okay?”

Your brows furrowed and you inhaled deeply to protest, but Killer continued before you had a chance to offer your rebuttal.

“I know,” he sighs, hands waving in the air in front of him, “I know. He’s… I don’t even know what to tell you is up with him right now. Just, leave him be for a bit longer, okay?”

The concern must have been evident on your face because Killer returned his hand to your shoulder, rubbing it in an attempted reassuring gesture.

“Did… did I do something?” Your voice was shaky with concern, but much to your surprise Killer lets out a laugh at your question.

A laugh.

“Technically… yes,” he chuckles, and despite your confusion, the answer manages to loosen the tension that had built in your shoulders.

“Just… trust me, okay? I promise you it will be worth the wait.”

You swear you can see him wink at you through his mask as he turns and walks out of the kitchen and toward where Kidd disappeared.

You took a deep breath before returning to your task at hand, and once you’d finished the dishes you wiped down the counters before heading up to the crow’s nest to relieve Bubblegum for the night.

You brought a book with you to distract you from the nagging thoughts of Kidd, but it did little to calm the tempest of thoughts swirling in your head. You found yourself replaying your last encounters with your lover in your head to try to figure out what had triggered this reaction from him, but you came up empty-handed with every scenario, inevitably ending up flipping through the pages of your book as you desperately try to get a grip of your mind.

You continue this cycle until the sun finally starts to peek up over the edge of the water and House greets you with a sleepy smile at the crow’s nest door, signaling the end of your watch shift.

You scaled the ladder quickly and disappeared below deck, hoping a shower and a nap would help ease your mind enough to let you fall asleep before tending to your afternoon duties.

As you pull open the door to your and Kidd’s cabin, you are startled to find him sitting on the edge of your bed, his head resting on his hands – which are resting on his knees.

You curled an eyebrow at him curiously as you crossed the room, not sure what reaction you would get from him as you leaned in to press a soft kiss to his temple.

“Hi,” you greet him quietly, the timidness in your voice causing him to look up at you with weary eyes.

“Hey.”

You stand before him for a moment before deciding to continue with your original plan, turning to move for the bathroom door.

“I’m going to shower and get some sleep,” you mumble, looking back over your shoulder to survey Kidd. He just simply nods, making no effort to move from his spot on the bed.

You shuffle through the room in search of a towel, slinging one over your shoulder once you find it and reaching for the door handle of the bathroom.

“Did I do something?”

Your movements stop as you let the question fall from your lips, unable to bear this tension any longer. You don’t turn to look at Kidd, instead you keep your eyes trained on the bathroom door before you until you hear his weight shift on the bed behind you.

A strong arm snakes around your waist and before you have time to protest you’re being turned around to face him, a shit-eating grin plastered on his face as you look up at him.

First, Killer… now him?

“What the fuck is so fun-?!”

Your words are cut off as his lips connect to yours, your irritation dissolving as his teeth pull your bottom lip in between his own. He bites down lightly and your lips part for him, his tongue pressing inside your mouth and tangling with your own.

The kiss is soft and short, and a heartbeat later Kidd is pulling away from you, tugging your hand into his as he leads you toward the door.

“Where are we going?”

“Shush,” he grunts, pulling you out into the hall and up onto the deck of the Victoria Punk. You follow him up the stairs of the helm, his steps finally coming to a halt as he reaches the railing.

The sunrise pulls your attention as you listen to the sound of waves crashing against the hull of the ship, the distraction only temporary as Kidd drops your hand and starts digging through his pockets.

“What the fuck is going on, Kidd?”

He stops fumbling around and looks at you, eyes softer than usual as he speaks.

“I was supposed to wait until we docked, but I don’t want to anymore,” he starts, pulling a crinkled piece of paper from his pocket.

He clears his throat and holds the paper out in front of him, eyes scanning over the words on it before he clears his throat.

“Y/N,” he starts, his voice slightly wobbly, “I’ve tried to figure out how the hell I wanted to do this for months now, and every time I thought I had a good idea, I ended up hating it and going back to the drawing board.”

Footsteps on the staircase behind you pull your attention, but just as quickly as he appears, Killer disappears back down the stairs, as if he’d stumbled upon something he wasn’t supposed to.

Kid grunts before reaching for your hand, pulling your gaze back to him as he starts to speak again.

“I sat at my desk for hours trying to put the perfect words onto this paper, and the longer I tried the more stupid it sounded. Ugh, wait - not stupid,” he runs his hand through his hair in distress. “This isn’t stupid, that’s not what I meant, I jus-”

You reach out and cup his face in your hand, a small reassuring smile curling onto your lips as a single tear pools in the corner of your eye as you realize what is happening.

Kid grunts again, sighing heavily as he leans into your touch, “I’m sorry,” he breathes, crumpling the piece of paper and letting it fall to the floor, “I don’t know the right words to say, so I’m not going to sit here and read you some script off of a piece of paper.”

He pulls his face from your hand and kneels down to the floor, at the same time that the first tear falls down your cheek. He shoves his hand in his pocket and reaches for your left hand with his metal one, eyes growing slightly hazy as he looks up at you.

“I-I don’t know how you did it, but you managed to make me rethink e-everything in my life,” he stumbles through the words, “I still don’t think I deserve to have you by my side, but I thank the gods they dropped you in my lap that night because I don’t know where or who I would be if I hadn’t met you.”

“You’ve loved every version of me, unconditionally, and without intentionally trying, you made me a better person – a better version of myself. Which is pretty impressive because I was already pretty fucking great when you met me.”

You let out a choked laugh, though it sounds more like a sob due to the tears now streaming down your cheeks as you stare at the ring resting in Kidd’s hand.

“All I know,” he says after chuckling to himself, “Is that I want you… I need you by my side, forever.”

Your heart stills as Kidd raises his hand, revealing the ring he’d spent the last three nights perfecting for you, unbeknownst to you.

He slides the ring on your finger and you realize your hands are shaking, you bring your hand up to your face and admire the craftsmanship of the ring for a moment, before dropping your hand back down to his and staring down at him through bleary eyes.

“So is this you asking me to marry you?”

Your question makes Kidd’s smile drop, and he cocks a brow at you as he looks between you and the ring.

“Isn’t that obvious?”

You ignore the attitude in his tone and smirk at him, cocking your hip to the side as you cross your arms.

“You didn’t ask the question,” you muse, smirk growing as he rolls his eyes, “Or do I not get a choice in the matter?”

He smirks at that suggestion and stands, wrapping an arm around your waist as he pulls you into his embrace.

“Glad you know that ‘No’ isn’t an option here,” he teases, leaning down and pressing a quick and gentle kiss to your lips. He pulls back slightly and meets your gaze, his eyes sparkling from the glow of the distant sunrise.

“Will you?”

“Will I, what?”

Kidd pinches your side and you yelp, giggling as he squeezes you in his arm tighter.

“Marry me, brat.”

You fling your arms around his neck as a fresh set of tears begin to fall, crashing your lips into his. You feel his shoulders relax as he deepens the kiss, twirling your fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck as he pulls back from you moments later.

“Of course I will, asshole.”

100 Follower Event Masterlist ✨come say hai :3✨

#100 follower special #limitlessevents - 100 followers #limitlesswrites #limitlessanswers #eustass kid x reader #eustass x reader #eustass kidd x reader #eustass kid x you #eustass kidd x you #eustass kid #eustass captain kidd #one piece #op #supernova trio #supernova captains #ek fluff

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gibsongirled · 8 months ago

Text

PROS & CONS !!

description: you begrudgingly go to a con, but gained a friend from it.

a/n: i have never been to a con, so please excuse the inconsistencies :3

You were out of place. But so was everyone else. Maybe. Probably.

Anyone within ten feet of you could see that by the way you navigated the event floor. Wonder and awe were the two emotions that painted across your face, a biting feeling of anxiety was also brewing at the pit of your stomach, but you shoved it down until you couldn’t feel much of it. Was it working? Not really, but you’ll manage. You always did. You pushed through the crowds of fans and other content creators, feeling like you were a sardine in a can. You apologized to those who you accidentally bumped or elbowed while crossing the sea of people.

You hadn’t even considered going - you saw the tickets going up for sale months ago - the idea of even attending was the furthest from your mind. But your friend had spam texted you that morning, saying that they had an extra badge and that the person they were going with was sick with the flu and didn’t want to risk it. So you obliged, it was a chance to get out of the house and not spend your weekend bedrotting. Plus you were being a good friend and your friend definitely didn’t want their money to go to waste.

As soon as you walked in, your friend had disappeared two seconds after you two arrived, the crowd taking them away like the sea. You debated turning back on your heel and walking back to the car or just place yourself away from the crowds, but you did promise your friend that you were going to try and have fun. You still knew how to have fun, right?

And now here you were; standing around and waiting for your friend like a fish out of water. “You look outta place,” a voice spoke up beside you, causing you to jump in surprise. You looked up at the stranger, making a confused face and the stranger just smiled. He looked familiar in a way, but you internally shrugged it off. You probably passed him on the street and just didn’t remember him. You chuckled softly at his comment, knowing that you probably had some kind of imaginary sign lighting up above you - like the Sims - indicating that you were new to the scene.

“A bit,” you say, giving him a wry smile, your name quickly falling right after.

He hums at that, “Schlatt.”

And then suddenly, like puzzle pieces locking together, your eyes widen at the mere mention of his name. So that’s why he looked familiar! You internally chided at yourself, hearing the ‘tsks’ in the form of your friend’s voice. Oh they were going to be so surprised. Here you were talking to a guy who was famous than you and your friend combined, and the only thing you could think about is how you could actively fuck it up.

A couple of minutes pass with the two of you talking about random things you could possibly think about. You giggled at a few of his jokes, finding amusement in the banter that was going on between you two. You heard your friend call out your name and you made an apologetic face, frowning at the conversation suddenly being cut short.

“I have to go,” you say, fidgeting slightly with the badge as you make small steps back, “it was really nice talking to you.”

“Hey, wait.” Schlatt calls out and you look at him with a slight cock of your head. “Are you goin’ t’ be here tomorrow?”

Well, you thought that today was a done deal, but talking to him was kind of chill. Plus, your friend’s going to come again tomorrow, so you may as well tag along with them. To see more of the event. And talk to him, of course.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

You nod, giving him a beaming smile. “Yeah!”

#— writing #jschlatt x reader #schlatt x reader #jschlatt x you #schlatt x you

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2005noroithecurse · 1 year ago

Text

↳ MEA CULPA

Latin - an acknowledgement of ones fault or error, often said in apology

› my contribution to the sicko satoru agenda brought to u by nyquil & fever dreams <3

› yandere satoru x f!reader

› word count : 2.5k+

warnings : rilegious imagery, masturbation f & m mentioned, voyeurism, stalking, panty stealing, home invasion technically, hes mad obsessive, noncon revoked consent, taking advantage of a drunk person, alcohol consumption, satoru is a bit of a sadist & a masochist to me, creampie, prone bone, backshots, reader has hair long enough to pull, installing spyware on someone's phone

If there is such a thing as a soulmate Satoru knows you're his. Knew it from the very first moment he saw you buying coffee on that mid thaw spring day. He hadn't been able to ignore the ever growing thump of his heart in his ears, hadn't been able to forget the way you looked, nor how your eyes had lingered on him for a second longer than what was considered polite. The instant intrigue had him snared, helpless against the trap that was you.

Without a doubt you're what keeps his heart beating.

The sweetness that permeates your whole being sates him better than any treat could hope to. He sees it in the way you often chat with your next door neighbor if you two pass by either coming or going, a kind smile on your face or even an indulgent giggle here or there. Its in the way you stop to pet a stray cat on your walk back to your car, scratching under its chin as you coo at it.

He'd be lying if he said it didn't make something ugly twist in his gut, it should be him that gets to hear your laughter, him that you fawn over and speak so softly too. It's jealousy, he's aware enough to recognize it but couldn't ever bring himself to admit it makes his jaw clench and his fingers ache to cause some unfortunate mishap with your neighbor. The little cat would find itself whisked to a shelter, no longer diverting your attention on your way home.

But by far his favorite thing about you, and what makes him forget all about that foul envy constricting around his mind like a cobra, is seeing you in the waning hours of the evening when your bedroom glows faintly orange from the soft lamp at your bedside.

Never had the act of undressing looked so religious. His hands shake with pure need, the need to trace every plane of your skin and map you with his lips. When you lay down his breath catches in his throat, your hand disappearing between your legs has him groaning softly from just beyond the windowpane.

Self pleasure as some divine ritual with him as the figure observing the rite, breathless at every expression you make while your fingers play with your pussy until you're cumming and your lips part. He hopes his name will be the prayer that completes the sacrament, that one day he'll be lapping up your arousal to drip like wine down his throat instead of feeling himself spill into his own hands outside the confines of your home.

Still, Satoru finds your most convenient quality is that you don't possess much situational awareness. You never notice the aquamarine eyes peering into your window, nor the second shadow that follows you down streets. He's abundantly thankful you've never noticed a presence in your home: the one that switches on a second alarm so you're never over sleeping, or how many pairs of your underwear have been stuffed into his pockets, and have never woken to his lips ghosting over your forehead as you rest.

The feeling you give him is like when swallowing a shot of tequila, the straight burn up and down the throat and the accompanied warmth that spreads in the cheeks and chest. He almost giggles as he traces a finger along the bridge of your nose in the hazy dark of your bedroom, a lovesick smile on his face.

Getting you here hadn't been a big task at all, it's jarring how open to suggestion you are when you're drunk. It was easy, with smooth words and his natural overconfident air, to make you believe in a matter of seconds that of course he knew the friends that had left you at the bar. Of course, he'd been there all along, you must not have noticed silly girl. You were so cheery getting into his car, so open and gregarious. All too happy to have the convenient ride home.

"Have we met before?"

The question had stopped him dead, it felt like the second an airplane cockpit experiences violent decompression: all air sucked out and the flight left doomed.

That is, until he turned at the red light to see you drunkenly ogling him. Your eyes, even unfocused from the booze, didn't fail to notice that he was tall, well built, nor did it escape him the way you looked a second too long at his crotch and thighs. It made him feel like a blushy teenager again, the magic of you.

"Hm, maybe here or there," he said noncommittally, after all he had to keep up appearances as a mutual friend.

"Well, I'd remember someone as gorgeous as you," you giggle, clearly feeling the liquid courage blooming inside your head. Fortunate that it also blotted out your memory of seeing him at the coffee shop in the very beginning.

It was adorable, Satoru swears he's never seen anything on this earth as whimsically beautiful as you.

After a bit of flirtatious banter coupled with the drive lulling you into a drunken stupor he gets you right where he wants you: hanging off his arm like he's all that kept you standing as he guided you to your house. Luckily you never stopped to ask how he knew where your house was to begin with.

His lips find yours as soon as he walks you into your bedroom, the tang of leftover liquor on your tongue does nothing to dampen how sugary you taste. It made his head spin, cradling you in his arms and keeping you so firmly pressed against himself it was as if he were trying to merge you two completely.

You'd been just as starved, fingers winding through his ghost white hair and it had made his brain short out- touching you so freely was something he'd only fantasized about for the last six months, only allowing himself the barest of touches when he would slip into your already familiar bedroom, and this time there was no anxiety fizzing on the edges of his mind.

"Satoru," you'd sighed against his lips, nuzzling your nose to his while his saliva glistened on your lips. You'd pressed back into him, hands roaming his muscled back as he pressed sloppy, open mouth kisses to your throat. Your voice had been so low with lust it made him hard instantly, straining against his pants.

Visions danced across his mind, the way you'd sound beneath him, the way your ass would feel in his hands, what it would feel like to grope your chest and finally, finally be inside you, making you squeeze around his cock and cum until you're braindead. It was all right there, you were right there for the taking.

"Please just fuck me," you whined against his cheek and he could've cum before you finished speaking. Its the four words he ached to hear, they made him groan against your bruised skin as his hands slipped beneath your shirt to snake upwards, squeezing your breasts through your bra.

Desperation practically bled from his hands as he pushed you down onto the bed, grinning wildly climbing over you, his tongue sliding across yours as he tugged down your pants and underwear, yanked up your top and nearly ripped the bra from your chest.

You'd yelped into his mouth, clearly hadn't anticipated his movements to mimic those of an over eager animal tearing into prey. It hadn't deterred you though, hunger the constant note in all of the frantic little movements of your hands and the way your lips moved against his, all teeth and spit. He only reluctantly broke the kiss to yank his own shirt off, biting your bottom lip a little too hard in the process.

"You don't know how fuckin' hard you make me," he'd groaned leaning back over you, biting and sucking along the tops of your breasts, "How badly I've wanted you."

You were too overloaded by lust and liquor to catch exactly what he'd said, reaching for the waistband of his pants before palming his cock through the material. To him it was downright romantic and he'd made no move to stop you as you worked them open, wriggling them down with his boxers enough to let his cock spring free in your grasp.

Being that hard was painful, almost heart attack inducing. Your glossy eyes had widened, lips parting cutely in surprise as you'd taken in the way he was flushed pink with precum oozing from the tip to smear onto your fingers.

"You're massive," you'd mumbled, an adrenaline shot to his ego like no other. He'd even throbbed in your grip at your words.

His lips met yours in another tidal wave of desire, moaning into your mouth as you stroked him while his fingers frantically dipped down to spread your slick folds, rubbing circles around your clit to make you gasp and arch your back. So caught up in it you hadn't even heard what he whispered against your lips.

"You're even better than I thought you'd be."

His fingers became coated in arousal as he flooded you with the plush feeling of pleasure, his tongue exploring your mouth so thoroughly it was as if he'd been committing the map of it to memory. The way you stroked his cock had him impatient, rutting into your hand and whining each time your thumb would rub against his swollen tip.

"I need to fuck you," he whined in a daze, sounding almost close to tears, hips aching and eyes taking on a fishbowl perspective towards the string of spit connecting your mouths.

You rubbed his thigh, hand slowing its motions on his shaft. "Please-"

The word barely escaped your lips before he was gently replacing your hand with his own, sliding between your folds and encouraging you to hold your legs by the back of your thighs as he nudged at your entrance. "So beautiful," he choked out watching the way his cock disappeared inside your pussy, your walls constricting around him in a steady, massaging rhythm.

He'd had to focus hard on his own breathing to make sure he didn't cum inside you right then. "Gonna treat you so well, I promise-" the bite of your nails against his shoulders made him wince, but he'd take any pain so long as it came from your hands.

Pressing your chests flush together, his pubic bone grinding against your clit, his rhythm slow and deep as he'd pressed his forehead to yours and let himself become unmoored in your lust blown eyes, a willing drowning victim.

It was all he's wanted, and he never wanted it to end.

To him heaven is just a word, the real thing lives inside you, taking form in the way your pussy clenches around him, the way you moan and toss your head back into the mattress, the way the moonlight from the window plays across your skin and makes you look otherworldly beneath him.

You whined his name, hips rising up to meet his thrusts as you rubbed your clit and your eyes rolled back while Satoru had wrapped his lips around your nipple, sucking hard and scraping with his teeth just to hear you yelp and feel you claw at his skin again.

What no one realizes about him is the longing for pain, both giving and receiving. What you don't know specifically is that there's nothing that can give him that, nothing he would allow except you. What could be more devotional than that, in his mind?

Its what makes him pause, ignoring your whines as he slips out in fact nearly ignoring you altogether, drunk off your body and a fervor that grips his mind like madness. The desire to both give and receive, all things in balance. He guides you to turn over, roughly pushing your ass up and forcing your head down into the duvet.

His mind had been entirely clouded, too focused on needing to see your soaked cunt greedily swallow him whole. It was mesmerizing, both the sight and the way your body grips him like it'll never let go again while the mess of slick against your inner thighs glints in the moonlight. Starved and desperate he fucked you without care, fingers digging into your hips and ass so hard bruises would stain your skin like watercolors, showing the exact position on his fingers come morning.

"I'm gonna make you cum, angel, all over my cock," he panted through rough, recklessly deep thrusts. He leaned down so one hand could fist in your hair, a cruel grip that had you crying out in pain. It was a sickening sort of thrill that overtook him watching your hands flail blindly above your head before scratching and gripping at his hand.

Now it's you who knows what it's like to be caught in the snare.

"Stop! It hurts!" You'd sobbed out, but he was beyond the point of stopping, beyond the point of reason. He did make an effort to placate you, pressing you down into prone bone flat to the bed and leaving messy kisses on the back on your neck but it was in the distinct tone of forgiveness.

You don't hold out much longer, sobbing and nearly wailing as your abused cunt spasmed around his throbbing length, liquid dripping down from the base of his cock to smear against his and your thighs as he fucked you through it before being unable to last against the onslaught of your pulsing walls, burying himself inside you and filling you up with hot, sticky spurts of cum.

He'd stayed pressed against you, laying on top of you for a while, simply listening to your sniffles as he fiddled with your hair. Really Satoru was loath to pull out of you, pull away from you.

Every silent pass of his fingers against your skin was an apology, and eventually those teary sniffles had subsided into even, deep breaths as sleep closed it's fingers around you instead.

So the moment had passed, the rope cut so that the rabbit might yet run out of sight, it's heart pounding and leg twinging in pain.

He'd been lost in reliving it already, coming back to himself and placing a chaste kiss to your lips as he tugged his shirt back on and made sure you were in a comfortable position beneath the duvet he'd tucked you into.

Of course he'd also taken a moment to unlock your phone with your index finger, installing just a tiny little program that would allow him to get copies of all your phone activity.

One last kiss to your temple before he slips out the door, down the hallway, and back into his car.

One last silent query of forgiveness.

#jujutsu kaisen smut #jjk smut #satoru gojo smut #satoru gojo x reader #gojo smut #gojo x reader #gojo x reader smut

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ohithankyou · 17 days ago

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transcript for this interview below the cut because i was bored <3 (i might’ve made some mistakes….please ignore but i think it’s pretty accurate). talks about buck and eddie, maddie, and some interesting stuff about baking and buck’s love life here 👀

Q: Buck’s best friend is moving to Texas. His sister had just been kidnapped. How is he doing going forward?

OS: I mean that just sounds like a usual week for Buck on 911. Um, you know he-he’s got some things to work through that-that’s for sure. Umm, you know, it’s a character that’s faced a lot of abandonment in the past and this is for sure, as we see during 809, gonna stir some of that back up for him. So-so a bit of PTSD o-on the abandonment front. But, you know, things, uh, fall into place the way they’re meant to and he’s just gonna have to roll with the punches an-and work it out as he goes a-and not, you know, as we see him do some of in 809, try and stand in anybody else’s way.

Q: It’s heartbreaking for Buck to deal with Eddie moving and hearing him say he had no ties in LA. Did he really believe that, or was that just compounded by him leaving?

OS: I think-I think—I don’t think Eddie means it, right. I don’t think Eddie means it in a hurtful way. I think he means it in comparison to his son. Technically Eddie doesn’t have any ties, right—obligations maybe we should say—but I think Buck, because of his past an-and the level of abandonment that we’ve seen him deal with, you know, in-through flashbacks his whole life—I think he takes it personally and I think—I think Buck believes it out of Eddie’s mouth in that moment and, you know, as wrong as that may be, that’s the way he interprets it and that’s what then lead to uh—uh him picking up a little doggy.

Q: Are you now done with that loft space?

OS: I can tell you that loft space does not exist anymore.

Q: We’ve seem how Buck has handled Maddie being taken in the past. What will we see this time?

OS: Slightly different from what we’ve experienced before. Um-um. . . I don’t quite know how it will play out in the episode—I hav-haven’t seen it—but I think there’s a slightly more rational response this time an-and not as maybe, gung-ho, as we’ve seen from him in the past and he’s gonna try and weigh up a few more options before, uh, jumping to kind of worst case scenario.

Q: Great casting of Abigail Spencer. Could Jee have been take too? What’s Next?

OS: Uh so first of all on Abigail—I only met her one time. You know, we didn’t have much interaction in the show but she was very lovely and it was nice to have her on the show. Um. . . Jee. . .I assume I can—Jee is not taken and in actual fact, Jee is key to. . . discovering Maddie’s disappearance.

Q: With whom does Buck have the most significant conversation coming up?

OS: Is this a spoiler? Maddie! [Laughs] Um, I think-I think-I think with Maddie. Um. . . I don’t quite know what episode it will fall in, currently it’s 811, but-but I think-I think yeah, w-with Maddie is the answer to that question. [Cut?] It’s. . . something that Buck considers to be ludicrous, at least on the outside a-and you know, kind of is a conversation he never thought he’d be having.

Q: What can you say about Buck and Eddie’s goodbye and how Buck will be doing when Eddie’s gone?

OS: Yeah, I mean you know we’ve seen the end of 809 uh. . . Buck had kind of—patched things up with Eddie an-and taken a big step, uh, in-in the direction of apologizing for the—his previous sabotage. Um, but yeah there’s still a good-goodbye to come between them and it’s gonna be. . . find that line between emotional and sad but also y-you know, you have to go and do this thing and I-I understand that and I’m happy for you, you know. He says at the end of 809, “[you’re going] to where you belong and that’s not geographically where you belong but it’s with Christopher.”

Q: How is Buck going to be dealign with everything that’s going on right now? More baking? Another Dog?

OS: He’s still baking. That baking thread has really lasted on the show [smiling, hehe]. Umm [laughs]—the breaking thread has longing—la-lasted longer than certain injuries on the show have lasted, so no there’s—there’s definitely still, uh, baked goods in-in buck’s life and—which I enjoyed because, at the end of the day, they get to come home with me if I so wish or I get to give them out to people—um, he is gonna. . . look into the possibility of. . .of finding new friends—an-and, you know, working out if Eddie’s gonna be away for a while, who am I gonna spend my time with? An-and that’s gonna take him down some fun avenues.

Q: Is anything coming up in Buck’s love life?

OS: His love life’s gonna. . . flick on for a moment or two. And-a, you know, he’s gonna see how that feels and-and if he’s doing that for the right reasons or not and if he’s acting in a way that he feels morally, is the way to go about things. Um, but yeah, it’s-it’s certainly part of his adjustment period that he’s gonna go through.

#911 spoilers #911 press #man i really need to go out or #something more fun on a friday night lmaoo

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manicrouge · 1 year ago

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SIN CITY

[𝙺𝚎𝚎𝚐𝚊𝚗 𝚁𝚞𝚜𝚜 𝚡 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛]

[𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝙿𝚘𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚍]: 09/02/24

[𝙰𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝]: Rorke finds the Ghost's and you fear you're never going to see Keegan again.

[𝙲𝚠]: Major character death, violence, gore, graphic injury, hurt/ comfort, reader goes THROUGH IT, idk if there's anything else.

[𝚆𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝙲𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝]: 7k (exactly btw)

[𝙰/𝙽]: This has literally been in my drafts since Decemeber and I wrote way too much of it to not do anything with it so = I hope this is enough to suffice. Also, this is entirely based off of the mission 'Sin City' in call of duty ghosts, so if you haven't seen or played the game and don't want spoilers then please skip this !! (I would be surprised if you've not seen this yet you're in the Keegan tag.)

Also, if people do enjoy this I am down to write a part two so please let me know :3

ENJOY !!

There may be typos, apologies!!

Please don't post my work anywhere else without my permission !!

‘If I ever went missing, would you go and look for me?'

It was silent for a moment, and after five seconds passed, you turned to look at the man lying beside you. As you observed his features, you realised that his eyes were closed and while you doubted someone’s ability to dose off so quickly, you sure as shit didn’t doubt Keegan’s. His hand on your waist gave him away as it tightened on you, pulling you closer to him.

Opening his eyes, he peered at you with a furrowed brow. ‘The fuck kinda question is that, princess?’ He asked, ‘of course I would. Besides, need you with me,’ he said, ‘who else would I have to watch my back? Didn’t spend all that time training you for you to disappear on me, did I?’

Smug bastard.

'You're full of yourself,' you bit back.

'Good reason to be,' he said, brushing a hand through his black hair, moving his fringe away from his eyebrows, 'I'll consider being humble when I lose you, princess. But that hasn't happened and it won't be happening on my watch, not at all,' he reassured, pulling you closer to him.

You slapped his chest, letting out a heavy sigh, resting your head against his chest. In the dead of the night and the silence in your room, you listen to the thud of his beating heart while held up on a tiny bed. You were practically on top of him, legs intertwined.

There wasn't anywhere to go, however, and he didn't seem to care about you closeness at that moment. Rather, he settled with the heat of your body much better than he would have settled in a bed with more space.

'You think this'll ever be over?' you mumbled, closing your eyes, 'I'd like to sleep in a bigger bed with you; this ones a little cramped. Maybe even watch something on a TV too.’

'You're free to take the floor if you want to, I'm not stopping you,' he grunted, pinching your waist.

'I'm gonna blow your brains out,' you sleepily mumbled, placing your hand over his. His chest twitches as he lets out a short laugh, folding his arm behind your head so he can brush his fingers through your hair. 'I mean it,' you grumbled.'

'Of course you do, princess,' he said, 'of course you do.'

—

Throughout your training as a Ghost, you gained an understanding that things will never ever be as easy as you wish they were. But, it came with the job, you suppose, whether it was spoken or not.

Feelings as such only ever drift in when you don’t have a distraction, and the absence of Keegan after Elias sent him to Colorado Springs proved to be bruising.

Admittedly, you had been apprehensive with Elias’ request, although, in private, you digressed as you noted that Elias is your Captain, and you were to never question your captains judgement. Even when it came to someone that you loved. So, you bit your tongue, and for the first time in what felt like a long time, you allowed yourself to relax.

But, you have some things you needed to do before you got any sleep, or before you thought about anything else other than Rorke and the Federation.

‘JSOC’s going to want to move fast on this, so load up before you get any shut eye,’ he advises.

You follow behind him, standing beside Logan as he walked with Hesh and Merrick by his side. Fortunately, the brunt of the experience has been dealt with, you had survived Keegan’s absence overnight, and in a matter of hours, he would be back by your side. Inwardly, you’re embarrassed at your clinginess to him, but deep down you know he enjoys it.

‘We’ve got six hours until Keegan gets back,’ Elias says.

Upon the mention of his name, Riley brushes his head against your leg, and you look down at the German Shepherd, rolling your eyes. Leaning down slightly, you scratch his head. ‘Shut up,’ you grumble to the pup when he looks up at you, his tongue poking out from the corner of his mouth. When you pull your hand away, he licks it, staring back at you. With a huff, you fold to his attempt of cuteness, moving your hand to the his head again.

‘Hold up,’ Merrick says abruptly.

An arm grabs your forearm suddenly, and you let out a startled breath, though when you look in front of you, you realise you’d almost walked right into Hesh. Exhaling, you turn your head to Logan who gives you a short nod.

‘Somethin’ feel off to you?’ Merrick asks, turning to Elias.

The man immediately turns to his right, observing a laptop left perched on a desk. He says little for a moment, and when you turn your head away from your Captain, you acknowledge Merrick’s watchful eye as he peers down the scope of his gun, observing the sights through the broad windows located to the left of you.

‘Security’s working,’ says the man to the right of you.

Merrick slowly backs away, keeping his eyes trained o the window. You feel your throat tighten as you keep your eyes on the man, his paranoia working well to leave a heavy feeling in your chest. Logan lets go of your arm as he glances at his brother, a look that you don’t miss, and Merrick looks at you. You open your mouth to speak, holding the gun in your hands close to your chest, snapping your head to Riley as the dog begins to bark, glaring directly through he window that Merrick had just kept his eyes trained on.

While he may be a dog, he is surely not an idiot- in fact, you’re quite sure that Riley is much smarter than many of the people you had encountered when you had been a simple rookie, before Elias had taken you under his wing. He could certainly kill more people, that’s for sure.

It all seems to happen in slow motion, and the night you had spent prior seems to dissipate in one moment. There’s this hissing, you hear it from below, and before you have time to contemplate what exactly it is, a black can is thrown over the balcony, a train of green smoke pouring from out of the top of it.

‘Fuck,’ you curse, ‘get out!’ you yell, watching as another two cans containing the same foul smelling gas are tossed over the balcony, hitting the ground with a clink.

As you begin to sprint, you find the air around you is similar to the air you breathed whenever you were spending time with Keegan on his smoke break. All oxygen left your lungs as you broke into a sprint, your eyes water, and before you know it, you falling down to the ground, gasping for air as you feel your eyes grow heavy.

In the midst of the panic and over the thumping of your heart in your chest, you hear Elias call out, ‘Riley, hide!’ before breaking out into a fit of coughs.

You wretch, clawing at the ground in some form of futile attempt to escape, but nothing works as you watch Logan collapse right before you, spewing out violent coughs. Never have you felt so defenceless, so weak as you succumb to the gas, the world around you growing blurry before fading into complete darkness.

—

‘What are you doing up, kid?’ Keegan asks, seeing you appear beside him.

Letting out a small yawn, your boots crunch against a few stray rocks as you approach him, taking a seat against the rock he was leaning on, looking out at the remnants of No Mans Land. Logan and Hesh had regarded it as their home, as did their father, though, you couldn’t really picture the place without the addition of a crater which grew every day, claiming the lives of old rickety buildings and unsuspecting wildlife.

It was a sorry sight to see for sure, and inwardly, you were happy you never had the misfortune of seeing your own home falling to pieces.

‘You need sleep,’ he said, taking a drag from the cigarette between his lips.

Your eyebrows raise as you look at him, crossing your arms over yourself. ‘I thought you said you didn’t smoke,’ you say, 'you're a liar.'

You didn’t miss the way he rolled his eyes at your comment, and when he pulls it from his lips, exhaling a cloud of grey smoke, he chuckles. ‘Thought I told you not to hang onto every little thing I tell you, princess,’ he stated, ‘seems like we’re both guilty of doing something we’re not supposed to, hm?’

Placing the cigarette between his lips again, he turns his attention to you, noting that you’d crinkled your nose as the smoke he’d exhaled blew back into your face. ‘You can handle the fuckin’ dust in the battlefield, but the moment you smell a cigarette you fold?’ he mocks, laughing.

Your brow furrows at his comment and you fought of the urge to rip the cigarette out of his mouth. Instead, you allowed him to have his silly little cancer stick knowing that, if you did so something so cruel, he was sure to be upset at you, no matter how close the pair of you were. Cigarettes were difficult to come by and you liked him enough to let him have one in peace.

—

When the world fades in, you’re moving.

You don’t know how, and for a short second, you’re convinced you’ve died. But, when you take a sharp breath and feel your lungs burning, you’re crudely brought back to life. When you look ahead of you, you witness two soldiers trailing behind you. Keeping your head bowed, you wince at the dizziness wrecking your tired mind, attempting to hold your breath in fear of the due ache in your lungs.

Swallowing, your mouth is dry and you feel the urge to vomit as your head keeps swaying from side to side. Your limbs feel like jelly, fluid. You can hear them talking, although, everything seems miles away from you, and you feel your eyes water as the tightness in your chest grows. If they know you’re here, do they know where Keegan is? The thought sends a chill down your spine, and in your delirious state, you declare that you will kill anyone who even dared to touch even a hair on his head. Even if it meant your death too.

‘That all you got you piece of shit?!’

It’s Merrick, you recognise his tone from anywhere, it nearly shatters your delirious state entirely, though, the grip on the back of your collar tightens as your pulled away from him.

There’s more shouting and a loud smack, Merrick, you imagine, is on the receiving end of such a hit. A Ghost in true fashion, that’s for sure. As you attempt to lift your head again, you find the world growing dark once more, and, while you feel as though you should fight against it just as you had seen him do, you allow yourself to fall back into the abyss as you feel your lung burning and throat swelling.

—

There’s a screeching when you come back around, a vile ringing in your ears. ‘Well, I guess if you want something done right, do it yourself.’

Your blood runs cold.

As you slowly begins to lift your head, a hand grabs your face, forcing your head up. The light protruding from the window to the left of you is nearly bruising, and when the hand holding your face successfully tilts your head up, your eyes meet with Rorkes. He looks down at you with a wrinkled smirk, his hold tightening on your hair, yanking it harder. You wince at the pressure as he keeps his eyes on you.

‘You’re finally awake,’ he acknowledges, pushing your head down, letting go of your hair. ‘Good.’

He walks away from you, and as you look around, you note that Hesh is sitting directly across from you, Logan is to the right of you, and Elias is to your left.

As you continue to look around, your face pales at the disappearance of Merrick, and while you sit, you recall the faint memory in your banging head of the man being surrounded by Federation soldiers.

He’s smart, you think, you could leave that bastard in a forest with a knife and he’d have his own fuckin’ city in a month. He’s fine.

‘Nice to have the family back together, isn’t it?’ Rorke asks, looking to Elias. The man shows no fear, looking the devil right in the eyes with a stoic expression on his face. ‘One thing, though,’ he says, ‘we’re just missin’ our quiet friend, aren’t we?’ he says.

Your heart calms at such a statement.

He doesn’t have him, he’s fine, he’s safe.

You expect him to keep his eyes trained on Elias, counting on the fact that he is the Captain, but, he turns his head over his shoulder and looks at you. Heaving a heavy sigh, he turns his back to Elias, placing his hands down on his knees, ‘where’s Keegan?’

Looking him in the eyes, you spite your dry throat as the muscles in your neck contort and you muster up a mouthful of phlegm. He keeps his eyes trained on you, and you lung forward, a spray of mucus and saliva coating his face. ‘Fuck you,’ you heave, ‘I’m not telling you a fuckin’ thing,’ you sharply state.

He looks at you with wide eyes, standing up and wiping his face with the palm of his hand.

‘Damn bitch has got some fight in her, doesn't she?’ he laughs, turning to Elias, ‘not your daughter by blood, but by attitude… fuck me, Elias, you’ve got yourself a mini me!’ he exclaims. You bite your lip, taking a deep breath as you look at your Captain with bleary eyes. Grabbing the back of the man’s chair, he pulls it to him. Elias’ gaze doesn’t leave his. ‘Where is he?’ he slowly questions.

There’s a moment of silence.

‘You know I’m not telling you a damn thing,’ he spits, baring his teeth in his direction.

Never have you seen the man so agitated, his bruised face flushed red, his split lip oozing with blood, a thin line of it trailing down his chin. He looks like a savage beast as the sunlight behind him renders his features darker than typical, and the curve of his lips when he addresses Rorke even sends a shiver up your spine.

Of course, a Ghost was loyal to his own until death, and even then, they were buried down to watch over them. Once a Ghost, always a Ghost. Elias proved his worth much more than Rorke ever could, and while you wondered what exactly they had done to break the man who Elias had described as ‘one hell of a Ghost,’ but one thing was for certain. A man who broke was not a Ghost. Never was, and never would be.

’Go fuck yourself,’ Elias hisses.

Rorke laughs, nodding his head, letting go of the back of his chair. It lands with a clatter, and you watch as the man continues to nod to himself.

‘Dangerous fuckin’ game you’re playing,’ he states, and you watch as his right hand moves from the front of him, trailing around to the side where his pistol sat in his holster.

He’s gonna shoot Elias. Your eyes grow wide as you watch the man retrieve his weapon. Your muscles tensing as he holds it out in front of him. It’s aimed right at his chest, overing above his heart. ‘Well, let's see if I can change your mind,’ he exhales.

BANG.

In a moment, his hand whips around, and when the trigger is pulled, all the air in your lungs exudes like puss from a pimple.

The shot causes your ears to ring. It’s loud, and everything is fuzzy. For a moment, you look up in search of the wound, hoping that the bullet had not went through your Captains skull. Only, when you look in his direction, you see the smoking pistol pointed directly at you. Your eyes grow wide, and you let out a short breath.

You heard the gun go off, the bullet had to be somewhere. And then, you felt a wetness pooling against your thighs. Everything seemed to move slowly when you raised your head up, looking across to Hesh with wide eyes.

I’m going to die, I’m going to die and Keegan isn’t here with me.

As you manage to get a short breath in, agony hits you like a truck and you lean over without a second thought.

I’m going to die.

All you training, everything, how to stop the bleeding, none of it matters; you’re truly at the disposal of the enemy and there’s nothing you can do. Not even you Captain can do anything.

‘NO!’ Elias screams, dragging you back into the moment.

Between the thudding beats of your heart, you hear Hesh screaming out bloody murder, thrashing against the ropes that keep him tied to the chair, ‘Son of a bitch!’ he screams, looking directly at Rorke, ‘I’m going to kill you! You hear me? I’m going to fucking kill you!'

A shaky breath leaves you as your eyes well with tears, and when you look down, you gulp hard at the sight of a wound oozing blood. Your throat tightens as you feel your entire body grow hot.

‘Easy junior,’ Rorke warns with a disapproving tone. You keep your head bowed as his shadow looms over you, ‘I ain’t even started with you yet,’ he chuckles.

Keegan, where’s Keegan- I’m going to die.

Your eyes sting as your trembling hands press against the rope, pulling against them. You need to get out of there otherwise you are going to die.

Elias calls your name, you hear it, he shouts it, yet, it seems so quiet.

'Look at me!’ he demands, and while everything in you is telling you to keep your eyes trained on the wound, you force your head up, sniffing hard as you look your Captain in the eyes. At the very least, even if Keegan isn’t there with you, you have him.

Elias, you captain, your military father. There have been plenty of jokes made during particularly bleak moments in missions where Hesh and Logan have likened you to their sister. It's an honour, truly, to know that they were your brothers no matter relation, and Elias entertained the idea that you were the daughter he had never had.

Rorke appears behind him and it’s then that you don’t realise how many seconds are passing. Every single second feels like an hour, and you’re more than aware that every second passing is yet another drop of wasted blood. You’re running on borrowed fucking time, and there’s Rorke, the big fucking man he is, parading around in front of you like he’s a jester. ‘That’s right,’ he chuckles, placing his hand on Elias shoulder, ‘that’s it,’ he sighs, ‘show him how much pain he’s causing you right now.’

‘Keegan will kill you,’ you rasp out, stifling a short whimper as you clench your teeth. ‘And if he doesn’t, then I will.’

You’re more than aware of the situation your in and your pessimism seems to waver with your consciousness as a sudden boost of adrenaline fills you with defiance. If you’re going to die, you might as well run your tongue; the worst thing that can happen in this moment is him simply putting you out of your misery.

Rorke laughs at your threats, ‘you see,’ he begins, ‘funny think about your old Captain here,’ he stops himself for a moment, shoving Elias as he resumes his position, looking you in the eyes, ‘He lets his men die to save his own ass,’ he states, turning his attention away from you, turning his attention back to the Captain.

Exhaling shakily, you look over to Hesh and Logan who return a look equally as frightened. Never have you seen the pair of them appear so apprehensive, although, you definitely don’t miss the look of anger. No, even though the look isn’t intended for you, you feel a chill run up your spine.

‘Dammit, Rorke,’ Elias yells, ‘this is between you and me!’

The world seems like its on a merry-go-round, twisting and turning leaving a delightful fuzziness in your head. Adrenaline is pupping through you, and you’re thankful for the emotion, for, if you didn’t have it, you very well would have been out like a light. Your hands continue to pull against the ties of your rope, and while your wrists are burning from the constant pulling and tugging, you breath a short sigh of relief when you feel them loosening. Whoever tied it clearly weren’t trained in the art of kidnapping.

‘Leave my kids out of it!’ Elias demands.

You feel your heart warm at his sentiment, giving you all the more fight to get out of these damn binds. Works gun is right next to him, you can get it, you can reach for it, and you can blow that fuckers brains out.

‘You’re talking to a superior Lieutenant,’ Rorke says, pacing back and forward, before finding his way right back to Elias. Looking down at the man, he calmly speaks, ‘show some discipline.’

You feel your face grow warm listening to their exchange.

‘You were never one of us, you’re not a Ghost,’ Elias cruelly says, turning his face away from Rorke, looking down to the ground. Rorke hums, turning his attention back towards you.

The ties are growing looser, they’re getting there, you can almost get your hand out of them, yet, you maintain poker face as you look up at Rorke.

‘Well,’ Rorke breathes, ‘that’s just cause I’m better than you!’ he exclaims, keeping his eyes trained on you. You watch as they narrow, it’s a subtle one, one that you had noted during parring matches with rookies.

As Keegan had taught you, when soldiers get lazy, they give themselves away and it’s always in the eyes.

Your eyes dart to his hands, seeing him clench his fists as he snaps his body around, driving his fist into Elias’ face. The man falls to the side with a grunt as Rorke takes a short breath before raising his other fist, ‘I’ve always been better than you!’ he seethes, punching that man again. Elias tilts his head back against the chair, and you watch as both Logan and Hesh begin to fight much harder against their restraints. Either way, someone was getting out and Rorke was going to pay. ‘But you… you call yourself a Ghost?!’ he barks, hating Elias again.

As he looks down on Elias, you pull a hand free from the ties. Keeping your eyes trained on Rorke, you look down at his gun, gritting your teeth. ‘You’re nothing! You and your kids, you’re dead!’ he declares.

Wrong move.

With his proud declaration, you push yourself up from out of the chair, snatching his pistol from out of the holster on his thigh. Such, unfortunately, doesn’t go unnoticed by Rorke as he whips around, grabbing your arms, forcing the pistol up. You place your hands against his, using all the strength you can muster to pull the gun away from him.

Nothing moves him, however.

But he’s a monster, he likes to play with his food.

He’s not using all his strength, he’s taking it easy on you, and you’re still losing. As he does so, he laughs in your ear. ‘Oh,’ he gasps, ‘she’s still got a little life in her,’ he laughs aloud, positioning the gun so your pointing it directly at Elias. ‘Didn’t he ever tell you not to aim guns at people?’ You grunt, driving your foot against his boot, feeling his grip falter for a moment. You attempt to move the gun upwards, your finger pressed against the trigger. Everything burns. Everything hurts. But you’re not going to stop, you’re going to kill this bastard even if it kills you.

Unfortunately he’s a scummy man, and as punishment for you stomping on his foot, he drives an elbow into your stomach, winding you.

Your hold falters- you almost fall to the floor- but he keeps you up on your feet, and through gritted teeth declares, ‘they could go off!’ His finger jams against your pressed against the trigger, a loud shot ringing in your ears. You watch a Elias throws his head to the side as a bullet drives through his chest. You fight against him harder, shaking your head. ‘That’s is!’ He grunts, ‘just a little more that way,’ he instructs you, forcing your hand further to the right. You actively pull away as the both of you fight against each other. Tears are running down your faces at that moment, every pull and tug driving the bullet in your stomach further and further.

‘Dammit, Rorke, STOP!’ Hesh begs.

‘Point it… at…’ another shot is fired, and Elias takes it with a grunt, 'your Captain.’

As though taking candy from a baby, he lets go of your hands, plucking it out of your sweaty grasp. Gunpowder invades your nostrils as he lets you go. Rookie mistake, you hear it in your head, but it isn't your voice. It's Keegan's.

You wobble on your feet, staggering backwards as your get your bearings. What you need to do is untie Logan who is right behind you, and then when he's distracted you can get to Hesh. Yet, as you step back and begin to move towards Logan, Rorke whips around to face you again driving the butt of the pistol into your face. It hits you with a crude thwack, a stoke of colour meeting your gaze as you fail to catch yourself, tumbling to the ground.

Logan screams out as you fall to the ground, and you tense as you brace for impact. You land with a thud, a broken cry escaping your lips when you feel the bullet lodge in your stomach dig further in.

The pain leaves you gasping an you clench your teeth as the room spins. Nausea spread through you as you lay there attempting to collect yourself, gulping back the urge to vomit. Resting your palm against the ground, you begin to attempt to pick yourself up. If you can just make it to Logan, you can make everything right.

Keeping your eyes trained on Elias, you watch as Rorke circles him as a shark did its pray. Both Hesh and Logan are calling you for you, the rattle of their chair thumping causing your ears to ring. Licking your dry lips, you tense when Rorke turns back to you, pointing the pistol in his hand directly at your head.

‘You got fire in you, kid,’ he breathlessly confesses, ‘I like that… risking your life to protect your Captain,’ he chuckles, leaning into Elias, pressing his finger against his chest. ‘You could learn something from her, Elias.’

‘She’s my daughter,’ he croaks.

‘Yeah,’ Rorke nods, glancing at you, ‘and she’s gonna get to watch you die. Her and your boys.'

Shot after shot is fired, every bang against you to witness as you grab your stomach, pressing down against the wound to keep yourself from losing more blood than necessary. You’re far too dazed to get up and fight against the man who saw the very life of your Captain as some sort of joke. So, you watch, helpless, as Rorke empties a clip into Elias.

‘No! No! Dad!’ Hesh cries. His face is red as he frashes against the ties keeping him from his father, the very sight making your headache. His tone is piercing as he carelessly spits out curses at the man before him. ‘I’ll kill you, you hear me?’ he screams, ‘I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch! I’m going to kill you! Motherfucker!’

The worlds a little blurry.

Your eyelids grow heavy, and when you force the open upon hearing a thud right in front of you, you’re surprised to see Elias’ face meters away from yours. You fight against the urge to drift off. You’re not going to die, you’re getting out of this and you’re seeing Keegan again- you can't die.

‘You did well,’ Elias breathes, looking at you. Your blood runs cold at the sight of blood seeping onto the ground, ‘I’m proud of you, you and my boys,’ he utters, wheezing for a single breath of air. His lips are blue as he stares at you, your eyes welling with tears as you're forced to watch as the man struggles for his last breaths.

Rorke’s boot is planted firmly on top of his head, and you catch your Captain glancing up at the man.

For the very first time, you see fear in his eyes. It's a dastardly look, mixing with the loss of blood in an unappealing manner as his face grows sickeningly pale. Something tells you that Elias Walker is scared of dying.

No Ghost is to be scared of death, that's not who we are.

But, we're scared of losing each other.

Elias Walker is scared of losing his family, of leaving them behind.

Rorke sighs, pushing his boot further down, leaning down to press the muzzle of the pistol against his forehead.

Keegan, please.

‘Oh… you are right, Elias,’ breathes the man, ‘I’m not a Ghost,’ he grins. There's a pause in his words, and you find yourself searching for some form of sickly hope that just in the nick of time, there will be a bullet in Rorke's head rather than Elias'.

Rorke remains tall and as he licks his thin lips and eyes Elias, you find a dismal pit in your stomach that you know you're never going to recover from.

‘I’m the man that hunts them, and sends them back to the other side.’

With that, he pulls the trigger.

You scrunch your eyes shut as you hear the rattle of the man's chest, a wet pray covering your face. Your lips form into a thin line as you choke out a broken sob, and when you bring your lips together again, the metallic taste of your Captains blood. Behind you, you can hear both Logan and Hesh sobbing, the anger the pair of the showed silently dissipated into grief.

The rustle of fabric in front of you unnerves you, and you attempt to turn away from Elias' corpse, letting out a startled breath when a shadow looms over you and you're grabbed.

'Leave her alone,' begs Logan, 'you got what you wanted. Leave her be... please.'

Rorke holds you in his arms like a child would a doll, and to your surprise, he guides you back into the chair you had jumped out from, forcing you back into it.

Standing back from the three of you, he rubs his mouth with his hand, his lips curling into a small grin as he hums to himself. 'Some talent is between you kids,' he says, 'real shame you're fighting the wrong side of this war, really, it is.'

—

Much to your pleasure, you find Merrick alive.

Despite your doubts prior, you knew well the man was capable of surviving. After the execution of Elias, Rorke left you with his soldiers and you, Hesh, Logan and Merrick were all forced onto your knees, kneeling on the balcony where the attack had first initially ensued. You’re unsure as to how much time had passed, but you were sure the wound was not getting any better as every time you shifted, you fell light headed.

The soldiers that had been observing you receive something on the radio, although, your entire body is hot and your ears are ringing, the memory of Elias’ face stuck in your head as you were forced to witness his death close and personal. You’re quite sure there is residue on of the crime on your face, so, you keep your head bowed, out of the way of both Logan and Hesh who look completely broken.

‘You alright?’ Logan whispers.

You’re shaking, but you nod your head.

‘Just Peachy, L, don’t worry about it,’ you utter, keeping your head down.

A shadow is cast over you and you catch sight of the boots of three soldiers.

‘The boss wants the girl alive,’ says one of them, causing you to snap your head upwards, looking at the three of them.

The one in the middle is pointing at you, marking you out of the crowd while the other two simply observe.

You feel dirty.

The man beside him nods his head, grabbing his pistol from his holster, aiming it at Hesh, while the other one approaches Logan, repeating the process.

It’s terribly calculated, killing both of the brothers, clearing the world of Elias once and for all at the same time. You keep your eyes trained on Hesh, eyes occasionally drifting to the window as you sit and wait. Planting the pistol firmly against Hesh’s head, you hear Logan grunt beside you. Hesh moves to the side, his forearms tensing, preparing for the shot. At the very last, they’re showing them mercy. They could have slit their throats, left them to drown in their own blood, yet, they’re making it easy.

One shot to the head.

Then you see him.

A small flicker of light in the distance.

The light at the end of the tunnel.

The glass shatters, the man holding the gun to Hesh’s head stumbling down onto his knees, his hand firmly planted against his chest. It all happens so fast, the man beside him stands dazed, looking at his colleague. Another shot is fired, going right through the mans skull. A spray of brain, blood and skull covers you as the man fulls forward.

‘HESH, LOGAN! NOW!’ Merrick demands, the pair of them jumping to their feet.

Logan shoves the guard to the ground, pulling him away from you while Hesh and Merrick rush two of two of the soldiers by the balcony. The awestruck soldier is left to you and you watch as he rushes forward, pulling the gun from the corpse of the dead soldier. Fortunately, Hesh manages to grab the rifle from off of the solider standing on the balcony, elbowing him in the stomach. Rushing up to you, he hits the back of the mans guns with the butt of the rifle, causing the man to fall to his knees. You watch with wide eyes as the solider attempts to rush up to him while Hesh fights with the other one.

Another shot is fired.

The soldier behind Hesh falls to the ground.

‘I got you! Go!’ Merrick yells as more shots are fired.

The rest of the soldiers standing behind are dropped. To the right of you, you hear a gunshot as you stand up, watching Logan push himself up from off of the ground, the blood of a Federation soldier soaking into his t-shirt as he steps over the corpse. Grabbing the pistol discarded on the ground, Logan quickly fires a shot through the head of the solider Hesh is fighting with. A bullet whizzes past you, and without a second thought, you snap around, firing two shots directly into a soldier to the right of you. There are more shots from the right of you, and when the final body drops, you exhale.

‘You okay, Merrick?’ Logan asks as Merrick unties the ropes around his wrists. ‘Rib’s broken, but I can move,’ he reassures, rushing up to Hesh.

Logan pulls himself free, immediately approaching you, ripping off the edge of his t-shirt. You watched with a furrowed brow as he eyes you.

‘Need to keep you from bleeding all over the place,’ he states, ‘c’mere,’ he instructs. You step forwards and he hands you the scrap from his t-shirt. Pressing it against the wound, you groan as he wraps the rope around you waist, trying it tightly around your waist. ‘Keegan’ll kill us if you lose a drop more blood… lost enough today too,’ he says, tying it tightly. ‘You still good to fight?’

‘Always,’ you say.

Holding his hand out, the pair of you bump fists and for the first time since this morning, you feel the dread swirling in your blood slowly coming to a stop.

‘We got to get going,’ Merrick sharply states, marching ahead of the free of you. Hesh follows after him. ‘Keegan, we’re up and moving, get here as soon as you can,’ he instructs.

You look at his back in surprise, your own hand falling to your ear piece realising thatchy hadn’t taken them off of you.

‘Check… I’ll meet you in the kitchen,’ confirms the voice you have missed so terribly.

You clear your throat, wincing as you proceed forward, following after Merrick. Part of you wants him to say something to you, to tell you that everything is going to be okay, but you understand that doing such would absolutely be irresponsible, so, you busy yourself listening to Merrick.

‘We need to make it to the west side of the building,’ he states, ‘it’s the best chance of getting out of here.’ You nod silently, taking a moment to take a breath. Everything was going to be fine, and in the end of this, you were going to have Rorke’s head in your hands. ‘You still good to fight, Eclipse?’

‘Always,’ you give a short nod, ‘bleedings calmed,’ you confirm, despite the burning causing you legs to wobble slightly. In due time it will be over, all of this ill be a distant memory. Just push on a little longer, that’s all you have to do.

‘Shh.. noise behind the door,’ Hesh warns as he approaches it, ‘lets make this quick.’

—

As you push through the room, you exhale when a voice calls, 'I'm almost there,' Keegan confirms as your brow furrows, a particularly step sending a shot of pain through your stomach up your back.

You clamp your mouth shut as you whimper, your dry mouth longing for a drop of water. Eventually, this will be over, you just had to stick to it. He's almost here, you just have to keep pushing on. That's the only thing you can do.

Just keep fighting.

'You better find a place to hide, though, lotta guys headed right to you,' he warns.

You want to complain upon hearing such, why can it never just be easy? Everything has to be difficult, no matter what you're doing, you can never just catch a break.

‘Key,’ you exhale seeing the man standing before you.

His hardened haze softens upon catching sight of you, and you waste no time rushing up to him, throwing your arms around him. While unprofessional, you feel no shame in confessing that you were going to die without him, and if anything, you were deserving of this moment. The hug you share is brief as he grabs your forearms checking you over.

He stops when he sees your stomach.

Merrick curses and falls to the ground, ‘shit,’ he hisses, attempting to push himself up off of the ground. As you look back to Keegan, the pair of you turn your attention towards the doors behind you, hearing voices edging closer and closer.

Grabbing you, he looks to Hesh and Logan, ‘get him up,’ he demands, gently guiding you into the room behind you. ‘We gotta hide, not gonna be able to take them,’ he states, pulling you to the side. ‘What the fuck happened?’ he whispers as Logan and Hesh quickly help Merrick inside the room.

You feel his hand against your stomach, wincing as he looks at you. The pressure on your stomach falters as he pulls his hand away, observing a wet patch in his gloves.

‘Got shot talking back to Rorke,’ you confess, and while you’re sure it’s something you certainly should not be proud of, you speak with a glowing tone as you look at him. Besides, he trained you all those years ago, why should you be ashamed?

'Logan thought fast, used the rope he tied us up with to try and stop the bleeding,’ you mumble. His gaze hardens as he looks at you, and you swear you can see his Adams apple bobbing beneath his mask. Gently he pushes you behind him, helping you to the ground. Looking over his shoulder, he reaches his hand behind him, squeezing your knee.

It’s so quiet, yet you feel as though your heart is going to burst.

You place your bloody, shaking hand over his and offer him a wavering smile. He takes it in for a moment before snapping back into action. His hand is pulled from your knee and you’re left alone.

'Turn that radio down,' Merrick hisses as Hesh helps him down

He hums as the doors burst open. Pushing you behind him, you all sit and watch as shadows pass you by.

And then the world begins to still. You're unable to describe just what it is you're feeling, although, despite the weight and severity of everything happening around you, you feel light as a feather. Your clothes are soaked at this point and in spite of your efforts, you find your breathing slowing as you lean against the wall.

Clumsily, you reach your had out to latch onto the floor as you feel an overwhelming drowsiness hit you. You've put in all the work and effort you can muster, yet, you've tried from it and as you wade through the mush of panicked voices and the thudding of your heartbeat in your ears, you succumb to your body's desperation and fully close your eyes, wading into the quiet of the stream.

#cod #call of duty #cod ghosts #cod keegan #keegan p russ #keegan russ x reader #keegan p russ x reader #keegan russ x you #cod x reader #ghosts #call of duty ghosts #call of duty x reader #cod x you #call of duty x you #cod ghosts x reader

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katescribblesabit · 7 months ago

Note

I love your fairy Timmy turner au and your art! It’s amazing and wonderful!! Sending virtual hugs your way since you absolutely deserve it!! Make sure to stay hydrated and take breaks from drawing when needed :3 I hope you have a great day/night wherever you are !

I have a question about the au, considering the jimmy timmy power hour still happens, did Jimmy Neutron and his friends ever hear about Timmy going missing from the national news channels? I’d like to think they were probably really sad about it and tried looking for him themselves :( OR since they already know about fairies and everything, when Timmy turned into a fairy, did he ever pop by and say hi and told them that he was alright and everything was fine so they wouldn’t be so sad? If he did, does he still visit them in Jimmy’s lab even as adults so they all can still hang out once more and ever explain why he became a fairy? I wonder if that would sort of get Jimmy to maybe just a little bit believe in magic

Anyways I’m sorry if this is so long 😭

aw don't apologize! its fine, and thank you for the virtual hug haha

i haven't even thought about including the Jimmy Timmy power hour in the au honestly. i did some quick research and it seems like many people do consider the trilogy canon on both shows.

so.. if we do wanna take it into the wacky crossover territory. well,

Sheen probably pestered Jimmy into visiting Timmy again since its been a while and he was bored. Jimmy eventually faltered and dug out the old portal door he had build. setting it up attracted their other friends and they all wanted to go.

When they arrived at Dimmsdale however they quickly learned about Timmys disappearance from AJ and Chester. they offered to help look but they also couldn't find anything that day. they eventually had to go back home.

Jimmy however couldn't really let it go. he was a genius! if anyone could help, then it was him right? so he cooked up a plan and went back and asked around for some kind of DNA samples of Timmy. Jimmy then build some kind of locating machine that brings them to the one they want to find.

he then teleported right into the living room of Cosmo and Wanda where Timmy currently was. to say they were all surprised is an understatement haha

since Timmy was a fairy now, there were no consequences of telling Jimmy the actual truth anymore. (since Jimmy is from an differente Dimension - LOOPHOLE hehe) So Timmy was able to properly explain that yes magic was real in Timmys dimension and that he simply wanted to stay with his fairy family. (maybe he properly introduced them hehe)

Timmy also begged Jimmy not to tell anyone. ESPECIALLY anyone from Timmys dimension.

#asks #fop #fairy timmy turner au #jimmy timmy power hour #this is from memory of what happend in the trilogy #this was fun #however dont wanna focus to much on crossovers #we can keep this on the side for fun haha

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mybworlds · 11 days ago

Text

Chapter 3

Pairing: Pero Tovar x f!reader (no Y/N)

Summary: You are a princess, you should act like a proper damsel, but you are not and you don't want to be. Luckily, you have an ally on your side.

Warnings: use of you, typical sexism, the main character has female features, but I don't describe her in detail, the image is only meant to represent the moment, nothing else. Fighting against the conventions of the time, the main character wears both women's and men's clothes. Tovar in this story is the protagonist's bodyguard and a knight. Violence graphic. Romantic and sexual tension (?). Age gap.

More warnings will follow in later chapters.

Hey there, I know, I'm terribly late, but I had no inspiration so I preferred not to write this story at all at least until I was sure to give it a proper chapter, or at least I hope so. I don't think this story will have many more chapters, maybe three or four more, but no more. I apologize again for the very long waits and thanks to those who want to support me by leaving a like and a comment.

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“Put me down, put me down!” you shout as you and the stranger walk away from the inn.

“Will you stop kicking me?!” a familiar voice blurts out, as you put your feet back on the ground and find yourself face to face with Pero who is looking at you with an annoyed look and a slight out of breath.

“Sorry, I thought it was a guard!” you exclaim, looking around warily and noticing that you have returned to the horses.

“Well, make sure of that next time!” he scolds you, sighing loudly. “And didn’t I tell you to wait for me? Why did you want to do it all by yourself? What did you want to prove?”

“Never mind, I discovered another worrying thing. Yesterday we saw huge quantities of flour, vegetables and other essential goods being brought to the village,” Tovar looks at you perplexed “but my people buy spoiled stuff, so..”

“Where does everything that is edible end up?” Pero completes.

“Exactly. That’s what we need to find out, and we need to talk to my father about that, too. He needs to know what’s happening to our people.”

But he nods, “You would make a fine ruler, mi joven princesa.”

You smile, looking down for just a moment, “I only want the best for my people, I want them to be well and to live at least a peaceful life.”

He smiles back slightly, “Precisely because you are so selfless, you’d make an excellent heir to the throne. Your father should seriously consider the idea that you can reign alone without any prince beside you to instill in you ideas or thoughts that are not yours, thoughts that might make you wither.” he concludes by slightly lowering his gaze "Anyway, let's get out of here and quickly." adds the man gently pushing you onto your steed, while he climbs onto his, the two of you giving spurs and moving away from there. As you walk away, you notice someone pointing at you as if they recognized you.

In the past you’d have liked it because it meant that you were a princess not far from the people, but very present since you often visited the village, but today being singled out means something completely different. Today your own people would sell you for coins and this means that the people are hungry, as well as your father's guards would soon be arriving to patrol the entire village area and the surrounding area.

You and Tovar need to disappear. Your place isn't safe at the moment either. But he told you he knows of another place up in the mountains, it's so cold up there that no one dares to go there. You trust him, he knows what he's doing.

The wind up there is so biting that you can almost feel the cold scratching your skin, you have taken refuge in a small cave with a low ceiling. You and Pero have lit a fire and sat around it, you are shivering from the cold, but you do everything you can to hide it.

“Now we should rest a bit. And tomorrow we'll think about what to do. Together.” He insists on the last word “I don't want any more impulsive actions from you, do you understand, princesa?” adds the man looking for your gaze.

You nod.

“Do you understand?” he insists.

You look at him, "Okay." You reply annoyed. You remain silent for a while, then add, “I didn't mean to run away or do things my own way, I just... I hoped that my people could somehow protect us. I hoped they wouldn't see me as a bargaining chip just to feel good and instead...” you lower your gaze “I'm so stupid.”

“No, princesa. You are not stupid. It's just that your people are hungry, they are desperate. And your closeness in the past is not enough to guarantee them a peaceful future.” you nod looking up at him, you see him fiddling with some gravel “They need more. When this is all over, make sure you're better than your father and be even closer to them.” he suggests, looking you in the eyes.

“Only if you're by my side.” You reply immediately. “You're an excellent advisor, you know? The best. My father should have had you by his side and not that greedy and sneaky being who gives him bad advice!” you assert vehemently.

“You know I'm not good with words, only with the sword.” he reminds you and you smile bitterly. “Only with you is it easy for me to talk.” he adds, “But that's the reality. We both are who we are and nothing can ever change that, even if we don't want to.” You frown as he stands up and walks slightly outside where you notice it's even starting to snow.

You reach him, taking his hand and making him turn towards you with a questioning look, “I decide my own destiny, no one has to impose it on me.” You reply, going to kiss him, but he pulls away.

“No, princesa, no.” he declares.

“Why?”

“Princesa, I.. am just your bodyguard, I am not a prince or your fiancé. And besides, I am much older than you.” he declares forcefully, then turns to stare outside.

You smile bitterly without stopping looking at his profile and without being able to stop thinking about how much he means protection, security, strength to you. You think about how safe you would always and forever be with him by your side, how much you would like to be his, to be with him, to travel with him.

“But do you know who I'm engaged to?” you ask him, making him turn towards you again. “To a man much older than me, much older than you. And do you know what this man has? Only an advantageous position and a very, very large land..

Do you know what my life would be like next to him? What would I do next to him? Nothing. I would only be seen as a woman who has to bear children, if that were to happen... fine, but if I were not capable of it, I would be thrown away and returned to my father who would be ashamed of me.

Do you know what would become of my life then? My father would have me locked away in some monastery for the rest of my days and then hand over all his power to his slimy advisor. Do you want this for me?”

Maybe you overdid it, it doesn't mean you can really undergo this treatment, maybe the man you are supposed to marry will treat you well just because he is old or maybe he would allow you to have relationships with whoever you want as long as you do it with discretion, you don't know it, but just the thought makes you shudder.

“Princesa,” Tovar says looking you in the eyes “I respect you. Only the gods know how much I respect you and how much your safety means to me..”

“Do you only care about my honor and safety?” you press.

He gives a crooked smile, rolling his eyes, “Sometimes I forget how… insistent you can be.”

You smile back, “I was hoping you’d say persuasive.” you say, raising an eyebrow as if to provoke him.

“Go to sleep, princess,” he says, barely touching your arm. His correctness, his rigor and his very training as a knight are something you have always liked a lot about him and which somehow teased your rebellious soul to go beyond your label as a princess. In fact, the first few times your mother heard you speaking frankly to him and using, in her opinion, language that was not appropriate for a princess, she feared she had entrusted you to the wrong hands. Today, however, you are certain that you could not be in better hands.

You look down, though you're not ready to give up. “As you wish. But I think you should sleep too. If we have to figure something out, there need to be two of us.” you add, shrugging your shoulders and assuming a vague, almost innocent expression.

He chuckles, perhaps sensing your provocation, “Yes, in a little while. You start sleeping.”

“Who do you want to come up here in this cold and snow?” you ask him. “And besides, didn’t you say that it’s an almost completely isolated place?”

"It is. Almost completely." He emphasizes. "Rest." He insists, touching your cheek with the back of his hand in a tender gesture.

You have always liked this aspect of him too, the sweetness that he knows how to camouflage well with the rigor and the temper that he possesses make him irresistible in your eyes.

Your mother called him a brute because of his ungallant ways towards the King, towards herself and in teaching you things that you - as a princess - should never have learned. You, on the other hand, thanked him many, many times and you still thank him because if he hadn't taught you how to use the sword, you’d never have defended yourself in that inn and they probably would have already captured you and then who knows what your fate would have been.

So many things would have been different in your destiny if you had never met Pero Tovar. You’d have continued to feel bad, poorly concealing what you really are behind the beautiful words, bows and lace that your mother always forced you to learn, but by now you would probably already be married and unhappy, locked in a cage with bars even thicker than the ones you grew up in and your thoughts would probably have led you to dark and scary endings..

“Close your eyes, princesa.” Tovar says, noticing your eyes still open and your gaze fixed on an unspecified point. “There is no point in thinking about things that have been or will be,” he adds, “we must only look at the present, at the moment. We cannot change the past and the future is still beyond our control.” you watch him thinking about who knows what adventures or things he has experienced and seen and that you will almost certainly never see even though you wishing it.

You let your wildest fantasies run wild in your mind, you imagine strange worlds full of adventures, the most bizarre situations and contexts until sleep overcomes you.

Pero unconsciously wraps an arm around your torso as if to protect you even while he sleeps. But his sleep only lasts a handful of minutes, his mind keeps him alert the whole time.

Ever since he had separated from his friend and companion William, Pero had done nothing but wander from place to place as a mercenary, as a smuggler for his own pleasures, interests and attempts to survive. Then, he arrived at the lands of your father, king of this immense European territory, and the way he was fed and welcomed, pushed him to stay. Then his sword skills did the rest after you suffered an attempted assault by two outlaws.

You immediately struck him. You were never the typical damsel in need of saving. Even in that dangerous situation, you fought tooth and claw to protect yourself, so you told him with a slightly mocking tone as if you wanted to reassure him that you were not the little doll to wrap in cotton wool. He looked at you sideways before giving you an amused look at your arrogance towards danger. Other women in your place would have hidden in their room and cried, they would not have spoken about that episode so fast and loose, but not you.

You were never afraid of him from the first moment, you immediately spoke to him almost as if he were a friend rather than your bodyguard. In fact, this role is not very good for him, especially considering your temperament and your tendency to never respect the etiquette imposed by your role and your family. And he loves to observe how even the smallest change alters your features, how expressive your eyes are to indicate boredom or pleasure in doing something, how your tone of voice is so different when you talk to him or when you talk to someone else.

Tovar never thought of having a woman by his side, until that moment the only ones he had were those who gave themselves to him in exchange for a few coins and to be totally honest with himself he never felt the need for it. The idea of starting a family is not for him. His life is different. The only companion he has ever had at his side has been the sword and that is forever and certainly never betrays.

Then, you arrived and made his certainty tremble because you immediately showed yourself to be so similar and yet so different from him and you almost discovered that you were two sides of a coin, he has always respected you a lot, beyond your cheekiness, and loved you since your first meeting.

Pero smiles when he thinks back to that day...

He knocked a couple of times, as instructed, and waited for your nod, which came in a bored voice, "Come in."

He found you sitting on the stone windowsill of your window, he immediately noticed your very long cerulean dress that cascaded down the wall of your room until it reached the floor of your room and then the tired and bored look on your face.

Your father had told you that from that day on you would have a bodyguard and from the tone and look you gave him, Pero immediately understood that you weren't at all enthusiastic about it.

“Are you the man who will follow me everywhere?” was the first thing you asked him, looking at him with an annoyed expression.

“This is what the King your father commands,” was the man's serious reply.

You sighed as you looked outside again, “My father always exaggerates. I don’t need a little soldier following me everywhere,” you added annoyed.

“I'm sure of it!” was Tovar's only exclamation as he looked at how your room was anything but what he had imagined a princess' room to be, he saw your many beautiful princess dresses on display and then in one corner were some clothes that looked like they were a peasant's clothes “You must be very bored, princess, if I don't dare,” he commented, noticing your face and your tone of voice.

It was then that you turned to him and looked at him with a hint of a smile on your lips, "You are the foreigner skilled with the sword. The man everyone is talking about, the Hispanic." you noted.

“Am I that famous?” he asked, smiling at you askance.

You bit your lower lip gently and then let your gaze wander from his face to his figure, “Your exploits in the Eastern continent are famous,” you replied, then looked up at his face, “You must have seen a lot.”

“Some of these are very common, others are absolutely extraordinary and hard to believe.”

“Try.” You urged, but he didn’t say as much as you wanted to hear him say, “What happens now? Are you going to stand there all day with your sword drawn ready to strike anyone who tries to get close to me?” you asked him almost amused “In fact, I’d like to see my maids run away so I can be free too.”

“Princesa..” he started, but you interrupted him by telling him your name as if to invite him to call you by your first name, but he completely ignored that correction “Princesa, I am not here to see you laugh at other people's misfortunes, but to protect you." he reminded you.

He didn't know you, but your approach was so different from the way your mother the Queen and the King had described you. You certainly struck him right away.

You sighed, “I have no intention of turning you into my jester if that's what you're afraid of.” You reassured him, turning serious and looking outside. “I just want to be free. You know, you who come from a world of freedom, maybe you love what you see here: power, wealth, stability. But I grew up like this... I want the exact opposite.” And in that moment Tovar's heart sank“You may think I am crazy to want things like running across a meadow, brandishing a sword, riding my steed on the beach, instead of one day ruling this nation with my future husband.” you sighed sadly “Forget what I said. Maybe you should also tell my father and it’s better that he doesn't know my thoughts. He wouldn’t understand.”

“It is understandable that he doesn't approve,” Tovar agreed, lowering his gaze for a moment and then raising it again to your sad face.

You nodded, “Okay.” You cleared your throat as if to silence those thoughts that were not in keeping with your status, “Um, what are we gon—?”

Pero interrupted you, “I won't tell anyone what you confided in me.” He reassured you. “I am not your enemy. I was called to protect you and I will, but protection does not mean keeping you in a cage.”

Tovar was then that he saw that sparkle that has never left your eyes when you and him are together. You had found an ally for the first time in your life.

He watches you in the firelight, watches that state of pure bliss that makes you as beautiful as a painting he once stole for a rich lord a few years ago, a slight smile curves your lips upwards and a small lock of hair falls across your face. You are a tender and sweet image to see, you are so different from the strong warrior you want to appear, you are beautiful like an angel.

He who has met so many monsters with beautiful faces, fought against monsters in the flesh, ran away from one place to another, never knew or understood what peace or stability was, but since he met you it's like he started to be serene in some way; he had started to have a routine, a day marked by repeated and regular actions, although with some exceptions here and there to satisfy your rebellious soul and to make sure that he himself was happy in knowing you were happy and satisfied. When you smiled at him after a long ride through the meadows it was as if everything was in its place, as if he had fully fulfilled his duties, as if he was somehow really living in those simple moments with you.

He sees you groaning in your sleep and holding you close to him as if seeking protection in a vulnerable moment like rest. And he knows it well since his whole life he has done nothing but keep his guard up, always ready to bite and scratch to protect himself from everything and everyone. He understands you very well, perhaps better than anyone else.

From the very beginning he felt a strange, unknown warmth invade his chest and the unknown instinct to protect you regardless of the task he had been called to perform. He has never experienced feelings such as affection or love, or rather perhaps in his own way he felt them, but that happened a long time ago when his life was very different...

“Pero,” you mutter sleepily, catching his attention as he sees you wrinkle your nose and open and close your eyes, “is it morning already?” you ask “Did I sleep much?” you groan, dazed.

“No,” he replies, moving away the arm that was holding you closer to him, always respecting your person, “barely a couple of hours.” You hear him sigh, “It’s still night outside.” he adds, touching your forehead with his fingers with disarming delicacy, “Rest a little longer.”

You still look at him half asleep, “Go to sleep too.” You suggest, opening and closing your eyes. “I’m glad you’re by my side, but we both need to be strong.” you say, abandoning yourself to sleep and slightly bowing your head in his direction.

You're right, he needs to sleep too. At least a little.

When the light of dawn caresses the mountains, you are already awake. You have your legs pulled to your chest and you stare at the horizon with a thoughtful expression. A bunch of possible scenarios run through your mind based on what your actions might be in the next few hours. You sigh before turning towards the inside of the cave where Pero still rests. He tried to hold you by the wrist in an attempt to get you to rest some more, but you shook your head and you touched his rough cheek as if to say rest, don't worry about me, then you stood up, while he - you're sure of it - followed you with his gaze as if he wanted to make sure that you don't do anything stupid.

You're a rebel, but you're not a fool. You know you have to think carefully about your actions and decisions, but you also know that you have to talk to your father and run the risk that he will have you arrested or that many lies have been told about you in order to discredit you in his eyes.

A father should believe his daughter regardless, but yours... well, he's never been on your side, he's always wanted to do things his way. And this time you fear he won't make an exception.

The sky has timidly turned a pale blue and you get up determined to face everything, Tovar has also already suggested the way for you to sneak back into the castle, but this time you will go with him, with the one who very quickly became a friend — and in your heart something more, even if you don't have the courage to say it out loud — beyond your bodyguard.

Tovar, after yawning loudly, stretches as he stands up, “So, princesa, what's the plan now?”

“It’s a risky plan, but I think it’s the only feasible one,” he announced.

Pero watches you thoughtfully and waiting for you to continue, but then he completes for you, “You want to go back to the castle to talk to the King, and that's understandable, but I think we should do something else first.”

“What do you mean?” you ask him, placing your hands on your hips and zigzagging your gaze from one side of the cave to the other, trying to figure out what you'd missed.

“We must first understand who or what is starving people. There is certainly an explanation and we must understand which one.”

You smile, “We?”

He nods, “You know I’m on your side and I follow you wherever you go.” He confirms, taking a half step towards you.

You also take a small step towards him, “Are you doing this as a bodyguard?”

He smiles at you, timidly bringing his hand closer to your cheek, “You know I’m doing this as your friend and not out of obligation.” You smile slightly at him. “I’ll help you shed some light on this, I promise.”

“If only you could be my betrothed!” you exclaim, looking into his eyes. “You understand me, you are...”

“No, princesa,” he immediately interrupts you by moving away from you, turning his back on you “what you're saying is wrong and I don't want it.” he continues using a firm tone. Pero loves you, but his heart can't allow such involvement.

It's not fair to him or to you. It's not fair that you get attached to someone like him, nor that he forces you to have to see him in secret so as not to cause scandal.

"I don't want you." he says almost with contempt. "You're a little girl." he adds.

He knows he hurt you because he defined you exactly as you don't want, he belittled you and this has always bothered you enormously. And he knows it, but if it's the only way to make you give up, so be it.

For a while he doesn't even hear you breathing as if you were holding your breath, then he hears you reply with a cold tone of voice, “I don't believe you, but... it's okay.” He hears the bitterness in your tone of voice, but this time – unlike others – he doesn't try to make up for it by cracking a few jokes or taking you to your favorite places, he stands still, silent.

“Let's go.” you use an authoritative tone. Pero has already heard this tone like that of a master who calls his dog and this obediently starts to follow him, only he has never heard it coming from from your lips and it hurts him, but he prefers to be sick himself rather than see you suffer one day because of him.

You both walk away from the makeshift shelter, feeling a weight on your chest and a lump in your throat, but neither of you mentions it. Both of you mount your steeds towards the house of one of your faithful vassal who will surely be able to give you an answer and shed light on the conspiracy that is weighing on your land and perhaps on your own father.

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