#dad just made me coffee without me asking

[faithshouseofchaos]

Franco x driver reader- She is a rookie who started before him and the others on the grid are protective of her since she has no one with her (her family never goes to see her or supports her). They start talking and the other drivers act like older brothers.

A/n— Hi 👋 @alex-wotton I went with the last one because it really stood out to me because I realized last night that if I was a f1 driver traveling to races would be pretty lonely as my mom has lupus and is in pain all the time and my siblings are still in school while my dad works out on the road. I will also be doing the others to.

Oh one more thing this is just a little look into the big fic around this request I’ll be doing later… depending on how well this does.

"They mean well" — Franco Colapinto x fem! rookie diver! Reader

Fluff slightly angsty

Word count—1122

Summary — Franco befriend's the female Alpine rookie the only problem is that he now has to deal with her guard dogs.

The first few weeks on the grid were a whirlwind, especially since you were a rookie in a sport where every second counts, and every move you make is scrutinized. It was hard, almost overwhelming, and though you knew the other drivers were competitive, you quickly realized that there was a quieter, more supportive side to them. You couldn’t deny how much it helped to have the older drivers looking out for you.

Lando had taken to teasing you right away. His cheeky humor and constant lighthearted comments were always enough to make you laugh, even on the toughest days. “You’re doing better than most of the vets, you know,” he’d say after a particularly good lap, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “Next time, you’ll have to give me some pointers!”

Max, who often seemed aloof to others, was surprisingly attentive. He noticed when you were on your own, after long days when you would simply wander the paddock, minding your own business. Without a word, he would sidle up next to you, hands shoved deep into his pockets, and talk about the most mundane things—anything to take your mind off the pressure. “Have you ever tried the coffee from the new stand near the paddock? Best one in town,” he’d comment, knowing full well it was an excuse to pull you into a conversation that wasn’t about racing for once.

Charles, ever the older brother type, was the one who would make sure you didn’t slip into your head too much. He could tell when the weight of everything was starting to build up on your shoulders. “Hey,” he’d say, voice gentle but firm. “You’re doing fine. Don’t let the stress get to you. You have a team behind you.”

And then there was Franco. He was quieter than the others, but his presence was undeniable. He’d only just joined the grid, and the others were quick to embrace him, but it was clear that his personality was different—calmer, more reserved. You found that, over time, you felt a quiet connection with him. It wasn’t an in-your-face, loud support, but a steady, reassuring presence.

One evening, after another intense qualifying session, you found yourself walking alone by the garages, replaying every corner of the track in your head. You were exhausted, physically and mentally, but you didn’t want to be a burden to the others, so you walked it off in silence. Franco noticed you from across the paddock and, with a knowing look, excused himself from a conversation he was having with Lando.

When he reached you, there was no fanfare, just a casual ease that made you relax almost immediately.

“Hey, everything okay?” Franco asked, his voice soft yet direct.

You smiled, a little weary, but grateful. “Just thinking about the session. Could’ve done better.”

He shook his head, his lips curling into a small smile. “You did fine. We all have those moments, don’t overthink it.”

You let out a breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding. “It’s just… hard sometimes. Being the rookie and feeling like you’re always falling short.”

Franco tilted his head slightly, studying you for a moment before replying. “I get it. I’m still the new guy here too, remember? But honestly, the others are looking out for you. They’ve got your back.”

The way he said it was simple, but there was a sincerity behind it that made something inside you relax. Franco wasn’t offering empty words—he meant it.

And it wasn’t just him. The next time you walked into the paddock and bumped into Max, he clapped you on the shoulder with a grin. “You looked a bit off yesterday. If you need a break, you know where to find me.”

Lando, catching wind of the exchange, chimed in from a few feet away. “Yeah, don’t make us have to drag you into our fun. We’re here for more than just the racing.”

The protectiveness came in waves. Sometimes it was subtle—Charles, pulling you aside to offer advice on staying focused during the race, or Lando, joking around to make you laugh when the stress of the weekend was beginning to get to you. But sometimes, it was a little more overt.

The first time you really felt the weight of their protectiveness was after a particularly tough race, where you finished outside the points. The media was relentless, questions flying about whether you were cut out for the sport, and you could feel the eyes of the paddock on you.

As you were heading back to your garage, head down, trying to shut out the noise, you suddenly felt a hand on your shoulder. It was Max.

“You don’t let them get to you,” he said quietly, looking you in the eyes. “It’s one race. And you’ll get them next time.”

Before you could respond, Lando appeared, his usual grin plastered across his face. “Max is right, of course. And if they keep giving you trouble, just let me know. I’m pretty good at handling the media.”

Charles joined them, his voice more serious than usual. “We’ve all been there. Don’t let them make you doubt yourself. We’re all in this together.”

That was when it hit you—this wasn’t just about the competition on the track. They truly cared about you, and despite the pressures of racing, they weren’t about to let you face it alone.

Franco appeared just as they were finishing up, walking over to the group with a quiet smile. “Everyone’s right,” he added, offering a knowing look. “And if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m always around. No need to fight your battles alone.”

From that moment on, you felt the weight of their protectiveness more than ever. It wasn’t just about them looking out for a rookie; it was about them making sure you knew that no matter what happened, you weren’t alone on the grid.

The bond between you and Franco deepened as the weeks went on. In between races, the two of you shared quiet conversations in the back of the garage, or while waiting for your cars to be prepped. You spoke about everything—racing, family, the weird quirks of the Formula 1 lifestyle, and even the things you’d been avoiding thinking about. Franco’s steady support and dry humor became something you could rely on, and the way he listened without judgment made him one of the few you truly felt comfortable with.

In a world that often felt like a competition to survive, you finally understood: you had people here, and they weren’t just teammates or rivals—they were your family.

And Franco, despite being new to the grid himself, was starting to feel more like a brother than just a teammate.

[brbsoulnomming]

Heart On Your Sleeve Part 3

Part 1 | Part 2

written for steddiebigbang2024 and belatedly posting here!

-----

Dustin shows up at his house the next morning.

"You have a concussion," Dustin says when Steve answers the door.

Steve squints at him. "Did you get your medical license when I wasn't looking?"

Dustin rolls his eyes. "Haha, very funny. Are you going to let me in?"

Steve doesn't really have a reason not to.

All right, well, he's got several reasons not to, starting with the fact that Steve isn't actually feeling so great and ending with Dustin being like thirteen and somehow always around when the world is ending.

But Steve is lonely, and feeling kind of pathetic, and none of them seem like good enough reasons, so he opens the door and lets Dustin in.

"From my mom," Dustin says, setting down a Tupperware of brownies on the coffee table.

Steve immediately knows he's made the right decision, taking a massive bite of chocolate, fudgy heaven. It's only after he's devoured one and he turns to Dustin to ask him to tell his mom thanks that he sees that Dustin's plopped his heart onto the coffee table, too.

"Hearts out, Steve," Dustin says matter-of-factly.

"Why?" Steve bitches. "What do you even need to look at it for?"

"You're in the Party now! Party rules, you have to show your heart before you can get your walkie," Dustin says.

Steve pulls a face, and immediately regrets it as it makes his eye and nose burst with pain. "Who says I even want to be in your party?"

Dustin's face falls. "Don't you?" he asks, sounding hesitant and uncertain.

It makes Steve's resolve crumble immediately.

"How about we start with friends?" Steve offers.

The kid's face lights up at that, giving him a gap toothed smile, but then he nudges his heart closer to Steve and looks at him expectantly.

Steve sighs and takes his own heart out, wincing a little as the motion twinges his bruised ribs. He sets it on the table next to Dustin's.

"There you go," Steve mutters.

Now that the light's better, he can see a hole right in the middle of Dustin's heart. It's small, but it goes all the way through, and it makes Steve's own heart give a soft pulse in empathy.

Dustin catches it, looks up to follow Steve's gaze, and drops his eyes. "My dad," Dustin mutters.

"Hey," Steve says softly, reaching out without even thinking about it to turn his heart a little.

There's two overlapping holes in the same place on his own heart, and Steve rubs his thumb over them, biting the inside of his cheek at the way it still prompts a soft echo of longing. "My parents," he tells Dustin.

Dustin looks around, like he's only just now realizing that there's been no sign of them since he rang the doorbell. "Oh," he says, soft and full of understanding.

It's honestly the most understanding he's ever received about his parents choosing to be mostly absent from his life, which makes him feel kind of pathetic, but also makes his heart warm in a way he's not sure it ever has before.

Dustin reaches out, stopping just short of touching Steve's heart as he gestures to the jagged line cutting through it.

"Nancy?" Dustin asks.

Steve's jaw sets.

He doesn't want to talk about it.

Dustin seems to take that as answer enough, though, because he just goes back to eagerly examining both of their hearts. Steve's is bigger than his - of course it is, because Dustin is thirteen, but they're both the same deep, vibrant red, and they both beat strong and steady.

It's barely any time before they're beating in unison.

Dustin looks back up at him, beaming that wide, goofy smile of his. "Cool," he proclaims.

—

Every time Dustin comes over after that - and it's a lot, honestly, Steve still doesn't know what to make of it - he plops his heart onto the coffee table and waits expectantly until Steve takes his out and puts it next to Dustin's.

They never touch each other's hearts, they never even talk about it, but at least twice a week Steve's able to breathe a little easier, able to actually relax.

—

He waits at the picnic table in the woods after school on his first day back.

Munson looks bored at first when he gets there, but then he does a double take, like Steve's injuries are worse now than they were at lunch.

Or maybe it's just that he's up close now, instead of on the other side of the cafeteria, or maybe it's just that Steve's tired and in pain and he doesn't give a shit about pretending like he isn't.

“Jesus Christ, Harrington,” Munson mutters, dropping his lunchbox on the table.

Steve shrugs. “I'd say you should see the other guy, but everyone did already.”

Munson is looking at him with suspicion, eyes narrowed as he takes him in. Steve wonders if he doesn't buy the story that's been floating around, if it's too easy to see that he and Hargrove both look pretty fucking bad for just blowing off steam and getting carried away.

Wonders if he'll call him on it.

Munson's expression smooths out, though, and he flips the lunchbox lid open. “How much do you want?”

Steve's eyes flick down to the chains on Munson's leather jacket, but no heart there today. Not that he could see anything if it was - Munson's been wearing his heart pinned to his jacket off and on since the last half of Steve's freshman year, but it's always wrapped up tight in chains or leather so that no one could get more than a glimpse of it.

Everyone said it was a flaunt of defiance against tradition and a way he could cheat people in his deals while maintaining the appearance of a fair exchange, but Steve always kind of figured it was just because he was tired of people demanding to see it whenever he sold to them while being reluctant to show theirs.

That, and it was like everything else Eddie Munson did - loud and in your face and purposefully drawing attention to what he wanted you to see, while guarding what he didn't close to his chest.

Steve's never bothered with attempting a mutual show of hearts the handful of times he's bought from Munson before - they aren't exactly new business partners, not even the first time he actually bought from Munson himself, and frankly Steve's never needed to see Munson's heart to know he's trustworthy enough that he's not going to give him bad shit, even if he does overcharge him.

But today's different.

He gently pops open his own chest, ignoring the faint twinge of his ribs, and takes his heart out, setting it on the table next to Munson's lunchbox.

Munson's eyes widen for a moment before his jaw sets, lips thinning out in a flat line as he looks down at Steve's heart and then back up to his face. “What the hell is this?”

“My heart,” Steve replies evenly.

Munson looks unimpressed. “I'm not showing you mine.”

“I didn't ask you to,” Steve says, unable to stop himself even though he knows he's being kind of a dick.

Munson looks at him for a moment. Then, “Whatever. How much do you want?”

Steve opens his mouth to say he isn't here to buy today, but - actually, no, he could probably use some weed to dull the pain and help him sleep. It's routine for a moment, both of them ignoring Steve's heart beating on the table next to them as they make the trade, until Steve's baggie is tucked inside his jacket and Munson's shoving cash into the back pocket of his jeans.

“Pleasure doing business with you, Your Majesty,” Munson says, doing a little bow.

“Munson, wait,” Steve says.

Munson straightens, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Hargrove tried to blame this on you.” Steve gestures at his face. “Told me you sold him some bad shit.”

Munson goes very, very still. His eyes flick down to Steve's heart, so quick that Steve's not sure he would have noticed it if he wasn't watching Munson so closely.

“That so?” Munson asks. There isn't an edge in his voice - if anything, there's such a quiet neutrality to those two words that it almost feels more dangerous than if he'd tried to put a warning in them.

Eddie Munson's never scared Steve the way he does half the school - honestly, shitty as it is, Steve doesn't exactly think of him all that much - but there's no denying that Munson is no pushover. He can't tell if Munson is afraid, or angry, or just itching for a fight, but Steve didn't come here to freak him out.

He holds his hands up, palm out, and purposefully drags his gaze down to where his heart is beating calm and steady. “I don't believe him.”

Munson looks down at Steve's heart, lingering for a moment before darting back up. His expression is still unreadable. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because he said he was going to spread it around, that you were lacing your stuff with something,” Steve says. “I'm pretty sure I convinced him it was a bad idea, but just in case.”

“You convinced him it was a bad idea,” Munson repeats flatly.

Steve shrugs. “I told him he should be nicer to you, that you always sell me the good shit.”

That gets a little snort out of Munson, startled and almost amused, and Steve grins at him.

“It won't be hard to tack that onto the rumor if he tries to spread it,” Steve says. “So you should be safe.”

Just like that, the amusement in Munson's expression is gone. “Yeah?” he asks, disdain clear in his voice. “And why does King Steve give a shit if I'm safe?”

It's an obvious challenge, and for just a moment - for just a moment, Steve wants to tell him.

To tell him how the King Steve shit first came about because Carol loved fairy tales when they were little and his parents were gone so much that Tommy called him king of the castle, that he has tons of people who call him their friend but the only people who come close to understanding him are his ex, her new boyfriend, and a gaggle of middle schoolers who're waiting for him to come pick them up.

That he's more tired than any seventeen year old should ever be.

“What kind of king would I be if I didn't protect my people?” he says instead of any of that, refusing to look at whatever his heart is doing.

It's high school, it's politics, it's bullshit, but it's still a game he has to play for a little longer.

Munson is watching his heart, now, and whatever he sees makes something complicated cross his face. For a moment, Steve picks up a hint of longing, but it's gone by the time he looks back up.

“Well then,” he says, wide grin back in place as he bows again. “Consider this court jester protected, Your Majesty.”

—

The phone rings at one am a few days later.

He isn't asleep - had been, earlier, but a nightmare had tipped him quickly into wakefulness, and he hadn't gone back - so he answers it almost immediately.

Nothing good comes from one am phone calls.

“How many teeth do you think those things have?” Max demands without so much as a hello.

“I don't know,” Steve bitches before he's thought better of it. “You want to come over and count the bite marks on my leg?”

There's silence for a moment.

“Yeah,” Max says, and Steve's gut twists.

“It's one in the morning, Mayfield,” he says. “What are you going to do, skate over? It's dark and cold as shit out there.”

“Didn't stop us at the junkyard,” she shoots back.

He's quiet for a moment. Then, “I'll pick you up.”

She snorts. “You're going to show up at my house at one am and pick me up? Yeah, that'll be a great look for you.”

“Then it looks like you're out of luck, and you'll have to pick out the teeth marks on my leg tomorrow.”

She doesn't say anything for a while. He doesn't rush her, just settles back with the phone tucked between his shoulder and his ear.

“Why'd you do it?” she asks eventually.

“I ask myself that about a lot of things,” he replies. “Which one?”

He half expects another snappy retort, but her voice just goes even quieter.

“Put yourself in front of me. Stand up to him.”

Oh.

“I don't need protecting,” she adds, and yeah, there's the attitude.

“I know you don't need it,” he says, even though that's a lie. She does need it, they all do. “I know you can look out for yourself.”

That's not a lie.

“But you shouldn't have to. You should have someone who'll look out for you.”

She scoffs. “And that's going to be you?”

He shrugs, even though she can't see it, and it hurts a little. “Why not?”

She's quiet again. “You don't even know me.”

He does, is the thing. He knows the way her eyes looked when she said Billy was going to kill her, he knows not being able to rely on the people you should count on most, even if it's not the same.

He knows how he felt the summer before high school, when his father finally grew too frustrated with waiting for Steve's heart to change, how he picked it up and nearly threw it across the room. He knows the sound of his mother yelling, how viciously they fought. How his father never touched him or his heart again, but Steve now knew what lurked behind his eyes when he smiled too big.

He knows how his mother has looked at him with disappointment more times than anything else, after that.

But he doesn't say any of that. Instead, he says, “So let's change that. Skate park or arcade tomorrow?”

“What?” she asks, clearly thrown.

“After you're done staring at my leg wound and counting teeth like a creep,” he clarifies. “Am I taking you to the skate park or the arcade?”

“Hawkins doesn't have a skate park,” she says dismissively. “It has abandoned parking lots and dirt holes.”

He waits.

“Arcade,” she says. “And I want popcorn.”

—

His walkie flares to life at night, sometimes.

After the first time, he leaves it on a different channel than their usual one - makes sure the kids know which one it is, if they need to use it - and sometimes, they do.

Okay, more than sometimes. It's not like Steve's sleeping all that well, though, so he doesn't mind when it happens almost every night for a few weeks.

“Steve, you awake? Over,” Lucas says one night.

“Yeah, I'm up,” he mutters into the walkie. Then, after a moment's pause, “Over.”

There's silence, and that wakes him up more than the walkie itself had.

“Lucas?” he asks.

“What if you weren't there?” Lucas says.

“What?” Steve asks.

“At the junkyard. With Billy. What if you weren't there?”

“But I was,” Steve says, frowning.

“I know, but what if you weren't?”

Steve sits up, rubs at his eyes a little. “I'll always be there when you guys need me, okay?”

“You can't promise that!” If it was Dustin or Mike it might have been an angry bite, but Lucas just sounds frustrated. Maybe even a little scared.

“Sure I can,” Steve argues, even though he kind of knows Lucas is right. “I have the walkie, right? You guys call me, and bada bing bada boom, I'm there.”

Lucas is quiet for a moment. “Are you still trying to get Nancy back?”

“What? No, of course not. Why?”

“Dustin said you were bringing flowers to Nancy when he made you help him look for Dart.”

Right, of course he did. Do these kids keep any secrets from each other?

“This isn't about Nancy, okay? This is about you guys. I showed my heart to Dustin and I have my walkie and everything, doesn't that mean I'm in your party?”

“You actually want to be in the Party?” Lucas asks, sounding skeptical. “But you're Steve Harrington.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Steve asks.

“Aren't you way too cool to hang out with us?” Lucas retorts.

This is - quickly becoming a conversation that Steve doesn't really want to have over a walkie talkie at past midnight on a school night. He huffs out a frustrated breath of air, then pushes the talk button on the walkie again.

“This weekend. Arcade or shooting hoops?”

There's a pause. Then, “Really?”

Steve swallows down his urge to be a dick. “Yeah. Really.”

“Basketball. The park?” Lucas asks.

“Nah, we can use the hoop in my driveway. Come on by whenever.”

—

Lucas is good. Unpracticed, especially at any kind of teamwork, but good. Steve has to be careful, with his injuries, but they still get some good work in, and it's fun.

It's not until they're finished and raiding the kitchen for some snacks that he asks, “So what was that about, a few days ago?”

Lucas noisily pops open his can of New Coke, and takes such a long drink that Steve's pretty sure he's doing it to avoid answering. Steve just raises an eyebrow.

“Nancy used to hang out with us,” Lucas says, almost reluctantly. “She even played D&D with us a couple of times. Then she went to high school, and then she started dating you, and suddenly she's too cool to hang out with us. Then - then everything with Will, the first time, and she promised Mike they'd spend more time together, but she didn't. Just kept dating you.”

That's - a lot. He hadn't known that about Nancy, except that she wasn't as close with Mike as she wanted to be, that she didn't know how to talk to him about everything that happened. He thinks about protesting that hey, he's the one who got Nancy to talk to Mike about Will - and had to be a part of it, ugh - but again, he's trying not to be a dick.

“So you're, what, worried that I goaded Nancy into not hanging with you guys?”

Lucas makes a face at him. “No, Nancy doesn't do anything she doesn't want to do. I believe you that you'll be here if we need you for Upside Down stuff again, but why would you hang out with us for the in between?”

That's a fair question. He wants to be flippant, wants to deflect with something like because Dustin keeps showing up at my house and won't leave me alone, but -

He remembers how terrified Lucas looked with Billy pinning him against the cabinet. He kind of wonders if anyone's talked to him about it, or if it got lumped in with all the other weird terrifying shit going on.

“Because it isn't always Upside Down stuff,” Steve says softly.

Lucas goes quiet. “El says Hopper told her you guys fixed it so Billy would leave us alone.”

“I think Max did that well enough, but yeah, Hop and I had a plan.”

“How?” Lucas asks.

Bullshit, is how, Steve wants to say, but he doesn't. “Billy's on the basketball team, and he wants to stay on the basketball team.”

Lucas frowns. “So?”

“So I've been on the team longer than him. Coach knows me better, the guys are used to looking to me. Well - some of them.” In all fairness, the basketball team's been kind of split - some of them gravitating to him, some to Billy, some trickling back and forth like kids with divorced parents.

“So… you're one of the cool kids, and you like us, so the more douchebag ones stay away from us?” Lucas asks.

Steve's nose scrunches a little as he considers that, but it's… not wrong. “Yeah, I guess so. Most of them are good guys, they don't like bullying anymore than I do. It doesn't stop the ones who are assholes from doing it where we can't see it, but it helps.”

Lucas looks like he's considering that for a long moment, until finally he nods.

Steve thinks that's the end of it, but later, as Lucas is heading out to leave, he asks, “So what happens if you're not there, and you can't see it?”

Steve resists the temptation to pinch the bridge of his nose - mostly because he knows it'll hurt like hell.

“The Y is offering self defense classes,” he says, when he's gotten himself under control. “I was thinking about taking one. You in?”

Lucas is in.

This is already written, and my plan is to post one part a day until it's all up here!

-----

Part 4

Taglist (always happy to add more to this if anyone wants): @fairytalesreality @lostonceandneverfound @wheneverfeasible @awkwardgravity1 @theintrovertedintrovert @ravenfrog @scarlet-malfoy

[m0n0-t0n3]

small things make me so happy

[keeps-ache]

buttered noodles 💫💛🍜

[phantomrose96]

Sham Sacrifice

(Hi it's time for my favorite headcanon)

...

Vlad Masters sat firm and proper on the Fenton Family couch, legs crossed, teacup pinched in his fingertips, fighting subtly against the sinkhole that came with the mistake of taking Jack’s usual spot on the couch. He appeared with all the same charm and delightfulness of an ant swarm rearranging your picnic.

Danny stood at the doorway, just-still-in-the-kitchen, just not inviting himself to join the adults in the living room where Jack boomed and rambled and Vlad sat so stiff and polite and nice that his tea in his hands was going cold.

“Oh, Danny you’ll love this story—Danny, you should join us—Danny this was, what, summer of ’84? When was that heatwave, Vladdy? The one where you—”

“There’s no need to bore Daniel with the mad ravings of two old kooks, Jack. Kids would rather be off at the mall or—some store, surely. No need to stick around Daniel on my behalf. I assure you I won’t be offended if you leave.”

“No worries, V-man. I’m good right here. I love hearing Dad’s stories." Danny met Vlad's challenge, speaking with more poisonous courtesy than Vlad had proffered first. "In fact I think he should tell a few more, if he’s got more in mind.”

“In fact I do have more in mind—” Jack answered.

Neither Danny nor Vlad were listening to Jack. They held eye-contact, Danny with a stern unblinkingness of a sheepdog on duty. A lot was said without words. A lot was understood when Vlad decided to visit through the front door. Vlad only used the front door when he wanted something.

And it was never good when Vlad wanted something.

“—the core reactor project, yeah? That summer? That was in the lab with no A/C. Top floor. We were sweating like pigs, all of us. And I dared you to eat the really moldy pizza from our fridge the night before and you ralphed right into—”

“—Surely you remember this more fondly than I do. Daniel, really, you can go.”

Not a chance.

“Actually,” Danny answered, brightening some as his opportunity struck. “I am interested in this. For science class I need to write a report on the invention of an important piece of technology. I was gonna ask Mom and Dad about the Ghost Portal. And now that you’re here, I can get the whole history.”

Jack made a giddy little noise. He leaned forward, words primed, but Vlad was quicker to the draw.

“Sorry to say, your faith in me is unfounded. I wasn’t the portal guy back in college—that was always your mother and father’s passion project. I was their skeptic.”

“Bet that’s got you feeling pretty foolish right now, doesn’t it V-man?” Jack chided, a quick jab to Vlad’s ribs that nearly unseated the teacup from his suspended saucer. “Considering the fully-functioning portal right beneath our toes.”

“I hardly feel foolish, Jack. Your calculation for the portal in college was never going to work.”

“What do you mean? Of course it did.” Jack thumped the ground with his foot. “It’s running the old girl right now.”

At this, Vlad’s eyes narrowed. For the first time he’d been shaken off whatever skeezy machinations had brought him in. His pride was being challenged, and by Jack no less.

“Absolutely not. With that calculation? Absolutely not.”

“Well forget the tea biscuits Vlad, because you’re going to be eating your words in a second. Mads, hold my spot,” Jack said, as if anyone was planning to take his spot. He bounced from the couch, scooted from the living room, and vanished into the dark maw of the lab stairs, leaving only the waning beat of his footsteps behind.

His absence filled only a swallowing few seconds. The footsteps returned, bounding upward, creaking with his heavy cadence, and Jack bounced back into the room in much the manner he left. A pad of yellow lined paper was clutched in his hand. When he dropped it on the coffee table, it revealed row after row of tight scribble, churning math, carrying down the page and occupying two entire pages more that Jack flipped through.

“Same baby I came up with in college. It just needed heavier dampening and higher voltage than what we made back then. The portal downstairs has that in spades. Well, in like two-thirds of a spade.” Jack tapped something on the last line. “The projection was still only hitting 70% of the threshold we calculated to reach dimension penetration. But it’s an art, not just a science. We fired it up anyway, and it took!”

Vlad grabbed the paper pad, agitated. His eyes ran over it. Then again. Until he settled on one line, a firmness overcoming his face. He tossed the pad back onto the coffee table, and Vlad leaned back into the couch, arms crossed.

“The lambda, Jack.”

“The lambda?”

“Check it again.”

Jack did, lips pursed, pad of paper nearly swallowed in his big meaty hand.

“What about--?”

“It squares. The units don’t balance otherwise. It originates from an integration step of λ*∂λ/∂t. It squares.”

Jack’s brow remained furrowed, firm, until delight cracked into his eyes, and he let out a laugh.

“Gods, my handwriting is gonna be the death of us. Mads,” he tapped something unseen on the second page. “That’s the genius of Vladdy. Cracked this puppy wide open with just a glance. I never noticed that in all my checking. That explains the missing 30%, at least. That explains how the portal took. Lucky for you Danny that Vlad was here—”

“Jack,” Maddie said.

“—your report can have the correct formula. It’ll be—”

“—Jack—”

“—A+ worthy—”

“—Jack,” Maddie said, curt. “Lambda is the ambient ecto-energy. It’s a few ten-thousandths of a unit.”

“It—huh.”

Maddie had surfaced a pen from her pocket. She sheared a few blank pages out from the back of the pad and started the formula fresh. She made quick work of copying it over, quicker work of solving it through – lambda-squared intact.

She hit the final line and hatched a pen mark beneath the number. Jack stared, confused.

“That can’t… no.”

He repeated the same. New pages torn loose. Formula copied over, processed, line by line by line—lambda squared��by line by line by line.

Jack settled on his answer. Same as Maddie’s.

Confusion made his face tense.

“So it’s not 70% of the way to the threshold… It’s 0.013% of the way to the threshold.”

He held the pen hard, his whole body holding firm and taut as the gears turned in his head. Jack’s eyes flickered across the formula, again and again and again. He looked to Maddie, like a dog issued a command he did not understand.

“But it worked,” he said, small. “But it worked.”

Jack stood, robotic almost, eyes lost in something far away. He disappeared into the lab almost as quickly as he had a few minutes before, but now he exited with a smoothness and a quietness so very uncharacteristic of him. It bothered Danny, somewhere deep in his gut.

Maddie followed, a possession matching Jack’s.

Danny’s fingers curled and uncurled. He’d succeeded. He’s successfully interrupted Vlad’s… whatever this was. But the disquiet infected him. He didn’t like it.

“So what does that mean?” Danny asked, perhaps to Vlad. “What’s wrong with the calculation?”

Vlad sipped on tea ice cold.

“Who knows?” Vlad lied.

…

The math didn’t work.

Maddie and Jack burned through paper, burned through pencils, burned through hours.

The math didn’t work.

Clothes stuck to skin. Sweat lingered fetid and stale in the cold basement air. Exhaustion beat like a slurry through their veins.

The math didn’t work.

The portal supervised all, placidly green, the light for their table, the light for their work when the lightbulb overhead burnt clean out and neither Jack nor Maddie could be pulled away to replace it. It stood, it watched, a testament of contradiction to everything they could not solve on paper, and yet everything they built directly into the fabric of reality.

And it should never have worked.

They threw every radical what-if they’d ever conceived over 20 years of ghost research.

The ecto-ether layer.

The latent activation stitches in space fabric.

The anti-ectomatter collision proposal.

The positive-feedback crystallization theory.

And still nothing worked.

All together, every crackpot theory in their favor taken for granted, racked them up to an activation energy 200x more potent than the calculation, and still just 2% of what would be needed to rip open, and hold open, a stable fissure between their reality and the ghost zone.

Maybe by pure luck, unfathomable luck, Fentonworks basement was directly situated atop a natural portal.

Maybe that would explain ripping it open. It did nothing to explain the stability. Natural portals were unstable by definition. There and gone in a few seconds. Not hours, days, weeks, months, a year, that the Fenton Portal had been open. Never so much as faltering.

It was late. 3am ticked away to 4am, and 4:30am. The discarded paper stacked higher than Jack and Maddie both. Calluses oozed from their hands at another attempt, and another, and another.

Maddie flipped through a folder’s worth of yellowed papers, aggressively thumbed over and over after two decades left untouched. And she settled on the one she’d passed over a few dozen times already, always seeking something else, something better.

This time she unsheathed it, and she placed it on the lab table.

“…If a mouse died. In the machine. If a mouse ran through the machine and accidentally bridged two live wires, and died of violent electrocution. 500 milliamps. Instantly melted into the circuitry.”

Maddie’s mouth was cotton-dry while she wrote. Ambient ecto-energy was low. Always very, very low.

Unless something very, very bad happened to something with the capacity to become a ghost.

The numbers wove. Maddie started the formula fresh, and it was pure muscle memory. A mouse. A big mouse, even. A 99th percentile beast of a mouse. And a wire that had been wired incorrectly. Something grounded that never actually grounded. An absolutely horrific amount of electricity.

0.37%, by pure numbers. If she included every permissive crackpot idea they had thrown on top, it topped out at 6% of the needed activation threshold.

Not a mouse.

“A cat,” Jack said, words gummy, tongue dry, face tired. “If we’ve got mice down here, maybe… a stray cat wandered in. Chased the mouse.”

Maddie nodded. It didn’t matter if it made sense.

She penned it in. A large cat. A devastating electrical short. Cats carried more ecto-potential than mice did. Ecto-potential did not necessarily go up with size. It went up with complexity. The things with the most ecto-potential were the things that most became ghosts.

1.45%, by pure numbers. 18% at absolute, absolute crackpot best.

“A dog,” Jack proposed with a shaky laugh. He swallowed. “A mouse… chased by a cat… chased by a dog… all electrocuted at once”

Maddie didn’t say the thing they both knew, which was that both of them would have noticed the evidence left behind by the electrically exploded pieces of a dog.

Maddie did it anyway. A mouse and a cat and a medium-sized dog, maybe just small enough to notice no evidence of, all together. All at once. All violently ripped apart, sacrificed to a machine still asleep in its wall.

Mice did not often make ghosts. Cats did not either. Dogs, occasionally. But infrequently. Very infrequently.

37%. At best.

“Jack.”

“Maddie, I know just—maybe something really smart—”

“—Jack—”

“—like an octopus—”

“Jack.”

“I hear, maybe, pigs are smart. If it was—”

Maddie was writing, already. Not for a pig. Not an octopus. Jack watched, and he knew what the numbers meant. The ecto-potential she penned gave her away. An ecto-potential that high.

65kg, an estimate

10,000 milliamps, a catastrophic accident, a death certificate.

A human’s amount of ecto-potential.

Maddie wrote.

And she wrote.

And she did not apply a single crackpot theory, not a single discredited proposal, not an ounce of exaggeration.

138%.

Threshold, and then some.

Comfortable, easily, then some.

For the first time, after all the hundreds of times she and Jack had penned this equation over the course of 2 decades, the number met her and Jack’s threshold.

A breakthrough.

A revelation.

A pure eureka moment.

Jack and Maddie were silent.

Alone in a humming basement. Alone with only the soft swirls of the portal for company, happy, stable, purring its contentment, singing to the cold air.

“It has to be something else,” Maddie said. And she said it weakly. And she said it childishly.

“You’re right. It can’t be this,” Jack echoed. “If someone died down here, we’d know. Dead bodies don’t walk away. We’d have seen it. O-or even if, if the body got stuck in the portal, we’d have heard of someone going missing.”

Maddie sat, quiet. A thought held her mind hostage.

“Unless they didn’t go missing,” Maddie said, and she said it barely audibly. “Unless the portal spit them right back out.”

“Then—that’s what I said—a dead body, on the floor, we’d have seen.”

“Not a dead body.”

“It had to be lethal, Mads—”

“I know Jack. But if they died, here, in the portal Jack, then their ghost did not get ripped away from the body and sent to the Ghost Zone. …They ripped the Ghost Zone here.” Palms slick with sweat smoothed over her notes. She pointed to one specific line and found her pen tip trembled no matter how badly she stabilized it. “The ecto-potential of a creature is how strong of a pull their ghost creates on the Ghost Zone. A strong enough pull means the ghost can reach the Ghost Zone and stabilize, like a fish reeling itself up, yeah? We agree on this Jack, yes?”

“Yes,” Jack answered.

“It’s what makes the math even work, Jack. Someone dying in the portal didn’t reel themselves to the boat. They reeled the boat in. Jack, they brought the Ghost Zone here…” Maddie wasn’t breathing right. She pulled sweat-soaked bangs away from her face. “Their ghost never left their body Jack. They died, Jack. And they walked back out.”

“…No. No,” Jack said. “No, they didn’t.”

“Then what?” Maddie asked.

Jack stared. He looked away. He didn’t like the expression on Maddie’s face.

“It—what about the ecto-ether theory?” Jack said, of the theory they’d tested and retested and tested all over, all night. He grabbed his pencil back up and pointed it aimlessly at Maddie’s piece of paper, pointed end out in self-defense. “If the ecto-ether is maybe… if it’s only 250-times stronger than we calculated. Then it could…”

Jack’s voice died. His pencil hung idle. Maddie’s paper remained unblemished.

“If it… was a pig,” Jack offered. “If it was a pig that died in the portal.”

“How, Jack? How would a pig get in? We lock all the doors at night, Jack. No one else can get in, Jack. It’s just us, Jack.”

Jack and Maddie were not there when the portal turned on.

Maddie’s statement carried two possibilities. Only two. Both felt like claws digging all the flesh right out of Jack’s heart.

“I want… I want to try the ecto-ether theory again,” Jack choked. “I think it’s the ecto-ether. I think it’ll work.”

Jack slid a piece of paper over, already covered in scribbles. In its single untouched corner, he started the equation for the several-thousandth time that night.

Above their head, birds were singing.

Sunrise hailed unseen from the windowless laboratory.

…

At 6am, Vlad answered his cell phone. The reception crackled, struggling through the layers of sheetrock above his head.

“Vlad?” Maddie’s voice crackled. “Sorry, did I wake you up?”

“Not at all my dear.” Vlad leaned his weight against the wall, playing with the singsong melody in his voice. “But you sound exhausted. Is anything the matter?”

“Yes. Well… Yes. Jack and I have—all night—trying to fix the equation.”

“Naturally.”

“We found something that maybe works.”

“Oh?” Vlad asked. He straightened, pacing now, cracklingly attentive. “And what might that—”

“If someone died. Activating the portal. We have an on-switch inside the portal’s interior. The trigger we use to press it is external to the portal, of course. But if someone went inside the portal, and they pressed it directly, and if they died, and pulled the Ghost Zone here—”

Vlad’s red eyes reflected pools of iridescent green. He twirled his free hand in the fringes of his cape, tongue working over the fanged edges of his teeth. He stared, consumed, forward.

“—and just, you, I was thinking, you’re the only other expert I’d trust to… maybe weigh in.”

“What does Jack think?”

“He denies it. He’s still. He’s trying other theories.”

“Well who knows, surely? The answer may lie somewhere you haven’t looked.”

“…I’ve looked everywhere, Vlad. That's the thing. There is no more ‘somewhere else’. I’ve looked.”

“You sound like your mind is made up.”

“I just… if maybe you have some idea.”

“Am I meant to talk you out of this idea?”

“Vlad.”

“Do you think I have some secret information you don’t? Sorry to say, I’m just your skeptic.” Some noise came through muffled from the other side. Vlad flashed a smile. “But…as your skeptic I will offer you this—It all sounds a bit absurd, doesn’t it? To kill someone and have them come back intact and… for you to never notice? Who would they be? How would they be? Surely not human anymore, surely. How would you never notice?”

Vlad paced forward, booted feet clicking along his laboratory floor.

“It would be ridiculous,” he continued, with a building crescendo, “so unfathomably self-centered surely, to not notice something like that befall someone so close to you, who died at the hands of your own invention? …If I’m correctly inferring who, in your household, you suspect of having activated the portal?” Vlad’s tongue lingered along his teeth.

Maddie’s line held, quiet. And the seconds of static drew long.

“Ah, apologies. I’ve overstepped,” Vlad continued. “I meant this as a vote of confidence in you. You and Jack both. Two people as attentive, caring, compassionate as yourselves. You would notice. I promise.”

“You’re… Okay, thank you, Vlad. I appreciate it.”

“Is there anything else, my dear?”

“No. No. Thank you, Vlad. I’ll think about this.”

Maddie’s line clicked dead. A chuckle built to Vlad’s lips and he let his head tip back with mirth. It lasted only a moment. He stowed his phone. And as if the interruption had never happened, Vlad reaffixed his attention on his own portal swirling in front of him. It bathed him, swimming green, purring contentment.

And Vlad vanished into his portal.

(Chapter 2)

[punkshort]

Home

Pairing: (Hallmark) Joel Miller x f!reader

Summary: You finally move in with Joel and Sarah.

Warnings: language, fluff (the cheesy hallmark kind), established relationship, reader has a previously explained nickname, smut (18+ MDNI), oral (f!receiving), unprotected piv sex

WC: 4.8K

Series Masterlist

Dividers by the lovely @saradika-graphics

Joel was nervous. He never really got nervous, but that particular day, he was nervous.

Sure, it was a big step in your relationship. Or maybe it was because months ago when he asked your father's permission to marry you, he promised he would wait until you moved in together.

And now, that day had arrived.

Where did the time go? He swore it just flew right on by, time that was filled with memories of dinners, parties, dates and holidays together. He hadn't planned what he would say and he felt woefully unprepared. He hadn't even talked to Sarah about it yet.

Just because today is the day you're moving in doesn't mean today is the day I need to ask, he thought to himself. Still, it was a big step. A big, symbolic gesture on both your ends. One that screamed, I'm in this for the long haul.

"Mornin', babygirl," Joel said sleepily as he entered the kitchen, Sarah already sitting at the table in front of an empty bowl and scrolling quietly on her phone.

"Hey," she responded distractedly. He poured himself a cup of coffee and looked around the room. It would be the last morning in his kitchen that didn't include you, and the thought made warmth bloom in his chest and excitement flicker under his skin.

"Big day," he said, but Sarah only nodded. "Y'know, been meanin' to talk to you 'bout somethin'."

She pulled her gaze up from her phone and cocked her head to the side. "Yeah?"

He nodded and took a deep breath before sitting across the table from her. He told her it was about you and she sat back in her chair.

"Bucky?"

He nodded, the silly nickname coming from his daughter's lips that only previously came from your immediate family making him smile.

"You know I'm cool with her moving in, we talked about it months ago. I think it's great. She's amazing and we have so much fun-"

"It's not that," he said, cutting her off before he lost his nerve. "One day - and I ain't sayin' today - but one day, I wanna ask her to marry me."

Sarah just continued to stare blankly at him, so he continued.

"I love her so much, babygirl. She means so much to me, 'n so does her family. I can't imagine my life, our life, without her."

"Yeah, duh," she replied, giving him an incredulous look. "Obviously if she's moving in I figured that would be the next step."

He frowned. "You did?"

"Dad," she whined, rolling her eyes. "I'm seventeen now. Soon, I'll be in college. I want you to be happy. I don't want to worry about you being sad and alone when I'm gone."

"Gee, thanks," he scoffed over his mug, and she giggled.

"What I'm saying is, I think it's great. Go for it. She'll totally say yes."

He scratched the back of his neck nervously. "Yeah?"

Sarah gave him a deadpan look. "Yes, Dad. She's moving in with you. She's not expecting friendship bracelets."

He smirked and looked down at his coffee. One thing was checked off the list, now he had to think about when and how he would ask you.

It was a long day.

You hadn't even lived in Texas for a full year yet but you managed to accumulate a lot more shit than you thought. Fortunately, between Joel, Tommy, your dad and Josh, your brother in law, all the furniture was quickly unloaded. The time consuming part was working out the angles in hallways and stairs. Since Joel and Sarah already had more than enough furniture, the two of you decided to put your old couch and television in the basement, an idea which Sarah excitedly jumped on board with.

You could hear the men grunting and talking through different ideas on how to get your couch into the basement all the way from Joel's - your - bedroom upstairs with Sarah.

"I am obsessed with this purse," Sarah sighed, tossing a red leather Michael Kors tote over her shoulder. Prior to living in Texas, you lived in New York City and had created quite the collection of designer clothes and accessories thanks mostly to your ex-fiancé. Since moving, you found very little use for most of it and your style evolved to one that was much more relaxed and comfortable. More you.

"Keep it," you told her as you opened up a box of your bathroom things. She gawked at you while you began to drag the box towards the bathroom, already smiling to yourself as you thought about Joel seeing all the girly face masks and perfumes cluttering his once rather masculine space.

"Are you serious?"

You glanced up at her and shrugged. "Sure. I haven't used it in a year and I have plenty more. It's all yours."

"Oh, my god," she murmured, holding the bag close to her chest. "Thank you!"

You grinned and pulled out bottles of shampoo and conditioner. "Don't mention it."

There was a loud thud that came from the basement and you both froze, waiting to hear panicked calls for help, but after a moment laughter erupted amongst the men and you both exchanged looks of relief.

"I bet Dad that Uncle Tommy would be the one to hurt himself," she told you, crouching to help unpack more of your toiletries.

You laughed and shook your head. "You're probably right."

Glancing at the time, you stood up and weaved your way through the boxes littering the floor to grab your wallet laying on the bed.

"Would you mind calling in a couple pizzas for delivery?" you asked Sarah, handing her your credit card. She nodded and patted down her pants.

"Shoot. I think I left my phone in my room," she said as she headed towards the door. "Ronny's Pizza, right?"

"Yeah, that's good," you called after her before stubbing your toe on a half empty cardboard box. "Shit," you muttered angrily, then squat down to scoop up what was left in the box and get it out of your way.

Wrestling with an armful of socks and bras, you carefully made your way to the dresser and yanked open a drawer. You mistakenly had opened Joel's underwear drawer instead of the one he had emptied for you, but right as you were about to close it, something caught your eye. Was that...? Slowly, you reached forward and nudged a pair of boxers out of the way so you could get a better look.

Your eyes went wide and your heart jumped into your throat when you saw the small, black velvet box nestled between his things. The fingers holding up the pair of underwear began to shake and you nervously swallowed the lump in your throat.

Maybe it was a class ring.

Maybe it was a piece of his mom's jewelry he saved for Sarah.

Or maybe it was a fucking engagement ring.

You heard creaking on the stairs and you quickly dropped the boxers back over the box and slammed the drawer shut. By the time Joel entered the room, you had successfully found your drawer and were halfway done putting your clothes away.

"Hey, darlin'," he murmured, sidling up behind you. He buried his nose in your shoulder and slowly circled his arms around your waist.

"Hey, yourself," you replied, hoping your voice sounded normal and he couldn't feel your heart slamming in your chest. Already got the ring he had said to you drunkenly the night before your sister gave birth. "How are things going down there?" you asked, trying to refocus and get your mind off what you just saw.

Joel breathed in deep and began to sway you both back and forth. "Good. Everythin's all set. Got a nice man cave set up now."

You giggled and closed your drawer before turning around in his arms. "Man cave, huh?"

"That's right," he said softly with a grin. "Gonna be great in 'nother month when football season starts."

"I don't know, I think Sarah was already making plans to have her girlfriends over down there. Might cramp your man cave style," you told him, arms draping loosely around his neck.

"'S'alright, I just give her a hundred bucks and let her borrow the car and then it's all mine," he murmured, pressing a soft kiss against your throat. "Be nice to have some privacy down there, too," he added, tilting his head in the other direction so he could give the other side of your neck the same attention.

"Yeah? Privacy for what?" you teased, chin lifting up to give him better access. You felt him chuckle against your skin.

"For anythin' we want," he replied, tearing his mouth away from your shoulder so he could brush his lips gently over yours.

"Mmm, like board games?" you asked, giggling when his lips froze and his face pulled away, giving you a look of disbelief.

"Is that what we're callin' it?"

You nodded and stretched onto your tiptoes so you could kiss him again.

"Okay, the pizza'll be here - oh. Gross," Sarah said when she appeared in the doorway. You pulled away and grinned while Joel looked over his shoulder with a frown.

"Gross?" he repeated, voice laced with disgust. "Seein' me happy is gross?"

Sarah rolled her eyes as she navigated the minefield of boxes in the room to hand you back your credit card. "Is this what it's gonna be like now? You guys sucking face in every room?"

"Hate to tell you, kiddo, but it's always been that way," you told her as you dropped your arms from around Joel's neck to take your card back.

"Pizza?" he questioned excitedly as if he just processed what Sarah said, and you nodded.

"Figured you guys would be hungry."

Joel groaned in delight and wrapped his arms around you once again, making you laugh.

"Alright, gimme a second to leave at least," Sarah said, turning towards the door as quickly as possible, but not before you caught the smile on her face.

"Hey, can I give you a hand?" Tommy asked as he entered your kitchen. You could hear Josh, your father, Sarah and Joel laughing in the living room with the television on in the background.

"Oh, Tommy, that's so sweet but I got it. You've done so much already today, thank you for your help," you said with a smile as you continued to clean up the pizza. Tommy leaned against the counter and watched you move around his brother's kitchen like you had been there your whole life, and he couldn't help but smile.

"You look right at home already," he told you, making your cheeks warm. You pulled out some foil and shrugged.

"I've stayed over a couple times, what can I say?"

He chuckled and continued to watch you work quietly for a moment.

"Say, what'dya think 'bout you and Joel goin' on a double date with me and Maria?"

"Oh, I would love that!" you exclaimed, meeting his gaze briefly as you moved towards the fridge. "Must be getting serious if you're ready to introduce her to family, huh?"

"Yeah, I think so," Tommy said, shyly looking down at the tile floor. "She's so pretty. Smart, too. And funny. We have such a great time together. I'll tell you, I ain't ever remember feelin' this way 'bout a girl before."

Your jaw hung open in shock after you turned away from the closed fridge. "Tommy! This is... amazing!"

He scratched the back of his neck and grinned. "Yeah, it is," he agreed warmly.

"He botherin' you, baby?" Joel asked as he strolled into the kitchen with a beer in his hand. He shot you a wink right after Tommy gave him the finger.

"I was just telling Tommy we should go on a double date with him and Maria," you said, leaning into the hug he gave you. Tommy gave you a thumbs up behind Joel's back and you smiled over his shoulder, knowing intuitively that his brother would tease him mercilessly if he knew Tommy was the one with the idea instead of you.

"Oh, yeah?" Joel asked, pulling back to look at Tommy. He nodded.

"Yeah, sounds like fun. Maybe grab some drinks down at Mike's. Play some pool."

"Alright. Set it up, can't wait to meet her," Joel told him before squeezing past you to get another beer from the refrigerator.

The men spent another hour or so relaxing in the living room while you and Sarah did the best you could to clear up the remaining boxes in your bedroom. You did rather well, too. By the time everyone was ready to say good night, you only had two boxes left, both of which you stacked and shoved into a corner to deal with the next day.

You were looking forward to collapsing into bed after a long, eventful day when Sarah asked if she could go to the movies with a few of her friends.

"Please, Dad? School starts up in a couple weeks," she begged, and Joel didn't have the heart to tell her she didn't need to bother to beg. He handed her some money from his wallet and she rushed up to her bedroom to get ready, announcing her friend Katy would pick her up in twenty minutes.

"Strange how Katy knew to pick her up before I said it was alright," Joel told you with a fake look of confusion. You laughed and plopped next to him on the couch, resting your head on his shoulder while he flipped through the channels on the television.

You wrapped your hand around his bicep and snuggled in closer as he wavered back and forth between two different action movies. When you really thought about it, it was funny. Your life was so different just a year ago. You were engaged to someone else, living in New York City, wearing expensive clothes and dining at restaurants you didn't really care for but your fiancé did, so you pretended to like them, too. Now you were living a completely different life. One of comfort and love and joy and you had never felt happier.

As if he could read your mind, Joel lifted his arm and tugged you closer by the shoulders, then planted a kiss on the top of your head, further emphasizing how perfect your life seemed now.

"I'm coming downstairs now! Stop making out!" Sarah warned as she stomped down the steps. You stifled your laughter and Joel shot her a scowl.

"We're just watchin' TV."

"And I'm just covering my bases," she said with a grin, holding her hands up in surrender. A faint beep came from the road and she grabbed the purse you had given her earlier that day and said, "don't wait up!" over her shoulder before the door clicked shut.

"Don't wait up?" Joel repeated with a snort. "She's seventeen goin' on thirty."

You giggled and gazed up at him from your place against his side. "You wanna play some board games?"

He looked confused for a moment before the realization dawned on him.

"Hell, yes."

The basement looked nicer than you expected. It wasn't completely finished but there was an area Joel had built a wall around and painted years ago. He had installed a drop ceiling and some laminate flooring but he never got around to actually doing much else with it until you moved in and had extra furniture. An area rug from your old apartment was in the center of the room, your old couch resting on top and your television was placed on your entertainment center across from the sofa. You had some floor lamps and end tables you could arrange in the space later on but for now, it was nice.

But all that didn't really matter that particular day. Not when your shorts dangled around one ankle, which was slung over the back of the couch, your legs spread wide as Joel kneeled on the area rug, his fingers gripping your hips as his tongue feverishly lapped at your pussy.

"Fuck, Joel... I'm close," you whined, hand clawing at his hair, your hips grinding shamelessly against his face. He just groaned, eyes fluttering closed as he drank you in, your scent engulfing him, absolutely loving the way you fell apart under his tongue.

"Joel," you gasped, mouth hung open as your gaze fixed on the top of his head. "Joel, d-do t-that thing-" you moaned loudly, cutting yourself off when he repeatedly grazed his teeth over your clit while working two fingers into your cunt, curling them so they pressed against that one spot he knew drove you crazy each time he dragged them in and out.

A moment later, your body went rigid and tears sprung to your eyes as you came, ragged groans melting into quiet little whimpers until he finally pulled away from the center of your thighs. His eyes were dark and wild as he panted for air, watching you with a cocky smirk as you struggled to come to your senses.

"Gonna let me fuck you now, baby?" he murmured, his pants already pushed halfway down his legs. You nodded in a daze, thighs trembling still when he stepped out of his jeans and kneeled onto the couch. He hovered over you, pressing his thick length against your pussy while he bent forward to bite and suck at your throat.

You gasped sharply and grabbed his shoulders when he first entered you. The initial stretch always took your breath away, regardless if he made you come first or not. You came to crave that feeling, those first few seconds of intrusion that made your mind go blank and your heart stutter before your body made room for him and relaxed. And because you knew he loved to hear it, your mouth found his ear and you whimpered, "so big," and you smiled when you heard his responding growl.

A few days before you moved in with Joel, you laid awake at night in your apartment, thinking back to your relationship before him. When you moved in with Will, it seemed like something shifted almost immediately, and not in a good way. The spark fizzled out as you adjusted to living with one another, putting up with each other's quirks and bad habits. Logically, you knew that spark was dying before you moved in together but at the time, you didn't want to admit it. But anxiety still crept up and you wondered if the same thing would happen with Joel.

What a stupid thing to worry about.

What you had with Joel was so different, it was hard to describe. But it was a feeling, something deep inside that couldn't be denied. This was special. This was unlike anything you ever experienced before and it was foolish to try to compare it to anything else.

As if you needed further proof, Joel sensed your mind had drifted elsewhere and he nipped at your lower lip to draw your attention back to him.

"What's wrong?" he whispered when you met his gaze. His hips had slowed down, worried you were uncomfortable and didn't want to say it. You slowly smiled and draped your arms around his neck, looking up at him with such love and adoration that he couldn't stop himself from smiling in return.

"Nothing's wrong. Everything's perfect," you told him. You tugged him down so you could give him a kiss, then mumbled, "you're perfect," against his mouth.

Joel flushed and shook his head gently, resuming his steady pace. Sometimes he had a hard time believing you were real. He spent a good chunk of his adult life thinking he would never find true love and after a few years of loneliness, he grew to accept that. He threw himself into his work and focused on raising Sarah but when he met you, it was like everything changed. He couldn't stop thinking about you to the point where he would have been content with just getting to know you better, but the moment he first felt your lips against his, he knew he didn't stand a chance. But when he first made love to you, it was all over. He knew within seconds he could never let you go, and he never did.

"You're the one who's perfect. God, so fuckin' tight," he groaned, flexing his hips with a little more force. You rewarded him with a sweet little moan and tipped your head back into the couch. "That feel good, baby?" he breathed, watching with pride as you writhed underneath him.

"Yeah," you whispered before sinking your teeth into your lower lip, skin already red and sensitive from where his own teeth had laid claim. "Again. Harder, Joel," you pleaded, and his eyelids fluttered as he tried to slow down his own orgasm that was already growing all too quickly.

He gave you what you wanted, hips snapping into yours roughly. Your whole body rocked beneath him, breasts bouncing free under your thin T-shirt, jaw slack and back arched so beautifully he had to look away before he came too soon.

"Oh, fuck, Joel," you whined, face pinching as he forced another orgasm to the surface with each powerful thrust.

"You like that?" he murmured, his dark eyes raking over your body greedily. "Tell me, baby. C'mon, wanna hear it."

"Yes," you whimpered, eyes still screwed shut, "feel so fucking good, Joel, fuck... so... so deep, I want more." You took in a deep breath, your release so close you could taste it. "More... don't stop, please... I-I need..." you were rambling now, unable to form a full sentence, barely aware you were saying anything at all and fuck, did he love being the one to make you do that. Make you lose control and give in, putting all your faith and trust in him to give you what you want. To make you feel good.

"I know what you need," he said through gritted teeth, then grabbed ahold of your hip and ground himself roughly against your cunt. Your eyes flew open and he smiled when you cried out, clenching around him after only two or three passes over your clit.

You were whispering his name mixed with something else incoherent as you came down and he couldn't hold himself back any longer. He slammed into you over and over, eyes fixed on the way your pussy strained around his girth, his cock all shiny and slick with your arousal and he came with a loud groan, thrusting into you deep and slow until he was spent.

His arms began to tremble so he slowly lowered himself down to rest the side of his head against your chest and instantly, your hands came up to card through his hair. He sighed and closed his eyes, soaking in your gentle touch as his heart began to slow.

"Do you think it will always be like this?" you asked softly, fingers still threading through his curls.

"Yeah, I do," Joel replied, eyes still shut as he nuzzled into your chest.

"Good. Me, too."

Maria was fun.

You knew immediately you would get along. Her sense of humor and her carefree attitude completely contradicted her profession as a newly appointed Assistant District Attorney, and you absolutely loved how full of surprises she was, especially how good she was at pool.

"Y'know, we just let you girls win," Joel teased when he put his pool cue down.

"Oh, yeah? Is that why I heard you and Tommy talking strategy on my way back from the bathroom?" you shot back. He grinned and tugged you into his chest, kissing the crown of your head before releasing you.

"C'mon, Tommy. Losers buy the next round," he said, giving his younger brother a playful shove. Tommy squeezed Maria's hand and gave her a warm smile before following Joel to the bar, leaving just you two to find an empty table. Maria spotted one right when a group of four were standing up to leave and she grabbed your arm, practically dragging you across the crowded floor to snag it before someone else did.

"Good eye!" you told her when you slid into the booth, the green, plastic cushion underneath you essentially useless after years of being flattened and never replaced. The table was sticky from spilled beer and droplets of hot sauce, so you each got to work yanking handfuls of napkins out of the dispenser at the end of the table and squirting hand sanitizer over the tabletop to clean the area as best you could.

"I don't think Tommy told me how long you two've been together," Maria said, her eyes lifting to search the bar for your dates.

"Uh, eight months or so," you told her, "we met right before Christmas."

She raised her eyebrows and smiled. "I would have guessed much longer. It feels like you know each other so well."

You could feel your cheeks warm from the compliment. It was clear to you what you had with Joel was special but it was always nice to hear others could see it, too.

"What about you and Tommy? He's been keeping you a secret but I want to guess... two months?"

"Three, actually," she corrected you. "We both agreed to take things slow. I had just gotten this job and I knew I would be putting in long hours, I wasn't really sure if I had the time to devote to a relationship but he stuck it out. I really thought he was going to bail when I kept having to call it early so many nights and cancel dates last minute but he's a trooper."

You leaned across the table and wiggled your eyebrows at her. "That's 'cause he really likes you."

She giggled and waved you off but you could see the delight in her eyes.

"I'm serious! I've only known him for as long as I've known Joel but from what I was told, Tommy didn't bring girls around often. Especially lately. You must be special," you teased, making her smile widen.

Unbeknownst to you, across the bar, Tommy and Joel were having a similar conversation.

Now that Tommy had a few beers in him, he was more open to telling his brother about Maria and how happy he was with her.

"I'm tellin' you, Joel, I think she's the one," he was saying, slamming down an empty shot glass next to Joel's on the messy bar top.

"I like her, she keeps you in line," Joel quipped, taking a sip from his beer to chase the shot of whiskey. "Girls are gettin' along real good, too."

Tommy nodded and looked across the bar. "And how's things goin' with you two? She wanna move out yet?"

Joel laughed and shook his head. "Nah, it's only been two weeks. It'll probably take at least a month 'fore she realizes she made a mistake," he joked.

Tommy chuckled but caught the fond look in Joel's eye when he thought about you.

"So, you think this is it for us?" he asked, and Joel glanced up from his beer. "We finally found the ones?"

The corner of his mouth pulled up into a smirk and he nodded.

"Hope so." Then maybe he was feeling a little braver, or maybe it was the alcohol, but he added, "got the ring already, be a little tough tryin' to take it back."

Tommy's eyes bugged out of his head. "You - what?"

Joel sucked in a deep breath and nodded. "Yep. Had it for a while now. Asked Paul 'n everythin'."

Tommy's mouth opened and closed like a fish, completely stunned.

"And Sarah?"

He nodded and took a nervous sip from his bottle. "Talked to her, too. She's thrilled."

Tommy broke out into a huge grin and tugged Joel into a quick hug before pulling away and giving him a playful shoulder shove. "So when are you gonna do it?"

Joel sighed and looked around. "I don't know. When it feels right, I suppose."

"Shit," Tommy replied, rubbing his chin. "Gonna be a hell of a year."

Joel nodded and looked down at your drinks sitting on the bar. "We oughta go find the girls."

"Yeah," Tommy agreed, shaking his head like he was snapping out of a trance. He reached for Maria's drink while Joel grabbed yours but before they began to weave their way through the bar, Tommy stopped him.

"Congrats, brother. I'm happy for you."

"She didn't say yes yet," Joel reminded him with a raised eyebrow, but Tommy just shrugged.

"She will."

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[h1ghoffu]

WHEN YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW — Toji Fushiguro

dad!toji x mom!reader

summary : celebrating baby megumi's first birthday as toji remembers the day he fell in love with you.

content warning: fluff, fluff, fluff! toji being a big softy for reader, megumi being a cute baby, mentions of foster care, reader knowing her worth.

word count: 2.3k

notes: I saw this video of a mom celebrating her daughter's first birthday like this and it made my heart absolutely melt. also, my obsession with toji is growing, especially soft dad toji like UGH GIVE HIM TO ME. i also think about the fact that he did change and the reason being a woman who showed what life could be like. my true roman empire fr. but to add a little more to the context of this fic, i chose the title because firstly the song, 'margaret' by lana del rey is about finding your person and the feeling of finding them. so i sggest listening to the sone while reading! anyways, enjoy!!!

It was currently 6 a.m. and both your husband and baby were fast asleep still. You on the other hand were wide awake putting together a special surprise for your baby, Megumi, who was turning one.

You felt yourself get emotional as you get flashbacks of when he was just a tiny little thing. He still is your tiny little baby but he’s growing so fast it makes you wanna cry.

As you’re tying the ballon’s up to his crib, you hear him stir in his sleep. Your heart jumps for a second but then see his little eyes flutter open. Your gaze softens even more and a smile spreads across your face, “Good morning, baby,” You coo at him sweetly, and he smiles immediately recognizing his momma. His hands reach up wanting you to hold him and of course you could not say no to him.

You lift him up in your arms and hold him close to your chest. You press a kiss against his cheek, closing your eyes and swaying back and forth with him in your arms.

Toji groans as he feels himself wake up from his deep slumber. He rolls around in bed and reaches for something that isn’t there. His eyes quickly shoot open and he sees that you’re not in bed. *Did the baby start crying?* No because he would’ve heard it.

He then gets up leaving his room and making his way towards the babies room. He noticed the door is already open and when he peaks inside he sees you holding your baby swaying back and forth with him in your arms. His eyes then scan the room and notices the balloons above the crib along with the birthday decorations.

It was Megumi’s first birthday, of course. His eyes go back to you and Megumi and his heart accelerates. The sight was beautiful, he wanted to cherish it and keep it locked up in his head forever. God, you were so beautiful and you absolutely glowed with Megumi in your arms. He never knew how love could feel so amazing and how easily it stared him in the face when it came to you.

It was never easy for Toji to love especially since he’d never felt real true love for anyone. Not his mom and certainly not his dad, he was alone for as long as he could remember.

Of course he didn’t care, he could have any woman he wanted in a matter of seconds. No women could change him and he was fully convinced of that.

But boy was he wrong when he met you, everything changed. When you met you didn’t immediately flirt with him. You just saw him as a regular guy walking into your diner because that’s what he was. You treated him normally, not throwing yourself on him like other women. It was refreshing to say the least.

But he knew why, he could tell by the way you carried yourself that you knew you deserved something special. So when he first asked you out, you immediately turned him down without explanation. At first he was a bit offended but he brushed it off telling himself he liked a challenge.

He continued to ask you out after and still was met with the same answer. He did this for 4 months until he finally sat down at the diner and asked you, “Why won’t you go out with me?” You stare at him wide-eyed as you place a cup of coffee in front of him, “Well, you’ve never actually tried having a conversation with me, nor have you tried getting to know me, you like me because I’m pretty not for who I am,” She says cleaning up the area around him then leaving him there to think about what she said.

As she comes around to serve some costumer their food he stops her, “But I want to get to know you, that’s all I’ve been wanting these past couple of months,” Your face is blank, a bit irritated that he’d step in front of you like that, “Then prove it, actions speak louder than words,” You step around him continuing to do your job.

He let your words marinate for a second before he paid for his coffee and left.

It was now the end of your shift and all you wanted to do was go to bed. You sigh as you open the back door to leave, “Hey,” You jump at the sudden noise, feeling your soul leave your body. You look over at the noise, feeling a wave of relief that it wasn’t some freak, “Toji, you scared me!”

He was leaned up against the diner’s wall. He scratched the back of his neck sheepishly, “My bad,” You shake your head before taking a deep breath, “What are you doing here anyway? The diners closed,” He shrugged leaving the wall and beginning to walk over to you, “I wanted to talk,” You raise your eyebrow in confusion, “To who?”

“To you,” He has a light smile on his face which causes you to smile, “About?” He laughs as he puts his hands in the pockets on his jeans, “I want to get to know you,” You narrowed your eyes at him, “How long have you been waiting out here for me?” Your question makes him tongue tied and red with embarrassment, “I-…since I left the diner,” He mumbles, but you heard it clear.

“That was 6 hours ago…you’ve been waiting here this whole time?” He nods looking away from you, already feeling so much embarrassment, “I didn’t know when you got off, so…I waited,” You didn’t understand why but you felt your heart flutter a bit, but you quickly shook it off. He noticed you think for a bit but quickly spoke up again, “Can I walk you home?”

Your snapped out of you thought, staring up at him blankly, “Sure, why not,” you didn’t feel threatened by him at all, you felt more safe around him then anything. One thing about Toji is that the many times he’s asked you out he’s never made you uncomfortable. He’s never made weird comments about you, he was cocky when you first met him which was off putting.

But after you shot him down the way you did he wasn’t so cocky after, “Would you like me to carry your bag?” He asks, noticing how tired you look, wanting to lift a weight of your shoulder, literally, “Oh, sure,” You handed him your bag then stretched your arms over your head and yawned, “I’m tired,” You say as you begin to walk, Toji hums before he asks, “How long have you been working there?”

“Mmm since I graduated high school,” Toji’s eyes widen a bit, you’d been working there for years and he’d never seen you, “Seriously? How come I only met you 4 months ago?” Toji had been going to that diner for a while now, ever since he graduated high school, “Well I recently graduated university, like 6 months ago but it’s been hard to look for a job so I asked to start working full time.”

Toji did take you for an educated woman, as whenever you were disrespected at the diner you never took it, always standing up for yourself, “Wow, what did you study in university?”

“Social work, I want to be a social worker for foster kids,” Toji felt his heart jump out of his chest, Toji was a foster kid. After he’d left the Zenin clan, he got into trouble shop lifting which let him to get put into the system. Which he was salty and angry about at first, it was as if he was just going back to where he was in the first place.

But to his surprise he was assigned a nice family and a great social worker who looked out for him, “Really? You know I was a foster kid,” his words make your ears quirk up turning your head towards him, “seriously? Was the system good to you?” The hope in your eyes is telling, he could see that you wanted to change things that went on it the system that were awful, “Fortunately yes, it was,” I smile spread across your face that made him melt instantly, “That’s great, I’m glad.”

The rest of the walk he learned more things about you, your favorite things, what you enjoyed doing on your free time, everything he could. You were right, getting to know somebody is so much more important than whatever they’d look like. Of course you were beautiful, no doubt about it but it was just a bonus to the beautiful personality you carried within you.

You soon arrived to your apartment complex. Toji scanned the area, it wasn’t the safest part of town but he knew it was affordable, so he couldn’t judge. “So, where do you see yourself in the future? You said you’re 22 right?” You nod as you both stop in front of the complex and sit on a nearby bench, “Well, I’ve always wanted a family, small or big. An amazing husband with a baby in a small house in the suburbs or by the beach, just living happily and peacefully.”

He noticed the way your eyes sparkled when you spoke. When you continued to describe what you wanted he couldn’t help but picture it. You, him, and a baby. His heart pounded in his chest at the image, when you stopped talking you looked into his eyes as he did you. That’s when he knew, he wanted to be everything you needed. He wanted to be the man for you.

So watching the sight of you and Megumi swaying back and forth, happily as ever is a sight for sore eyes. He felt emotional, never thinking he’d get to this point in life, this happy. Even though he was partially raised well he still had his flaws but you saw those flaws and mere things willing to stay and work on them with him.

You were his angel, his peace, and his everything. He finally decided to fully enter the room, placing a hand on the small of your back making you jump slightly, “Oh my gosh, Toji! You scared me!” He lightly chuckled before placing a kiss on your lips, “You weren’t in bed so I came up to see what was up,” You hum rubbing circles on Megumi’s back.

“I was going to wake you but you seemed exhausted last night,” He looks at Megumi, placing a hand on his head and giving him a kiss on his forehead, “Thank you, honey but I’m okay. Besides, it’s our little guys birthday, I could never miss that,” boy did this man have you wrapped around his finger, you fell in love with him over and over again every single day.

“Well since you’re here, can you grab the cake and candles that are in the kitchen so we can sing him happy birthday,” He nods giving you another kiss, “Anything for you,” You giggle as you watch him walk out of the room, you look at Megumi staring up at you, “happy birthday, my sweet boy,” you bring him up pressing your cheek against his.

Toji comes back with a cake and a single candle in his hand. Little Megumi coos at his dad causing Toji to laugh, “patience little guy,” he sits down placing the cake down as well, you follow first placing Megumi down then sitting yourself next to Toji.

Toji places the candle on the cake then lights it. Little Megumi’s eyes widen as he sees the small flame but then giggles and claps. You lay your head on Toji’s shoulder watching the sight that made your heart melt.

You began to sing happy birthday to him and he’d never smiled more, swaying back and forth to the sound of his parents voice. Megumi’s was only one but he felt the love that radiated off of his parents and how much they loved him, “Happy birthday to you, okay baby, now blow out your candles.”

Megumi’s face tilted in confusion, causing you and Toji to chuckle, “Like this,” you said as you blew softly, he copied your movement but no air came out of his lips. Toji laughed, “Okay try again,” he whispered but instead this time Toji blew slightly causing the candle to go out, little Megumi clapped thinking he had done it. You smiled at your happy baby, then at your husband, you lifted your head off of his shoulder giving him a kiss.

“Thank you,” You whispered lovingly, “For what?” He asked confused, “For this, for it all, for giving me the life I’d always dreamed of,” His heart swells at your words causing him to shake his head, “No, thank you, you accepted me knowing I had so many flaws…and you changed me…you’re the reason I am this way. You are my reason, Y/n.”

You look over at Megumi for a second, who moved himself to crawl, “Oh Toji,” You coo, cupping his face and giving him a passionate kiss, “I love you, I love you so much,” He whispered wrapping his arms around your waist and bringing you closer, “I love you, Toji,” You nuzzle your face into his chest holding him close, but in the corner of your eye you see something.

“Toji, look,” you tap his chest and point over to Megumi, who stood up. He always did that but what you didn’t expect was for him to take a couple steps forward. You both gasped, quickly sitting up as you watch your baby make his way to you. You feel your eyes well up with tears and you begin to clap excitedly, “he’s walking!” you cheer excitedly. Little Megumi makes it all the way to his parents. Toji is quickly to scoop him up and kiss him excitedly.

You both celebrate your babies big step in growing up. Which makes you so proud but so emotional, Toji is quick to wipe your tears. He kisses you once more and smiles, down at you then at his son, “My blessings,” He whispers.

h1ghoffu - i do not allow my work to be reposted. please do not plagiarize my work or theme. reblogging and comments are welcome! much love! thank you for reading!

[angel5ofp0rn]

♡ part one ♡

ExHusband!Price x f!reader

been thinking ab this post 4ever and need to get it out tbh.

**I’ve never done something like this b4 and I haven’t proofread so pls be nice 2 me ._. **

You have been divorced from your ex husband John Price for two years. Still, he comes over and shovels your driveway for you every time it snows.

He’s come inside and warmed up in the mudroom nearly every 15-20 minutes, puffing hot breath into his hands and rubbing them together for warmth before stepping back out and shoveling again.

You meet him in the mudroom for his fourth warm-up break and hand him a mug of hot coffee. Dash of cream, one sugar.

“Still how you take your coffee, right?” You offer a small smile, hugging your arms around yourself as John takes a sip from the mug.

“Still the same.” He nods before he takes another sip, the small smile that had appeared at the corner of his mouth quickly fading.

He leans up against the doorframe, the shovel leaning against the wall next to him. He peers out of the door's window, checking over his work.

“I'll get goin' soon enough. It ain't snowing right now, the drive's nearly clear.”

You thank him again, even though you never asked him to do this in the first place. You can’t help but look up at him, meeting his blue eyes for just a moment.

Before he could reply, your two children came running around the corner cheering and squealing when they saw their dad.

John's smile brightens at their presence, his body language immediately softening as he squatted down to their level.

“Hey, my little monkeys. Come give yer ol’ dad a hug.” He opens his arms out wide, inviting both of them to come to him. It doesn't take long before they both go crashing into him, squealing, smiling. Their giggles filled the small room.

You just smile. Even if you and John aren’t always on the best of terms, you can’t deny that he’s a great father.

“Daddy’s cold.” Your youngest shivers a bit from hugging their dad, who still had snow on his clothes and frost on his beard from shoveling.

John tries to shrug it off, but you ask him to stay and warm up for a while.

For the kids, of course.

Plus dinner is nearly ready, and you definitely made too much for just you and the kids, anyway.

More cheering, more squealing, more giggling as John finally agrees and kicks his boots off, hanging his coat on the hook.

John’s blue eyes scan the new decor and different paintings on the wall, but he doesn’t comment on how much the place has changed since he moved out.

After dinner, the two of you stand in the doorway as you watch the kids play together in their playroom, that used to be John’s “man cave”.

“They're gonna make you tuck them in.” You mention, sipping your glass of wine.

John smiles, a casual shrug of his shoulders.

“Maybe you can convince them to go up and brush their teeth?” You lower your wineglass and offer a fake, pleading pout.

He looks down for a moment, pretending not to see the gesture. Instead, he looks back to the children.

“Right then, you two little monkeys. It’s gettin’ late. Go on up and brush your teeth. I’ll come tuck you in.”

Both children protest for a while, but eventually give in without too much of a fight. That’s a new one.

John lets out a chuckle as the children roll their eyes and go up the stairs. He watches them disappear from view before turning and meeting your eyes again, still smiling for this small victory.

As if he had just realized he was staring, John’s eyes darted down into his now empty mug.

"Let me take that." You reach for his mug but he shakes his head.

"I haven’t forgotten where the kitchen is," He smiles a bit. "'ll clean up and then tuck the kids in."

John makes his way over to the kitchen, placing it in the sink and starting water. You follow, and notice that he was also washing the dishes from dinner as well.

“John, you don’t have to-“

“I know.”

And that’s that.

You chew your bottom lip. This looked too familiar. It felt too familiar.

"I'm... gonna go check on them and get them in their pj's." You gesture to the stairs in the hall.

He looks up at you briefly and nods; "Be up in a bit, love.”

Once the water is emptied from the sink, he starts loading the dishes into the dishwasher. Once completed, he starts to wipe down the counters and stovetop, wanting to make sure he left no mess behind. Then he trekked back up the stairs to tuck in the kids.

You’re downstairs again, on the living room sofa. You wanted to let John have a moment alone with the kiddos before he left again.

He makes his way down the stairs and sees you sitting there in the dim lighting. He clears his throat a bit as he walks through the living room and back into the mudroom.

“They're tucked in. Not a whisper from ‘em.” He mentions casually as he gets his snow boots back on.

You thank him, turning to watch him leave, but notice him looking out of the door window and pause. So you make your way over to the door to see what he’s seeing.

It's started snowing and the driveway is completely covered again. It looks like he hasn't even shoveled.

John lets out a grunt of disbelief and sighs, pulling on his beanie and reaching for the shovel once again.

“Don't-“ You shake your head, placing your hand on the shovel. “It's snowing hard, there's no point in shoveling it all up just for it to be covered again. Why don't you... stay on the couch or something tonight.”

He stares down at the shovel for a moment, debating it. After a beat, he sighs a bit, nodding.

“I... could do that.”

You go upstairs to the bedroom and bring John some extra pillows and blankets to make a bed on the couch with.

You set everything on the coffee table and the two of you sit on the couch for a moment, just catching up and chatting about the kids.

“The kids both want to do soccer in the spring.” You mention, your cheeks a bit rosy from the wine you had with dinner.

“Football.” He corrects with a small smirk. You roll your eyes.

“Let me pay for the lessons.” He says; not asking.

Of course you refuse.

Of course he insists.

You settle on splitting it.

Then it happens again. Your eyes meet his. Neither one of you speaks. Suddenly you’re transported back to the first night you met; you were newly 21 and already tipsy when your eyes met those of an older man in his fatigues as he sat at the bar. You remember drunkly telling the older man that he had the prettiest blue eyes, and that you wanted a hundred of his babies that looked just. like. him.

You have two, at least.

“Oh!” You sit up a bit straighter, snapping out of your daydream. “I was going to ask you to look at something on my laptop. It's doing that thing again. It's upstairs.” You get up and head to your home office, John right behind you.

You open your laptop and hand it to John. He knew how to fix it last time, so it should take him no time.

He sits in your office chair and you step away into your bedroom across the hall to get into a pair of pajama shorts and a hoodie, since it's getting late.

The laptop whirred softly before he got it running again. Only took a minute. He sets it on the desk, leaning back in your chair with his hands behind his head as he looks up through the open door where you can be found, changing in the bedroom.

You were his wife at one point, anyway. Isn’t something he hasn’t seen before…

After you’ve changed, you lay on your bed, scrolling through your phone as you wait for John to fix the issue with your laptop, unaware that he was watching. Unaware that the laptop has been fixed for a while now, and he was just wasting time.

Eventually, his voice wafts through the doorway.

“Think I got it, love-“ He pauses for a moment. “Er, Y/N.”

“Ugh, thank you.” You sigh and sit up, taking the laptop from him and setting it on your nightstand. “Stupid thing always acting up.”

John sits on the edge of your bed as you take the laptop back from him.

“Not a problem. It was a quick fix.” He offers a small smile, rubbing the back of his head.

He takes a glance at you, noticing the pajamas you had put on.

"...Is that my sweatshirt?"

You blush a bit sheepishly, looking down at the oversized, grey 2XL Special Air Service hoodie you’re wearing. "Um..."

Another small chuckle escapes his lips. He shakes his head a bit, trying to contain his amusement.

“S’what I thought. You look... comfy." He reaches his hand out towards your leg, running his hand lightly over your bare legs, exposed by the shorts you were wearing.

Without realizing what he's doing, he has his hand on your thigh, and he gives it a light squeeze.

Eventually his hand travels higher to rest on your sex over your pajama shorts.

Usually, you'd tell him off. Monologue about how this isn't how things work because it complicated things and you both need to set boundaries.

But tonight you don't.

Maybe it's because you had two heavy-handed pours of your favorite wine with dinner. Maybe it was seeing him with your kids again. Maybe it had just been too long since you'd felt anything other than a cheap bullet vibrator.

So you let him slip his hand down your panties.

But it's a bit jarring to feel his wedding band still on his finger.

You look down at his hand for a beat when you feel it.

You look back up and place your hand on the back of his neck, pulling him in and crashing your lips together.

John wastes no time in laying you back on your bed and tugging your shorts and panties off, tossing them somewhere behind him.

His lips are on your neck, his hands spreading your soft thighs apart. You can smell the musky scent of himself on him, mixed with that familiar cologne of his, and you breathe a sigh.

“Take this off f’r me.” He mumbles against your skin, sliding your his hoodie up your body.

Your body aches for this to continue, and John doesn't plan to disappoint, but he takes a moment to admire what's sprawled out in front of him. He lets out a satisfied smirk as he pulls you closer by your thighs. He's undone his belt and shrugged out of his jeans in no time.

You pull his shirt off over his head before you close your eyes and tilt your head to give him easier access to kiss your neck.

His scruffy beard tickles your neck, his calloused hands gripping your thigh and rubbing your slick, dripping pussy.

“So needy.” John observed as your back arched and your body squirmed at his touch. "Poor thing... No one's been keepin’ you satisfied, hm?”

You shake your head a bit. You hate that he’s right. You hate that he can tell. That he knows you too well.

But he’s right; no random Tinder hookup and no blind date that your friends have set you up with could ever compare to your ex husband.

“Should’a told me...” He murmurs as he leans lower, positioning his head in between your thighs, pressing desperate kisses to your aching clit.

He’s got you figured out completely. He’s always been good at that.

A smile forms as his hands move to grip your thighs. He lets out a quiet groan as your legs instinctively clamp around his head. The look of his veiny hands gripping your plushy thighs with that damn wedding band still around his finger is doing things to you.

His tongue slowly plays in circular motions, teasing you, loving the game. He takes his time, enjoying himself, as you continue to squeeze your thighs against his head. Hell, he’d let you suffocate him if it meant he could eat your pussy this one last time.

You try not to, but you let out a desperate moan of pleasure. He knew exactly what you like, exactly where to lick, exactly where to kiss, exactly where to nibble.

Damn him.

“You sound s’pretty, lovey. S’pretty f’r me.” He pants, his praise ending with a whimper.

Your eyes roll back. Fuck, he has you. He knows he has you. Your moans and whimpers are uncontrollable as he picks up the pace, all but slamming his thick cock into your pretty little hole.

You’re his, and he knows it, and in the moment, it’s true. Just him. Just you. The rest doesn’t matter right now.

John pulls out for just a moment while he swiftly flips you over, roughly gripping your hips and pulling your backside into him. He’s got the angle just right now, and your breath catches in your throat, followed by a needy whimper.

“Mine… All mine… Isn’t that right?” He whispers, more of a command than a question.

Your face is pressed against the mattress as John’s grip on your hips tighten. This angle, this position, John is so familiar with it. He knows what it does to you. He knows the way it makes you respond.

John lets out a loud groan as your whimpers and moans get more needy, desperate. He knows that you’re about to come.

He finishes right then and there, along with you.

You gasp a bit, surprised by the synchronization. Should you really be surprised, though? Only he would know your body like that. You’re his. He’s yours.

John slowly pulls his softening cock out of you, lying on the bed and pulling you into his chest. His hand grabs your thigh, draping your leg around his waist in an attempt to hold you closer.

He lets out a few deep breaths, letting the adrenaline and endorphins just fade away. Neither of you wants to move right now, both just content being in each other’s arms. Both content feeling the heat of each other’s bodies, just listening to each other breathing.

“Better than I remembered it.” John murmurs, his voice laced with a smirk.

You catch John’s left hand after he reached up to push your sweaty hair from your forehead. You hold it in yours, playing a bit with the wedding band.

next >>

[littlelamy]

omggg more trophy wife reader and dad rafe!!!!!

hope you like it! ⭐️As you sipped your morning coffee in the sunlit kitchen, you felt Rafe’s arms slip around your waist. You leaned into his embrace, a warm smile already forming as he pressed a kiss to your temple.

“You know,” he murmured, his voice low and smooth against your ear, “you’ve been working so damn hard at looking this good. I think it’s time I gave my gorgeous wife a little break.”

You tilted your head to look up at him, raising a brow in playful suspicion. “A break?”

He nodded, that familiar spark lighting up his eyes. “Yeah, baby. Just you and me, on a little escape. Thought we could take the jet and get the hell out of here for the weekend. Maybe somewhere with beaches, crystal-clear water… Bora Bora sound good?”

Your heart skipped a beat. A spontaneous trip to Bora Bora with your loving, impossibly charming husband? Rafe had a knack for sweeping you off your feet just when you needed it most.

“What about the kids?” you asked, though the excitement was already building.

“Sarah said she’d take care of them for us,” he replied with a grin. “And, well, John B too. But don’t worry—Sarah’s got it handled.”

You couldn’t help but laugh, knowing Sarah’s responsible nature meant you could leave without a worry in the world, even if John B tagged along.

Within hours, you were on the jet, Rafe sitting close enough to reach for your hand whenever he wanted, his gaze lingering on you like you were the only thing that mattered. The flight was long, but with Rafe, every second felt exciting, like the anticipation was part of the fun. When you finally landed in Bora Bora, the warm, tropical breeze welcomed you, along with Rafe’s arm slung around your waist.

After checking into a luxurious overwater bungalow with panoramic views of turquoise water and Mount Otemanu in the distance, Rafe guided you to the finest boutiques in Vaitape, his arm resting possessively around your waist as he led you through each store, his attention unwavering. He watched you try on outfits, his gaze lingering just a little too long, his words low and flirtatious.

“That dress,” he said, leaning close, his fingers brushing your arm as you showed him the deep, fitted silk gown, “fits you like it was fucking made for you. But then again, everything looks incredible on you.” He tilted his head, a playful smirk forming. “Or off you. Either way, it’s perfect.”

You felt your cheeks warm as you turned back to the mirror, pretending to study the dress while you caught him watching you through the reflection, admiration practically radiating from him.

The afternoon continued with him indulging your every whim. Shoes, dresses, jewelry—Rafe insisted on all of it. As you browsed, he found excuses to pull you close, whispering little compliments, his voice laced with that confident charm that never failed to make you feel like the only woman in the world.

Later, as the day faded into a golden evening, Rafe arranged for a private dinner with a view over the lagoon, where the soft waves lapped beneath you and the sky turned pink and orange above. You sat across from him, candles flickering softly between you, casting warm light across his face.

“I love seeing you like this,” he said, leaning forward, his eyes tracing over your features. “Spoiled, relaxed. You fucking deserve it, you know.”

You smirked, raising a brow. “You’re spoiling me, Rafe. What did I ever do to deserve a husband who takes me halfway across the world just to treat me?”

He chuckled, his hand reaching across the table to catch yours, thumb brushing over your knuckles in a slow, reassuring rhythm. “Just by being you, sweetheart. You’re stunning, charming, and somehow, all mine. I’m the lucky bastard.”

As the night went on, Rafe didn’t let a moment go by without reminding you how much he adored you. His flirting was relentless, with just enough edge to keep you smiling and blushing.

By the time you returned to your bungalow, the soft sound of water below and a starlit sky above, you felt completely cherished and at ease, like there was no place you’d rather be. And as Rafe pulled you close, murmuring one last promise to keep making days like this for you, you knew you’d never doubt just how damn much this man adored you.

taglist: @namelesslosers @princessslutt @averyoceanblvd @iknowdatsrightbih @starkeysprincess @sixrosberg @anamiad00msday @ivysprophecy @wearemadeofstardust0 @dinakisser @rafecameroninterlude @sstargirln

[peachyhalstead]

married man | j. halstead

request:Can you do a Jay Halstead x Reader. They are both married and have a child together. The child just started pre-k or kindergarten and since the reader is heavily pregnant Jay has been dropping off and picking up their kid. And maybe like the single moms are flirting with Jay since they think he might be a single dad but they get surprised when the reader picks the kid one day after giving birth.

pairing: established (married) fem!reader x jay halstead

word count: 1.75k

warnings: none??

a/n: dad!jay dad!jay dad!jay !!!!! they have a little boy (his name is dylan) and a newborn girlie (what should her name be)

------

Grumbling as the alarm went off, you blindly reached over and whacked Jay on the chest. “Why’s it have to be so loud?”

Jay chuckled, silencing his phone’s alarm. “It’s not even that loud, babe.”

You glared at him through narrow eyes. “If I wasn’t about to pop right now I’d give you a piece of my mind.”

Letting out a hearty laugh, Jay got out of bed and folded his portion of the comforter back up, trapping the heat for you. “Only a few more weeks, babe. Then you’ll be able to move without having to pee every two seconds.”

You slowly followed Jay, yawning and rubbing the nine-month bump as you headed into the kitchen to package your son’s lunch.

He had recently started kindergarten, and loved telling you and Jay about all his escapades with his classmates as he learned different things.

“I could’ve done that, you didn’t have to get up.” Jay said, popping a capsule into the coffee machine and starting it.

Shrugging, you zipped the lunchbox closed and set it next to the matching blue backpack, one hand going to rub at the sore spot on your back. “I knew I wasn’t going to be able to fall back to sleep.”

Jay noticed, and his hands slowly made their way to the exact spot that bothered you in your first pregnancy. “Who do you thinks going to ask me out today, hm?”

Laughing softly, you clicked your tongue at Jay. “You really enjoy that, don’t you? Miss getting hit on?”

Jay shook his head. “Don’t miss it one bit. Just enjoy seeing those soccer moms think their whispers are quiet.”

A few weeks ago Jay had mentioned that some of the moms at drop-off had been talking about Jay, commenting on his lack of wedding band and no significant other ever at drop off or pick up.

“Momma, when will you go to school with me?” Dylan asked, your son finally making his appearance in his pajamas.

“Soon, little bug. Once Little Sister is here, I’ll drop you off with Daddy some days.”

Dylan frowned. “Can Sissy come now?”

You huffed, wanting nothing more than to deliver the weight that seemed to be constantly on your bladder. “I wish, but I think she needs a few more weeks.”

Jay smiled into his coffee cup, phone chiming with a text from Hailey. “Come on, Dyl. Let’s get dressed so you can show your friends your new shoes.”

Dylan beamed at the thought, and followed Jay back to his room, leaving you alone in the warm kitchen. The aroma of coffee lingered as you found a chair to rest in, hand absently tracing circles over your distended belly.

A sigh of contentment escaped you; this was your world, and despite the groggy mornings and occasional aggravations - like trying to convince Dylan to brush his teeth properly - you wouldn’t change it for anything else. That was the beauty of family - it wasn’t always perfect, but it was yours. And that made all the imperfections precious in their own odd way.

The sound of Jay's voice pulled you from your thoughts as he asked Dylan to choose between two shirts. You smiled, knowing how seriously your little boy took these morning decisions. Sipping on some water and slowly standing up, you decided to start breakfast.

The scent of eggs and bacon soon filled the room, joining the still lingering coffee aroma. Dylan would be excited; he loved his simple morning breakfasts. As you were flipping an egg, Jay returned with Dylan in tow. Their matching grins caught your eye.

“What are you two up to?” You questioned playfully, adjusting your hold on your bump.

“Nothing,” they both chimed in unison, their grins growing even wider.

“Okay,” you drew out the first syllable, grabbing a plate and moving the eggs for Dylan to eat, blowing on them as you cut them into pieces.

“Eat, then Daddy will bring you to school.” You smiled, cracking a few more eggs and grabbing a tortilla and the toppings you knew Jay liked, quickly making a breakfast wrap for him.

Wrapping it in foil, you smiled to yourself as you heard Jay helping Dylan put on his sneakers.

“Ok, we gotta go, Little Man! Go give Momma a kiss.”

Dylan skipped over to you, wrapping his little arms around your legs, promising you he’d come home with a drawing to put in the nursery.

Thanking him, you smiled at Jay as he grabbed the wrap and his badge, stopping to press a kiss to your forehead. “Take it easy today, babe.”

“I will. Go break hearts and catch perps, Jay.”

——

Jay hid his eye roll as he followed Dylan to the drop off location, ignoring the looks from the few single mothers nearby.

“I mean, who in their right mind wouldn’t grab that ass? He’s such a good dad, too.”

Jay overheard one of the mothers and shook his head, stifling a laugh. He still found it amusing and somewhat flattering to know that he was the topic of their little gossip circle. But he also knew firmly where his heart lay - at home with you and Dylan, and soon, your new little girl.

As Dylan scampered off towards his classroom, he turned to Jay with a big grin. "Daddy, do you think I can tell Mrs. Johnson about Sissy coming soon?"

Jay bent down to his level, ruffling his hair affectionately. "Of course, buddy. I'm sure she will be thrilled to hear it."

At that moment, a pair of giggling women walked by, shooting him suggestive glances over their shoulders. He merely smiled politely before turning away.

Arriving back at the car, Jay pulled out his phone and saw a text from you: Feeling better now that the house is empty. How did drop off go?

He quickly typed back: Smooth as always. He's telling all his teachers about his soon-to-be little sister.

Satisfied, he started the vehicle and headed towards the precinct. His phone chimed again with your response: That's my boy! Take care at work, Jay.

He chuckled as he imagined you grinning at your phone, feet kicked up on the coffee table even though you often chided him for doing the same thing.

——

The routine didn’t shift for the next few weeks, but the gossiping mothers were surprised when Dylan was dropped off by Will one day, Jay at the hospital where you were currently resting with the newest addition to the family.

“Uncle Will, can we see Momma and Sissy after school?” Dylan asked, tugging on his uncle’s hand.

"Of course, buddy," Will replied with a soft smile, watching as Dylan's face lit up with joy. "I bet they can't wait to see you."

Once Dylan scampered off towards his classroom, Will indulged in a moment of silence. He was used to the emergency room's relentless noise and bustle, so the unfamiliar hush of the school yard in the early morning was a welcome respite. A group of mothers were huddled together, shooting glances his way. Perhaps he was becoming part of their gossip routine now too - he silently hoped otherwise.

Meanwhile, at the hospital, Jay could barely tear his gaze away from you sleeping peacefully, the tiny bundle in his arms a testament to your strength and love. His heart swelled in his chest at the sight; you looked more beautiful than ever, your face radiating an exhausted but blissful glow as your daughter, their daughter, clung onto his finger with her small hand.

Just then, she stirred awake and let out a soft whimper which turned into a loud wail. He quickly got up and started to gently rock her, not wanting her cries to disturb your much-needed rest.

“Hey there, little princess,” he cooed softly as he bounced her gently in his arms. “Let’s not wake Mommy up now.”

After a few minutes of gentle rocking and hushed lullabies - Jay trying his best to remember the ones you sung to Dylan when he was an infant, the baby quieted down, blue eyes peering up at her father.

“Hi, munchkin. You already have half of Chicago’s first responders wrapped around your finger.” He whispered, soft smile at his lips as he thought back to the replies from his team when he sent the photo of the baby in the group chat.

"The other half is itching to meet you. Just wait until Uncle Will gets a hold of you. You're going to be spoiled rotten." He laughed softly, mindlessly tracing a finger over his daughter's tiny forehead.

His phone buzzed where he had left it on the bedside table. It was a message from Will letting him know that Dylan had been dropped off at school and asking if they could come by after school to see the baby.

Jay's heart swelled, even more, knowing his son was equally excited about his little sister's arrival. Jay quickly typed a response, assuring Will they would be more than happy to have visitors later in the day.

——

The day passed in a flurry of nurses checking vitals and bringing meals, phone calls from family and friends, and quiet moments spent marveling over their newest addition. Dylan was bursting with energy when Will brought him by after school, his wide eyes taking in everything with an infectious excitement that had everyone in the room smiling.

"Momma, Sissy is really small!" Dylan whispered in awe as he approached the bed, carefully peering over the edge of the bassinet.

You chuckled at his innocent observation as Jay helped him climb up onto the bed to get a better look. "Yes, she is," you agreed with a fond smile. "You were that small, too, Little Man!”

Dylan looked at you with wide eyes, shaking his head. “Nuh-uh!”

“Mhmm!” You replied, fixing his shirt as he squirmed to get another look at his sister.

“When can you and Sissy come to school?” He asked, looking at you.

Jay laughed quietly, and you looked at your husband. “Soon, Dyl.”

——

Two weeks later, you consoled the crying baby as Jay helped Dylan put his backpack on. “Can Sissy come meet Mrs. Johnson?”

Shaking your head, you carefully strapped the little girl into her carrier, softly rubbing her cheek. “Not yet. Maybe during the spring concert, but she’s still too little.”

Jay stood up and grabbed his keys. “She can help Momma and Daddy drop you off, though. That sound good?”

Dylan’s face lit up at the thought. “Yeah! Everyone will get to see her!” He jumped excitedly before Jay guided him out the door.

Satisfied with your successful early morning, you carried the baby carrier to the car and buckled it in securely at the back seat. Moving around was still a little tough for you but you were slowly getting the hang of things. You climbed into the passenger side, glancing back at Dylan who was squirming in his seat with anticipation.

The drive to the school was filled with Dylan's non-stop chatter about what he was going to show his little sister. Jay had a soft smile on his face as he listened to his son, occasionally glancing at you in admiration and shared joy.

Once they arrived in front of the school, Dylan unbuckled himself and carefully opened your car door for you. “Be careful, Momma!” He cautioned, making Jay chuckle as he followed behind with his son’s backpack.

You smiled, letting Jay go ahead with Dylan so he wasn’t late, working to unstrap your daughter’s carrier so Dylan could see her one last time before he was in school.

“Jay, haven’t seen you the last few days. Is everything okay?” One of the mothers who had tried to hit on Jay asked, faux worry on her face.

Jay wore a smile as he turned to the woman, Dylan's hand tucked safely in his own as they made their way toward the school entrance. "Yeah, everything’s great, actually. My wife just gave birth to our second child," he responded casually, nodding his head towards the car where you were carefully lifting the baby carrier.

The woman blinked in surprise before offering a tight-lipped smile, "Oh, I didn’t know... congratulations."

"Thanks," Jay replied with a nod before turning his attention back to Dylan whose bundle of excitement was barely contained. As Jay opened the door for him to enter he looked into the bright eyes of his son and smiled reassuringly, "You ready?"

Dylan nodded eagerly, already tugging on his father's hand to drag him inside. Jay followed docilely, striding up the hallway towards Dylan's classroom.

Meanwhile, you were still out by the car, struggling slightly with the baby carrier that seemed to weigh even more than your now two-week-old daughter. A few mothers noticed and stepped forward to help you, their faces lighting up at the sight of the infant bundled up against the cold.

"Oh she's absolutely adorable!" One woman cooed, and you recognized her from when Jay was telling you how one of them started to wear low-cut tops after he started doing drop off duty.

You walked with them to the doors, smile brightening when you saw Jay and Dylan at the door, the young boy wanting to say goodbye to his sister.

“Bye, Sissy! Bye, Momma!” Dylan smiled, giving his sister a kiss and hugging your legs, unaware that his farewells caused the mothers who had walked with you to gasp lightly.

Jay’s smile widened at Dylan's display of affection, ruffling his son's hair gently, "Alright, champ. We’ll pick you up later. Have a great day at school."

Dylan nodded eagerly before disappearing into the bustling school building with his teacher. The remaining mothers turned to you, their surprised expressions replaced by warm, slender smiles as they admired your little girl.

Back in the car, you laughed as Jay started the ignition. “Think I felt the daggers from some of the moms when they found out you’re married.”

Jay snorted, turning back to the road to your house. “Well, that or when they found out we have great sex. Either way, watch your back, babe.”

You gawked at Jay’s remark, hitting him in the chest. “Jay! Your daughter is listening!”

“Oh, she’ll hear worse when Ruz babysits her." ------ a/n: send requests if you wanna!!

[mind-intheclouds342]

Do it for them - Co-captain reader x Curly

Previous - Part 12 - Next

"So we just have to wait a little longer... Here you go"

You were finishing explaining the situation to Curly while giving him his medicine, Anya was standing behind you grimacing in pain at the sounds the man made while swallowing.

Anya: "How is it that... Can you tolerate that?"

"What thing? The sounds? The burnt meat? The smell? The blood?"

You were mentioning while slowly and carefully removing the bandages from his body, the man trying to be as quiet as possible so as not to further discomfort the other woman present, but the bandages were almost stuck to his skin.

You were applying water little by little to be able to peel them off better, you had managed to get more drinkable water from the station, grateful for it since they had been without bathing or cleaning themselves to avoid wasting it for weeks now.

Anya: "Everything..."

"Well, I've been to many places, doing different jobs... I've gotten used to it."

When you saw the woman's horrified face, you realized how bad that sounded.

"I worked in morgues and crematoriums! Heavens... I didn't kill anyone."

Anya: "Seriously?"

"My dad owned a morgue and a crematorium, when I turned 18, he made me work, you have no idea how many times I had to clean my own vomit off the floor... or the corpses."

Immediately, she covered her mouth, almost vomiting at the thought of it, but you laughed at her reaction.

"That was exactly my reaction! I grew up with a strong stomach."

Anya: "How did you get here?"

You finished removing the bandages from the man, looking at his skin, you sighed knowing full well that you would have to clean it, pus was already forming in certain areas.

Anya, upon seeing that, had to turn around and hold her stomach, trying to think of something else.

"If you want to get into medical school, you have to watch this, no professor will have pity on you for having a sensitive stomach."

Anya: "I've already seen it without the bandages... But... Today they look extremely bad... I'm sorry..."

Upon saying that, she took a deep breath and turned back again, ready to help you clean her wounds.

"...I was in charge of the morgue in just a few years, and one day, while preparing bodies... I saw him, my father on the table in front of me, ready to be open and empty like any other corpse.. Three shots to the chest, some guys had robbed a store while he was in, he tried to be a hero defending the cashier, and they shot him. The thieves fled with nothing in their hands... I got depressed..."

You looked at Curly, who was watching you attentively while you told that story he already knew.

"I ran away from home... I started with drugs... and all kinds of things to get money... I went to my mother's house just to ask her for money or to eat something, I didn't care how much she begged me to stay... I just... I couldn't feel good again, and I was destroying myself to know that I was still alive."

Anya: "...How did you get out of that?"

"Because of this stubborn one"

You smiled at Curly, who soon looked away as if he weren't paying attention to what you were saying.

"He found me shoplifting in a store, and instead of turning me in, he bought the things I was taking and invited me for a coffee" you laughed, recalling that moment.

Anya: "Seriously?"

"Then he was looking for me all over the city."

Anya: "Did he want to see you again?"

"I stole his wallet."

You paused to laugh at the memory as well, before continuing with the story.

"But he insisted on keep meeting with me, on helping me, and I ended up falling for his kindness... I started living in his house, he was never around because of work, I got a job as a dog walker to have my own money while I was recovering, and he was always making sure I was okay... After years... Finally, I had the strength to see my mother again... And she felt relieved to see me well... Ugh, you have no idea the scene she made when she met Curly, so happy that i found a good man, I wanted the ground to swallow me up."

Anya: "That still doesn't tell me how you ended up as co-captain."

"...Five years ago... Curly recommended me, I did the physical and psychological exams, the training, and since I passed everything flawlessly, well... That's how I ended up here!"

You scratched your neck, smiling somewhat embarrassed that it wasn't a great story of how you became captain on your own; that was the plain truth of how you had ended up there.

You finished putting the upper bandage on Curly, ready to continue with the lower part.

Anya: "We're going to have to be careful with the catheter for this part."

Immediately, they heard Curly's complaints when they were about to remove the bandages from that part.

"Don't be like that, Curly! Anya was the one who has been changing your bandages, washing them, and put the catheter in for you; there's nothing wrong with her seeing you again."

Anya: "I think he doesn't want you to see him..."

She said a little embarrassed, you turned to look at Curly, speechless, not knowing what to say to him.

"Okay, no problem, I'm leaving."

You raised your hands to get up from your seat and leave that room. 

Anya: "You shouldn't feel ashamed, she'ss your wife after all, she'll see you again someday."

Curly shook his head slowly, he preferred that you see him again when he was recovered.

[eunoia-writes]

Knight In shining armour • Felix Catton x Reader

Request - MAKE A FIC WHERE FELIX IS COMFORTING READER AFTER SHE’S HOSPITALIZED CAUSE SHE DRANK THE LACED CHAMPAGNE BUT DIDNT DIE JUST GOT REALLY SICK PLEASE PLEASE!!!🫶🏻

Warnings - 18+ Smut, Oral (M&F receiving, PinV, Oliver being a creep, Drugging

When y/n awoke without Felix next to her it wasn’t out of the ordinary. Felix typically got up before her to go in hai morning

“Morning Darling.” Elspeth said as y/n approached at the table adorned In Felix’s jumper and her usual bed shorts

“Good morning.” She said with a smile while Duncan brought out her usual of scrambled eggs while she made her way to the breakfast bar grabbing her usual multiple spoons of fruit and few slices of toast.

“Felix and Oliver have headed out of the day so I thought you might like to accompany me and Venetia into town to get costumes for the party tomorrow.” Elspeth said taking a sip of her coffee her eyes not leaving y/n as she walked back to the table

“I’d love to.” Y/n said taking a sip of her orange juice “it’s been far too long since the three of us did anything without Felix.” She added while Venetia laughed

“It would be nice to see you without my brother attached to your hip for once.” Y/n blushed slightly, everyone adored how inseparable the couple were especially Elspeth, she loved seeing how smitten her son was, the way he doted on his girlfriend she just adorned how in love he was.

“Don’t listen to her you two are just darling together.” Elspeth said making y/n smile as she finished up her breakfast before rushing off to get ready for the day.

After hours of walking around the streets of London the three girls got back to saltburn. Y/n walked into Felix room to see him sat on the bed as she carried in multiple bags

“Oh Fi I got us the best costumes for tomorrow you’re going to love it honestly.” She began before she realised something was right

“Darling, what’s wrong?” Y/n put the bags down walking over to him as he looked up at her with tears in his eyes “oh my pretty boy, whatever’s the matter.” Felix took a deep breath as he pulled y/n into his lap

“Ollie lied… about everything.” Felix whispered as her hands came to his face wiping his tears away “I mean everything baby, the stuff with his parents… his dad is alive.” The last four words felt like a bullet In her chest.

“Oh.” Was all she said and Felix knew how hurt she was just from that. Y/n had bonded with Ollie over the loss after she lost her dad a few months prior. She didn’t want to believe that someone could be so cruel.

“I’m so sorry pretty girl.” Felix said as tears rolled down her cheeks

“Why are you sorry? You didn’t do anything wrong.” She asked her bottom lip quivering it was taking everything in her not to breakdown sobbing

“I brought him into our lives… I should have known.” Y/n shook her head before kissing him softly

“It’s not your fault.. how were you to know” She mumbled into the kiss before pulling away. She wiped the few stray tears that feel onto his cheeks away before standing back up and clearing her throat.

“Now back to those costumes.”

—

“God baby, you look so fucking hot.” Felix said as y/n came out of the bathroom in her costume. The same gold wings in his back adorned her. The bra, skirt and matching wings combo leaving very little to the imagination. the pair dressed as a Greek god and Goddess which Felix would argue she is regardless of the costume.

“You’re the sweetest.” Y/n leaned up to kiss Felix who’s hands instantly began to roam her body “Fi as much as I would love to stay in your room all night you mother will kiss us if we don’t show after all the effort she’s put into this.”

“Don’t really feel like celebrating.” Felix said his hands on her waist as she wrapped her arms around his neck

“I know baby, I’ll make you a deal well go down there and show our faces for a while, have a few drinks and then I’ll finally let you show me round that maze yeah?” She suggested with an innocent smile on her face but the suggestion was far from innocent

“Get moving then pretty girl.” He said wasting no more time making sure to slap her arse as they walked out of his bedroom and down to where the party had already began

“Wow don’t you look hot.” Venetia said as y/n and Felix walked over to her hand in hand the music was already thumping as Elspeth walked over handing the pair a glass of champagne each making sure to tell them how cute there matching costumes are.

“Our dear cousin is out back with something to make this party a little more fun for us.” Venetia said watching the way Felix eyes lit up as he pressed a kiss to his girlfriend’s temple before hurrying off.

The pair had managed to avoid Ollie so far that evening while drinking their way through bottle after bottle of whatever they could get their hands on. Felix had hardly taken his hands off her the whole evening when she suggest a late night stroll, although he knew what she was really suggesting.

The couple made their way outside into the cool summers air, the alcohol in their veins doing more than enough to keep them warm.

“You know the way right baby?” Y/n asked as they neared the entrance of the entirely pitch black maze while Felix had stopped to plant sloppy kisses all over her neck mumbling for her not to worry as she ran her hands through his hair.

Felix took the lead their laughter echoing against the labyrinthine walls, stumbled forward, hand in hand. The scent of blooming flowers lingered in the air as they weaved through the twists and turns, their steps becoming a delightful dance of tipsy synchronicity. Every few steps, he paused, their laughter bubbling over into kisses that tasted of desperation mixed with booze.

“My feet hurt.” Y/n mumbled into the kiss as she kicked off her shoes making her even smaller than her boyfriend who always towered over her.

“Not much longer pretty.” Felix said interlocking there hands once again as they continued into the darkness. The maze, a playground for their intoxicated affection, led them to its heart, where, surrounded by the fragrant maze walls, they shared a final, lingering kiss.

“Wow s’lot bigger than I imagined.” Y/n joked looking up at the statue in the center that towered over the pair of them

“The only thing you should be sayings big is me.” He joked as she rolled her eyes in the moonlight cocking her head to the side as she pulled him closer by the buckle of his belt

“Pretty heard to say that when I’ve got my mouth full.” She teased as she dropped to her knees staring up at him while she fumbled with his belt

“God pretty girl you’re killing me.” And just as he was about to have his way with her a loud snap came from a few yard away

“What was that.” She stopped in place much to his dismay

“S’nothibg baby.” Felix’s hands made there way into her hair as she looked up at him pouting slightly but ultimately brushing it off as she continued undoing his belt and pulling his jeans and underwear down just enough to pull him out of his underwear

Y/n wrapped both of her hands around the bottle of his length her eyes never leaving his as she kitten licked the tip. Felix let out a shaky breath making him tremble in his spot gripping her hair tighter. Her tongue swirled around his tip before she took him into her mouth her head bobbing up and done and she took more for him each time.

“Fuck just like that.” Felix groaned as her throat tightened around him as she gagged slightly briefly coming up for air before wrapping her mouth around him again she moaned around him as he let our a rather loud moan

“Such a good girl.” He groaned which only encouraged her she kept up her exact pace feeling him tense in her throat.

“Fuck I’m gonna cum.” He said mere seconds before he finished in her mouth with a groan watching as she swallowed him and licked up any mess. Flashing an innocent smile just to top it off.

“God what are you doing to me y/n.” Felix waisted no time tucking himself back into his boxers as he scooped her up placing her on the base of the statue wasting no time attacking there lips as he stood between her thighs his lips trailed down to her neck she let out a soft wine as he found her sweet spot

“Up.” He mumbled into her neck telling her lift her ass up so he could pull her underwear down shoving them into his back pocket while he continued sucking marks on her neck.

He left a trail of open mouthed kisses down her chest to right were she needed him the most before pressing a kissed against her clothed heat “please.” she moaned he smirked looking up at her once more as if he was asking permission

“Fi.” She wined once more before he blew hot air over her swollen clit before diving in. his tongue traced her folds before he lapped at her clit. Y/n’s back arched, electricity bolting through her nerves. Her hands flew to tug at his hair as he lapped at her clit feverishly so Desperate to taste her. He caught her off guard slipping a digit into her, groaned into her when your legs locked around his head, securing him in place. Not that he needed it. He’d stay here forever if she’d let him.

“Please Fi .” She moaned his fingers pumped in and out of her while his tongue made work on her clit. her thighs tremble and eyes roll back into her head. One hand grip the Stone she was sat on her knuckles white, while the other tugged at his locks. The pressure in her abdomen built but so does something else, something deeper at the same time. Felix took note pulling away

“you taste just Devine pretty thing, but not so fast I’m not finished with you yet.” He said as she whimpered at the loss of contact.

She watched as he pulled himself out of his boxers leaning down it kiss her again before he lined himself up with her entrance before he sank into her both of them gasping at the feeling. 

“fuck, you feel so good,” he moaned. She was appreciative of his slow thrusts her constant wines were evident of that.

Y/n’s legs wrapping around his waist pulling him closer as his hips rocked back and forth

“Faster.” She groaned in his ear as she clenched around him. His free hand moving to wrap around her throat squeezing slightly as his hips moved faster.

Y/n opened her eyes for a few seconds spotting someone in the distance. She let out a gasp pushing Felix off her as she attempted to cover herself

“Ollie what the fuck!” She said as she realised who had been watching them. Felix fumbled to cover himself up before protectively standing in front of y/n.

“What the fuck is wrong with you Ollie.” He said while y/n grabbed into his arm

“We need to talk.” Ollie slurred as he made his was over to the couple. Y/n climbed down off the statue staying hid behind her boyfriend

“You’re a fucking liar Ollie.” Felix said as Ollie got closer and closer

“How could you Ollie, after I confided in you.” Y/n said snatching the bottle of champagne out of his hand chugging most of what was left

“I know I’m so sorry y/n… I really am.” He said but she just shook her head and walked away from the pair cradling the bottle as she wobbled while she listened to Felix and Ollie argue

“You need to leave Ollie.” Felix said his eyes flickering to y/n was was now slightly hunched over

“You’re still my friend? We’ll all still be friends right?” Felix didn’t give him an answer before he rushed over to y/n which Ollie took as his que to leave

“Felix.” She said as she started to go dizzy. Y/n reached out for him while he grabbed onto her

“I don’t feel good.” She whispered before her legs gave way. Alarmed, Felix scooped her up in his arms, concern etching his face.

“Stay with me, baby.” Y/n mumbled something drowsy, her eyes struggling to stay open. Felix, with a sense of urgency, began navigating the maze's twists and turns running as fast as he could carry her

“No baby keep your eyes open.” He said as he held her head up with one hand. As he neared the house he spotted Elspeth seeing a group of her friends off by there cars

“Mum!” He yelled out catching her attention, noticing the distress, she rushed over, her face turning from joyous to concerned.

“I don’t know what happened, no baby keep your eyes open for me.” Felix said once again noticing the way she was struggling to stay conscious “y/n, look at me.” He said as Elspeth rushed them towards the car calling out of Duncan.

Felix sat y/n in the back seat sliding in next to her while his mother told him she’d get the rest of the family before telling Duncan to drive to the hospital as fast as he possibly could while she climbed into the passenger seat.”

“M’tired.” Y/n mumbled incoherently as she fell limp into Felix said

“I know baby, I know but you’ve gotta Stay awake for me.” Felix’s heart was in his throat he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

“Felix, what happen? Did she take something?” Elspeth asked Felix had never shook his head so quickly

“No mum, she would never. she was fine a few minutes ago.” He said the panic in his voice evident he head tears in his eyes as y/n kept mumbling nonsense to him.

“Love you Fi” He heard her say before she fell unconscious

“Drive fucking faster!” He yelled hitting the back of the seat as he tried to shake her awake but it wasn’t working

“Calm down Felix we’re almost there.” Elspeth said in reality she was also just as panicked. She loved y/n like her own she couldn’t bare the thought of something happening to her.

“I can’t fucking calm down!” He yelled and as soon as they turned into the hospital Felix wasted no time rushing her inside begging for help. Multiple doctors came rushing over taking him from her arms discussing things amongst themselves.

Felix stood frozen in the middle of the room, the weight of fear anchoring him to the spot. The harsh light overhead accentuated the pallor of his face as doctors fired questions about what happened with his collapsed girlfriend. His voice caught in his throat, and his limbs felt like lead, rendering him incapable of articulating the events that led to this moment. The fear consumed him, the uncertainty of y/n’s well-being tightening its grip. Just when the anxiety threatened to suffocate him, the hospital door opens and Elspeth entered, a comforting presence amidst the clinical sterility. Her eyes met Felix's, conveying a silent reassurance that he wasn't alone in this ordeal. In that shared gaze, a glimmer of strength returned to Felix, grounding him in the support of his mother amid the overwhelming uncertainties of the hospital room.

Elspeth took over the questioning answering every question she possibly could as a nurse took Felix into the waiting room where he sank into one of the chairs terrified for y/n’s life. A few minutes later Venetia, his dad and Farleigh came rushing into the room. No one said a word.

Venetia took a seat next to her brother taking his hand in hers trying to offer him some sort of comfort in the horrific moment. The reality of the situation had completely sobered him up the adrenaline of the alcohol wearing off.

“Felix, darling have some water.” Elspeth said handing Felix a plastic cup that she had filled with the water sat off to the side of them. His hands shook as he took a sip of the water finally speaking up for the first time since he’d let the doctors take y/n from his arm.

“I won’t be able to live if something happens to her.” It was almost a whisper but everyone heard it

“She’s going to be okay.” Farleigh not only told Felix but also himself and everyone in the room for that matter all of them having the same sinking feeling.

“But what if it’s not.”

In the hush of the hospital waiting room, Felix ensnared in a web of anxiety, perched on the edge of a hard plastic chair. His knees are caught in a restless rhythm, an involuntary dance fueled by the uncertainty of y/n’s condition. The minutes stretch like elastic as he nervously glances at the clock, each tick amplifying the echo of his worries.

Unable to contain the nervous energy, Felix succumbs to the urge to pace back and forth across the linoleum floor. His steps are uneven, a physical manifestation of the emotional turbulence swirling within. The harsh fluorescent lights cast shadows that play on his strained expression, the weight of concern etched across his face.

Meanwhile, His family huddles nearby, attempting to offer solace in whispered words and gentle touches. Their eyes mirror his apprehension, but they muster comforting smiles and attempts at casual conversation, striving to create a shield against the suffocating atmosphere of the waiting room.

The air is thick with anticipation, each passing second an agonizing reminder of the unknown. Felix, caught between the pull of hope and the gravity of fear, finds solace neither in the uncomfortable chair nor the sterile surroundings. All that matters is the impending news about y/n’s well-being, an answer that lingers just out of reach, teasing the frayed edges of his nerves. What felt like an eternity later a doctor came into the room everyone’s attention on them

“I’m Doctor Robinson I’m y/n’s doctor Today.” The woman started but before she could get another word out Felix croaked

“Is she okay?”

“Y/n is doing better than we could have hoped for her case, you did the right thing getting her here when you did. Her toxicology came back and it looks like she ingested a lethal amount of benzodiazepines which we believe after conversation with Elspeth to be as a result of spiking in something she will have drank at the party this evening.” The doctor explained everyone felt a weight lifted off there shoulders as they said she was doing better

“Can I see her?” Felix asked

“She’s not awake yet, however you are more than welcome to sit at her bedside until she does wake up.” Felix shoot up out of his seat almost instantly the others silently agreeing to let him go alone as he followed the doctor to her room.

Felix heart broke as soon as he walked into the room seeing y/n laying there with multiple IVs stuck in her arm. He chocked back his tears as he made his way to sit next to her taking his hand in hers.

At what felt like only moments later as if she was awoke by his presence she was finally conscious again. Felix kiss the back of her hand as he thanked god for keeping her safe

“Hey pretty.” He whispered softly as a few tears rolled down his cheeks she smiled softly at him squeezing his hand

“Hi.” She croaked out her eyes half open. Her entire body ached as she reached out to wipe his tears away “Don’t cry Fi, I’m okay.”

“You scared me so much baby.” He said as more tears rolled down his cheeks

“god if you had - but I didn’t and I’m okay.” She said knowing where his train of thought was going. She shuffled herself to one side of the bed making room for Felix next to her as she patted the spot which he waisted no time climbing into

“Did they tell you what happen?” She asked as she got comfortable on his chest as Felix petted her head. Felix let out a sigh not sure how to approach the topic.

“The doctors said you had a lot of benzodiazepines in your system.” Felix started and he felt her tense up

“What- I don’t do that kinda thing… I’d never.” She said as tears rolled down her cheeks

“I know baby I know, mum knows that too everyone knows you’re not like that.” He whispered y/n had always made it gleaming obvious she didn’t like the idea of every taking drugs while she never judged those who did she couldn’t bare the thought of losing herself to drugs the way her father did.

“Then how?” She asked knowing exactly how but she needed him to say it

“The doctors think something you drank was spiked.” Felix said and her heart sank. Saltburn was supposed to be a space space where she didn’t have to worry about stuff like that. A place where nothing bad could possible happen.

“You don’t think…” she started and Felix knew exactly what she was hinting at. Ollie. The only thing she had drank that she hadn’t opened the bottle or poured herself was the champagne she snatched from his hands.

“I… I Really fucking hope not.” Felix whispered just as Elspeth and everyone knocked at the door wanting to check in y/n themselves

“Oh darling, I’m so glad You’re okay. You had us all worried sick.” Elspeth said rushing over to y/n’s bedside who gave her a weak smile

“Is there anything we can do or get you?” James said standing next to his wife placing a comforting hand on her shoulder

“I would really just like to go home.” Y/n said and just as Venetia was about yo say she’d go speak to the doctor Felix spoke up

“No, you can’t go home yet.” He began looking down at her “you need to stay here and get better.”

“Fels, I’m okay I just need to rest.” y/n said just as her doctor walked into the room

“Ah y/n, glad to see you’re awake.” She began as she picked up her chart from the end of the bed “I’m sure Felix here told you, we found a lethal amount of benzodiazepines in your system which is what caused you to lose consciousness. If it wasn’t for your lovely family getting you here when they did we’d be looking at a very different outcome.” Y/n squeezed Felix’s hand softly nodding to what the doctor was telling her.

“For now I suggest you go home and rest up take it easy for a few day, which I’m sure everyone in this room will see too that you do and make sure you’re drinking plenty of fluids.” Y/n looked up at Felix while the doctor went to collect the discharge papers

“See baby, I told you I’m okay.” She said as he leaned down to kiss her softly

“I’m so glad you’re okay pretty.”

“Well Im lucky I have you, my knight in shining armour.”

[livwritessometimes]

End With The Spring Fling

: Part 12 (Oscar's Version)

: The Spring Fling is finally here!

: Prev

: Series Masterlist

: Main Masterlist

: author's note: And with that Oscar’s Version is finally over! Can’t believe it was a 12 part series, feels much longer than that. Can’t wait for other versions to come 💕

…

It was finally the time everyone had been waiting for. It was time for the names to go live. There was a sense of nervousness in the air, several students looking towards each other, wondering who their match was going to be. The Head of the Department of Mass Communication made her way towards the stage with a mic in hand. "I'm sure you all are excited for the grand reveal?" she questioned as cheers erupted in the venue. "Before we get on with that, I would like to call someone to the stage. You see, without this person, you would not have this reveal tonight. So please put your hands together for Ms. Y/n L/n, the person who came up with this idea," the HoD said as she passed the mic to Y/n.

"Ahh, I was not expecting this at all," Y/n said as she let out a nervous laugh. "I don't even know where to begin. I am so glad for my friends, who had to deal with me during this; I know it wasn't easy, and I really appreciate you guys for being there for me," Y/n said while looking at Alex, Dylan, Daniel, and Pierre. 

"The truth is that none of this would have been possible without a certain someone's help. You see, I had no idea how to get the form up and running, and that is when my dear friend Daniel told me about this guy who can help. Let's just say the ride from that hadn't been the easiest at first, I'll admit, but over time it had become the best part of this entire project," Y/n said, smiling at the memories of her and Oscar. 

"But of course life doesn't always go your way, and I messed things up with him. So what I'm trying to say here is that, if you end up finding someone through this, I hope you hold onto that person. I hope you love them and cherish them the best you can. So enjoy your night, because the results are out," Y/n said as she got off the stage.

The entire hall was filled with excitement as people pulled out their phones to see who they got. Y/n made her way towards her group when she saw him standing in the middle of the dancefloor amongst the chaos.

"Oscar?" she said as she made her way towards him.

"Did you mean that?" he questioned.

"What?" she said.

"Did you mean what you just said up there?" Oscar asked again, with a sense of urgency in his voice.

"i-um" "Yes, I did, Oscar," Y/n finally said after overcoming the surprise of seeing him there. 

"I'm sorry I left yesterday. I just did not know what to say to you at that moment. God had I known that you felt the same, why would I have don-," Y/n was cut off by Oscar grabbing her face and kissing her.

"God! Why do you always have to talk so much?" Oscar asked before he leaned in again.

Y/n could hear hooting in the distance, and as she pulled away from Oscar, she turned to find the source of this being their friends, watching everything that had just happened. 

Clearing his throat, Oscar said, "They're never gonna let this go, are they?" "Oh yeah, be prepared," Y/n said, shaking her head, and the two joined the dancefloor.

"Fair warning, don't let Dylan intimidate you; he likes to give the dad talk to the guys I'm dating," Y/n said, cringing at the memory of said 'dad talks' that Dylan was so fond of.

"So we're dating then?" Oscar questioned, looking at Y/n, who looked a little flustered.

"I can leave if you'd like," Y/n said as she pulled away from him.

"Oh, hush you," Oscar said, pulling her even closer than before, slowly swaying the song that was playing in the background.

… Tags: @regalbanshee | @be-your-coffee-pot | @mrsbrxkkxr | @princessria127 | @moonraysandstars | @prettiest-at-the-party | @theblueblub | @magixpracticality | @slytherinholland | @overlyexcitedoutlaw | @marvel-at-stucky | @crumbssss | @a-beaverhausen | @felicityforyou | @gigigreens | @jas0nluvr | @khaylin27 | @imsiriuslyreal | @cwiphswmwasohmm | @wobblymug | @e-nonsense | @raizelchrysanderoctavius | @brekkers-whore | @vintagefucksstuff | @aexitizen-ln4 | @redstappen | @iamred-iamyellow | @tsireyasgf | @ghost-of-student-sufferings | @saachiep81 | @lozzamez3 | @ravisinghs-wife | @elizamoe133 | @anthonylockwoodandco111 | @formulaal | @luvsforme | @annabellelee | @a-disturbing-self-reflection | @emryb | @grovelingmen | @illicit-affcirs | @iwilleatyourgod | @youre-on-your-ownkid | @originaldreamerdragon | @landorris | @mountvesuvu | @chezmardybum | @littlegrapejuice | @spitesfvl-blog | @juleshadalittlelamb | @vicurious28 | @niyu2208 |

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Summer Breeze 1

Was gonna be a drabble roulette. Fuck me, I can't do this right, can I?

Warnings: age gap (reader is 22, Andrew is mid 40s), dad's friend, Andy being Andrew, other dark elements. As usual, be mindful of your content consumption.

I also beg of you to leave me some tuppence in the form of a comment and/or reblog. You are cherished!

Enjoy, my loverlies.

You push yourself up from the air mattress, feeling the floor through the deflating cushion. You grumble and yawn as you rub your eyes. You stand up, the loose tank clinging to your stomach as you tug the hem of your shorts from the crease of your thigh. 

You don’t lament your accommodation. You know you’re a last-minute addition to the trip. The place is a bit crowded and you’re just happy to not be laid out in the dirt. Still a free vacation is a free vacation. You won’t complain for it. 

You stretch and pad to the door, careful not to disturb the bodies sleeping in the dual bunk beds. You’ve never been to a cottage before. This place is nicer than your house. Even if it’s a bit cramped. 

Your dad always complained about the mortgage and now you know why. He’s struggling to make his monthly payments and keep you in school, meanwhile the neighbour has a whole second house by a lake. You feel worse for your meagre contributions. Your part-time job won’t get your dad his own beach house. 

As you get to the door, you jump at the loud snort the cuts the air. Jacob rolls over and throws his arm over his face. He’s been at it all night. Him and his friends who crowd onto the single mattresses.

You get along but you’re not exactly a part of his usual gang. It was your dad’s idea to come up. You know he forgot it was his turn to have you for the summer. The awkward getaway is better than dealing with another of your mother’s boyfriends. 

Your weight creaks in the floor as you come down the hall and you stop short at the unexpected figure stood before the open windows. You hug yourself as wind blows in from over the water. You stare at Mr. Barber’s broad shoulders as he stands shirtless as he stares out at the morning landscape. 

You should go back. You’re always the first one awake at the sleepover. You lean back on your heel and the floor whines loud enough to give you away. You cringe. 

“Burton--” Mr. Barber grits as he glances over his shoulder, cutting himself short as he sees you. He turns to face you completely and coughs, “sorry, I thought you were your father.” 

“Um, no, sorry Mr. Barber, I was just... awake,” you utter dumbly. 

“Andy,” he corrects you. 

“Right, Andy,” you echo nervously, “I’ll just--” you point with your thumb over your shoulder. 

“It’s fine, I... I--” he stops and looks down at himself. He wears only a pair of shorts, “shoot, I--” he clears his throat and searches around, pulling on the button up hung over one of the dining chairs, “got a bit hot.” 

You notice the couch is all made up; crumpled blankets and a wrinkled pillow.  

“Your dad’s in my room. He had a bit too much fun with the beer,” he sniffs.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” you rub your neck. That’s not unusual. 

“You drink coffee?” He asks as he comes forward, “you college girls still have caffeine without all that whip and syrup?” 

You frown at the insinuation. He’s one of those; ‘in my day’, though you sense a flavour of misogyny too. You shrug. 

“I don’t drink coffee,” you answer as he nears, “I’ll have some water and lemon, if you have it.” 

“Lemon water,” he grumbles as he brushes closely, “you on a diet?” 

You squint and let out a scoff, “no.” 

He’s quiet as he looks in the fridge and takes out a large pitcher. His cheek ticks as he thinks, “not that you need to be on one... sorry.” He pours you a glass and slides it to the end of the counter, “no lemons.” 

“That’s fine,” you accept the glass. 

“Well, I was gonna say,” he scratches his beard as he backs up, his shirt still open, revealing his furry chest, “coffee always tastes better out on the dock but... you don’t drink coffee.” 

“Mm,” you hum, “well, thanks for the water. If you don’t mind, I might go out anyway.” 

He nods as he turns, popping open a cupboard to search out the canister of coffee. You linger, waiting for any response. He peels the lid off the container and glances over. His blue eyes makes you shiver. You don't know him very well, he only just moved in your first year of college. Your dad likes him but your his friends never want much to do with you. 

“I’m sorry if I’m bothering--” you begin. 

“Don’t mind,” he answers, “the company, that is.” He turns back to fill the machine and lets out a sigh, “not used to a full house anymore and I don’t think your dad will be up soon enough to share the pot.” He loads the filter and closes the lid on the percolator, “or the others...” 

“Probably not,” you agree. 

He peeks over again as he fills the carafe. You’re suddenly very aware of your own attire, or lack thereof. The loose tank, the floral shorts with the untied drawstring. You sip from the glass and give a sheepish smile. 

“Anyway, I need some fresh air,” you inch away as tap your fingertips on the side of the glass, “maybe I’ll see a few loons before they fly off.” 

His brows rise and fall and he turns his focus back to the sink. He shuts off the water and turns to the machine. You leave him, eager to be away from the tension of your unexpected encounter. On second hand, this is just as awkward as dealing with one of your mother’s random hookups. 

[joelalorian]

Fall Into Me

dbf!Joel x f!reader

The first TLOU fic I ever read was a dbf!Joel story and it left an indelible mark on my soul. Unfortunately, I never bookmarked it so I have no idea which one it was. It's only natural that I had to try my hand at one at some point. So, here we are.

Summary: Joel is hanging on by a thread as a single father to a tenacious 10-year-old Sarah. Feeling like he's drowning, like the world is about to spit him out, he needs some help before he breaks in half. At your dad's insistence, you show up in his life and change everything.

Story is inspired by the song Fall Into Me by Forest Blakk. Chapter titles will be lyrics from the song.

Word Count: 4.1k

Series Warnings: Mature to start, but will ultimately be Explicit, under 18 take a hike. No outbreak AU. There will be angst, drama, fluff, humor, romance, smut... basically, the works. Age gap of about 9 years (Reader 24/25, Joel 33/34). No use of y/n. Reader has a nickname from her dad, which will be explained at some point.

Dividers by the wonderful @saradika-graphics

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

Chapter One: The Day That I Met You

If you asked him over a decade ago where he’d be now, Joel Miller would not have placed himself as a single father to a tenacious pre-teen desperately trying to keep things afloat. He spent too many hours in the week working to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. He would be lost without the help of his brother and the few friends he had. He had no social life to speak of and could not for the life of him remember the last time he went on an actual date.

No, back then, Joel thought he’d be living the good life in ten years’ time – traveling, going out with the boys, maybe have a girlfriend or wife. Basically, just getting to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. Don’t get him wrong, though. He was still living a good life; it just was a different sort of good than what he hoped for back in the day.

He loved his daughter with every fiber of his being. Sarah was the best damn thing that ever happened to him, his entire world, and he wouldn’t change the past ten years for anything. He bent over backwards doing whatever it took to make his little girl feel cared for, happy, and loved. He just wished there was a little energy left for something for himself at the end of the day.

Joel Miller was drained. Mentally, physically, and emotionally.

He awoke with a groan as the bright sunlight broke through the gap in his curtains. It was Saturday – his birthday – and he hoped to sleep in, at least a little. Between the brightness of the morning and the stifled sounds of clanging pans and voices carrying up the stairs from his kitchen, sleeping in was not happening.

He hauled himself out of bed with a groan worthy of a man twenty years his senior and stretched out his limbs to ease the achiness in his bare back and chest from too much manual labor. Throwing on a pair of well-worn sleep pants and a faded tee shirt, Joel slipped from his bedroom and down the stairs. He moved rather quietly for a man of his size, stealing a moment to lean against the entryway into the kitchen and watch as Sarah and Tommy worked together making breakfast.

The counters were a mess of spilled pancake mix, eggshells, and… was that coffee dripping over the edge and onto the floor? It was a toss-up on who made the bigger mess, his ten-year-old daughter, or his grown ass brother. Still, Joel could not stop the smile spreading across his face as he watched them laughing and teasing each other. That, right there, was the reason he worked so hard, why the loneliness was worth it.

When Tommy flipped the stovetop off, Sarah turned to find her dad smiling goofily at them. “Happy Birthday, Dad!” she exclaimed, launching herself at his chest. Her lanky arms wrapped around his neck as he lifted her off the ground in a big bear hug.

“Thanks, baby girl,” Joel replied, pressing his lips to her forehead in a quick kiss before he settled her feet on the ground.

“We made you breakfast!” Sarah declared, gesturing toward the disaster zone formerly known as his kitchen.

“I see that,” he chuckled, voice still slightly rough with sleep.

Tommy turned with a smirk, hands grasping two plates filled with bacon, eggs, and pancakes. “Take a seat, brother. Let us take care of you on your birthday.” Placing the food on the small dining table, Tommy roughly patted his brother’s shoulders. “Don’t worry ‘bout the mess, I’m on cleanup duty after we eat.”

“We expectin’ company? That’s a helluva lot of food,” Joel grumbled. He needed coffee, stat.

“Yeah, JB is comin’ over to see ya before heading to the airport. His daughter finished grad school over the summer and is moving back home.” Tommy set more food and a full mug of dark roast coffee in front of his brother. The scent alone made Joel perk up a little.

The Millers hadn’t met you yet, having only become friends with your dad through work after you’d already left for college on the east coast. Your dad had a good decade on Joel, but he and the Miller brothers got on like a forest fire from what he told you. With visits home always short and rushed, busy catching up with family and your own friends, there was never time for your dad to introduce you all. Now you were coming home for good and would have plentiful opportunities for spending time with your dad and his friends.

“Speak of the devil,” Tommy muttered as the doorbell rang. Sarah bounded to the door to greet your dad with a hug. In many ways, the girl reminded him of you when you were young, and it always brought a smile to his face.

“There he is! The man of the hour. Happy Birthday, buddy!” Your dad, John, or JB as the Millers called him, ruffled Joel’s already mussed hair, leaving a few locks standing straight up in further disarray. Pulling a 12-pack of beer from behind his back, your dad set it on the table in front of Joel, topped with a little red bow. “I gotcha a lil’ something to celebrate.”

“Good man,” Joel replied with a chuckle. “Have a seat and help me eat all this. Tommy just told me your lil’ girl is coming home, finally.”

Your dad’s face lit up even more at the mention of you coming home. “She’s not so little anymore, but I sure am glad she’s moving back here. Said she had enough of the east coast, but I think she just missed her ol’ man.” After wolfing down some food, he added, “Think we could host a small barbecue here this coming weekend to celebrate? Your backyard is way nicer than mine and you got the pool and all.”

“Not to mention that fancy ass grill,” Tommy chimed in.

Swallowing a long sip of his morning go juice, Joel nodded. “Of course. Invite whoever you want. I’m looking forward to finally meeting your daughter.”

“Me too!” Sarah added. She heard a lot about you from your dad and hoped you were as cool in person as he made you out to be.

Joel’s mind started spinning upon hearing his daughter’s excitement. With her school hours being so different from his typical work hours, he was spending a small fortune on after school care for Sarah. She was still too young for him to leave home alone, especially on those days where he’s stuck late at a job. He was barely scraping by as it was and couldn’t really afford the cost of after school programs. Perhaps…

“JB, ya think your daughter would mind watching Sarah during the week while she’s home. Drop off and pick up from school and keeping her company ‘til I get home from work? I could pay her – it wouldn’t be much, but better than nothin’, I imagine.” He watched Sarah’s eyes light up at the suggestion and knew it was a good choice.

“I’m sure she’d love to. She wasn’t planning on finding a real job until after the holidays, so I know she’ll be free during the day,” your dad replied. “I’ll talk to her about it on the ride back from the airport and let you know.”

Three suitcases and a carry-on bag. That’s all you had left from six and a half years of pursuing higher education in North Carolina. You sold or gave away anything that did not fit into your luggage or hold sentimental value of your time away. Now, you were moving back home to save some money before you had to start chipping away at the mountain of student loan debt you accrued.

You loved learning, always have, but you were relieved to be done with school. Equipped with a bachelor’s degree in earth sciences and a master’s in education, you felt like a real adult ready to take the world of middle school by storm… well, starting after the new year, maybe. For now, you needed several months of limited to no responsibility to recoup your mental and physical energy. That last couple years of school really burned you out. Not to mention the last-minute rejection of a teaching position you thought was in the bag…

Anyway, you were better off leaving North Carolina behind and returning to Austin. You missed your dad something fierce and his particular brand of caring for you was exactly what your weary soul needed. It was you and him against the world, just like when you were a kid.

You flight was smooth and uneventful, yet you were relieved to deboard the plane. Something about being stuck in a tin can at the mercy of someone else’s ability to keep the thing from plummeting to the ground really aggravated your anxiety. Flying was something you would never enjoy; it was merely a means to an end when you wanted to travel long distances.

The journey to baggage claim was a slog with the crowd of passengers all heading to the same place. You were wondering how you’d wrangle three large suitcases by yourself when you caught sight of your dad. His broad smile took over his face when he spotted you, rushing over to sweep you up in a big bear hug.

“Hey Spud, how was the flight?” he asked as you waited for the baggage carousel to begin moving. “Looks like it was a full plane.”

“It was, but the flight was good. I’m really glad to be home.”

“Me, too, kid.”

You settled into a comfortable silence, watching various pieces of luggage pass by on the carousel. Your bags were scattered, and you had to wait several cycles to get all of them. Your dad lugged the final suitcase over the carousel with a grunt. “Jesus, what you got in this one? Bricks? A body?”

“That one has my gaming system and half a closet full of clothes,” you replied with a laugh.

Before long, everything was loaded into your dad’s truck, and you were heading back towards town. The radio hummed at a low volume as you both chatted about everything and nothing all at once.

“Hey, so I know you said you weren’t looking for full-time work until after the new year, but I have a proposition for you.” Your dad’s eyes stayed focused on the road, and you merely quirked a brow waiting for him to continue. “My buddy Joel – you know the one I told you about? Well, his daughter is ten and he needs some help with the school run and after school care. Our work hours aren’t exactly the same as elementary school, you know?”

You nodded, remembering all the times your dad spoke to you about Joel, as well as his daughter and brother. Despite never meeting them, you felt like you already knew their whole life story. “So, he’s looking for a nanny or something? I could do that. It would keep me from getting lazy while I navigate getting my Texas teaching certificate.”

Your dad grinned, one hand patting your leg. “I was hoping you’d say that. Joel will pay you, of course, but just… don’t expect much. It ain’t easy for him being a single dad trying to keep everything afloat.”

Again, you nodded, a soft smile creasing your lips. You knew all too well how challenging it could be for single parents, having grown up with just you and your dad. Much like what your dad told you about Joel’s experience with the mother of his child, your mom split when you were barely a toddler. Things weren’t always sunshine and roses, but your dad sure did his best to make sure you had a great life. Honestly, you wouldn’t trade it for the world, that life with your dad. You had a feeling it was much the same for Joel and his daughter.

“I’m happy to help, even if he doesn’t pay me. I’m sure his daughter will enjoy having a female influence in her life if nothing else. What’s her name again? Sarah?”

Your dad’s eyes twinkled with pride. “Yup, that’s it. I’m proud of the woman you’ve become, Spud.”

A mist of tears prickled your eyes as you mumbled out a “Thanks, dad.” After a beat, you added, “Must you keep up with that nickname?”

“Of course. You’ll always be my little Spud,” he laughed as you rolled your eyes. “Oh, by the way, we’re going to the Millers on Saturday for your welcome home party.”

“What’s all this?” Joel questioned as Tommy and Sarah placed a heavy, wrapped package on the table before him along with a few smaller presents. The remains of a birthday cake sat nearby, having been delightfully devoured by the Millers while celebrating Joel’s birthday.

“Just a little somethin’ from me and Sarah,” Tommy replied, a boyish grin alighting his handsome features.

Joel gazed between them with curiosity. Not big on celebrating his own aging, he rarely got big gifts. “You wanna help me open this, nugget?” Sarah’s eyes lit up, small hands reaching to tear the wrapping paper into shreds. It only took a few moments for the contents to be revealed, leaving Joel confused at the modern contraption sitting in front of him. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“You play video games on it, dumbass.” Tommy harumphed as he began a diatribe on the features of the gaming system – he had one just like it at his place and it provided hours of entertainment when he didn’t feel like going out. “I figured it would be a good hobby for you since you never want to join me in going out.”

“Huh,” Joel grunted in return, brows furrowed as he read the instructions on how to setup up the machine. His attention was diverted by Sarah shoving the smaller parcels into his lap.

“Here, dad! These go with it.” Together, they tore into the wrapping paper to find several video games, a few of which were family friendly. The final gift was a spare controller for the gaming system so he and Sarah could play together.

Despite still being unsure that the gift was a good fit for him, Joel was grateful to Tommy for the effort. “This is too much, man. You shouldn’t spend this kind of money on me, Tommy.”

His brother waved him off. “I found a great deal and you never get anything for yourself, brother. You deserve something to indulge in. Believe me, you’ll have fun with this.”

The rest of the evening was spent with Tommy setting up the system and showing the father-daughter duo how to play some of the games he picked out. The living room filled with lots of laughter and teasing, and Joel found himself really getting into the fun of the video games.

After tucking Sarah into bed, Tommy showed Joel a game that was too violent for the little girl but entertaining for the men. The game was set in Washington DC which had been ravaged by a brutal pandemic and the main character was part of a group of agents fighting off nefarious gangs trying to take over the city. Joel caught onto the gameplay quickly and the two men found themselves building the loadout for Joel’s character, taking out bad guys, and chatting well into the night.

At two in the morning, the pair looked at each other with bleary, red-rimmed eyes and finally called it a night. Joel directed Tommy to crash in the spare room as he shuffled off to bed upstairs.

It didn’t take you long to get settled into your dad’s house. It wasn’t the home you grew up in and you only visited a few times after he bought it. After years living away on your own, you thought it would be an adjustment being under his roof again, but it wasn’t. He understood the need for personal space and never hovered unless you were hurt or sick. He gave you the downstairs bedroom – it was the largest in the house, with an ensuite bath and huge walk-in closet.

“Dad, no! Why in the world is this not your room?” you questioned when he placed your bags on the brand-new, king size bed he had delivered the week prior.

“Hell no, Spud. What do I need all this space for? I like the upstairs rooms better – the light is all wrong in this one anyway.”

You looked around, holding in a giggle. The room faced south, giving you just the right amount of natural light all day. That’s what your dad didn’t like. He preferred to live like a bat in a cave with blackout curtains and limited lighting.

“Alright, well, I love it. The natural light is perfect for me. I can actually put some plants on the windowsills. Thank you!” You kissed his cheek as he left you to get settled.

You spent the week rearranging the bedroom how you wanted it, setting up your gaming system, and putting all your clothes into the walk-in closet. Your dad hadn’t done much with the room other than furnish it, so you made a few trips to the store to get a bathroom set, floor lamps, and wall décor to make the room your own.

Before you knew it, Saturday morning dawned bright and warm. The day of your welcome home gathering arrived, and you would finally get to meet the Millers. An excited energy had you moving about your space in a flurry, tidying up and getting ready early. You’d seen some photos of the Millers that your dad sent you – Sarah was adorable with her dark, springy curls, and Joel… Joel was handsome, in a broody, overworked kind of way, with dark, riotous curls and big, warm chocolate eyes. Kind eyes, you called them.

“Hey Spud, you ready?” your dad called from the kitchen as you put the finishing touches on your hair. It was pinned up, leaving the smooth skin of your neck bare. The sundress you picked hugged your curves in just the right way, falling just at your knees in a flow of lightweight material. In early October, Austin was still hot, and you hoped the Millers’ yard was shaded.

“Bring a swimsuit! They have a pool!” he yelled as you grabbed the last of your things. Turning back to your closet, you grabbed a dark green one-piece suitable for family-friendly swimming and tucked it into your bag.

“I’m ready!”

Your dad smiled at the sight of you. “Let’s go then. We’re heading over early so you can officially meet the Millers and we’ll help them setup before everyone else arrives.”

“Sounds good. Who all’s coming anyway?” Your eyes widened as your dad rattled off a list of people he invited, including his work buddies and some of his and Joel’s neighbors. He would have invited some of your old friends from high school, but you all lost touch over the years. The party was turning out bigger than you thought. Your heart swelled with how happy your dad was to have you home for good.

The Millers lived in the same neighborhood, only a few blocks away, so close you could have walked if not for the scorching sun. The drive took only a few minutes before your dad pulled into the driveway of a two-story home similar to your dad’s, with simple landscaping and two wooden rocking chairs on the wide porch. Lovely and quaint, the house made you more curious about the people who lived there.

“Dayum! Get a load a JB’s daughter, Joel,” Tommy called from the living room, leaning over the couch to look out the front window. “She’s smokin’ hot!”

“Dammit, Tommy. Stop spying on ‘em,” Joel growled, sneaking a peek over his brother’s shoulder to do a little hypocritical spying of his own. Breath caught in his throat at the sight of you and he couldn’t break his gaze away, even as JB led you toward the front door.

“What was that about spyin’, brother?” Tommy teased, practically dragging Joel away from the window as a knock sounded against the door. “Don’t worry, I’ll get it.”

Tommy opened the heavy wooden door revealing the pair of you standing there, matching bright eyes and wide grins greeting him. “Well, hello there, beautiful. I’m Tommy.” Reaching a hand toward you, Tommy completely ignored JB, who just scowled at him.

“Nice to meet you, Tommy,” you replied, offering him your hand and name in return. Joel’s scowl matched your dad’s expression as Tommy held your hand for several beats too long.

“Back off, Tommy,” your dad grunted, swatting at the younger Miller brother. “This here is Tommy’s brother, Joel. The one who actually owns this house and the better Miller, if you ask me.”

“Ain’t no one askin’ you, old man,” Tommy’s smart mouth shot back at your dad.

Joel ignored both men, eyes like dark pools as he gazed at you, awed at how small and delicate your hand felt in his. “Howdy, darlin’,” his voice rumbled from his chest. “Come on in. There’s someone else lookin’ forward to meeting you.”

Leading the way through the kitchen into the backyard, Joel felt the heat of your gaze burning his back. Were you checking him out? There was no way. You were beautiful and likely in your early twenties. He felt ancient, though he was only in his early thirties, the hard labor of construction work having taken its toll on him.

“Hi Dad!” a young, sweet voice called from a small swing set where a precious little girl entertained herself. “Who’s this?”

Joel introduced you to his daughter, leaving the two of you to get acquainted as your dad called him away.

“You were away at college?” Sarah questioned, motioning for you to take a seat on the swing next to hers.

“I was,” you replied. “But I’m back for good now.”

“That’s good. What grade did you get to? I’m in fourth grade.”

You thought about it a moment. “I guess it would be 18th grade. But you stop counting grade numbers after 12th and start using different words to describe what year you’re in during college.”

Sarah listened raptly while you explained the different terms, what you studied in school, and what kind of job you were hoping to get.

“You want to be a teacher?” she asked, awed.

“I do! I want to teach middle grade science.”

“I love science! Maybe you could be my teacher when I get to sixth grade!”

Joel returned with your dad and Tommy in tow to find you and Sarah having a blast. The little girl sat in your lap as you kicked your feet out, swinging as high as you could, singing some camp song you remembered from your youth.

“See? Told ya she’d love to spend time with Sarah,” your dad said to Joel. He couldn’t tear his gaze away, staring at the two of you with a glazed look in his dark eyes.

Shaking himself off, Joel turned to your dad. “Guess I better work out some details with her.” He stepped over to the swing set, taking a seat on the empty swing and hoping to the heavens above that it held his weight. He struggled internally on how to start the conversation and was just about to blurt something out when his amazing daughter saved the day.

“Dad! She wants to be a teacher! A science teacher! Isn’t that cool? Did you ask her about watching me yet? I think she’d love to.” Sarah rambled on excitedly, amusing you and Joel. Turning to you before Joel could chime in, Sarah turned to you with baby cow eyes, adding, “You would love to, right?”

How could you ever resist that look? No one could. Both you and Joel were powerless as you nodded, and the offer became official. Cell numbers were exchanged and before you knew it, you had a job starting Monday.

Hours later, slightly drunk on spiked fruit punch and buzzing with energy, you thanked Joel for hosting the barbecue and giving you a job. You kissed his stubbled cheek, forcing thoughts of how attractive he was as far down as they could go. You could not develop a crush on your boss. “I’ll see you Monday morning, bright and early!” you declared before following your dad through the front door.

TBC

[fl3shm4id3n]

ᵢₜ'ₛ ₐ ₚᵣₐₙₖ!

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐝𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲 𝐚 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐨𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 ��𝐮𝐬𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐝.

ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: ᴍɪɢᴜᴇʟ ᴏ'ʜᴀʀᴀ x ᴡɪꜰᴇ! ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ, ɢʀᴀʙʀɪᴇʟʟᴀ ᴏ'ʜᴀʀᴀ x ᴍᴏᴍ! ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ (ᴘʟᴀᴛᴏɴɪᴄ)

Tw: 'Shut Up Mom' Prank, the Chancla.

Masterlist

It was a Friday, you and Gaby were in the living room watching TV, you both had nothing to do since the chores had been already done and there was nothing to really do. You had been sitting on the couch while Gaby was laying on your lap, focused on what was playing on the TV. You were scrolling through your phone, then you came across a video on your phone, it was of a son telling his mom to 'Shut up' to see there dad's reaction. This kind of gave you an idea.

"Gaby?" you called out to your daughter who only hummed. "You wanna play a prank on your daddy?" you asked, then she quickly got up and looked at you with curiosity. "What kind of prank?" she asked, then you showed her the video. She watched it closely, and giggled by the reactions of everyone. "We should!" she said now excitedly. After you had planned how you'll play out the plan, you had the idea to do laundry, you normally did it on the weekend but this time it was for this little prank.

You and Gaby had been waiting for Miguel to get home, you both couldn't help but just imagine how his reaction. Finally your husband had arrived, once you and Gaby had greeted him, was when the plan would be set on action.

Miguel was siting at the dinning room table, helping Gaby with her homework like usual. You had come back from the basement to get the laundry from the dryer. You sat the basket on the coffee table in the livingroom and began to fold the clothes, you and Gaby locked eyes, giving her a wink, to let her know the little sign. Then you got a hold of her Soccer jersey and her shorts, folding them neatly. Here goes nothing.

"Gaby can you go put your soccer clothes away? You got practice tomorrow" you said, trying so hard not to laugh. Gaby looked over at you from her work and went back to writing on her paper. "No Shut up mama" she said as serious as possible. This made Miguel stop at what he was doing and look at her wide eyes. Did she just told you to shut up? He looked over at you, who also had a shocked expression on your face, then back at Gaby.

"What did you say to your mama?" he asked slowly, then Gaby looked at him and repeated what she said to you. "To shut up?" she said, then Miguel reached down to were his foot was and got a hold of his chancla, without hesitation Gaby got up fast and began to run upstairs. Miguel got up from his chair and proceeded to run after her with the chancla in hand. "Gabriella!" he yelled after her.

Gaby squealed as you also followed behind them as fast as you could. " AY MIGUEL!! MIGUEL! IT'S A PRANK!!" You screamed, following them into Gaby's room. Your daughter was on the other side of her bed, laughing as Miguel had his hand with his chancla up, looking purely confused, as his daughter laughed, then he turned back to you who was laughing loudly. "It's a prank Miggy!" you said dying of laugher, then Miguel also began to laugh. "Omg, are you both serious" he said while laughing hard. "We got you!" Gaby said as she continued to laugh. Miguel was going to get you both back for this.

Taglist: @sorryi-mtrash, @call-me-nev, @belos-simp69