#different kids walking those roads

[strawbebbiesart]

201km 🏘️💕🚌

[madamechrissy]

Just Friends!?

-Art in the banner from nek0zuu_ on X-

Pairings- Former Nerd! Gojo and popular F! reader

Summary - Satoru Gojo was the biggest nerd EVER in high school with you, next door neighbors, study buddies, you were the best friends in the world. Never having the courage to ask you -the 'popular girl' out- you never knew he felt for you. He ended up leaving town, moving to the big city of LA- getting famous with a modeling career, and lost touch with everyone from his old life. While you're working the family pub to help out your parents, years later, he finally comes back to visit, just to have you making his drink. Everything about him is different, aside from those pretty blue eyes and the sweet grin. You feel he's so accomplished now, and you're just a small town girl, but little do you know, you've never left his mind.

Warnings - Will be explicit and smutty (it's me!?) Nerdjo turned famous and cocky, but he's still just a Nerdjo deep down hehe- sexual tension, lots of angst tbh, Gojo finding himself again, but being an ass of a man. Reader has a hard situation (dad has an illness) but nothing too rough! SO MANY feelings, repressed things, pining, longing, say Hi to Nerdjo AGAIN- longer chap this time! (This is a mini series, so expect two more parts maybe hree it's me lol)

Based on the 2005 Rom com Just Friends - part of my amazingg moot @indiewritesxoxo's Friday night flicks! 🌙

<<<Part Two - Masterlist - Part Four>>

Part Three

“Why do I need to do an interview!? And where are you going!” Samantha demands the next morning, pouting as he is about to drop her off with an ‘interviewer’ aka Satoru paid someone to keep her busy so he can meet you.

He wasn’t with Samantha, but she was psychotically obsessed, the few times he’d let her fuck him had been truly terrifying, she’d licked his entire face last time so he’s firmly avoided her. As pretty as she is, psycho is psycho, and it wasn’t even the kind that made her better in bed, it was the kind where you wondered if you’d make it through the night.

He already set it up with an old acquaintance who just happened to be a fan of hers anyway, now they’re setting up for her and she’s refusing to budge, instead reaching up to grab him around the neck, pouting full lips at him. “Satoru, why do you have to go!?”

“Family things, I know, I know I will miss you too.” He pouts all cute,  and she finally sighs, dejectedly letting him leave, Satoru runs out in the cold, hurrying to his still warm little car, beginning to drive the way to your place.

How could he forget it, the endless afternoons once you all had gotten home from school, the way you’d run up your stairs and watch the cartoons that came out - Digimon was his favorite, Sailor Moon was yours. In fact your room had been covered with Sailor moon merchandise, he wonders if it still is. He wonders so much about your life.

The heat warms him as he drives through distant but familiar roads, he had ridden them on his bike so, so many times, quiet streets in a town that hasn’t grown very much. He certainly sees new places and a few more cars than before, but compared to LA it was the middle of nowhere. Winding streets, until he pulls up to your parents’ home.

The nostalgia hits when he steps out of his car, leaving it running so it would be warm enough for you, slowly walking up through the snow crunched grass to your wide front porch. Your house hasn’t changed a bit, the same old brick style, smaller than his but still beautiful in its vintage way, unchanged even amongst the newer styles of homes built.

He knocks hesitantly on the burgundy door, faded paint with time, how many times had he done just this? Being a little kid, being a teen and almost an adult, he’s not sure he really was an adult at eighteen really. Satoru pauses and smirks when you open the door, then falters as he sees your mom, who instead of warmly welcoming him like he expects, pauses just a bit.

“Hey there, been a long time.” He greets her, and she smiles then, sighing and opening the door wider.

“It has been too long, Satoru.” You smile gently at your mom, she remembers even years later the heartbreak of losing him, god no breakup could compare to losing your best friend that night. But you also know she loved him like one of her own, just like Satoru’s mom with you.

“I’m gonna grab some gloves and a hat real quick.” You are so pretty he thinks, in this red sweater and what looks like soft to the touch black pants, boots up to your calves, a jean jacket that looks just like the one he remembers you wearing all the time, and your face is bare aside from a little lip gloss, tempting him to no end.

You’re effortlessly beautiful, but then, you’ve always been.

Satoru feels himself flustered, only you do this, unable to answer you more than a nod. You smile a bit, nervously, running to put on your hat and gloves, listening to your mom as she hugs Satoru tightly. He’s in a dress shirt worth more than your car likely, a black overcoat that could have been pulled from a runway. You suddenly feel hopelessly underdressed, but try to shake it off.

“You’re visiting home?” Your mom asks, and Satoru clears his throat, stepping back and rubbing the back of his neck.

“I had a show here, but I figured I’d try to catch up with her a bit. I saw her at the family bar, still running that huh?”

“We are, she’s been a big help for us.” You smile at your mother’s sweet words, you never expected to move back home, even if it’s temporary, but to know you’re helping them too is a huge relief. “We aren’t even paying her to work at the bar, she gets tips of course but… even those she helps with bills which we need, since her dad is still recovering.”

Satoru pauses now, looking at you, seeing the emotion hit your face. “He’s sick, what’s wrong?”

“He had um…” You trail off, and your mom blinks a bit. “We can talk about it on the way, you must be so cold.”

“Yeah, I’m not used to this weather, the car is warm though.” You kiss your mom’s cheek, and follow Satoru out to the fancy sports car, so out of place in the working town you live in. He opens your door, surprising you for a moment, and you murmur a thank you, sliding in now.

Warm and cozy, you try to rest your insanely beating heart, it was just coffee with an old friend, it wasn��t more, you can’t sit there and think suddenly you’ll both be close again. You don’t even know who Satoru is, he feels so foreign to you, sliding in and grinning at you now, so handsome with his straight white teeth, for a moment you remember the colored rectangles that used to align them fondly.

“You look really great, I feel a little underdressed.” Your words should stroke his ego, but he blinks a bit, frowning.

“What, you look hot.” You’re flushed now, looking down nervously.

“You’re just really dressed up.”

“I am everywhere, though baby, gotta maintain a good image.” He’s leaned back, arm over your back seat as he looks back to pull out of your driveway, putting the two of you impossibly close in the little confines of the car.

“Well you definitely dress well. Where is that … your girl?”

“She’s not my girl.” He rolls his eyes as he then reaches for his dark shades, throwing them on to drive through the blinding snow.

“She seems great.” He bursts into laughter then, it’s so warming for a moment you feel transfixed, until it eases and he sighs a bit.

“She’s horrible. Beautiful yeah but jesus that girl. Many screws loose.”

“Yeah she seemed interesting.”

“I hooked up with her yeah but-” He pauses now, you’re just fiddling with your sweater nervously. “Anyway, let’s not talk about her.”

“What do you wanna talk about?”

“Your dad, what’s up with that? He got the flu or something?” Satoru turns on the blinker as the two of you stop at the light, and you take a hesitant breath.

“He had cancer.”

Satoru’s heart sinks, hearing the sadness in your voice, even as you cover it up, clearing your throat, and his gaze goes to you, eyes wide. “What!? He’s so young and healthy?”

“He hasn’t been healthy, he got sick after you left. Um, your mom knew, she came over a lot, I thought you’d… know?” Satoru hadn’t asked a word about you, and any time his mom brought you or anything up, he brushed her off. “You didn’t know?”

“If I knew, I’d have…” What would he have done?

It’s quiet as the green light goes, and the snow gently dusts the windshield, as you realize he likely didn’t know. Why did you assume that perhaps Satoru would have kept tabs like you did, that’s just foolish. But you figured as close as you two were, you certainly thought somewhere he wondered, but as you see the shock on his face, it settles a bit.

The truth.

He never even asked about you.

You feel horrible when Satoru was picked on, but you tried everything to make sure it was not that way. You thought he knew how special he was to you, but now it starts sinking in, he truly did leave it all behind. You’re not sure how that feels, you aren’t so conceited that you thought he still - well, ever - felt what he wrote in your yearbook, but you assumed he cared.

“Shit is he going to be okay?” Zoned out for a moment, you’re brought back to the present.

“He is, he’s cancer free officially. But he’s still weak, the chemo…”

“Fuck. I’m so sorry.” He puts a hand on your thigh then, eyes falling to yours when you all slow down on the road. “I’m glad he’s gonna be okay.”

“Thank you, Satoru, so am I.” You gently touch his hand with your own, both gloved, but it feels good and comforting, it feels like something you’ve missed. “Don’t feel bad you didn’t know. I thought maybe your mom would have told you?”

“I… she probably tried.” He looks back at the road then, and his words hurt you more than they should. “I wasn’t interested in what was going on back here aside from her. So I likely cut her off.”

“Oh.” You blink back hot emotion, Satoru feels it, how tense the air is in the car, feels your thigh tense under his touch even, as he focuses on driving.

“You’re helping them because he’s not feeling good yet.”

“Yes, but also, I needed to come back, we got lay offs where I was, and as a new teacher I had no tenuity.”

Fuck you’ve had it rough, even if you don’t perceive it that way, the guilt eats him alive, no matter what he would have liked to think he’d be there for you during that, something happening to your father. He was close to him as well growing up, and he sees the effects it has, but you hearing his dismissal of you probably made it worse.

He couldn’t care about you anymore, not when you were so deeply embedded in his heart and soul, not when he was in love with you since you were both just kids, the only way to not feel you anymore was to shove you deep down. And make you just a small flicker of memories, while he busied himself with fame, parties, events, anything to feel alive, and not the emptiness.

“I asked about you.” Your voice drags him down further, his hand is still resting on your thigh, squeezing just a bit.

This isn’t how he thought it would go.

He thought he’d bust out a few lines of how sexy you are, give you a charming grin and a brush on your cheek, and you’d melt, all women melt for him. But you’re tense, unsure and hurt, and he can’t help but feel it’s all due to him, as badly as he wants to explain it away.

“I know. Mom told me.”

It’s quiet again.

The two friends that teased and laughed and shared everything were just strangers now.

You’re holding it back, the endless questions in your head swirling, wanting to know why you were left behind, you get everyone else, but why you, Shoko, Suguru? Why couldn’t he have made a little exception for his true friends. Was it too painful, the memories?

“We’re here.” He says softly, and you both step out then, awkward in your shuffle towards the door, which he opens, the little bells jingling as warmth filters out of the cozy place.

Soon you’re both seated across from each other, and a familiar waitress bounces over. “Oh it’s little Satoru! Oh goodness, what a treat!”

Satoru sighs, shoving up his shades, he was hoping less people would recognize him, not understanding how much he stood out as a six foot four man with shocking white hair. Well, it’s lavender a bit in places, isn’t it? Or is it silver? You never could figure out its color, nor the exact shade of blue that made up the eyes still hiding behind the dark glass.

“Yeah, just for a couple days.”

“And with her! Oh you two were always the cutest, I thought you’d be together, it was the talk of the cafe.” She’s giggling as she watches your reaction. “She has been coming here once a week when she’s in town, gets your special order.”

“Maisie!” You’re trying to shush her, but Satoru’s already heard, as she covers her mouth. “I just enjoy those pancakes.”

You order his order?

He’s staring at you across from him, taking your jean jacket off, now he’s sure it’s from high school. He sees the little pin he’d gotten you still on it, a little Sailor Mars pin, faded and worn. You smile nervously as he just stares at you then, putting the pieces together slowly.

You still come here.

You wear his pin.

You ask about him.

You fucking cared for him, didn’t you? He thought it was some pity, a sweetheart of a girl who’s stupidly popular, but always made sure to include him. He didn’t think it was more than that, pity or convenience, but now he’s questioning it, the girl he left behind in his small town, the one he forced himself to never think of, when you seemingly kept thinking of him.

“Are you good with that?” He blinks a bit, looking at your lips, ones he’d die to feel for once, struggling to hear what you said.

“Huh?”

“The usual, Satoru, those fluffy pancakes that look like kittens! And a strawberry milkshake, right?” Maisie asks, eyes all hopeful, but Satoru laughs a bit, shaking his head now.

“Yeah no, I can’t have that many carbs. Just an Americano please.” Maisie blinks a bit now, and you shift in your seat. “I have a body to maintain.”

“I’ll have pancakes.” You say then, making Maisie smile. “And a milkshake.”

“On the way!” You sigh as you look at Satoru across the table, leaning back in the bright red booth.

“She was excited to see you, couldn’t you just split some with me?”

“Do you know how much sugar is in a pancake?”

“What happened to the boy who loved sweets? You’ve always been thin, what’s the harm?” Satoru scoffs, shaking his head.

“You wouldn’t get it.”

“Oh, I guess not.” It’s tense again, as Maisie comes back out, and Satoru looks over at the pancake with two kittens made of whipped cream and berries, two forks and a milkshake with two straws.

“In case you change your mind.” She hands him his coffee with a gentle touch of your shoulder, and Satoru sips it, as you sip your milkshake, leaning forward just so, wrapping your lips around the straw, he nearly chokes on his coffee when you lick your lower lip.

“Yummy.” You say it with a smirk, as if to tempt him into the sugar.

“I bet.”

“I am sure girls you’re used to don’t eat, and don’t get me wrong, I try to be healthy, but a little indulgence doesn’t hurt.” You take a nibble now, sighing and shutting your eyes, doing erratic things to his brain. “We have a lot of memories here.”

“Yeah. I guess we did.” He’s transfixed then, memories making the atmosphere shift, of him giggling, sitting next to you, while you fed him bites, sipping each other’s drinks, Satoru remembers panicking, thinking how it was an indirect kiss. “I was a loser then.”

“What!?” You glare now, fork falling as he sips the hot, dark coffee again.

“I was, what? Gonna act like I wasn’t?”

“You were certainly not. You were smart, sweet, funny…” You feel it now, the hot anger you try to keep buried, as a teacher you’re sweet and patient, you try to see the sides of everything. But you’re so furious at him at that moment, for talking shit about your best friend - him.

“And you’re still sweet.” His words are soft, a quirk of his plump lips now. “Too nice some would say.”

“Well Satoru, I don’t care what people say, and I never have.” You take another bite now, still glaring. “And I won’t let you talk shit about the best friend I had.”

He pauses, snowy lashes lowering, while you chew the bite now, his knees brush yours under the table, spread wide as yours sit between them, brushing just the smallest bit. “The best friend you had?”

“Wasn’t I to you?” Satoru’s eyes lift, the lilting conversations in the room fade away, he sees the tiniest bit of whipped cream on the corner of your mouth then, leaning forward and brushing it away with his thumb. Touching your cheek does more in that moment than the endless nights with women, tilting everything on its axis.

You gasp just a bit, he is pulling it back now, lapping the cream off his thumb, the action making you heat up, pressing your thighs together, heart racing. “It is yummy.”

Jesus christ.

It’s been a long time since you’ve done anything, but there’s no excuse for just what that did to your body, seeing him so casually touch you and lick his finger like that, mind running to things it shouldn’t. You shake that off, feeling the tension weigh even heavier, as you sip on the milkshake again slowly, swallowing before you finally get the courage to ask it.

“Why did you never talk to me again?”

The question hits him hard, what did he think? You'd be so blinded by his good looks, money and fame, that you’d fall? No, you were the girl he remembered, the girl who those things never mattered to, the one yelling at him for being mean to himself, or who he used to be. He leans back a bit, thighs brushing yours once more, hearing the edge to your voice as you study him.

“I didn’t talk to anyone but mom, it wasn’t just-”

“Why me though? I thought we were so close, I…” You’re blinking tears, but you fail, and Satoru’s heart which he thought was good, until this, until the pretty tear glinting off the light ahead. “You were my everything. I… need a moment, I’m sorry.” You go to stand but he grabs your hand then, placing his over yours.

“Don’t go.” His voice belies some of his emotions finally. “I… I had to leave you all behind, that night was a cruel joke in my head, playing over and over.”

You sit back down, swiping at your tears. “I needed just some time to get them out, there were so many of them.”

“But the thing is, they were your people, everyone loved you, and I thought… that I was a ‘pity friend’.”

“A what!?”

“Something cute to tote around, like some fucking… kitten or puppy. Like these stupid kittens.”

“They’re cute, first off. Second off, you were much more. God everything I told you, everything we went through, and you never asked about me?” Satoru’s lips part, you keep your voice low, as others laugh and converse around you all, as the bustling little place that hasn’t changed a bit goes in motion, you’re at a standstill.

“I couldn’t look back.” Satoru’s words are hard for you to handle, he swipes a hand through those locks then, leaning forward. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves at this moment.”

“What?” His hand brushes back your hair, and he smiles a bit, sure he’s charming, but you can’t even believe him.

“Why look on it, I’m here now. I want to catch up.”

“Do you, why when you never did?”

“Because I’m here now, and…”

“Miss me suddenly only when you saw me? Was it because Sukuna asked me out?” He glares right at you now, before relaxing clenched hands, raising a brow.

“Why should that matter? He can’t compete with me.”

“Compete, there’s no competition. You know, Satoru… I liked - no - loved who you were. I loved watching anime with you and going to the arcade, I loved how sweet and free you felt with me.” You’re sniffling, barely able to hold back things you’d hoped you could let go, but the lingering is in your heart. “I loved everything about the boy you were.”

“I…” He’s sputtering, unable to know what to do now. “I’m not him anymore. He was just a-”

“A sweetheart. A good person. There was nothing wrong with him. And I will not let you keep downing him, when I loved who he was.” You’re throwing on your jacket now, Satoru can’t believe the words out of your mouth, words he could never dream would fall, but he knows it too well.

“Loved as a friend?” You laugh without humor, tossing your hair back and pulling it out from under the collar of the denim.

“You never let us find out if there was more.” The words pulsate through him, as panic sets in, but you shake your head, sighing. “I get why you ran, I do, but fuck like you forgot me. It hurt more than any shitty breakup, it meant more than some guy I thought I had puppy love for. We were so close, I…”

He murmurs your name softly, a nickname only he had called you, long ago. “Can you just give me a day with you?”

“I see no reason to keep talking.”

Satoru’s jaw clenches. “Gotta see Sukuna?”

“Yes. I made plans. And since you’re not eating, and I’ve lost my appetite…” He frowns down at the pancakes, swallows the memories, shutting his eyes.

“Yeah, okay, I won’t keep you.” His harsh words and cold gaze make it all shift, and soon you’re back in the car, but this time even the tentative pretense to be friendly was gone. His hand isn’t on your leg, no one is talking at all, and when he pulls up to your home, you pause, as he busies himself looking at his phone.

“Okay…” Your soft words make him pause just a bit. “Satoru I am sorry I unloaded those emotions. I should have just been friendly, I didn’t plan it to go that way.” He eyes you now, sending the text, sighing when your eyes swim once more with shimmering tears.

He wants to hold you.

He wants to hug you.

To bury you against his chest, a longing so real and tangible it’s hard for him to breathe, to not do that. “It’s fine, I shouldn’t have asked you to come out.”

The pain sets in, of his casual words. “Oh?”

“You didn’t want to, and you had plans later.” He’s back poking at his phone again. “You need me to walk you?”

Wow.

You say nothing, glaring now, stomping out of the car into the snow and slamming his fancy fucking door, he feels tears form in his own eyes, cursing himself then. He rests his head on the steering wheel, before he sees your gloves, sighing and grabbing them, walking out of the car and shouting your name.

You turn as he runs up, breath foggy, standing now at your step, for once you’re at face level, as he is several steps down from you, your breath quickening when he holds your gloves out. Your chilled fingers touch his as you grab it carefully, looking down at where they’re joined.

“Thanks.” You manage, trying to understand where sweet Satoru was, and why he’s in the body of a jerk model. “Have a good trip.”

Satoru knows he’s fucked it all up as you just turn away, and he watches you walk to your door. You look at him, and he can’t say anything, nothing at all to the girl he still feels in his fucking heart, his soul, a girl who clearly he’s hurt beyond what he knew, and you were still giving him a chance, but he’s fucking it up. He tries to pull it together, stepping up again, until he’s towering over you, an arm on one side of your door, as you press against it.

“Can we just start over?” He asks then, you shift, his presence is too much, the feelings and pressure overwhelming, to where you can’t think of anything but how badly you want to hug him, be held by him, even now.

Was he there anymore?

“I was rude, I know that. I’ll be here a few days, maybe… we can see like a movie, or just you can come over? Anything.” Finally, you feel it, some of who he was, his genuine voice breaking for just a moment.

“Will Samantha be there? She scares me.” He laughs then, his real fucking laugh, so cute as he rests his head lower, cupping your face, thumb brushing on an overheated cheek. “Satoru…”

“You still wear the same body spray.” You get more heated, he feels it, so warm and inviting, is all of you?

“Not everything needs to change.” He sighs now, knowing the double meaning behind it. “Wait, you remember my body spray?”

Fuck yes he did.

It was so sweet and you.

Any time he inhaled something similar, he’d look around wildly, thinking the sweet teacher was in LA - Satoru always knew you’d be one. He should tell you he’s proud you became one, that he’s proud you help your family. That he missed you, he truly did, even when he’s denied it, hidden it. That he’s sorry.

But the words fail, when he’s this close to you, breath tickling your lips, your eyes dart up, as he bends down now, and dies to think of kissing them, of devouring them, kiss every inch of you. But even if he could get with you, where did it lead? Was it selfish to think this way?

He is selfish.

“I’ll come over tomorrow night, we can do dinner and movies.”

“Shit, really?”

“With your mom.”

Fuck.

He sighs as you press him gently back. “Sound good?”

“Sounds good.” He takes a breath as you walk inside, looking back at him now. “I’ll see you then. Have a horrible fucking date.”

“Really now?” He just sets his jaw.

“Yep really. Hope it sucks.” 

You scoff now. “You’re a dick, I swear maybe-”

“No, no shit. Sorry, have a…” Horrible date. 

“Can’t even bullshit a fake nice answer?” You ask, stepping inside now, and Satoru chuckles.

“I guess not. Pick you up at six?”

“I can drive.” With that you shut the door, and he palms it for a moment, cursing silently to himself.

God he fucked it up.

Samantha is pouty and all over him as he picks her up, going on and on, when they get ready to hit their actual press junket, but she didn’t need to ever know that. She’s dramatically going on, as Satoru looks at the time, thinking you must be with Sukuna now, the thought making him grip the wheel far, far too tightly.

“Samantha, can you take a xanax dear god.” She gasps now.

“You’re such a dick!”

“Yeah, I heard that.”

*****

As Samantha and Satoru drive and bicker to the press junket, you’re waiting on Sukuna for lunch, peering at the time when he walks into the diner, big grin on his handsome face as he looks at you. You stand up, nervous now, after the emotional strain of Satoru’s date, you’re afraid of what lies ahead for this one.

“Ordered us something, is that cool? I waited a bit.” He puts his hands on your shoulder, leaning down and kissing your cheek then.

“Sorry I’m late, shit, I had a meeting and the guy wouldn’t shut up.” He’s rolling ruby eyes, you laugh a bit, softly.

“I get it. No worries!”

“Sit, sit.” You do just that, across from the tall, broad shouldered man, who is so huge he looks comical in the seat. “Fuck you look pretty.”

“Oh, um… thanks.” You tuck your hair behind your ear, and he chuckles.

“Cute.”

“Am I now?” He nods, leaning his chin on his fist, casually assessing you.

“Very.”

The food comes and the conversation flows, he seems actually interested in your life, asking all sorts of things, shit somehow he heard about your dad now, the town is small and talks a lot. He’s genuine in his concern, in his interest, to the point you start opening up more, laughing with him, asking about his life.

He’s not holding back like Satoru, he’s genuine about the past. “I was a fucking ass to you.”

“Yeah you were.”

“Shit, to everyone.”

“You were such an ass.”

“You could stop me, say I wasn’t so bad.” He leans close over the table, you just laugh then, shaking your head. “Shit, you’re right though. Have I said how good you look?”

“Three times.” You shove playfully at his shoulder, and he takes your hand in his then, making you pause, feeling the rough calluses from years of football, on your tender skin.

“I want to apologize.”

“Tell me this isn’t some death apology tour!”

“No. Just hoped to see you, and I did and… wanted to say I was a dumb little shit. Had you and fucked it up.”

“You needed those college girls.” He sighs, releasing your hand and sipping on his drink then.

“Nothing was like you.”

It’s quiet then, feelings have been going fucking insane all day, to have your ex and your ex best friend suddenly in your life, one avoiding, one apologizing, was difficult to process. Sukuna seems genuine, sweet even despite still being cocky and arrogant, fuck he was… enjoyable. You’re having fun.

“How’d coffee go?” He asks suddenly, as the waiter is grabbing your check.

“God, horrible. Um… I guess I was still upset that he left. But, you had a big part in that, you know.” Your glare makes him fidget a bit, running a hand through pink locks, frowning.

“I know. I was a bully to everyone.”

“If people were nicer, he wouldn’t have left me.” You realize then what you’ve said, looking away and shaking your head. “I’m sorry. That’s mean. I’m being a whole bitch today.”

“You are the furthest thing from a bitch. You should be mad at me, and mad he left you like that, shit you all were stupidly close.”

“Yeah. But still, we were young, so young. I don’t resent you.” Your hand comes over his now, thumb hitting the cool metal of his watch, his breath catches a bit. “I appreciate your apology.”

"Oh thank god.” He’s exhaling in relief, as you giggle.

“Sukuna is scared of something?”

“Saying sorry is like puking, yuck.” You laugh louder then, covering your face just a bit, as he grins at you. “I’m trying, okay?”

“You are.”

“I’d apologize to Satoru if he wasn’t such a punchable asshole.”

“Oh! You made him that way.”

“Apology tour unconcluded.” His grumble just brings you more joy, and he smirks as he studies you, a hand touching your knee under the table, making you heat up a bit. “Can I see you again before I leave?”

You nod then, smiling. “I’d like that.”

*****

Satoru got rid of Samantha, for a bit at least.

The next afternoon he and her had just come back from one of the first walks, he was exhausted and thirsty, pricks in his skin from outfits being pinned up in places, his lips fucking hurt from that look he always had to pull. Satoru had his own ‘blue steel’ that always made the women in the audience wet, and probably everyone horny if he was being completely honest.

But, it takes a toll.

Samantha is especially whiny after they get to Satoru’s mom’s home, and he is trying to think of ways to get her away, since you’re coming over in an hour. He wants real time with you. He wants to show he’s not this… who is he, really? The attention didn’t hit what it usually did, fuck nothing hit well when your teary eyes were burned in his brain.

“My feet hurt! It’s cold. I’m tired!” Samantha is whining and whining that night, when Satoru finally gets a notification.

A hotel room.

He grins now.

Fuck yes.

“Samantha, look baby, a suite!” He cooes to her, and she lights up when she sees it.

“Oh it actually looks nice, especially after this town.”

“It’s perfect, I’ll take you tonight.”

“But, aren’t you staying?” She’s frowning, touching his chest, then lower, until she grips his dick, and his eyes damn near bug out. “Little Gojo, tell him!”

“Dear god, ow.” She’s got a hell of a grip, he struggles to disentangle his cock from her brutal grip, wincing. “I have to spend a little time here, with my mom-”

“Bullshit, it’s the townie with the nice ass.” She glares, pushing him onto his bed then, and he rolls his eyes, shaking his head. “We can bring her in, threesome time. Purr.”

“Stop purring, fuck. No.” He grabs her hips now, yanking her off him, curious how to play this so she will listen, cupping her face now, putting on that smile. “You need beauty rest, you’re just not getting it here.”

“Ugh, true.”

“And there’s a spa there.”

“A spa!?”

“Mmhmm, I’ll pick you up for the next show in the morning, mmkay?” She giggles, kissing up his face until she tries to shove her tongue in his mouth, fuck he supposes he used to not mind, but he hates it, shoving her back. “We’ll miss the suite if we don’t go now!”

Thank god he got rid of her.

His mother also seems relieved, though she’s too sweet to say it out loud, already putting in orders. “Pizza for you two, right? And the cinnamon sticks, it’s what I always ordered. Pepperoni, extra icing-”

“Mom, so many…” He pauses then, remembering how you all were.

Happy.

Carefree.

Nibbling on those cinnamon sticks, you’d dab icing on his nose and giggle so fucking cute, god he would die to see you smile again.

“That sounds good, thank you mom. Any… shit, advice?” His mom starts tearing up now, and Satoru frowns. “Mom?”

“My baby wants advice!” He ends up hugging her, sighing now, god he missed being home, he thought he would hate it, but he doesn’t really. He misses you and her. So much.

Last night had been spent going through it over and over, every single way he’d fucked up, then thoughts of you and Sukuna. Was it a good date? Would your feelings come back? Would he have a chance? And the biggest question, could there be any type of future if you actually did let him have it? What was that like for you two?

He doesn’t know where it will go, but he knows one thing, he never wants to make you cry again, and he has to try anything. “Advice for what, my love?” His mom’s words are soft and sweet, Satoru rubs the back of his neck now, sighing.

“How to be… myself again.” His mom is full sobs now, he has to hold her narrow, shaky form, feeling awful then. “I’m still a model. I’m rich. I’m… famous.”

“You are, and I’m so proud. But I’ve never been prouder than now.”

“Mom, shh. I just wanna try to be who she remembers, a little. Is he still here?” She holds a hand to his chest, nodding.

“He’s here. And all over your room. Find some special things, maybe your favorite movie, a favorite song? Your sweater.”

Satoru scoffs. “That ugly thing!”

“Mmm, it’s a thought. It’s almost six, so get ready.”

Shit.

Satoru runs up the stairs, to his room trapped in time, fingers running across the ugly ass nerdy sweater, folded right over one of his polos. He frowns, staring in the mirror, still in his dress shirt loosely unbuttoned and black slacks, then back at the sweater you got him.

“Fuck it.” He goes to the old cd player now, hitting track number one, your favorite song, the one he was singing the night everything changed, the night he practiced in the mirror kissing. He was a loser then, even if you won’t admit it, but if you want it? He’d do anything.

Just for a chance to make you happy. After being horrible, selfish, cold, he lay in bed all night tossing and turning, thinking of your words.

If you just gave me time.

Time, he didn’t give you time.

Satoru slips on the ugly polo and argyle sweater, before he leans over, picking up the old glasses, then putting them down. He takes out his contacts now, sighing as he puts them on, looking in the mirror, shaking his head. The sweater is small against his buffer frame, the glasses look ridiculous on his chiseled frame, then glares at his retainer.

He still wears one a few nights a week, but…

The Lucemon, huh?

“Gonna go full nerd mode.” He laughs at himself, shaking his head and slicking his hair up, like it was then, with pomade. He cleans the shit out of the retainer then, leaning over the bathroom mirror and snapping it in. “God.”

He looks…

“Satoru!” Your voice makes him pause, as he runs out, and you see him then, pausing at the doorway, plates of pizza in one hand, a bottle of wine tucked in your arm. Your mouth drops, eyes blinking rapidly. “Satoru?”

“I know.” He grumbles, and you hear it then, one of your favorite songs, eyeing his room, realizing it hasn’t changed a bit. “Here.”

You let him gently take the bottle from your arm, setting it on his side table, then taking the pizza gently, as your lip trembles, and you look at him, fuck you stare at him. Is it him!? Is he… is Satoru here? Is it some ruse to make fun of himself, or is it something real, tangible?

He pulls you against him, hugging you so tightly, and you cling to him then, his soft sweater against your cheek now, while he rocks gently side to side, letting you cry, just holding you. Like he used to. He feels so good you sink into him, crying more, his mom walks up, seeing you two, Satoru looks at her behind his glasses, as she sets down the cinnamon sticks and the movie.

She smiles, teary eyed, shutting the door then, making you jump a bit, looking behind you. “Oh god you must think I’m a mess!”

“I don’t.” His hoarse voice, so raspy and deep, sends trembles through you when he eyes you, magnified blue eyes behind thick lenses, and your hand slips up that soft sweater. “I was a dick.”

“Oh, Satoru…”

“I was. And you should be mad, you shouldn’t even come see me. But that’s what I love about you, how kind you always were.” He wants to say more, but for now just that has him overwhelmed. “I got into nerd mode.”

You’re laughing as you swipe your tears, and he can’t help but smile. “Nerd mode!”

“Nerd mode activated. Look.” He opens his mouth, earning further giggles.

“Oh my god! Satoru, it’s the retainer!”

“Mmhmm. I guess I still look hot, huh?” He winks now, and you nod eagerly, grinning now.

“Hot. So hot now.” He rolls his eyes, hugging you once more, leaning back, his lips a breath from yours, and your eyes drift to them, as your heart pounds. “All this for me?”

“The least I can do after…” He still can’t say it.

He was wrong to have left you.

“Your room oh my god, the memories!” You leave his embrace, running up to look at all of his photos, touching your chest then, feeling the warmth in your heart, as Satoru stands behind you, hard body warm behind you. “It’s all me and you.”

“That’s all I needed.” He touches one gently, a hand on your waist as he studies the photo, it was your eighteenth birthday, right before he’d left.

“We look so fucking happy.” Your words almost break him then, when you look back up at him, hair brushing against his soft sweater, he can inhale that shampoo, your vanilla scent, mixing with the cinnamon and pizza in his childhood room.

Every memory is back.

They’re all of you.

“Thank you for coming tonight. I promise, I’m fine being a friend, even though I was so shitty for so long.” You shake your head then, and his proximity makes you question everything.

“You were just… traumatized. I never was angry, just hurt.”

“That’s worse.” Satoru cups your chin, and both of you know, friendship is different than whatever tingles and shocks run through your bodies in that moment, as he watches you behind those frames. “The next couple days, I’d love to try to… get to know you.”

“And get to know yourself?” He nods, when you turn your head back to your photos, and lean back, so that you’re fully against him. He gulps back the hot desire, a hand splaying your tummy, feeling your frame in his arms, dying to never let go.

He shouldn’t have left you.

God he was a fool.

Even after it all, he feels it, your affection, your care, while you delicately touch another polaroid of you two, this one right before graduation. The sadness fills you both slowly. “Um, where’s…”

“She’s got a suite.”

“Oh.”

“Did your lunch date suck?”

“You’re still a dick.” He’s laughing softly, and you bounce off him now, rushing to the dvd, grinning as his eyes light up.

“Not the Holy Grail!”

“Always the Holy Grail. God, I can still recite it all.” You rush now, seeing his playstation and smiling. “This still work?”

“Dusty but yes.” He slides it open, when you both lean down to blow, and he smacks into your head. “Shit!”

“Ow!” He touches a growing bump on yours tenderly, cool thumb feeling relieving. “Sorry.”

“No, I got clumsy, the nerd gear.” He’s smiling watching you laugh again, leaning back over to gently blow, so goddamn beautiful he can’t stand it, especially with your pretty grin.

“The date was good.”

“Date, hmm.” He frowns now, jealousy eating at him. “Did you…”

“Kiss? Would you care?” You ask softly, not meeting his eyes, as you place the disc inside, and grant he remote, turning on his thin black tv, while he curses just a bit. He wants to be cocky, arrogant, conceited. Say no, he wouldn’t care.

But…

He needs to be him again.

“Yeah. I would.” You pause once more, in the quiet room, just the ticking clock and the fan whirling overhead the only sounds, along with your heart thrumming in your ears. “But I get it, if so.”

“We didn’t.” He exhales too much in relief, thank God you don’t see, fiddling with the tv, when Satoru starts getting everything on the floor, and pats it, letting you sit on the soft carpet next to him.

You’re just wearing sweats and a comfy shirt, and you look sexier than any model he saw today, casual, sweet and looking like you just showered. Hair fucking shimmering, skin glowy and dewy, a smile not leaving your lips, especially when you watch him bite the cheesy, gooey pizza, a string of mozzarella that he laps up.

“What?” He asks, wiping his grease from the pizza off his chin.

“Nothing, just… carbs huh.”

He snorts now, rolling his eyes, and leaning closer to you, so close you feel his toned, strong arm against you, feeling so good. “I’ll eat carbs on vacation I guess.”

“It’s on, it’s on!” You’re nibbling a cinnamon stick, a little sugar on your lip he’s dying to lick off.

It is I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle of Camelot.

The movie starts, and he realizes you still know the shit word by word, and have no problem acting them out physically either. He’s laughing so hard his cheeks hurt, his tummy hurts, so full of pizza now, and you are popping open the wine as you carry on your quotes.

“Holy fuck, I didn’t know then.” He says softly, when you hand him a glass, and breathlessly sit next to him.

“Know what, Satoru?”

“You’re… a nerd.”

“Hey!” You nudge him, laughing again, sighing suddenly as both of your laughter dies down, and you’re sipping that glass, leaving a pretty, perfect lip print. “I was always nerdy, just… people were cool with it.”

“You were always you.” He brushes his fingers across your cheek, as you see your flushed reflection in his glasses, and he drops his fingers. “I’m sorry for yesterday, I was…”

“A jerk.”

“That.” 

You touch his face now, brushing along a jawline that’s just sharpened impossibly, studying the beautiful super model in his old room, in his old clothes. Everything that you’ve missed for so long feels real, tangible, and you don’t know how long this will last, this beautiful feeling. Is it fleeting?

“When do you return?” You ask softly.

“Two days.”

Your heart sinks a bit, but you nod quietly. “I’ll miss you when you go again.”

“Why would you miss me? After…”

“You’ll always be my Toru.” Satoru sips his own drink, gulping down the heavy feelings with it, you all are closer now, so close. His arm wrapped around your waist, you’re almost in his fucking lap. He’s nuzzling your neck and inhaling you, hand slipping up higher, thumb brushing the side of your breasts through your soft fleece, but even then he sees it, your nipples pressed up.

“I missed you too.” His admission shocks you, your eyes meet and lock, the very air crackling between you both, as you lean closer, hand gripping the stem of your glass, as he’s so close, too close. “You shouldn’t even let me close.”

“No?”

“No, not when all I can think of is tasting every inch of you.” His words shock you then, sexy and bold, and terrifying.

You’re so close to kissing him.

But if you do, what does it mean? A fleeting affair? Could you handle the pain of him going back to his world if you let him in? Could you lose him again?

“I missed this.” He’s just looking at you, as the badly dressed knights are fighting, and you want to believe him, fuck you do…

But you’re scared.

“You look like you did that night.” Your words make him smile a bit, leaning even closer, until his eyes are lidded, and his lips are parted, drinking in your gasp when he inhales.

“That’s because that night I had a plan. One I really fucked up.”

“What plan?” Your whisper sends your sweet, wine kissed breath into his, and he’s shaking with how badly he needs you, how badly he hurts for what he’s done, how much he wishes he could have changed that night, changed it all.

Was this finally his chance?

“Let me… show you.”

Mmmkay the drama isn't over, but he's learning a bit. I know he's an ASS but he's traumatized and we can fix him - I think

taglist 1- @pinkyvomit @saitamaswifey @kachowness @vraiao @artbligh @psychoartiste @ghostskilledmyaddiction21 @bsenpai @simp-for-wanderer @rjreins @emonaculate @myahfig4 @casua11ycrying @psycren @blushedcheri @ureuphoriasworld @frozenmallows @kanaojacksonofc @rcveriees @xlilycoco @yukimaniac @sypnasis @tokina @sharkubi @tztuoo @hyori2 @yesdere @gradmacoco @gamerhere @seikamuzu @xinsonyax @vvaoo @angie420 @ria54sworld @blue-musingss @mysticmyth @asimpinamillion @arabellasolstice @ilovebeansyay @notme000 @emochosoluvr @iv-vee @heh123321 @fushikamo @danilovesboba @spookyy-gracee @satorusleftnut @clqxuds @femaholicc

[dilf-docs]

Give Me Coffee, Utah Love

sleazy!joel 'mullet' miller x younger fem!reader

summary: on the run and looking for a fresh start, a cheap gasoline coffee and to-do list slipping from your bag later, you (have lost your mind and) consider this stranger's proposition.

warnings: 18+ (minors dni), age gap (52/25), pwp, p. in v., fingering, (one) pussy spank, degradation kink, lwk breeding and exhibition kink, nasty filthy sex, public sex, one joke about kys, strangers to ???, pulled an all nighter for this yey me (its 3am and my alarm sounds at 4:10 lol) so forgive me if i made any spelling mistake, i wanna see ur comments/reblogs bc i crashed out so bad i feel like i deserve it

word count: 4,060 words

side note: that one girl who doesn't play abt snl. okay but who works harder? the devil, a7estrellas or me, that only needed two pedro snl sketches and is acting like a yuppie in the 80s doing cocaine on a bathroom after work bc WOW so many new content. yes, men with mullets should die but this is pedro! song of choice for this piece is queen of the gas station by sleazy dilf patroness lana del rey. also up next, renaldo inspired one shot to celebrate the snl 50 series! (update: read it here)

You liked driving at night.

There was simply something about the eerie silence, the shadows casting upon the streets, barely touched by the headlights and the moon, the quiet hum of the radio and the slow shift of your hands on the wheel.

You liked driving at night, but today, it feels off.

Just this morning, you had looked at your house one last time. It still had that white paint on the porch, that had faded due to the sunlight, and those scrapped stickers on what had been your childhood room's door.

He had tried talking some sense in to you, claiming all your life was there, in Arizona. With him. But Phoenix had started to feel like a prison and he was your warden. So you snuck at dawn when no one would notice, like a criminal. Very fitting.

The sun hadn't touched yet the kitchen where you ate when your feet balanced off the chair and now graced the floor in a lazy manner, eating cereal with marshmallows first and now, just about three days ago, just oatmeal, because it seemed like what a grown up would do.

But in many ways you were still the same kid who was too shy to raise her hand in class because she couldn't find her voice, bound to be forgotten among much louder and brigther kids. Yet he had seen you.

So you stayed: put up with dances where he would spin you until the world was reduced to a blur, and the quiet home life in town-- kids running around and barbecues on the summer seemed like a good ending. You dreamed of a truck and a garden, and the few friends you made all seemed to share the same vision. Except for one.

When Dorothea came back from New York, eyes too wide and smile too bright, she seemed like a different person. In many ways she still was the same girl with an accent who had shared her sandwhich with you during recess, but her words now carried ambition and her gaze seemed awoken by a purpose you couldn't find but on the road that drove out of town.

But folks kept her at arms length. The amusement in her smile was infectious as a disease, and with whispered stabs they would talk behind her back. Your friend bore a scarlett letter for wanting more.

You had never wanted more; compliant might of be your second name. But when you'd see her walk by your house, shorts above her knees and that city girl strut with her sneakers against the hot asphalt, you were envious, and Williams seemed so small and dull.

Who does she think she is? he would say, and you'd nod your head, despite the secret admiration hidden in your eyes.

Suddenly, the red truck sounded stupid and the married life with kids could wait.

We could wait, you had said outloud.

He had laughed, like you just told a joke. It was on surprise, but it felt cruel.

Why? like he couldn't understand you-- as if you spoke on a different language. What is there to wait for?

You took your decision that day.

It started slow, by wearing skirts that rode up with the wind, blaming the lack of clothes on the heat. Then with the nicotine between your lips, the forbidden act making clouds that escaped your red lips. Or wearing the other make up Dorothea taught you, now holding hands with her as people whispered she had tainted your naive soul too. He caught your new smell, and spoke harshly about not wearing clothes that made other men turn to eat out the sun-kissed skin of your legs, because you'd turn too, gaze defiant and full of mischief, but that he didn't know. Might as well wear nothin'. But he cried with his face buried in the same uncovered legs, saying he hated to see you like this; he didn't recognize you.

It was easy then.

One day you packed your bags and took the car you'd been given as a graduation gift, leaving town with what seemed a lifetime stashed in the backseat.

You left a note for your parents, neatly placed on a bed you wondered when you'd sleep again in, if you were ever to be back. To him, who you now just start to wonder if you ever really loved or just accepted because it's what there was and nothing more, you hadn't left a note nor explanations.

He wouldn't understand anyways.

Just the promise of what could've been, shining in the middle of your bed.

You had been driving non-stop, afraid like a fugitive who was being chasen. Sometimes, you'd take stops on the road and pulled out a pen and a book, despite your fingers itching from driving and your urgency to check the phone you'd been to coward to turn on to see the wake of messages your disappearance might have sparked.

There was a sting somewhere outside the ache of your bones or the flutter of your tired eyes, and it cried for home and longed for the life you always envisioned for yourself. But it also felt like a second skin you couldn't quite wash off with the cheap soap and cold water of the motel you had crashed in a couple of hours ago.

You didn't want to live in suburban desert dreams back at Williams. You wanted to feel alive.

It's nightime when the little peep sound jolts you awake. You had been driving in auto-pilot; your car needs gas and you needed rest.

Its probably ten at night, and according to your map, Utah isn't that far. It's a fresh start: a place where no one knows your name or your whole life, for the matter.

Your car comes to a stop under faded neon lights in the middle of the road. There's a truck parked next to your car, the guy inside the convenience store, and that's about it. You're filling your tank while suppressing a yawn, when a movement across your station catches your eyes.

The only other customer, a man old enough to be your dad. He's staring at you, leaning against his truck, arms crossed while the biceps flex with the position, tense. Even from your place, you can see how the veins pop here and there, making you gulp on instinct.

The smoke of his cigarrette gets lost in the neon hues and starry sky. Doesn't he know you're not supposed to do that at a gas station? Yet, his lack of care and recklessness picks your interest.

(Hey! The last time you had human contact was about a day ago and after seeing only roads, asphalt, desert and mountains, you deserved a little treat to entertain yourself)

"Like what you see, doll?" sporting the most sleazy smile you'd ever seen.

Something about him was as alluring as uneasy, the nervous tremble of your hands but the warmth between your legs speaking of said conflicting emotions. You pretend to be invested on the task of filling your truck (the reason you're here, after all) but the way your body burns, begs, to look again is humilliating. So you do, but he isn't there anymore, althought his truck is.

"You know, wearin' a dress like that at night isn't a good idea for'a girl like you"

He appears from seemingly nowhere, making you jump. Your heart flutters and you clench at nothing with the sound of his deep voice, low, akin to a rumble or a thunder. It's laced with diversion, and the not so subtle way he eats you out with his eyes like a starved man, wolfish grin on display as he leans now against your car, makes his intentions all the more clear.

"Why?" you feel oddly bold, instead of scared. Maybe it's the lack of sleep, because why the hell would you be flirting in a gas station, at night, entertaining an old and slighlty creepy albeit attractive man when you had been engaged less than a day ago?

"The weather" he appears nonchalant, balancing the cigarrette like a toothpick between his chapped lips. "Or men"

"Bold of you to say that while wearing that" you poke fun at his outfit, which consists of some shorts, worn t-shirt and a vest. He's sporting the tall socks and slippers combo, dressing like a grandpa but he pulls it off alright. "Also, men? Like who, you?"

He laughs, the sound sprouting rich and grave from his chest. It makes you dizzy. Yup, let's blame the lack of sleep again.

"Well, look at that. Sure got'a mouth on ya', doll" he gets closer, and his scent floods your nostrils. Wood, gasoline, musk, sweat and burnt ciggars. "Just takin' care of you. Say, how about ya' warm that shaky frame of yers? This place has sum coffee goin' on. Shit, but it works"

He could poison your drink for all you care, but all his teeth are on display and he's got a dimple. Also, you're fighting your fluttering eyelids in here.

"Y/n" it's your way of agreeing while extending your hand.

Instead of shaking it, he pulls you even closer and kisses it, his warm lips brushing your cold hand. You shiver at the contact, and it may be the way his firey auburn holds your gaze while doing so or how big his hands feel, both your mind and heart racing.

"Joel" he says, and then that same calloused palm finds its way to the soft part above your ass in your back, guiding you to the store.

Inside, it smells like cheap coffee and grease. You clutch your bag tighter, and choose a table as the stranger pays for your coffee, or well, Joel.

"There ya' go" and he places the hot brown liquid in front of you.

Now that he's closer and under the yellow-ish lights, you take a better look at his face. His eyes, which mock the drink in front of you. His hands, that seem to almost swallow the small cup with their size, and then his hair. God, alright. He sported a fucking mullet of all haircuts. And boy, wasn't it embarrassingly attractive? Your eyes fall towards his beard and mustache, grays sprinkled across them. But your mind and eyes alike went back to the thought of feeling the slightly greasy looking hazel strands, calling for your touch.

"Gonna take a sip or what?" and he smiles. You don't know if it's in diversion by your doze-off or because he knows why.

You had never felt this hot and bothered. Hell, not even normal hot. He had never made you feel like this, and now some fucking random skanky man was getting your panties on a twist in the middle of the road.

"I-I'm going to the bathroom" you manage to squeak out, running for your life.

Inside the stall, you splash some water into your face, as if trying to make you react. Get yourself together, you tell your reflection in the mirror, but then you're fixing your hair, and as you reach for your red lipstick you realize you left your bag back at the table. Fuck.

You get out, only to find your bag weirdly sprawled on the seat, the handles centimeters away from falling to the floor. Then, he, who you only see his sturdy back and broad shoulders, crouched down, like he's reading something, althought Joel doesn't seem the type of guy who chooses to read in his free time.

"Joel?"

And then you see it: the tiny notebook you had been scribbling on the road, looking even smaller on his grip.

Your To-do list.

It may sound stupid, but a week before leaving, you bought it: the last memory of your town and the start of your new life. At twenty-five, the concept may sound a little stupid with what you've written, but you felt your new life deserved to have space for some of those dreams or fleeting thoughts you had during class written down.

And now fucking Joel was reading it.

"Wow, doll. Ya' sure are full of surprises" he chuckles, flipping through the pages. What sounds better: killing him or yourself? Hmm, maybe throwing the burning coffee at him would suffice.

"Give me that back" you extend your rigid hand, voice clipped.

The stupid trail of decisions catches up to you. Why had you trusted a stranger that had oggled you right in front of your face? You're too starved and horny to think straight, clearly, because now he's mocking you while your face burns with red shame.

"Saved your bag from fallin' when ya' rushed outta da seat. Then this lil' thing came out" he stops on a page. "Skinny dipping. And'ere I thought you're a good girl"

"Shut up and give me that" you seethe.

"Wow, doll" Joel chuckles yet again. "don't get yer panties in a twist. If ya' wanted so, jus' ask"

You scoff at his boldness. "Excuse me?"

"Ya' heard me" he gets up from his seat, body towering over yours.

Was it hot in here? Why was your body warm all of the sudden? Was it the coffee? No, you hadn't even take a sip. Joel searches before looking at you again with a content gaze and an ugly smug grin, like he's used to having his way.

"Sex with a stranger" then searches for other, the sound of the pages the only other sound in the room, still not overpowering the one of your heart, echoing in your ears. "Sex in a bathroom"

He closes the little book and hands it back to you. You take it with force, ears burning at their tip. "So?"

"Funny" he muses. "I can help you with both"

Your head drops back against the cold wall as Joel's lips find your collarbone.

This was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Of all the decisions you've made in your life, this one is either the worst or the best. Fuck, you hadn't even arrived at Utah and could cross two things from the book.

His kiss is rushed, rough and sloppy, sucking on your lips so hard you feel them swollen and bruised. Joel's tongue then pokes inside your mouth, to taste your insides and all of you more deeply, content with the savor of your sweet mouth and gloss smeared across his own. It isn't often that he gets a chance like this: sure, casual sex is like breathing for him at this point in life, where he's made it too far without building a home for a wife. But now, here? You, this pretty young thing, the small whimpers coming out of your lips, how you squirm under his frame and groping hands that travel through a body he can't get enough of. Shit, he ain't young anymore but he's painfully hard and can't stop his task despite his aching joints and age. Joel just wants to taste all of you forever, despite the shit place and rather funny circumstances:

You both, strangers, in an dirty dark alley behind a gas station, about to fuck.

He's pressing his knee tightly between your thighs, the same one you had spotted before thanks to his shorts. His strong grip pins your hand above your head, rendering you immobile under his weight, that presses over you. Shit, you should be thinking this through and running away, but the complete submission and reckless choice makes it all the more hot.

Your throat works up soft, needy noises and Joel marvels at the sounds.

"Keep 'em comin', doll. Wanna know I'm makin' you feel good"

His lips leave lazy wet trails across your skin. The skirt of your dress is raised by his leg and pressed knee.

"Hmh, Joel-" you needily whimper.

"Shh" he swallows a moan with his mouth, "but jus' for me, doll. Keep it low, will ya'? Or want the whole place knowin' what a dirty slut ya' are? Fuckin' with da first stranger that looks yer way?"

You had never been degraded, less thought it would turn you this much on.

"Joel" you whimper his name.

He groans into your mouth, lewd tongues tangling and tasting the messy kiss with fiery passion and hate. Your fingers fist into the thick material of his vest, nails about to ruin it, but by the way his eyes darken and he smiles, Joel might be into it.

The man pulls away for breath, a string of saliva connecting you two.

His hand gropes your ass and then moves to your exposed inner thigh.

"What'a dirty girl" your fingers hook into his worn-out jeans, tugging the peaking waistband forward to you. His weight and chest push into you, "so wet and eager for this dick, you cockhungry whore"

To prove his point, his thick fingers rub your clit through the material of your panties. You tilt your head back in pleasure at the newfound sensation, and he takes the chance to mark your exposed neck and collarbone, making you moan his name when he sinks his teeth on the skin.

"All 'tis for me?" and his fingers fingers slink down to trace your folds again. Your back arches, breasts pressing against his chest. You dig your nails on his broad back, making him hiss with pleasure as you grab for support.

His rough digits slide and push your sticky panties aside, then plunge inside your pussy. You whimper quietly, the squelches of your pussy swallowing his fingers the only sound in the dark, aside from the busy road ahead. The calloused pad of his thumb circles your sensitive nub, pressing and massaging as his lips travel down to the valley of your tits.

"Wanna free this bad girls and taste 'em" he pulls down your dress, mouth practically watering at the rosy soft skin. "Fuck, doll. No bra? Ya' were lookin' for this, ain't you? Makin' the job easy. I'm just'a lucky man"

He wants to see how they bounce with each thrust, eyes darkening with the shade of lust.

"I- Fuck"

Joel's fingers thrust in and out at with a rapid pace and delicious movements you had never been pleasured before with. Now, when he curls them? That nearly sends you over the edge, reaching a spot you had never known existed.

"S'tight" he groans at your clenching warm sticky walls, fingers slowing but still moving as you ride out your high, drenching him in your liquids.

"Found sum sugar for that shit tastin' bitter coffee, eh?" he takes his own fingers on his mouth and sucks on them with a rather obscene gesture, taking them out with a loud pop. His tongue licks what's left off, and you whimper at the lewd image. "Yer too sweet, doll. Can't get 'nough"

Your arms wrap around him, as Joel rolls his hips, seeking friction to relieve him of the uncomfortable strain against the denim.

"Ready to take me in, doll? I'll just warn ya' somethin'" his free hand unbuckles his belt and tugs down the jeans and boxers down, dick in display: hard, and leaking with precum. He drags his teeth against your ear, and his hot breath ghosts over you with coffee and ciggars. "See that? Think ya' can take it?"

The tuft of sweaty hair leading down to his length has you salivating, and your fingers wrap around him before you realize it. Joel winces at the touch.

"Like a champ" and you swear his erection throbs in your palm, head angry and needy.

What a gentleman.

He doesn't wait for more words, teasing your moist folds with his tip before he's inside, buried to the hilt, rough fingers steady bruising your hips as he thrusts you up against the wall. You look up at the flickering lampost, wondering how did you ever made it here and what the hell are you doing, his groans deep inside your ear as his head is buried in the crook of your neck, labored breaths against your ablazed skin. For a moment, he looses the spot and favors looking at you, to take in the sight infront of him: mouth slightly gaped open, eyes lidded, and fingers desperately digging into his back. You're fucked out of your mind, but so is he.

"Like what you see?" you mimick his words from earlier. He lets out a dry and labored chuckle.

"I do"

He snaps his hips, and you're not sure what is it that creaks, too many things happening outside (the cars, the whiff of gasoline, the nocturnal wind). Joel soon takes up an erratic pace. He's so deep in you, his balls slams into your pussy with each thrust he forces into you.

You should start writing more things on that notebook if they would become true and as good as this. Earn a ridiculous sum of money for free, for example.

Joel grunts, hands busy holding you against the wall, but he so badly wants to play with your bouncy tits, so you let out a yelp when his wet tongue rolls over the skin, mouth then sucking the skin until it's bruised, kissing lazily around your hardened nipples until teeth bite on them.

He's going insane; should go more often late night driving if he'd end up fucking pretty naive sweet-tasting girls behind alleys.

His cock fills you so perfectly it doesn't take long before your walls are spasming around his cock, and you're about to cum for a second time, before on his fingers now over his girth inside of you. Joel can sense it, so his filthy mouth goes for it:

"Go on, doll. Show me what yer made of"

You fall apart with a sharp cry, face buried into his shoulder with a bite to muffle it.

He groans as the pleasure rolls through you. "Milk me dry, c'mon. Take all of ma' seed like the slut ya're" Joel speaks while moving inside you, deeper and quicker, aching for release. Then he's pulsing, cumming with a harsh grunt. "Don't waste a drop, doll. I know you're considerate jus' like that"

His hands slide down to your waist, his long hair drenched, sticking to his forehead. There's the silence of the night and your breaths as you try to compose yourselves.

"That's a good girl" while softnening cock still inside you.

"See? Told you: took you like a champ" you pant, trying not to think of what lead you to now, just focused on the high. "I like to keep my promises"

Joel laughs, but its a soft sound; light. It caresses your chest like a wind chime.

He then pulls out, your folds a mess and his dick coated with your juices. "Shit, look at ya' hungry pussy, doll. Wore me the fuck out"

You help him pull up his pants, looking at the socks while you contain a laugh. Then you think again and the alley pulls you out of your post sex haze. Yeah, filling those two checkboxes in your To-do list will feel good as fuck, but:

Now what?

"Joel?"

"Hmh?"

He pulls up your dress to cover your tits when the wind brushes through the alley, with a weird softness to him, then fixes your panties, giving your clothed pussy a weak slap that sends a shiver through your body.

"Thanks for the treat. I'ont remember orderin' desert"

You laugh as you push him off your body, refusing to meet his eyes. This is the second man who has seen you naked, and while definitely not good at words, his wolf-like hunger in his brown eyes and needy mouth besides the hard dick have said more than enough. Besides, it's a little late to be embarrased but you're still trying to process this wild huge leap you took to celebrate the start of your new life.

"Drive safe" you mutter, starting to walk away, thinking how the hell you'll survive the two hours left in the orad with such a sticky pair of panties and sweaty body.

"Where you goin'?" his deep voice stops you before you've reached the end of the alley.

"Utah" you answer in a beat, heart beating dangerously fast.

The same sleazy smile from the first time you saw him adorns his handsome face, all teeth in display.

"Really, doll? Well, lucky you" he lights up a cigarrette, trail of smoke condensing in anticipation. "'Cause that's jus'bout where I'm headed"

cr: divider @kodaswrld / gif @a7estrellas

[puppybei]

Unsaid Dreams

Chapter 5 (Series Masterlist)

Pairing: Modernau!Sukuna x Mother!Reader

Genre: Hidden Baby Trope

Summary: Reader opens up a bakery after running away from her three year relationship with Sukuna, effectively ghosting him and hiding away in the middle of the countryside. Unknown to Sukuna, reader also had a baby, and now is living peacefully until an unfateful meeting starts to pull her back into the life she so desperately escaped from.

Tw: ooc Sukuna, use of y/n like twice, angst heh, Sukuna is lwk a simp…if there’s anything I missed do tell me!! Overthinking Sukuna and Reader, soft Sukuna

Wc: 1.9k

Sukuna had both hands on the steering wheel, gripping tightly as he passed the dense forest that lined both sides of the empty road, save for a few cars here and there. His expensive car stood out against the trucks that carried animal livestock and farm produce. The sun was setting, light rays passing between the tree branches causing patches of light to form on the road.

His mind was running a thousand questions per minute, was the kid his?- she had to be, her eyes, her hair- it was obvious to anyone who the father was. Why didn’t you tell him, Why did you leave him all those years ago and force him to go through so much shit alone- especially when he needed you the most then. Why did you never reach out- he wasn’t the worst boyfriend, he could’ve provided for everything you could have wanted- he would’ve given you the moon if you so much as looked at it in passing. He clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth as his vision clouded with anger. 

You hid away from him for so long, you stole his heart and ran away with it, and now he has to find out you stole his chance at fatherhood away too? Just what grave sin did he commit to be punished like this from you of all people. How many nights had he spent just admiring you while you slept. Did you know how hard he worked to get everyone who didn’t approve of you off his board? Every senile old motherfucker that he asked Toji to take care of? And did you know of the gaping hole you left in his heart when he was so close to getting rid of them all and establishing himself and you just up and left?

The sun had fully set by the time he reached the bakery, parked a bit far away watching as passersby entered the shop. A rare smile found its way on his face- at the very least your shop was doing good- you were a damn good baker after all, he’d expect nothing but the best from you. 

Uraume had informed him that you would not be in for the day, so he sat in the car watching everyone who strolled by the shop with a sharp glare, squinting at Fumiko who came out with an apron and employee tag. He didn’t have to wait long- the drive to your bakery had taken him over two hours. He always knew you had a good head on your shoulders but to hide yourself smack in the middle of a countryside, he should’ve expected no better from you. 

Sukunas heart flipped when he saw you for the first time in years, Hana resting on your hip as you walked on the opposite side. You had aged gracefully, small wrinkles formed at the corners of your eyes when you smiled, a different glow on your face compared to the one he had first fallen in love with. Your shoulders seemed a bit more heavier and he wished to whisk away all your problems, take one of those late night drives where he drove a bit too fast and you clung onto him screaming. 

The CEO watched you enter the shop, Hana set down as you greeted Fumiko. He got out of the car, standing in front of it as you turned around to switch the signboard on the glass door and made eye contact with him. 

It felt like you were sixteen all over again and seeing him for the first time. You couldn't help but let your gaze travel over his body. Fuck, age had done nothing to make him any less attractive. Fumiko left the shop, staring at you for a second before you reassured her to be on her way. Hana was sitting on one of the tables, eating a donut with strawberry filling, getting powdered sugar all over her face. 

Sukuna entered the moment Fumiko left and you switched on the dimmer lights in the bakery, casting those shadows you liked on Sukunas face. You pulled out a chair at a table just a little bit far away from Hana, making sure you could see her

“Sukuna.”

You didn't trust your voice to come out steady, it wobbled at the edges, throat closing up against the name you hadn’t uttered for years. Sukuna pulled out a seat opposite to you, glaring at you, not once did he turn his attention to the shop- faltering once to look at Hana, 

“So this is where you were playing house huh?”

Fumiko had prepared tea, you had called her beforehand to inform that a guest would be coming and that you’d appreciate it if she could make two cups of chrysanthemum tea, Sukuna’s favorite. You poured it, setting it in front of Sukuna,

“If that's what you want to call it then sure,’

You stared down at your cup, mixing in two cubes of sugar as Sukuna seethed from where he sat

“What the fuck else am I supposed to call it then,

You winced at the tone of Sukuna’s voice, turning your head to look outside at the flickering lamplight,

“Don't curse in front of the kid Ryoumen.”

You felt like you were in a dream, this was way too surreal to feel true and every word came out of you like you practiced it in front of the mirror till they lost meaning, 

“How- Why the fuck- Look at me Y/n.”

You hadn’t realized you were crying until your cheeks felt wet, and you used the back of your hand to wipe them away, turning your attention back to the father of your child. Sukuna had long stopped glaring at you, his featured twisting to resemble heartbreak and you felt your own heart break in your chest, 

“Ryo-” 

The minute he heard his name leave your mouth he was by your side, cupping the back of your head and kneeling by your chair as he brought your head to rest on his shoulder,

“I’m here- always have been pet,”

Your hands twisted into the fabric of his dress shirt, wetting his shoulder with salty tears that seeped through the cloth. Hana turned her head at the sound of your muffled sounds, jumping down from her chair and running over to hit Sukuna with tiny fists who scowled at her in response. The contrast of it all made you chuckle, pushing away from Sukuna’s chest and pulling Hana into your lap, wrapping your arms around her and calming her down.

“Ryo…I’m sorry- I can’t”

You shook your head, the words stuck in your throat as they came out wrong. Sukuna just shook his head pulling his chair closer to you, 

“Tell my why you left first,”

You looked up at Sukuna with red rimmed eyes, arms tightening around Hana who whined in retaliation, 

“I heard you that day.. On the phone with Toji- and then you left again and I just- I couldn't handle that anymore and I didn’t want Hana to go through that either,”

The father’s face twisted into a scowl, stopping you mid way through your rant.

“Doll- what call-what are you talking about,”

And so you began the recollection of the day that started a flurry of decisions that led you to where you are now, 

“With Y/n? No I dont want kids why the fuck are you even asking me that Toji?”

You stilled outside Sukuna’s office, positive pregnancy test in your hand. Your entire body trembled and the world whizzed around you, unconsciously removing your hand from the door as you stuffed the test into your purse walking back to the bedroom in a daze. You sat down and shut your eyes, taking short quick deep breaths as you calmed yourself down watching your hands stop shaking from fear. 

You had never discussed the possibility of kids with Sukuna, you started taking birth control after you moved into Sukuna’s high rise apartment and he got addicted to doing it raw. Sure it was a possibility you considered but it virtually never happened and you were sure you were not going to be the exception.

You could understand Sukuna not wanting kids, you don't think you would put any kid through what Sukuna had to go through to become the successor. Granted his twin brother, Jin did run away and marry another woman. But if your child was going to turn out anything like Sukuna then they would crave the power just as much as he did and you were not sure if you wanted them to go through all that. 

Sukuna and you had just graduated college too and his father was forcing him to work his way upwards, it's barely been a few months since you both became official. Sukuna wanted to make sure he got a job before tying you down with him, he knew how self-sacrificing you were. But, the relationship has been everything but steady since he started to focus more on the inheritance races. He would disappear for weeks on end without a trace or word, leaving Uraume with you and when he did finally come back he would just be a bit odd, like his scent had mixed with old blood and festered. 

He would avoid you for a few days before going back to being normal and sharing a bed with you. And you were not stupid, you knew Sukuna was establishing his position by using not-so-legal methods, you just kept your mouth shut. Sukuna wouldn’t hurt someone unless they were embezzling or doing something especially evil, you asked Uraume about it and they answered you honestly. 

But it was the mixture of the wrong events happening at the wrong time, on the morning after you found out that you were pregnant Sukuna was nowhere to be found and Uraume was present in his absence. You just felt more unstable then, the two month pregnancy hormones messing with your brain and causing you to start pulling away.

It was the longest time Sukuna had left, four weeks and not even a single word from him. Even Uraume had to leave without a word and the walls of the empty house felt like they were caving in on you, and paired with your morning sickness, truly you had never felt more low in your life.

And then you started thinking, would Sukuna ask you to get rid of the child growing in you, would he even love them, you knew he loved you but he never liked children. Did you want to bring your child into a world where their father left for weeks, leaving you with no answers. And what if Sukunas enemies decided that your child would be the one they enacted revenge on. Or what if the executives got Sukuna to marry someone else- they never really approved of you in the first place. 

The storm that raged in your mind led you to take the most life changing decision you had ever made. A few days after Uraume left and showed no signs of coming back you had started to pack a few things, dipping into your emergency funds that you saved up while working as an assistant baker in university. You left your phone and anything Sukuna could track you down with back at his apartment. Barely a bag was left when you finally finished packing up, already having booked a train to the middle of nowhere. You already called up the locals, informing them of your situation and buying a streetside shop beforehand. You left a week after Uraume did and never looked back.

Previous Current Next

Taglist: @lady-of-blossoms @shokosbunny @after-laughter-come-tears @glads-stuff @acidrefiux @linny-bloggs @dahliadaenerys @gojotech @emi311 @poopooindamouf @sadrna @domainofmarie @sukubusss @nousija @pjofics @katsukiseyebrows @the-reas0n-is-y0u @nina-from-317

A/n: I don’t know how to feel about this tbh… ugdhdhhdudud I feel like I could’ve done it better but finally the confrontation chapter (or atleast half of it lol)!! This feels very uh not up to par hdjdkeksjdj

[madaboutmunson]

In the Quiet Between Us

For the @strangerthingswritersguild daily prompt: Hugging/Cuddling

Pre-Steddie

Wise cameo from Wayne

W/C: 2710 Ao3 Link

——————————————————-

It wasn’t a big deal for Eddie to be driving around Hawkins late at night. He’d probably be doing it anyway, honestly. But it had been a big deal who the phone call was from.

“Eddie, it’s for you,” Wayne drawled, shoving a piece of toast back in his mouth as he held out the receiver to him and sat back on the sofa on a rare night off.

He frowned in confusion but accepted the call. “Uh, hello?”

“Hey, Eddie,” a hurried voice said, one he didn’t recognise at first, until he added, “Man, I’m sorry for calling so late, but I got in an accident and-”

“Jesus, Steve, are you alright?” he asked, as an unnatural level of worry rose in him.

“Yeah, sorry, should have phrased that differently. Uh, I hit a pothole. My tyre’s messed up, and I kinda unintentionally went off-roading.” Steve laughed lightly, but even Eddie could tell it was forced.

“Just let me know roughly where you are, and I’ll come get you,” Eddie said confidently.

“No, no. It’s cool, but if you could bring me, like, I dunno, a toolkit or some blankets…I can try and fix it, and if not, stay with it until morning,” Steve replied quickly.

“Uh, okay. Sure, man. I’ll be right there.”

“Thanks, Eddie. You’re a lifesaver.”

Steve gave him his rough location and let him know he was at a pay phone a fair walk away, but he should be back at the car in fifteen minutes or so.

After collecting a few blankets and the tools that were currently sporadically decorating his room, he trudged back through their new living room only to be stopped by his Uncle’s voice.

“You going for a DIY sleepover or somethin’?” Wayne chuckled.

“No, it’s Steve. His tyre’s busted.”

“So you’re, what, gonna try to fix it, and if not, camp out?”

“Well, not exactly. Steve wanted the tools and said he’d stay out there if he couldn’t fix it.”

Wayne set down his paper and picked up his cigarette carton, and Eddie knew this was one of those moments where he was gonna have to do some human behavior analysis.

“Steve, the one always haulin’ those kids around? The one who swam and jumped in that hellhole first?” Wayne lit his cigarette, his voice softer now. “That Steve?”

Eddie nodded, waiting for it.

“And he called you. Not any of his other friends, not his folks, not even a towing company. Ain’t that kinda odd?” Wayne asked with a soft kindness.

“Well, his folks aren’t, uh, around much, and his other friends are probably asleep, and maybe all the towing places are closed?” Eddie tried to make sense of it.

“You remember that time you were, what, seven or eight, and you’d been climbing over the fence at your old house? You fell right in front of your pa, but you stayed quiet, went inside, and bawled your eyes out to your mama. Do you remember why?”

Eddie couldn’t remember that far back, honestly, but he knew why. He stared at the floor, Wayne’s words echoing louder than he liked. There’d been something in Steve’s voice. Something familiar. Not the words, but the weight behind them. That aching kind of hope that someone would show up. “Because I knew she’d take care of me and wouldn’t lay into me about it.”

Wayne raised his eyebrows at Eddie, rested his cigarette on the edge of the ashtray, picked up his paper again, and leaned back in his chair.

Glancing back at the phone, he realised with a strange rush that Steve hadn’t called just anyone. He’d called him. Then he threw the blankets on the sofa.

“Wayne, could you-”

“Uh-huh. I’ll set up the other camp bed,” Wayne confirmed from the other side of his paper, and that was all Eddie needed to grab his keys, leap down the stairs, and screech out of the trailer park in Steve’s direction.

He got there way faster than he should have. Luckily for him, no cops were staked out lying in wait.

He saw the BMW just on the side of the road, which meant somehow Steve had managed to get it out of wherever he’d ended up.

“Gotta do everything himself,” Eddie muttered as he hopped out of the van with his toolbox.

“Hey, man!” he called out and saw the silhouette on the hood spin around and its shoulders relax.

“Eddie, thanks for coming out. I really appreciate it,” Steve gushed with gratitude as he stepped into the light.

Eddie took him in. The bright red bump on his forehead, the grazes of brambles on his hands and arms. Untypically, he was pale, his eyes puffy and red-rimmed. Something about the way he stood, shoulders tensed again, like he was bracing for impact, made Eddie’s chest ache. It felt familiar. He rubbed at one arm absently, like the scratches had only just started stinging because someone else had seen them.

Steve clocked it right away, tugging at his sleeves and smoothing his shirt. He rolled his eyes. “Got in a bit of a tangle with nature, that’s all,” he said to the night sky, shifting his weight before he forced a smile and put his hands out for the tools.

Moving past him, Eddie crouched down to set the jack up. The chill of the asphalt seeped through his jeans as he knelt beside the tyre. “Spare in the trunk?”

Steve motioned toward the back of the car. “I can do it myself,” he said, but Eddie stopped him.

“Either go sit in my van or stand out of the road,” It was uttered with an uncommon firmness. One he used when Hellfire were getting to rowdy, but it was not unkind.

His friend’s gaze dropped to the ground, his lips tucked back like he was biting them together, and he stepped forward and back a few times like he was fighting with himself, like a paused VHS. Eventually, he conceded, but not without some muttered self-deprecation.

“Shit, I’m sorry for waking you up, Eddie. I didn’t wanna be a pain in the ass. I just thought you’d be awake and-”

“Steve, that’s almost as big a lie as you saying you didn’t get in an accident. That huge angry lump on your head says otherwise,” Eddie said as he removed the original tyre.

“The car’s fine, though. It’s just the wheel, I think,” Steve defended nervously.

“The car? The car is fine?” Eddie tutted and shook his head. “What about you? Are you fine? Because you don’t look fine, man.”

Steve’s hand followed Eddie’s eyeline. He winced, then forced a smile. “Yeah, of course I am. Just a little bump. Nothing to worry about.”

Eddie huffed a laugh of disbelief as he rolled the new tyre around and started putting it on.

“Don’t worry. It won’t happen again. I-I won’t bother you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you pissed too,” Steve said with a crack in his voice.

Eddie snapped his head toward him. “You think I’m pissed because you called me?” He narrowed his eyes at his friend. “No. No way, man,” he said, tightening the last of the bolts.

“I’m pissed because I know why you called me out of literally anyone else you could have called, but you’ve stood there and told me lie after lie. Why?”

Steve’s hands went deep into his pockets. “I just, I didn’t want anyone else to think I was a lo…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Forget it.”

Eddie tightened the wheel and lowered the jack in silence, then packed up his tools and threw them in his van. Eddie leaned against the van, hands braced on the cold metal, trying to settle the wild thump in his chest. He could feel Steve’s sorrowful, shocked expression follow him, like the silence between them was another thing that needed fixing. He straightened up, crossed the space between them, and stood in front of him.

Eddie looked Steve right in the eyes, and the guy reached for his wallet, which Eddie batted to the ground before wrapping him up in a tight embrace.

He heard the gasp first, but there was no resistance. Steve’s weight was on him like he’d almost collapsed into him. Like he’d been standing in a posture that wasn’t his for so long, he was relieved to let it go. It was like he had forgotten how to be held and then remembered all at once.

He trembled in his arms, and soon Eddie could feel the dampness on his collar. It wasn’t the crying that got to him. It was the silence. Like Steve didn’t know he was allowed to make noise. That hit Eddie harder than he wanted to admit. It felt strange, holding someone who’d once seemed untouchable. Like seeing the cracks in a statue. Only this wasn’t cold or distant. It was warm and real. Almost like a dam of pain had burst.

Daringly, Eddie put a hand to the back of Steve’s head and stroked his hair like his mama did for him. “You’re okay, sweetheart. I got you.”

The pet name choice surprised him. Sweetheart. It wasn’t unheard of for Eddie to use them, though they were normally reserved for people who annoyed him or inanimate objects he cared about. He couldn’t recall ever saying it like this before. But it felt right. Like something his mama would’ve said when the world was too big. When his heart was too open. A verbal balm to freshly opened wounds.

Eddie felt his T-shirt tighten around him as two fists grabbed hold of the fabric at his back. They stayed like that for a while until Steve’s grip relaxed and the shaking slowed.

“Listen, I got a makeshift tow situation I can rig up to get you home, okay? But honestly, maybe you should come back to mine, huh? It’s no mansion, but we got beers, snacks, smokes, a warm place to sleep, and no one is gonna give a shit about anything except how you’re doing. What’d ya say? Wanna spend the night at Trailer Park Towers?”

He felt Steve laugh and sniffle against his neck and finally nod.

“Okay, go get in the van. I’ll sort this out.”

Steve raised his head slowly, eyes flicking up like he wasn’t sure he had the right to look. “Thanks,” he managed before wiping his eyes and swallowing hard.

“Go on, get,” Eddie smiled and waved him toward the van, rewarded by a crooked smile, before Steve headed to the passenger seat.

Two bungee cords, a prayer, and the world’s jankiest length of rope. That was Eddie’s brilliant tow strategy. He rigged a rope between the van and the BMW. Barely street-legal, but it was good enough to limp home. A few times, Eddie had to slow right down for fear of losing the Beemer to the elements of Hawkins.

But to his surprise, he was completely alone in his worry. Steve was sound asleep under his leather jacket, curled up in the passenger seat.

A few times, Eddie woke him up on purpose just to make sure he was okay because of the head bump.

They got back to the trailer park, and Eddie sorted out the BMW before opening the passenger door to help Steve out and welcomed him inside.

Wayne had set up two camp beds in the lounge with blankets and pillows, the heater already blazing away.

“Made you boys some cocoa. It’s on the stove. I’m gonna head to bed. Nice to see ya, Steve. Make yourself at home, son.” Wayne smiled at them, and Eddie watched the surprise on Steve’s face melt into a smile.

“Thank you, Mr. Munson. I really appreciate it.”

“No bother. Rest up. First aid kit’s in the bathroom,” Wayne said before heading into Eddie’s room to sleep.

Eddie showed Steve where the bathroom was so he could get cleaned up and even gave him some of his clothes to wear, which were a little tight, but pajamas and T-shirts were pretty forgiving.

Eddie sat on the edge of the bathtub and helped treat the scratches on Steve’s arms and the bump on his head.

“I can’t thank you enough, Eddie. This was really kind of you. You know Robin and Nancy or Jonathan or the kids would help if they could.”

“I know,” Eddie nodded. “You just needed a different kind of help. And your folks are out of town, right?”

Steve hesitated, then nodded. Hesitated again and shook his head. “No, I just… It’s like I told you. It would have confirmed all my dad’s opinions of me.”

It made Eddie take pause and look up at Steve. He knew anyone was capable of being an ass, but he thought rich people were nice to their own at least, especially their kids, right?

“Shit, dude. That sucks. I didn’t realise.”

“That’s okay. Only Robin knows what it’s like sometimes, but I don’t like to burden anyone with it if I can help it. They’ll just think I’m whining when I should be grateful,” Steve said quietly, his eyes not moving from Eddie’s hands bandaging his forearms.

“Clearly money doesn’t stop parents being assholes,” Eddie comiserated and held his tongue for a second before blurting out what was on his mind.

“He’s wrong, you know. You’re not a, uh, you’re not a loser. It’s fucked up what everyone has been through, and having no support system at home gives you nowhere to turn. My best friend left for college a while back, and everyone else in my friend group is younger than me, too. So I get it can be difficult to confide in them. Not because they aren’t amazing little shits, but because I feel like I should be helping them, not the other way around,” Eddie rambled, and quickly stopped before he said too much. “What I’m trying to say is, I get it. And I get why you called me. You can call me anytime, okay? Well, apart from Friday nights, because that’s-”

“Hellfire Club,” Steve answered with a fond smile. “I’m the chauffeur, remember?”

“Right, right,” Eddie laughed. “Nothing saying you can’t hang out with us, though. I just meant I won’t be home to call, that’s all.”

Steve looked up, examining Eddie’s face.

“When you’re not on a date or at work or with Robin. I know you’ve got a pretty packed schedule. Mr. Popular,” Eddie smirked nervously, pinning the bandage in place.

“I’m, uh, I’m not as busy as you think. And a lot of those dates are a waste of time, energy, and money. Would be much better to spend some time with someone, uh, some people, I mean, that liked having me around to talk to,” Steve suggested quietly.

“I can’t promise too much chatter during D&D or band practice, but I think that would be cool, yeah.” Eddie couldn’t help smiling and raised his eyes to Steve’s.

Something in the eyes looking back at him made his stomach plummet like he was on a rollercoaster.

“Well, you’re all done. Let’s get that cocoa and head to bed, huh?” Eddie said, getting up to leave the bathroom and tidying away the first aid kit.

“Hey, Eddie?”

“Yeah?” he managed, before two muscular arms wrapped around him and held him tighter than he could remember anyone hugging him before.

“Thank you. I’m here for you too,” Steve said, muffled in his hair, and how Eddie didn’t melt directly onto the trailer floor, he wasn’t sure. By some miracle, he held it together, recognised another soul in need, and got back to the plan. Cocoa. Bed.

They sat and talked about movies, TV, and some of the people from school, safe, common ground, until Steve’s blinking slowed, and they headed to their parallel camp beds.

“Night, Steve. If you need anything, just wake me up,” Eddie said, happily snuggling down under his blankets, looking at the back of Steve’s head.

“Night, Eddie. Thanks for coming to my rescue. You give really good hugs,” Steve said with a yawn, leaving Eddie to drift off to sleep with a happy, warm glow in his heart.

[tinysunshine]

━━━ ✧˖° 𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐁𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐒

  [ 𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐲𝐥 𝐝𝐢𝐱𝐨𝐧 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 ]

female reader, inclusive language. minors dni.

warnings and triggers: extremely dark subject matter, graphic mentions of abuse. sexual trauma. hints that daryl might be autistic. name calling. no smut, but moments of fluff. slight alternate universe.

word count: 9.4k

you and daryl grew up in broken homes. bonded by the abuse you both suffered, you find comfort in each other. but as you grow up, you drift apart, although the connection between you two never fully goes away.

when you reconnect as adults, you both realize that the love between you two has always been more than just friendship - it was also survival during the rough times, and in each other you find healing. in daryl, you realize that home isn’t always four walls and a roof.

sometimes, it’s a man with rough hands and a kind soul, who’s always had your best interest at heart. who knows all your demons - and loves you anyway.

you grew up with daryl - but instead of riding bikes around the neighborhood and telling fairy tales like a normal kid, you trauma bond over stories about your abusive family situations and collect empty beer bottles littered around both of your childhood homes to throw baseballs at, looking for any form of entertainment to get through the day. you’re practically neighbors, and as you grow up you’re more like brother and sister than just friends. shared trauma will do that to anyone.

during the summer, you stay awake and out of your homes until it’s dark, looking for frogs and eating berries, finding loose change on the road and walking the mile to the little convenience store in town to buy and share a bag of chips. you stay out until merle comes looking for daryl, or your own brother calls out to you, yelling, “get your ass inside or i’m locking you out!”

daryl and you always exchange a look, one that’s founded in humor, a ‘look what i deal with everyday’ expression while you try to act strong - but you both know it’s a very thin thread that holds your emotions, your hope, together these days. the only thing that brings a little light into either of your worlds is the friendship you have with one another.

you don’t have to hide around daryl. both of you can be your broken selves, show your bruises around each other. it’s not even embarrassing to bring daryl into your home, because his home is just the same. dirty, loud, a place that has you constantly tense and ready to defend yourself.

daryl is like your shadow, and you’re his. wherever you go, he goes. wherever he goes, you go.

you’re so close - until you’re not.

────

as teenagers, you grow apart.

you get pretty - and a little slutty. you look for validation from the mean guys at school, offer yourself up to any man that reminds you of your father. your beauty is your currency, your weapon, but also your biggest curse. makes it so you don’t even want to be around your father when he’s drunk, or your brother or his friends for that matter.

you’re busy, flunking your classes and stealing fashion magazines from the same convenience store you used to go to with daryl as kids with pockets full of change. you spend your time in bedrooms, mostly yours, hanging up photos from those precious magazines on your wall to cover up the cigarette smoke stained wallpaper. but you also spend a lot of time in the bedrooms or truck beds of different men.

sometimes, you wonder about daryl - the boy with the haunted eyes that was your lifeline and such a big part of your childhood. he’s just as much of the voice in your head as your own is, and when you walk home alone, from school or the store or past his house without catching a glimpse of him, you think back to the memories you shared together. the games you played, when there was still a little bit of innocence in the both of you.

like pretending to be cops, with daryl being the good cop and you being the bad. hide and seek by the stream in the woods that destroyed both of your school shoes, and you only got one pair a year, in just one weekend. grabbing an old bowl from your house to collect grass and leaves and little rocks and mud, so you could play family and make dinner, pretending the random squirrels that ran past you both were your pets. it was an idealized version of a family from the television you watched - because neither one of you have any actual memories of your mothers cooking.

or your favorite game: royalty, when daryl made you both crowns out of old grass and twigs and bestowed upon you the most important title you’ve ever held: mud queen to his mud king. like you were married or something.

on especially rough days in your present, you swear you see the tiny, muddy footprints of you and daryl when you’re walking on a trail back to your house. when you’d both check to make sure your fathers were at the bar or out of the house so you could sit next to each other on either of your couches, and share a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on stale bread, watch cartoons on televisions with grainy screens and bad audio.

you still remember how daryl likes his peanut butter sandwiches. lots of spread, a little jelly, and if there was one available - a whole banana smashed up inside.

you wonder if he remembers anything about you. you wonder if he even thinks of you at all.

────

daryl’s not like the rest of the guys in town, and that’s good - because he was always worried he would be. used to look at merle and your brother in disgust and hatred whenever they were high or drunk or just being themselves. and you don’t know daryl anymore, not at all, but what you do know about him, hear about him - you can tell that he kept those promises to himself.

promises to you, when you’re feeling extra sorry for yourself.

you have a memory of him walking into your bedroom so you could show him a new coloring book you got. you were much too old to be so excited about a coloring book, but daryl was ranting about how much he hated his family, and you wanted to cheer him up.

you notice this in your life even though you’re almost all grown up. maybe coming from poverty, having nothing, being denied a real childhood - it keeps you young. interested in things that normal people your age would’ve outgrown already.

like now, with your bed full of stuffed animals you could’ve never afforded as a kid, but that you’re so excited you can give to yourself now. back then, it was that coloring book that your mom’s boyfriend of the month, when she finally remembered she had a daughter and came to visit, gave to you. it had unicorns on it and you also had a brand new pack of crayons.

but when you opened your drawer looking for it, excited to show daryl, there was just a bunch of broken crayons and ripped up pages. your eyes watered, and daryl stopped his story about his father putting out a cigarette on his hand to see what was wrong. his expression fell, seeing what was in the drawer, and he picked up whatever was left of the coloring pages. your brother walked by your bedroom at the same time, and he saw what was in daryl’s hand.

he shook his head, and you couldn’t tell if he was angry or not. daryl stepped in front of you, and you don’t even think he realized he was doing it, but you remember that it was obvious that he was turning into a man. he was finally taller than you, and too strong now to climb up and into your favorite tree. your brother scoffed, like he was disgusted just by your presence.

you knew that feeling all too well.

“yer too old for a coloing book anyway. what you do to get that, huh? mom didn’t give me anything. she didn’t even say hi, but you - you whoring yourself out like her already?”

you saw daryl’s hand tense up. he grabbed onto the coloring book so hard it was damaging it more, but you didn’t say anything. just whispered, “let’s go for a walk,” as soft as you could until your brother walked away.

and on that walk, daryl grabbed at his hair and kicked empty cans in the road.

“god,” he groaned angrily, and you still remember that he was the only man or boy you’d ever been around who’s anger didn’t scare you. “i’ll never be like them. i swear it,” he ranted the entire walk. you stopped at the convenience store again.

the guy at the front hassled daryl about telling merle to pay up, and daryl hassled him back, which was unusual. you didn’t realize why he did that, until you both left.

on the way back home, daryl pressed a fresh pack of crayons into your hand. he had been distracting the guy at the counter so he could steal it. he shrugged. “can always just use regular paper,” he suggested, and you remember leaning on your tip toes to kiss his cheek.

nowadays, daryl sticks to himself, and eventually, drops out of high school. but you know he’s still in town because you see him sometimes when your brother drags you to the dixon place to pick up a bag of something to get him high. you never talk to daryl, but sometimes you see that he’s there, from his crossbow by the door or a banana on the kitchen counter - because merel wouldn’t eat that gay shit. or sometimes you hear him in his room, blasting music while merle bangs on his door and roars at him to “turn that shit down!”

you don’t know if he’s avoiding you or just avoiding the world. you wonder why you grew apart exactly. you have some theories, because there was never a falling out between you two. one day - you just stopped hanging out. you don’t even remember how it happened.

both of you just wanted to outgrow the shitty childhood you had, maybe hope for something better as you got older. did it happen? no. but the memories you have together are just reminders of the abuse you’ve seen the other handle. the dreams you bonded over, about escaping this town and your families - they never came true. looking at each other is just a reminder of that.

but your paths keep crossing. it is a small town, after all.

────

daryl sees you at a party one day, being shoved in a room by three guys that you don’t know beause you’re drunk and your reputation precedes you. he pulls you out of the room and gets in a fight in your honor, one against too many to win but daryl is a dixon and can hold his own. he walks you home and when you thank him he just shakes his head. won’t even look you in the eye. “quit bein fuckin’ stupid,” he says, and it hurts. but you know he’s not wrong.

it’s not your fault that you got shoved in a room, but it is your fault that you can’t say no. it is your fault, that you dumb yourself down so you’re easier to use, anything for a crumb of attention from a man who might be your ticket out of this town. you don’t want to be ashamed, but you are. of the woman you are, of the one you’re becoming - at the things you’ve done, just for an ego boost that ultimately ruined your self esteem even more.

daryl can see through you, even after all this time. and you hate it.

you see him smoking on the steps of a diner a few days later, eye bruised and black and nearly shut. his hair is dark and floppy and he’s so handsome, but your heart hurts when you see that even though he’s getting taller than his dad and merle, even though he’s strong now, the way he always used to wish he was as a kid, with big arms and shoulders from buffing up on his porch with the weights merle has - he’s still a punching bag.

you know the feeling. you gaze down at the bruise on your wrist, hidden by a tight sweater. it’s the sad proof that daryl is a stranger now, that you have to hide things from him that you never would’ve had to hide when you were kids. although: both are fucking sad situaions. the fact that you were kids, bonding over bruises anyway.

you walk up to him, and he offers you a cigarette. you shake your head. “good girl,” he says mockingly, and you hate the way that your body heats up. you can’t deny that you feel like he’s mocking you, like cigarettes are where you draw the line in terms of risky behavior, but you try not to dwell on it. it’s just nice to see him.

“they got you good,” you say, referring to his eye and the party. “thanks for helping me.” you don’t know what else to say, aren’t really thinking - you just want daryl to talk to you again. but daryl just shakes his head, scoffs and walks off. but not before putting his cigarette out, stepping on it with his scuffed up boot.

“wasn’t from that fuckin’ party,” he says, about his eye. “you know that.”

you don’t speak again for years.

────

in a blink of an eye, you go from two damaged kids to two fucked up adults.

daryl, a man now, big and strong and tough. handsome, dirty, rough. you see him in town sometimes, around his brother and their fucked up friends. or maybe they’re just merle’s friends, but you can’t judge. the people you hang around aren’t exactly good.

you hear the whispers about him, how nobody can read him, how he’s stupid, or a creep with anger issues - all things you know aren’t true. you know that, because they say shit about you too. that you’re stupid, slutty, a whore no better than your mother.

you don’t have an excuse for your behavior, but daryl does. you’ve got a television in your room now, and you watched a show one day that talked about…mental stuff. it was a little too complex for you to fully understand, but the doctor on the show explained somet things that just screamed out daryl to you. quiet, sensitive. they talked about some spectrum thing, and you wonder if that’s what daryl is on. why he’s so hard to understand.

why he dropped out when you saw him coming from a classroom that your peers used to always call the idiot class.

you wish you could tell him about it, but then again. what do you know? about life, or even about daryl in general.

you want out of this life, but you don’t know anything else. you don’t know how to get out. you wonder if daryl thinks about the future you used to dream about when you were kids. two apartments in the same complex, so you could always play together but got to experience your own space, you know? a big, color television. you have that now, but so does everyone. a fridge stocked with food and snacks. no beer allowed.

it’s a sad, funny thought. because every time you see daryl in town it’s with a beer bottle in his hand. and you, well - you’re never alone. never have truly experienced your own space that you’ve always yearned for.

these days, you see daryl as a stranger. not as a childhood friend. not anymore. and you certainly don’t see him as your brother. maybe you never did. because your brother is mean, with cruel hands and even crueler words. daryl could never be like that.

and you know that daryl doesn’t see you as his friend or his sister, or as anything different than the people in your town see you, because whenever he sees you at a bar in town, dressed up and on the arm of whatever shitty boyfriend you have, the way he looks at you, with the same disgust he used to look at your brothers with and something else in his eyes - it makes that clear.

although, when you’re hopeful, you hope that disgusted look is meant for whatever man you’re with and not you.

sometimes, when you know you might see him in passing, you dress up just a little sexier. but you’re not sure why. daryl’s not the type to think you’re any happier than you were as a kid, just because your skirt is short and you’re wearing cheap perfume. he’s not fooled by the charms of any woman, because he does have admirers. you embarrass yourself, for even thinking about getting his attention with your body and your looks. this is the same person who used to smear dirt on your face and call you mud queen, pretending to throw arrows with twigs before merle stole him his first crossbow.

daryl could give a shit about cleavage - and he sure as hell doesn’t think being chosen makes someone any more worthy. you should take notes.

while it’s a good feeling that deep inside, daryl might be the same person he always was, it scares you a little bit. because maybe you’re the only one who’s different. and not better in this case.

sometimes you feel even worse off than when you were a kid.

────

you’re walking home from the store one day, bag of groceries on your arm, when you run into daryl. he’s hopping on his motorcycle, and it starts to rain, which sucks - not because you don’t want to get wet, but because you’ve got makeup covering your black eye and the hand prints on your neck, that’ll surely wash off on the long walk back to your house in this weather.

daryl spots you. he’s leaving the gas station. you’re humiliated that of all people, you run into him today. you pretend you don’t see him, and tighten your hold on the bag.

“hey,” he calls out as you pass him. his voice is different. a little deeper than you remember hearing, but you guess it makes sense - you’re both all grown up. you always wished for that, but now you’re not so sure it was the right wish. because you’re in the same position you were in as a kid.

maybe you should’ve wished for a ride out of this town instead.

you look back at daryl, and give a tight lipped smile and nod of your head to let him know you saw him. you keep walking, but as embarrassed as you are, you’re pretty happy that he’s talking to you.

he starts up the motorcycle, and you wait for him to speed by you. a thought occurs to you, that he’s always wanted a bike like that. used to talk about it as a kid, used maple syrup to stick pictures of motorcycles from his father’s magazines to his bedroom wall.

you’re happy for him. it must feel good, to finally get something you want. you don’t know what that feels like. maybe daryl is happy in this town, and it’s just you who’s so miserable you’re projecting that onto everyone else.

the motorcycle stops right beside you, and you’re closer to daryl than you’ve been in years. you see his face, with more lines than he had the last time you spoke to him. but just as handsome as ever, hair longish and dark and in his eyes. you want to push it back, like you did with dirty, sticky hands back when you were kids.

“you need a ride?” he asks shyly, and you swallow hard, wondering if he remembers that was the first thing he said to you back when you were kids. the sentence that started your friendship.

you were stranded at school, your mom run off with a new man and your dad too drunk to give a fuck, brother probably high somewhere. daryl rode by on his run down bike, just slightly too big for him, the parts all mismatched - but at least it was wheels. he rode that thing until merle went to prison and coudn’t steal him anymore parts to fix it.

he asked you that same question then, and you still have the same answer.

“wanna ride?” he’d asked, no backpack or anything even though you were both leaving school. “you live by me. i’ve seen you.” you nodded, and got on, just like now.

it breaks the ice. much like it did when you were kids.

you realize that day, from a thought that's just as sweet as it is scary for someone like you - that history really does repeat itself.

────

suddenly, you’re not avoiding daryl anymore. and he’s not hiding from you. when you see him in town, you walk over to him to talk. you offer to go to his house to get shit for your brother from merle because you know you’ll see daryl, and you share a soda on the porch with him, sitting mostly in quiet, but daryl’s presence has always been comforting to you. not his words.

being around daryl now, as an adult - it doesn’t feel like friendship. it feels like something else. when you see him, ripped arms showing in a vest, his new camaraderie with his brother that feels more equal than it ever has before - you realize you’re attracted to him. it’s the first time you’ve ever though of daryl like that, and even though your friendship or whatever it is is growing, you pull back, scared.

it’s been a long time since you’ve been around a man who just wants to be your friend - and you trust daryl, but it’s hard to believe that’s all he wants. the pressure you’re making up all in your head starts getting to you, and you change.

start wearing makeup to your little porch sessions. a push up bra that’s a size too small. you’re a little jealous, you think one day, sitting on his porch after your own brother punched a hole in your bedroom wall because you drank the last orange soda, that daryl’s big enough now that his brother and father don’t pick on him, while you’re still at the mercy of the two men in your home who will always be bigger and stronger than you.

you see daryl one day when merle and his father are out so he’s alone at his place. you’re in a little, yellow sundress and daryl scoffs at you. “what the hell are you wearin?’” he asks, and you blush, attempting to sit on the dirty stairs of his porch. but he stops you by reaching a hand out and you flinch - and he notices. looks at you like he always did when you were a kid and he heard your father yelling at you. pity, but something like hurt in there too. hurt, maybe, that you flinched around him. but’s it not like you can control those types of reactions. your body is just being cautious.

daryl doesn’t say anything. he just puts that angel wing vest of his on the step so you can sit on it so you don’t ruin your dress, and it’s sweet but it makes you sad.

you’ve never had a guy be thoughtful to you before. only daryl - and that’s pathetic. you’ve shared your body with more men than you can count, and daryl doing something so normal makes you feel incredibly indebted to him.

“just wanted to feel pretty,” you tell him, embarrassed. he looks you over, shakes his head like you’re an idiot. maybe you are. you can’t say you’ve ever had a man not want to see you in a sundress, but you’re happy he’s noticing the effort you put in to be around him.

“don’ have to do shit to be pretty, mud queen,” he says. your stomach erupts in butterflies. he remembers. “yer already the prettiest girl in this garbage town.”

────

weeks go by, of sharing sodas on daryl’s porch, or bringing him those peanut butter sandwiches he likes so much when he stops by yours. eventually, those childlike foods progress to beer, and then somehow, some way, you kiss him.

it just happens. you’ve never been good with boundaries, and daryl has never made a move. you worry, even if you’re not conscious about it, that if you don’t show him you’re interested soon that he’ll be done hanging out with you. men play the long game that way. it’s all a game to them. you know daryl is different but still -

you put yourself out there. or maybe, a better term would be get desperate. you make it clear, how you’re feeling. and after his compliment, calling you the prettiest girl in your entire town, all you can think about is the fact that you got pretend married when you were kids. you found a dirty lace shirt in the back of your closet that must’ve belonged to your mom, and it looked like a veil you saw in a movie. and daryl humored you, used a leaf as a bow tie and held one of your dirty hands in his own as you said i do.

and then you admitted that you don’t know what being married actually means. how could you? you'd never seen a normal example of a family. “i think there’s supposed to be rings,” you remember telling daryl that day, and he just shrugged. “i’ve never heard of that,” he’d said.

but now you’re adults. and you're not a mud queen, you’re the town slut. and daryl isn’t the broody, quiet kid skinning frogs for fun, he’s strong and handsome and a man - and, okay, he's still broody and sinning frogs. but things are different, and so are you, but he’s still the daryl that always brought you peace.

you wonder, pressed arm to arm on his little porch step, what it'd be like to be married to someone like daryl. to daryl dixon himself. but you shake yourself out of those random, childish thoughts, because they do nothing but hurt. with your reputation, there's no way in hell anyone, even a man as kind as daryl, would ever actually marry you.

but daryl's always been your peace. even with the screaming and yelling and the violence in your home, or in this case, with merle screaming at the television inside of the dixon home -

you’re still that same little girl you've always been. desperately looking for someone to care. to love you. you push yourself into daryl’s arms and kiss him, and he kisses back for a second before pulling away. shoving you, although gently, back.

‘’m not one of those losers you gotta fuck for some attention,” he spits, and you’re speechless. embarrassed. he stands up, and you know it’s your cue to leave, especially when merle comes out. he overheard, despite the screaming. or laughing. hard to tell with merle.

“oh hell, little brother,” he teases. “you finally fuck her? wassit been? ten years? how much longer you gunna make her wait? she’s aching for it, comin’ here all the time. you sure your pecker works?” he goes on and on.

they starts bickering, and you leave, heading back to your home with nothing your brother asked of you - weed, something stronger. you’ve got nothing but the last piece of self-worth in your hand, and you want to just toss it down the toilet and flush it.

what kind of woman puts the moves on a man? it's so desperate. you're mortified, and as you pass the mirror in the entryway of your shitty home, you feel like the ugliest person on the planet.

of course, not having what your brother asked for causes a fight, only - you’re not daryl, and you’re not strong. it’s not a fair fight, and you end up with bruises so bad you just pack your sundress away, because there’s no way in hell you’ll get to wear it again by the time summer is over. it's long-sleeved shirts from now on.

you think you ruined whatever you had with daryl and you hate yourself. how stupid you were, treating him like some other guy. just because that’s the only way you connect with other men, doesn't mean that's the way to connect with daryl. you should known that, better than anyone.

you ignore him. avoid him. but it’s not like he’s seeking you out.

until one day, he comes to your window.

that’s how he used to ask you if you wanted to play, when you were kids. would walk through the dense woods, because he said he was never scared - which was a lie, because you’d seen his eyes when his father pulled his belt out of the closet one day. but maybe he just meant he was never scared of anything in the woods. he would throw a rock at your window to get your attention. anytime you ever watch a romantic movie with a window scene, you always think about daryl - and you wonder why it took so long for you to see him in that light.

why it took so long to realize that daryl dixon is so much more than the dirty, damaged boy you knew as a kid. but maybe that’s because it’s a scary realization. would mean that you could be more than the damaged, dirty little girl you used to be - and if that’s the case…what do you do? how do you move on and learn to live as someone you’ve never even known you could be?

you open your window when daryl taps on the glass. he doesn’t use a rock this time, probably because he remembers when your father shoved you against a wall for throwing a book against the television once as an accident. now that you think about it - the rock throwing did stop after that incident.

when you see daryl and open your window, all you say is, “i'm sorry.” he doesn’t say anything else, just crawls through the window, body almost too big, and lands with a thud after almost tripping. you giggle, so happy he’s not mad.

“room looks different,” he comments, sitting on your bed. he looks funny, a little filthy and all dark clothes, on your ratty, floral print bed covers in your trashy, uber pink room. you wish you’d cleaned up, but you never have anyone in here who matters.

never have had a man in your room who’s more interested in the design of of it rather than the little pajama set you’ve got on. you nod.

"i’m all grown up now, daryl,” you remind him, standing in front of him. “and so are you.” you’re not trying to excuse kissing him or making him uncomfortable, but maybe he forgot. you’re not kids. you’re not friends - you don’t call yourself brother and sister to the people at school after they question why daryl always shares his lunch with you.

it’s okay if he wants to kiss you back.

you wish he would.

he just looks at the ground, at your dirty carpet, the red nail polish on your toes that are so close to touching his boots. you follow his gaze. and then, he notices the bruises on your arms.

“whos been hurtin’ you?” he asks, and you understand why. you’re always seen with a different guy around town. or, you were, before daryl filled the void a few months ago. maybe he thinks it’s someone from town, but you’re too embarrassed to admit that it’s not. or maybe, he forgot that just because he’s bigger, can handle his brother and father - you’re not. it feels like he should really be asking who’s hurting you now?

you understand now, how he felt that day outside the diner. on the spot. like the answer is obvious, and someone is just trying to pry the truth you’re so ashamed of from your mouth. you bite your lip, shutting your eyes as you answer. “you know who.”

he looks from you to the door, hearing your brother laugh at something that’s playing on the television, before visibly taking a deep breath. he shakes his head as he exhales, pausing before his eyes look into yours. he’s quiet for so long, that you shift on your feet, looking for something to fill the silence the way his large frames fills your room.

“i don’t think of you like the other guys, daryl. i just. i dunno. i felt comfortable with you and,” you don’t know what to say. you’ve never had to apologize for coming onto someone before - and you’ve definitely never had anyone apologize for coming onto you.

he looks at you, neutral expression on his face, and then he sighs.

“come here,” he says, tugging you closer by the hand. gently. you stand between his legs, in nothing but your pajama camisole and a pair of shorts, and he kisses you. has to lean up a little from sitting, but it works. he wraps his arms around you, holds your body close, and when he rubs a hand down your back, your body shudders with sobs.

daryl is a good kisser. sweet. he’s timid, and you can tell he hasn’t had much experience. not compared to you, where kissing is like breathing at this point. you like that about him - it makes you, selfishly, happy.

but you’re still crying.

daryl pulls away, visibly confused and worried, but you you push yourself back in his arms. like a stray kitten, who's not taking no for an answer now that it's finally being shown some love.

you’ve never been kissed so gently. never been touched so gently. you never thought about what it’d be like to kiss daryl until recently, but you didn’t know it’d feel so, so. soft? the opposite of home? warm and calm and safe. maybe it's what home should feel like. you lose yourself in him, even with the sound of your brother screaming at the television and hitting the wall in the other room.

you cry like an idiot in daryl’s arms, even as he kisses you. some first kiss between you two.

when you were a kid, you never cried. always prided yourself on being strong and tough - just like your best friend daryl. maybe you have changed more than you realized. you sniffle, and sit beside him at the end of your bed, but he still holds loosely onto your hand.

“you’re the only one who has ever held me without hurting me, daryl,” you admit. sheepishly, with heat in your cheeks, you sort of shrug. “you’re the best man i know.”

you don't know what this is between you two. what it could be, what it will be. what you want it to be. you just know that it feels like the strings of fate wove together to give you both someone to count on. someone who understands. unlike when you were a child, tonight, in daryl’s presence, you don’t hope or wish for anything.

you don’t care what that kiss meant. you just don’t want daryl to go.

daryl says nothing at first, just strokes a hand down the back of your head, a comforting gesture you’re not sure where he learned, considering the way he grew up.

if you weren't so upset, you'd realize that his mother used to comfort him like that. the few times she ever did.

“yeah,” he finally replies, swallowing hard, like the compliment isn’t one at all. maybe he just doesn’t like what it means for you. “that’s a shame.”

and that’s it. you’re inseparable again.

────

after that night spent together, you don’t kiss again. but you touch. something is different between you two. you’re more than just the former friends you used to be, but there’s a line you haven’t crossed.

it sort of feels like it’s always been, you know? you and daryl. daryl and you. you see each other almost every day, but it's hard since you both still live at home. you stopped sneaking him in your room when your father ran into daryl at a bar and slapped him on the shoulder. said, “so you’re the one screwin’ my daughter now, huh? enjoy it while it lasts, dixon. she’s a pretty little thing, ain’t she?”

daryl had to punch a hole in the wall of the men’s bathroom to stop from punching your father in the face. he wants to hurt him, you know. your brother too. now that he’s big enough, no longer the little boy that used to help cover for whatever mistake would get you hit as a kid because he lacked physical strength, he wants to be the friend he’s always wished he could be.

but you tell him no. it’ll just complicate things. you still live at home, and he can’t be there every second to protect you. daryl seems pissed, but he understands. has the scars on his back to prove how just much he does.

but things are good. as good as they can get, anyway. you spend a lot of time together. find an empty field behind your homes and lay on the grass together, watching the stars. he never tries to kiss you again, but he lets you hold his hand or nuzzle against his arm. and that’s enough. it is.

shit’s getting crazy in town. a few hours away, in the big city, there’s word going on about people getting sick and dying. first it’s a fever, and then they’re up and walking and trying to bite others. you don’t understand, but daryl tells you not to worry. you want to trust him, and you do, for the most part -

but it's getting worse every day. people are dropping dead all around. which would be horrible in itself, except for the terrifying fact that they don’t stay dead. they get back up, and they - the walkers - try to attack and -

that’s what daryl says they’re called. you see your first one when daryl’s walking you back from your spot on the field. it looks like the man that owns the old convenience store, but he’s growling, and he’s trying to walk towards you, and his scalp is missing and you’re so scared you start crying.

daryl kills him with a big rock. you’re shaking, hysterical when you get home, and daryl walks you inside. “your dad home? brother?” he asks from the doorway, but you don’t see their truck or the television on, their staple. you shake your head, and he comes inside.

“shit’s going to hit the fan. you understand?” he asks, and you don’t. you’re scared. you’re confused. and you’re worried. but you nod anyway.

“you need to be ready for,” but the sound of a car driving into the garage and alerts you that’s someone’s home. daryl looks at you, then the door that leads into the house from the garage, before nodding. “i’m gunna go. gunna get some shit together and check on merle. i’ll be back in a few hours to check on you. pack a bag or sumthin’ just in case,” he says, and for the first time in all the times he’s walked you home lately, he looks shy as he leans in and kisses your cheek.

he’s out the door before your brother and father even drunkenly stumble in the house.

you obey what daryl says. you lock yourself in your room, and you’re not sure what daryl meant by be ready, but you grab a bag from your closet and fill it with clothes. just in case, right? who knew it’d take an apocalyptic situation to get you to finally leave this shitty town.

you’re worried, about daryl. you count the minutes until he comes back, because it's getting later and later and he’s not here yet. the sound of the clock, the tick tock tick tock makes you want to puke. you honestly consider trying to empty your stomach in the bathroom before your body makes you puke on its own when there’s a sound outside your door.

the door opens. it’s your brother.

“get your shit,” he orders, your door bouncing off your wall. there's a hole in the wall from the doorknob being constantly slammed against it. you catch a glimpse on the skinny part of the door that's normally hidden when it's closed - it still has the height markers you and daryl used to measure yourself with. he's everywhere, has always been, even when you don't notice.

your brother looks down at your bag already packed, purse on top of it. “shit, you already did. where you goin’?” you open your mouth to answer, but then your father is walking behind him, both of them peering at you with so much suspicion in their eyes you actually feel like you did something wrong.

“you planning’ on leavin us as soon as shit goes wrong? we’ve put a roof over your head for how many years? and now, what? you think dixon is gonna save you? that fuckin' re," he stops before he finishes that statement. even he knows better. besides, he'd never be mad at another man - only his daughter gets that special treatment.

"we’re all gonna die, girl. you first. can’t fight, can’t think, can’t do nuthin but pass yourself around town.” your father won’t stop, and you try not to cry, but you really just wish daryl would come back. your hands are shaking when they try to zip up your jacket, but it seems like that just pisses your brother off more. that you’re avoiding their angry outburst.

there’s nothing an angry man likes more than getting someone else angry. so he has an excuse to be the asshole he is at his core. you’re not going to give them the satisfaction.

in the distance, there’s a noise like an explosion. the sound of alarms going off from the neighboring city, the smell of smoke, so strong it actually masks the smell of cigarettes in your own home, which you didn’t think would be possible. tears start flowing from your eyes.

but it’s not because of the state of emergency in the city. on your brother and father’s face you see fear - something you’ve never seen before. and then it all happens so fast.

your brother reaches out and pushes you down. grabs you by the hair and hurts you, hurts you, hurts you. your father only interrupts to tell him it’s time to go, and they leave you, alone on the ground with new bruises and trauma to take with you wherever you go.

they used you, like always, to mask their own fears and pain. at this point, you really feel numb.

daryl comes back, a few hours later. you’ve been staring at the floor, scared to move. the town is literally a hellscape right now, the sound of people breaking windows, screaming, growling. you stay as quiet as possible on your bedroom floor, and you almost jump out of your skin when you realize it’s daryl coming through your window.

“you good?” he asks, a huge bag slung over his shoulder. he’s in a rush, you can tell, is looking around the room with a frequency you’ve never seen in him. he’s reading the situation, and he sees it written all over you.

but you see through him too. he’s scared, but he’s trying to be casual as to not scare you. you wonder where he learned to be gentleman - sure as hell wasn’t from any man in this town.

when you don’t answer, he tosses his bag down and pulls you up, grabs your little bag too and hands you your purse. there’s a little stuffed bunny keychain hung on it, and it looks so fucking stupid for the severity of the situation happening outside your window. you rip it off and daryl notices but doesn’t say anything.

“c’mon. we gotta go. i grabbed some supplies, i’ve got my bike. can’t stay here. it’s crazy outside,” and he goes on and on but you’re not really listening.

you interrupt, just as he helps you to the front door. “my brother and dad. they left,” you say, embarrassed to admit. yeah, you both know you’d be leaving with daryl - but the fact that they didn’t even care about what happens to you hurts more than you thought. maybe you convinced yourself, all these years, that they were so hard on you because they loved you. showed they cared in different ways - kind of like merle with daryl.

you were wrong. because your arm hurts, your hand is cramping, and you’re pretty sure you’re missing hair from the way your brother hurt you. it’d be tough to fight a walker at your full health, but right now, you’re completely useless.

thank god for daryl dixon.

daryl freezes, pauses. looks down before ushering you to his motorcycle. “yeah,” he says, nodding. he won’t look you in the eye. “i know.” another pause. “c’mon. we gotta go.”

he leads you to his motorcycle, and you hop on. it’s kind of impossible to get comfortable, because you’re holding two fucking bags and trying to hold on for your life, but you manage. daryl speeds off, and you wonder how a normal day could turn into such chaos. fire blazes through the trees and neighboring city. there’s these, these - things walking around, slowly, growling.

you hold onto daryl tighter. press your face in his back and breathe in the comforting smell of him. he smells like home - cigarettes, cheap detergent, woodsy.

you want to ask about merle. about your own brother and dad. how you can just leave them, how that’s fair, but you just can’t. you’re scared, but you still know the best place for you to be right now is with daryl.

you just know. and anyway, it’s not like anyone else gave a fuck about you to make sure you got anywhere safe.

that day daryl picked you up on his motorcycle in the rain - you imagined what it’d be like if he just kept going. if you didn’t stop on your street, if you didn’t have to go home. you pictured the two of you driving somewhere better, so long as it was out of this fucking town.

but you never imagined it’d be like this. with the walking dead running after you, cars stalled on their journey out of town because the walkers got to them before they could drive off. fire in the distance, the sound of some alarm going off so loudly you can hardly think. the dead litter the streets - walking, but also just laying there.

and then you see them. you're not even a few minutes away form your house. they’re laying on the ground, right next to a truck you’re sure you’ll see in your dreams for years to come. it belongs to your father.

“daryl,” you say, but he keeps driving. you’re certain the people on the ground are your father and your brother, a group of those things surrounding them, ready to dig in. “daryl,” you say again, “stop the bike.” but he doesn’t. you turn your head to look back, almost dropping your bag, but you catch a glimpse of the muscle in your brother’s arm being torn out. the muscle he always utilized to hurt you.

you sob into daryl’s back.

────

you keep driving until daryl’s bike needs gas. there’s a long road that leads to all the major highways, and it’s completely jam packed. you’ve been on the road for hours, so daryl parks the bike, tells you the run down of the plan that you’re not even listening to because you’re so scared and frozen. he's beyond frustrated with you, but he leads you to a spot in the woods to spend the night.

it’s risky, being anywhere right now. but daryl knows what he’s doing more than you do. you trust him, more than anyone else you’ve ever met. more than you even trust yourself.

“did you,” you start to ask, wanting to know if he was the one who saw your brother and father and put them on the ground. you couldn’t see the blood or how they died, but there was no gunshot wound. it was too clean, and you counted the arrows daryl has left in his crossbow. he's missing two.

“yeah,” he answers coldly, leaning against a tree with a sigh. he pulls out a bottle of water from his bag and hands it to you, and you take a greedy sip before realizing you better learn to ration. embarrassed, you hand the water back to daryl who raises his brows in amusement and puts the bottle back in his bag. you think that’s it. that he’s not going to talk about what happened, what he did, anymore.

but you’re wrong.

“been waiting for a chance to do that. ‘ve wanted to, for a long time. now that the world is shit, thought there’s no better chance, you know? no police, no laws,” he seems proud of himself, but even though you’re not close to your brother and dad, them being dead is still painful.

daryl’s not stupid. far from it. he reads your expression and then hands the water back to you. anything to stop the look you’re giving him. it looks like fear, you know -

but anyone looking a little deeper can see that it’s gratitude.

────

it’s been just the two of you for weeks.

you spend those weeks sharing a little tent, eating the animals daryl catches and cooks for you, wanting to cry at the sheer discomfort that not bathing has brought on. you're itchy, you're tired, you're hungry - but most of all, you're scared.

you don't know how daryl does it. wakes up every morning after a shitty night sleep to hunt for food to feed you both, to protect the both of you against walkers, since you still haven't got the hang of it.

the first few nights, things weren't so bad. the reality of the situation wasn't yet known. deep down, you thought something would be able to save you both from this mess. you were wrong.

but on those nights, you curled up against daryl in the tiny tent, and tried to take his mind off of the sound of distance cries and screams.

"we shared a tent before this, remember?" you asked. he just shook his head. it was actually the night you got fake married. both your brothers and fathers went to some poker game, and you both knew it'd be impossible to sleep at home. so you found a sleeping bag in your garage, and daryl found a tent in his, and the both of you camped out in the woods, too scared to go home.

"married people live together," you remember daryl saying while he zipped up the tent and you opened up a can of expired ravioli. you just shrugged, shared the food with him, and spent the night telling stories about what your future would be like.

you didn't imagine this, but it's like history is repeating itself again.

────

a few weeks later, you find a group to join.

it’s when you’re looking for a place to sleep after moving through the forest, dirty and hungry, that you come across a camp. you hear a child laugh, and then the sound of a woman's voice, and before you know it you're tugging daryl towards the sound while he drags his feet and curses.

he doesn’t want to see anyone else, let alone join anyone else. but you do. you don't know a lot about surviving, but you do know that pretty soon, you're both going to be walker food if you don't eat something proper. if you don't get a full night of rest. it's impossible, to live like this as two people.

it's been days since you even had more than a sip of water.

you both need help, you need -

“do you need a place to stay?” a man says, walking towards you and daryl while you try to reason with him. he scoffs, and you’re too tired to roll your eyes. you nod to the man, and then a woman appears. they must've heard you bickering while you walked towards the sound of their camp. they look friendly. they seem nice. and so you go with them, tugging daryl behind you.

it’s like asking for help makes him feel like a failure. but he goes because he knows you want to, and mutters something when you’re alone about looking for merle again when he gets his strength back. you tell him okay, good plan, knowing and hoping you never see merle dixon ever again. not that you’d ever tell daryl that.

daryl just feels like your other half these days. bonded now, not just from the childhood trauma you shared - but also this situation. you don't hold hands, you only touch to keep each other warm. you don't smile - and sometimes it feels like daryl regrets ever bringing you along with him. you're dead weight, and extra mouth to feed.

you don't know what he's thinking because he won't open up.

the first night at camp, you have dinner with the rest of the group. but you still haven’t had a chance to freshen up. there’s mud on your face and caked under your nails when someone asks daryl who you two are to each other, he pauses for so long that it's actually uncomfortable.

you’re more than friends, but you’re not exactly friendly. you're not close, beyond the memories that you share, that you're not even sure if daryl remembers.

you're stuffing your face with a can of chili, wondering why you're worried about a relationship status during the fucking apocalypse, and you're so in your own world that you don't see the way daryl is looking at you.

you take his word so literally - because you trust him so much. when he told you, ages ago, that he didn't get scared - you must've believed him.

because he's terrified. of losing you. of misreading what you want from him. of admitting, that every single memory with you is etched into the forefront of his brain. that he had to distance himself from you back then, because you deserve more than a hick like him, and watching you destroy yourself never came easy. that he wonders if you'll ever forgive him, for what he did to your dad and your brother.

there has never been a day that has gone by that he hasn't thought about you. and all day long since this shit started, he feels like he's failing you. can't feed you enough, can't find a good enough shelter.

and he looks at you, with mud and dirt on your face, messy hair. even at your worst, you're better than another woman's best, and he sees the greedy eyes of the men around the campfire, wondering if you're free. daryl doesn't know these men. he doesn't know if these people are safe, women and kids here be damned. that doesn't mean shit, not when people put themselves first to survive.

he thinks about the tent you shared a decade ago, after that fake wedding ceremony he went through with to make you happy. how it felt when your soft lips pressed against his before you left town. how you want him, how you never give up on trying to connect with him, even when he doesn't open up back to you. he likes that you're chatty. likes that you're trusting, and even dirty and starved you're the most beautiful woman he's ever seen.

but when he sees the mud on your face, your hands, your clothes - and he sees the men looking at you, leering, he makes up his mind.

a lot has changed. but not how he feels about you. you're still his mud queen, the girl that loved him so much she said yes to marrying him, even without a ring.

“she’s my wife,” daryl says, and that's it. the rest of the men look away, because a man's claim is more important than a woman's own voice. and daryl knew that’d be the case. he knows men. he is one, even if he sometimes hates that he is - particularly when you flinch from a movement he makes, or go all quiet when he raises his voice. being apart of a gender that can do so much hurt has always made him feel like an outsider.

at his words, you don't even think about the way history is repeating once again. because your history, your past that you share with daryl - they've been the best parts of your life. and instead of trying to run from them, to avoid them because of what they mean - you should embrace them.

connection formed during the worst hours of your life is still connection. and you're done feeling ashamed.

daryl throws a look your way. one that feels like you're sharing your own secret world. like you did as kids.

but most importantly, you're riding on a high, because daryl dixon might be a man of few words. he might be more guarded than a maximum security prison, might be ashamed of his emotions and wants and everything else that makes him human. but -

he remembers.

the childhood you shared. the memories you made. history may be repeating - but that doesn’t mean you can’t make new memories together.

life is different now. tough. and it’s all about survival. but then again -

when has life ever been anything different for you and daryl?

so you put yourself out there again, this time without fear. you put the can of chili down and reach for his hand.

but daryl grabs yours first.

[andersonsgf]

modern roommate!abby

this shall be so criminally self indulgent :)

18+ bit of smut. minors dni.

modern roommate!abby who wasn't keen on you at first. manny had just moved out and it felt as though she had practically grabbed you from the street to make sure she could make rent that month. but she did not like living with a stranger. for the first week she kicked you to the curb, giving you minimal responses when you tried to talk. She looked at you with a frown most of the time, blinking at you when you suggested a movie on your third night. "I'm going out tonight" was her response, mentally noting to make sure to text manny to hang out now.

modern roommate!abby who after getting over her initial distaste realised you weren't too bad after all. at first she protested that you put little trinkets of yours around the apartment. "i don't see why you have to make this place look like one of your fucking video game stores", she complained when some lego blockheadz appeared near the tv. but after a little while she came to find that she didn't mind it so much, and after getting over the fact that manny was gone she realised you were filling all the little gaps he had left in your own way.

besides, you had pointed out all of her trinkets that were dotted around. "those aren't trinkets!", she had protested, arguing that her mass amount of classic books and classical music CDs dotted around were fine collections, and not "kids toys". you had for sure worn her down, though. you won the battle claiming that you deserve to have your fine collections around the apartment too. even though abby was annoyed that her entire apartment felt different now, she wasn't a dick. you were paying equal rent, you should have equal trinkets.

modern roommate!abby who after finally deeming that you weren't a threat to her little paradise at home drove you everywhere. your shiftwork at the local store was on her way to her work. it was the least she could do she felt, not trusting other people to keep you safe when walking around seattle on your own. she wouldn't tell anyone you were friends yet, still telling people that you were just her pesky roommate. still, she couldn't bear the thought of you shuffling through the torrential seattle rain to work, then walking back in the dark after. no, no. she was willing to be your chauffeur. she even gave you the aux. she would rub her forehead when she saw you put it on without her permission anymore, but she never made you turn it off.

modern roommate!abby who has a rigorous sleep schedule thanks to all of the rugby training she does cannot understand how one night you will be in bed asleep by 10, and the next she'll wake up for a glass of water and hear you shuffling around in your adjoining room at 2am. time and time again she would lecture you on not going to bed late due to your commitment to your playstation, but she soon realised it was no use. you were unfortunately a gremlin.

you consistently mocked her for going to bed at a "baby hour". it was always met with an eye roll and her telling you you would meet an early grave from sleep deprivation. come to think of it, she often told you that you'd die young. whether it be from lack of sleep, eating too much candy, not looking properly when confidently stepping out into the road, or just being oblivious to the world around you in general. "you gotta get healthier so i know my rent payments are still secure", she'd tell you whilst eating her perfectly counted macros meal after the two of you visited the gym together, watching you scoff your face with your version of a post-gym snack. a subway sandwich with four rainbow cookies.

modern roommate!abby was pleasantly surprised to find out that you were a gym rat too. she obviously had way more muscle, built like an ox, but you were doing pretty well for yourself too. different body types had different ways of showing muscle anyway. at first she couldn't really tell, you had moved in in the winter so wore baggy comfy layers to the gym. after a few months of joining in on her training sessions though, the seasons changing and the weather warming up, you started wearing your matching sets. abbys favourite was your dark blue ones, a cropped muscle shirt and shorts. not that she would ever ever admit to you that she had a favourite.

she would never admit that sometimes she corrected your form just to get a little closer. your form was never wrong, she'd taught you too well over the months. she was embarrassed, her eye contact when in the gym dropped completely, and she had never been one to shy away from that kind of crap. you were though, eye contact had always alluded you so you didn't notice the way abby could barely look at you, feeling terrible for ogling you in your new leggings when she helped you on the squat rack.

modern roommate!abby who when she got a text that you cracked your tooth on a skittle at work booked half her shift off and drove you to the dentist. she didn't even have to think about it, just told her boss she had a family emergency and had the 'holiday' booked within five minutes. she pulled up to the curbside with a screech, staring at you with an incredulous expression. "you're like four minutes from your work why did you start walking?", she had half yelled out the window.

"what? why are you out of work?", your hand was covering your cheek on the cracked tooth side of your face as if that would do anything. abby sighed, pushing the endearing thoughts towards you out of her head as she yelled at you to "get in the fucking car". she took you for a milkshake after it got fixed.

modern roommate!abby who got comfortable enough with you in her life to invite her friends around for an evening of drunk games again. manny made about ten jokes over the course of the night about how he was invited to his own apartment. you laughed at how he poked fun at how you ruined his old room. hearing your drunken giggles made abby smile a lot over the course of that night. you'd become a permanent fixture in her life, and as the drinks kept coming she kept sidling closer and closer to you on the couch, basically ignoring her friends as they cracked open a board game and ten more beers. you spent the night basically staring at her hands as they clutched onto the various beer bottles. they were just so fucking big, and attached to the biggest forearms you had ever seen.

at some point you got up to go make some toast, trying to preemptively cure the hangover you knew you were going to get. you had completely missed how abbys eyes narrowed into thin slits when one of her coworkers took interest in you and very clearly tried to chat you up in the kitchen. her hand almost crunched the beer bottle when she saw that womans hand on the small of your back. you had been clearly too drunk to notice much, but you did approach abby the next morning after finding a phone number slipped into your back pocket.

"you scored last night, huh?". abbys heart raced a million miles an hour as she looked at you. it shouldn't have mattered, she wasn't interested in dating, nevermind getting into it with a roommate. that was a terrible choice. but she couldn't deny the smirk she held back by sipping on some orange juice as you murmured about not being interested whilst throwing the paper in the bin.

modern roommate!abby didn't invite that particular coworker around again. you did question it when she was absent at the next hangout. "She's just busy, sweetheart", she was drunk enough to call you that as her hand covered your knee completely. she woke up humiliated at how many advances she had sent your way that night, but if you noticed then you didn't make it clear, entering the kitchen the same way you did every morning. your bright smile melted her heart.

after a while modern roommate!abby started cooking for you more. she wanted to make sure you were getting a good amount of protein and carbs with how much physical exercise you did each week. not as much as her of course, but still a hefty amount. it became a common occurrence for her to hand you some tupperware with your name on a post-it before she drove you to work. she never put a post-it on her own tupperware though, which you thought needed to be rectified. she was pleasantly surprised when she got to work, seeing "abby <3 :)" on her lunch. it did lead to her having to deny having a girlfriend at work though, her coworkers pestering her about it nonstop. it did get her thinking, however. you were sweet, maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing- no, no.

modern roommate!abby who decided to invite you to a rugby game for the first time. you knew she worked in an office for her main income, and obviously knew she was on a rugby team. what you didn't know was that she was in an actual major league team, the seattle seawolves. you also didn't know that she was such a star of the show that premiership teams were looking into scouting her for the next seasons. fucking hell. it now felt like living with a celebrity. you sat alone on the bench near the pitch, getting special treatment for being a special guest. a decent crowd showed and screamed loud when the seattle team had momentum. abby pushed harder than she ever had now that you were in the crowd. she pushed through tackles like the opponents were made of butter, easily reaching the end goal and slamming both herself and the ball onto the floor near the posts, making life easier for the kicker. you, meanwhile? drooling. straight up drooling. Her muscles rippled as she stormed across the pitch, her hamstrings and quads were sculpted and your eyes were pinned to them. suddenly you realised why people liked watching rugby.

it was a win, of course. she celebrated with her teammates on the pitch as the crowd slowly filtered out. it was incredible. abby won player of the match, scoring the most tries, letting her team win by a landslide. "well done!", you spoke louder to be heard over everyone as you reached her after hurrying across the pitch. abbys heart skipped and her ears rang as she saw you grin up at her before you went up on your tiptoes and wrapped your arms around her neck.

modern roommate!abby who after this had realised she was down bad. one hug should not have been on her mind for this long. and abby 'get the fuck away from me' anderson never normally craved another hug after someone held her. but no, she started even inviting you to match practices and being a tryhard just for the chance of you giving her another well done hug after. fuck, she was so screwed. she even found herself putting her hands on you when moving past you in the apartment, making sure to get your favourite snacks in if she saw you were out of them. she'd never done this when manny lived with her so she could not chalk it up to just feeling comfortable. she grumbled to herself when you arrived home from wandering around the city and she smiled too brightly during welcoming you home, huffing and puffing and making her sandwich too aggressively when you were back in your room.

"why are there so many finger marks in your bread?", you startled her. your chuckle reverberated around her heart, making it beat faster. she gave some pathetic excuse about literally hand planting her sandwich as she tripped coming back from the fridge. you believed it, shrugging her off as you sat down next to her and unwrapped another subway.

modern roommate!abby who made it all worse when acting deeply uncomfortable when you talked about dating apps. "i mean, i thought when i moved to the city that the choices in women would be better but its still 'katy and brent looking for their third', or 'just looking for some fun on my exchange!'. ugh does no woman in seattle just want a nice relationship or something?". abby looked up from her beer, looking a little frazzled that the topic of dating was now here. she painfully swallowed a hunk of pizza whilst absentmindedly agreeing with you. "what's your relationship take? do you have much luck here?".

she sighed, fucksake. "i don't really have one", she brushed you off, watching as you frowned at her. it's not like she could admit that her relationship take right now was you. "how can you not have one?".

"i mean one day it might be nice to settle down but like you said the dating pool is shit".

"yeah it is pretty shit. i dunno, i kinda like knowing the person first, might just delete hinge it's so ass", you grumbled and she watched you toss the application into the trash, her chest felt relieved. without the dating apps she didn't have to worry about you finding an actual person on there, now she could take her time in being a wimp around the apartment again.

modern roommate!abby who had managed to make it even more worse when you scampered through the apartment in just a shirt and your underwear after a shower, yelling in panic about how you left your pyjama bottoms by accident. even you in all of your beautiful obliviousness noticed the way she stared at your ass as soon as you were in view of the living room. you clearly gulped and scampered away even faster as you felt your face and ears flush. abby had to go and get a drink of water before shaking her head. you were her roommate, it was too complicated. but now that she had seen you in some simple black cotton underwear -to abby, the simple stuff was hotter- she knew she was fucked. not in the fun way.

before she knew it her car keys were in her hand and she was heading to mannys apartment. he enthusiastically invited her in and she immediately shared her woes about how she had fallen so hard for her new roommate. "dude, you can't do apartment-cest".

"don't call it that, that's gross", she shoved his shoulder and got a soda out of his fridge. "i didn't think i had a type before her but she's just so sweet y'know? like everything she says is like she's throwing rainbows at me even if she's complaining about how her avocado socks got soggy on a walk or some shit".

"dip your pen in the apartment ink, then", manny sat down on his couch whilst trying to subtly shove someones bra under a cushion.

"i could have maybe continued silently pining after her like a fucking loser but she caught me staring at her ass and fuck it was a good one". abby anderson basically whined when thinking about how she saw you at the apartment, her stomach doing that thing.

modern roommate!abby who hid at mannys apartment until 10pm when you had your shower at 5. she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole when you looked up at her as soon as she opened the door. you had been waiting for her with a tub of ben and jerrys, and you were wearing her rugby teams shirt as a pyjama shirt. fuck. her voice was strained when greeting you, biting the bullet and placing herself on the sofa too. "you were gone a while", you noted. all she could do was nod, her mouth going dry now she knew she'd seen the entirety of your legs. she had decided they were her new weakness. "sorry if i made you uncomfortable".

"the opposite, actually", she replied after a moment. and neither of you knew where to go from there. in every aspect of her life abby was headstrong, intimidating, said what she wanted. but when it came to women? useless. fucking useless.

the memo was received though. but you? also fucking useless. "okay i think we're both knowing where this is going", your voice was careful. terrified. you watched abby nod and shift to be facing more towards you. "maybe we can test to see if its awkward?", you looked up at her.

modern roommate!abby whose hand tentatively placed itself just above your waist as you both leaned in, awkwardly. your noses bumped, and she smiled with a huff before your lips chased hers. it was safe to say that it was a successful test. she worked her lips against yours and wondered why she hadn't been doing this the whole time. you tasted sweet, like orange juice, and her brain went static when you panted slightly as her hand moved up and down the side of your ribcage. sensitive.

modern roommate!abby who loved you hard as soon as you got past the awkward first week of not knowing how to be roommates and also go on dates. she took you out for some amazing burgers the day after your kiss and then got confused on what to do after. you both had the same home. some people may have retreated away to their rooms after, but not her. she straight up followed you into yours after your fifth date on week two, grinning as you laughed when she settled herself onto your bed. she just couldn't be apart from you, it seemed. not that you minded, especially not when you settled curled up against her chest as her hands rubbed your back. these days you could talk the nights away now that the useless pining was over. and you always found that one of abbys hands always found their way down your back and onto your ass, without fail, resting her hand there before falling asleep. think it's safe to say she's an ass girl.

modern roommate!abby who so lived up to that when she meekly asked if she could go from behind during your first time. even though she liked to be 'on top', she really was so shy during it. she made sure you had lots of pillows to be comfortable, she brushed your hair out of your face to make sure it wouldn't annoy you during it. the groan she let out when staring at your lower half, one hand cupping and squeezing it as the other worked the outside of your centre was enough to have you gushing. she worshipped you completely as she started off with one finger, aware that her hands were bigger than average. the small little whines were just not enough though, so she slipped another in, pumping them in and out softly as she gently rocked her body back and forth in time with her wrist, keeping her rhythm steady.

modern roommate!abby who over and over again murmured reassurances when she heard your soft whimpers. "you're okay, you're okay. so fucking hot", she'd slur out in a whisper, punctuating the end of her sentence with another squeeze to your ass before working you harder when she felt you near the finish line. she couldn't get over how good you felt, how warm, groaning when your back arched as she finally got you to the end, feeling ever so slightly proud of herself, and wondering why she hadn't bent you over sooner.

modern roommate!abby who proudly called you her girlfriend now when she brought you to rugby practice, pressing her lips to the top of your head before running off with a wink to go and batter some people. your eyes once again fixated on her thighs, definitely your favourite part of your girlfriend if you were quite frank. even though practice was her favourite time of week, the highlight of it really were those 'well done' hugs. only these days? she got a little kiss with them too.

[miniaturesuitgladiator]

One chance, will you succeed?

Synopsis: being forced to live with your supposedly 'father' you have finally succumb to your fate. But what if you have one more chance to get out? But you'd have sacrifice your pride for your future. Can you do that?

Warnings ⚠️: slight smut not really but a little. Reader being forced to stay in the manor. And I don't really know If it's incest but reader is Bruce's daughter in this and she makes out with Tim. And yandere themes. Let know if I missed any! Not proofread!

Can someone ever really love their captivators? You don't think so. And you don't understand why the supposedly smartest detective in the world doesn't understand that.

He claims it's not kidnapping. That your his biological kid. And yeah maybe you are. But your old enough to make decisions for yourself and wanting to leave is a decisions you want. No, need to make.

But you can't. You can't out run them or out hide them. Their faster and stronger then you. Even damian your little half brother that you can't possibly stand is stronger than you.

How can you escape?

It's been three years they've taken away all your freedom. Three years that they found out that you existed... how could they let you just rot in a small apartment with your mother?

They don't get it. They don't get how you were happy. Because in their head how could anyone be happy with such little?

They don't get how you had a job. A future. A plan.

They either don't understand or don't care.

Either way. The took everything. Your everyday life gone. Within seconds.

All because the son of a bitch named Bruce wayne couldn't stand not being present in your life.

And yeah it sounds sweet wanting to be your father. Wanting to give you a better life.

But there's a difference between being in your life and controlling it.

Now your not allowed outside with someone present. Not allowed to go to school. Now Your homeschooled by Alfred.

And sure you have a phone and a laptop. But you just know it's chipped and you can't even text or call anyone except them.

And God forbid you even mention your mom. Because then you lose all your so called 'privileges'.

Trying to run away was always on option.

An option you used to always try. But sadly you'd be in the manor before you could even reach the road.

And the punishments just continued to get worse and worse one of those punishments included hanging out with your baby brother Damian who you'd much rather ignore.

So after years of this life that seemed to just to stayed the same God had finally blessed you with a chance. Well not you exactly but it was a chance.

One that you couldn't miss.

But also a really risky one.

Tim being the freaky genius he is hand made a time machine. Well more like a really small one.

But still a time machine!

All you had to do is make a note to your past self make her realize your so called fathers true intentions! Easy right?

No, it was definitely not easy.

But to your luck Tim had kept the thing in his room because he didn't want others messing with it. On the bright side Tim's room is the only place that isn't flooded with camera.

Mostly because you never went to his room.

You mostly avoided Tim at all cost more then the others because despite him being so smart.

He could not fit the love of him hide his obsession with you. And you could tell it wasn't platonic like the others.

All you had to do was make it to his room send the letter through the time machine and get out.

But let's not forget Tim's also very observitive. He'd notice if the littlest thing was out of place.

You had to to be very careful.

It was relatively was getting into his room. Everyone was out on patrol and Alfred bless his soul was in the batcave keeping everyone in check.

Walking into his room you could see why Tim preferred sleeping on the batcaves computer chair instead of his room.

His room was... well not exactly messy but not that neat either.

And it was quite....lonely? You don't know how a fun could be lonely but somehow his room was.

Papers scattered all over the place including the desk. The only thing that wasn't a complete mess was the bed. Probably because Alfred made it.

But thank the heavens the bed was made because sitting right on it was.... the time machine!

Who on their right kind puts a time machine on the bed? Well you guess anyone who only gets like 3 hours a sleep isn't in their right mind.

Quickly you pull the note out of your pocket reading it over making sure you didn't leave anything out.

"Dear y/n l/n I know you probably won't believe me but I'm yourself from the future. I can't make this note to long so I'll be quick. Don't tryst bruce wayne. And you probably don't understand what I mean because if all goes right this note hopefully reaches you before he know about you. Your his biological daughter. And soon enough he'll take away your life. So don't fall for his kind smile or sweet facade. Whatever you do, Don't let him pick you up from school when your mom forgets to on Friday. It'll changed everything. Move far away if you can tell your mom that he said inappropriate things make up a lie do something! Get close to someone powerful do something anything just don't let him in. There's a jogger that runs down your road every day at 8am you think he's some stranger but he's not. He's Dick Grayson and he's watching you. Close your blinds at night and lock your windows because someone's always watching you when you sleep. Get a new phone and computer yours had already been hacked and whatever you do not tell the sweet old man your mother's name on your way to school."

Checking over everything and finally putting the letter in the time machine you press the big red button on the side.

You sigh as the letter disappears hopping it went through.

Hoping you have a chance.

But wait why is the thing beeping? Shit! Shit this was not supposed to be happening... atleast you don't think.

"Letter sent to three years and 7 months from today. At (your adress)" The time machine reads and you sigh.

But the button on the machine is still flashing. And you couldn't offord that. You let Tim see that you had messed with the machine. He could ruin your plan. So you'd wati until the machine stopped flashing simple...right?

No, it was definitely not that simple. Especially when you hear footsteps coming closer.

Of course the one time your in Tim's room he decides to sleep in it!

You don't know what the hell to do! How are you supposed to explain?

The door opens and you freeze and Tim's tired eyes widen when he sees you standing in his room.

"What are you doing in here?" Tim asks his voice confused but he's obviously not gonna complain!

Maybe you actually want to spend time with him? He wants to smile at the thought but he doesn't want to scare you off.

He knew his obsession with you was pretty obvious he wast that dumb. But maybe he was dumb that he would rather imagine that you just wanted to be with him then to see that you were hiding something.

Tim had always wanted you. But you being Bruce's daughter always kept him from really doing anything about. Or atleast that's what he told himself. He doesn't really know if he'd make a move even if you weren't Bruce's daughter.

Catching on quickly you think fast. You could use his love for you against him!

Yeah sure it was wrong but so is keeping you here against your will!.

And plus you have been missing...a man touch.

So pushing your pride aside you focus on your need to cover up your true intentions for being in his room.

"I.. I wanted to talk to you.."

And he's surprised even though your literally in his room you actually want to talk to him?

But he won't complain as you step closer.

He blushes at how close you are and can't help but want to put his hands on your hips...

"What do you need?"

His voice almost pleading for you to ask him for something anything.

All you had had do was ask.

And gosh he looked pathetic right now with his red Robin suit still on and his slightly bustled lip. Not to mention his hair being a mess from patrol.

But he couldn't care less not when your actually talking to him willingly!

You kiss him.

And that definitely takes him by surprise

But he doesn't hesitate to kiss back and his eyes are shut tight his hands now on your hips kneading the fat beneath his fingers.

But your eyes aren't closed. No, they glance at the time machine which is still flashing.

You couldn't let him see that it was flashing or he'd know. So you pull back and smile at the whine that leaves his lips.

His lips are slightly swollen and you don't know if its because of the kiss or because of a villian he fought with earlier but you don't care.

His eyes are searching yours as if looking for why you kissed him in your eyes.

"Why...why-"

He wants to ask why you kissed him but he can't say anything else before you kiss him agian.

And yep he's a goner any thought that was previously in his head just left.

All he could think about was you. How you felt against him. How you tasted.

How you were pushing him back onto the bed.

And his head lands right beside his the time machine. That's definitely not what you wanted to happen but he doesnt even notice that it's flashing.

His eyes are to focused onto you when you straddle his hips. Putting all your weight on his lap.

And he whines as you pull back agian.

And he still doesn't notice that the time machine is flashing especially not when you roll your hips into his.

His breathing is heavy and his eyes half lidded and he can't form a complete thought.

Not with how this basically feels like a dream.

"Please-"

He begs and he doesn't even know what he's begging for. He'd take anything really. Any little scrap your willing to throw him. Just give him something.

And his hips push back up into yours his tight hero suit doing little to hide his growing need.

His eyes brim with tears and now he know he looks out right shameful.

But he still can't seem to care. And you almost want to smile by how for once you feel in control.

No one's telling you what to do. Or what you can't do. You could give Tim whatever and he'd swallow it up like a starved man.

Now you're in control.

Tim's hips buck back up to yours again still pleading for anything your willing to give him.

His eyes close at how warm you feel on top of him and you take that second to glance at the time machine.

And it's not even flashing anymore! You did it!

Now all you had to worry about was if the past you would be smart enough to listen.

Oh! And I guess you had to worry about one more thing.

The needy boy beneath you....

Thanks for reading!

Ya'll please don't judge to hard I've never really wrote anything that sexual.

Likes and comments are highly appreciated

Please tell me if yall want a part 2!

[miiyas]

thinking about childhood crush sukuna…

iya im telling you rn when i got this ask i jumped out of my bed and thought about this all day and all week

childhood crush sukuna who had been your best friend since elementary. it's a scary part of a kid's life, seriously !! it's the time when social groups are made and lasting connections are formed. and you, inevitably shy and quiet, had lagged behind that flow of making friends. that is, until sukuna abruptly came into the picture

childhood crush sukuna also lagged in making any friends. his stubborn attitude and rough demeanor made it hard for kids to like him. not that he really cared, he's long grown to the odd stares he gets

childhood crush sukuna who defends you against a few bullies teasing and picking on you for being so quiet. he stands in front of you with his arms spread out, brows furrowed as he makes snark comments back at the kids. he's taller than them by a head or two and the mere sight of him makes the brats run off. "you're so pathetic, you know that ?" he mumbles, cocking his head behind him to see you wiping a tear away from your eyes. sukuna scoffs and rolls his eyes and yet, he throws you a tissue and walks off. he hates people like you- those who can't save themselves in dumb situations like this isn't worth his time

childhood crush sukuna who, despite his beliefs in your weakness, had made a silent oath to himself to keep an eye on you on that day. he doesn't even realize he's even made one, but he has slowly fallen into the routine of holding onto your small hands tightly as you both make way around the school and cross the road to get home, his face plush with a pout and pinched brows

childhood crush sukuna who had watched you grow throughout elementary, middle, and now high school, watching you bloom and grow out of your silent shell and make friends of your own while he stayed the same. not that he minds. after all, you're the only one he waits for after school and walks home with, and that's all he needs. what's the point in having someone else with him if you're his day one ?

childhood crush sukuna who has gotten so familiar with your home he practically lives there. your mother says her welcome in her soft, hosting manner (despite constantly asking you just why he has gotten face tattoos) and he sits in the living room, eating whatever snacks you had left out while scrolling through his phone and listening to you ramble about how impossible your math homework has gotten

childhood crush sukuna would constantly deny all allegations of dating you. he's been asked that since his first year, and like muscle memory, he says a flat no. but lately, as the question is continuously brought up, sukuna can't deny the fact that his gaze lingers on your face for longer than usual, peaking behind his phone whenever you're in the middle of one of your rants, and absent-mindedly thinking of you when another girl is speaking to him. no, sukuna doesn't like you. nah, he thinks, he'd rather get punched in the gut than say that

"took your ass long enough." sukuna gruffs, pushing himself off of the wall of the brick school building as soon as he catches sight of you walking out the doors. he's been waiting. he's been waiting this whole time.

with a snatch of your bag, he swings it onto his shoulder and walks beside you. not ahead of you, god, never ahead. you've long earned the title and position to walk beside him, if not that, then slightly ahead.

"sorry, sorry !! got so busy talking to a friend." you hum out a half-hearted apology, knowing there was no malice in his tone. with a roll of his eyes, you and sukuna walk the path you both have taken for years. he's careful to study your steps, slow and carefree- like a tourist taking in the scenery, acting as if you haven't seen it thousands of times. but he doesn't mind. sukuna had grown and adapted to your habits, brushing it off and filing it as another one of your antics.

but today, oddly enough, was slightly different.

today, in sukuna's eyes, you were glowing. like the sun's soft cast as it starts to set just as it hits the horizon, the casual smile on your lips the only thing he could stare, and god ... he knew he was in deep.

there's a crosswalk you both need to stop by when trying to get to the neighborhood. sukuna always lets you press the button in request for crossing. he's more cautious, looking up from his phone for just a few moments until you make it to the other side, and he always fights the thought of grabbing onto your hands, just as he did as a child, the soft, tingling sensation in his hands forced to be warded off by the clench of his fists.

that afternoon is the moment that sukuna comes to the sudden blast and heart dropping realization that he is wholly, undeniably, and unknowingly in love with you. he realizes it on the path you two have taken since childhood and he realizes it through the routine the both of you have established since first meeting. he realizes it with the way you look at him, gently and so full of kindness and love.

[heyimkana]

I HAVE COME UP WITH AN ASK!

Ahem- so husband jin-woo and reader goes out on a date (before they have any kids). Reader loves cats so whenever she sees a cat, she runs after it and coos at it.

At some point, jin-woo would say "I'm not scared of her cheating on me, I'm worried about her running after a cat and never coming back home again" (cause reader sucks at directions- totally not talking bout myself who got lost multiple times)

WAIT JULIET THAT'S SO CUTE AAAA LISTEN I HAVE A SCENE

okay another drabble for Husband Jinwoo from Pillow Talk

So, this happened a while back when you were still engaged, like maybe a few months before you got married. Jinwoo took you to Japan for a nice little unplanned trip. It was at the beginning of spring, the sakura trees were blooming, and sure, they had those in Korea too but they just hit differently in Japan.

You enjoyed the scenery together, walking down a street lined with sakura trees. Jinwoo walked a couple of steps behind you just so he could revel in the sight of you looking so gorgeous with your hair swaying in the wind and cherry blossom petals fluttering around you. Whenever you turned around to toss a smile over your shoulder, he felt like he was falling for you all over again. He took a few secret pictures of you without you knowing and he used it as his wallpaper whenever he was away on a long mission (he's embarrassing).

Anyway, that day, as the two of you strolled down this beautiful road, Jinwoo spotted a food stall that sold your favorite dessert. He wanted to make it a surprise so he told you to sit on a bench and wait for him as he went to buy you some. You nodded and watched him leave.

You got distracted, however, when a black cat appeared before you. Instead of having yellow eyes, this one had blue eyes and it was so rare and it looked so pretty, you couldn't help but follow it with your gaze. You thought the cat looked like Jinwoo in a way, especially the way it just stared at you, kind of coldly at first, but then it circled your leg, rubbing its fur on your skin, purring. Yes, it was definitely the cat version of him.

You wanted to pet it and held onto it until Jinwoo returned so you could show it to him. And at first, the cat curled up on your lap but after hearing something, its ears perked up curiously and it jumped off your thighs. You followed it before you realized what you were doing. You thought you wouldn't stray too far.

As the cat began to walk faster with its little feet, you started to pick up the pace too. "Hey, wait!" The cat wasn't stopping. If anything, it ran faster, taking turns here and there and by the time you looked back, you realized you had no idea how to return to the street you were in before. You got separated from him all because you were busy chasing down a cat. Again.

To your horror, that damn cat was about to cross a road filled with passing cars. Without thinking, you reached out to stop it, managing to scoop it up in your arms but you lost your balance while doing so and you toppled forward. You were about to land face-first on the ground. A passing car was about to hit you, and with how fast it was going, it could've been fatal if you weren't suddenly pulled back by two strong hands.

The next time you blinked your eyes open, you were back in Jinwoo's embrace. Half of his body was still enveloped by these familiar misty black tendrils, meaning that he just used shadow exchange to swap position with the shadow he placed on you to save you just in time.

"J-Jinwoo—" Your heart was racing. You wanted to apologize for running off without telling him, but he wasn't looking down at you. He kept his gaze on the car that almost ran you over before. It had stopped abruptly because of you and the driver stepped out, cussing at you furiously in a language you didn't understand. You could tell what his message was, though. He was definitely calling you an idiot.

The man stopped, however, when he saw the way Jinwoo was looking at him. Your fiancee didn't say anything, didn't move a muscle, but he managed to drain all colors from the man's face by his presence alone. The driver bowed his head in apology several times before he ran back to his car and drove away.

Only then did Jinwoo finally look at you, his gaze heavy on your face and he was silent.

You swallowed. Jinwoo rarely got angry. If anything, he'd never gotten angry with you before, not like this. Even the black cat was beginning to whimper softly in your arms, terrified of him. It jumped away from your hold once more, but this time, you let it go.

"I'm... I'm sorry, Jin—"

"Don't be sorry if you're just going to repeat it again. I don't want your apology. I want you to be better."

It struck you how cold he sounded and needless to say, it ruined all the pleasant, romantic atmosphere that shrouded you before. Jinwoo stood tall, towering above you, watching you lose your words with anger, disappointment, and relief all swirling into one in his eyes. Without saying another line, he handed you a box of the dessert he just bought—a couple of slices of your favorite cheesecake, topped with whipped cream—and he wrapped his fingers around your wrist, dragging you back to the hotel.

Jinwoo was quiet, and the silence between you was deafening. He didn't mean to give you a silent treatment, it was just... He was trying to calm himself down first before he said anything, not wanting to hurt you with his tone or the words he didn't mean to say. He stood under the warm shower mulling to himself, thinking how easily he could've lost you back then if he had been a second too late.

When you saw him walking out of the bathroom dressed in jeans and a black shirt, ready to get dinner with you, you couldn't bear it any longer. With an uneasy heart, you hugged him from behind, your arms winding around his waist. "I'm sorry... I was an idiot. Please don't be mad at me, I can't stand it."

Honestly, he was the same, but how many times had it happened already? Why wouldn't you learn your lesson? He didn't turn around to face you just yet, but he caressed your hand. "You can't keep doing this to me, Angel. Do you know how worried I was when I returned to the bench and I didn't see you there? Thank God, I put a shadow on you but what if I didn't?"

"I'm sorry..."

"You could've been killed."

"I know." Your voice grew quieter and quieter, heavy with guilt.

Jinwoo sighed, finally turning around to face you. He gathered your face in his hands, his thumb stroking your cheek, his voice barely above a whisper. "I can't lose you, all right? I don't know what I'd do without you."

You softly smiled, angling your face slightly to press a soothing kiss on his palm. "I don't know what I'd do without you, too. So don't give me the cold shoulder, okay? I'm gonna cry if you keep doing it."

He rolls his eyes at your pouty lips despite enjoying your cute act. "Maybe you should. I'm still angry, you know. Seeing you cry will probably melt my heart a little." His lips curve into a smirk, his fingers slightly pinching your cheek. "You look the prettiest when you're like that, after all."

"I'm starting to think you're a bit of a sadist."

"Never said I wasn't." As his smirk widened, Jinwoo hauled your body over his shoulder, stealing a yelp out of you. He tossed you down to the bed, spreading your legs and settling himself in between. "You know what men like me do to a disobedient little girl like you?" he asked as he pulled his black shirt over his head, the muscles in his abdomen rippled with his movement.

You gulped, your body tensing as you felt his hand pushing up your dress, his mouth placed hot and wet on every inch of skin he exposed. "W-we get... punished?"

"Usually, yes," he said, his voice so pleasantly deep and husky by the time he reached your ear. "You've been very naughty today but I still feel like treating my princess tonight. We're on a vacation right now, aren't we? We should make the best of it while it lasts." He licked a stripe up your neck, tasting your skin. "I was planning to take you out to a nice dinner, but..." He stopped, glancing at the nightstand.

You followed his gaze, your eyes landing on a plate filled with the cheesecake he'd bought you before. It was still fresh and untouched as you didn't feel like eating it before, not with the mood you were in back then. You returned your gaze to him, seeing him smile down at you, mischief shimmering in his eyes.

He reached out, coating his two fingers thickly with whipped cream. "How about we start with some dessert, Sweetheart?" Jinwoo asked as he smeared the cream over your lips. Your eyes widened, your breath caught in your throat as he leaned down and swiped his tongue across your lips. His kiss, the slow, delicate glide of his tongue, his low, soft moan, everything was so sensual, it caused your stomach to somersault in response.

He pulled away, his tongue running over his own bottom lip as he relished the aftertaste. His gaze was still fixated on your mouth, hazy with lust. There was a gleam in his eyes, one that said he'd be proud if you obeyed his command.

He scooped another bit of cream, his voice turning more dominant and possessive when he said—

[betweenstorms]

Part Four of Where We Part Across The Years (previous chapter) (next chapter) (masterlist) (WWP Chapters) Childhood Friend!Simon x fem!Reader

The motorway stretched endlessly before you, the grey skies mirroring the dull ache that had settled in your chest. London was still long hours away, and all you had to keep you company were the monotone hum of tyres on tarmac and the storm of regret swirling inside your mind. Too much time to think. Too much space for regret to fester. You cursed yourself, fingers tightening on the steering wheel as your thoughts kept circling back to the night before.

You had fucking blown it.

After all those years, you saw Simon Riley again—bloody hell, he stood right in front of you, and yet you’d managed to do nothing meaningful with that moment. You had let the beer and the shock cloud your better judgement. The one chance to say something worthwhile, to ask the questions that had haunted you for years. Instead of asking him about the things that truly mattered, you got wrapped up in your own misery, your own failed ambitions.

The thought made you wince.

He had asked about you, about your damn life, but you hadn’t even had the decency to return the favour. You hadn’t asked if he was alright, if he was happy. If he was satisfied with how his life had turned out after all the hell he must have been through.

You groaned, cursing yourself again for your inability, your bloody incompetency to see the bigger picture when it mattered most, too tangled up in your own pathetic web of insecurities to make sure that he was truly all right.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

You pressed your lips into a thin line as you replayed the night in your mind, over and over, searching for the moments where you could have said something different, done something different.

Simon had been right there, and instead of taking the opportunity to reconnect, to ask the questions you had been holding onto for years, you let it slip through your fingers. You didn’t even give him your number or your address. You had let him walk away from you without leaving any way for him to find you again. Even if he wanted to, how would he know where to look? And, you realised with a sinking feeling in your chest, did he even want to? 

The bitter taste of regret coated your tongue as you tried to focus on the road ahead, but your mind wouldn’t stop replaying the encounter. In the cold light of day, with the haze of alcohol missing, it all felt so surreal, so far removed from reality. But the more you thought about it, the more it gnawed at you, and the more you realised just how much time you’d wasted. How ironic. But that wasn’t new, was it? Your whole life felt like a series of missed chances, of not recognising the significance of things until they were long gone.

The truth was, you had been doing this for years—

—letting life slip past you.

A miserable pattern that shaped your entire existence.

When you were younger, just out of university, full of fire and ambition, you thought survival was your strength, your forte. You were fully convinced you could handle whatever life threw at you. But what you hadn’t realised until now was that it wasn’t survival you excelled at—it was failing to see the things that mattered, right when they were in front of you. Survival, you’d come to learn, wasn’t just about getting through the hard times, it was about accepting and embracing the good ones, too. The moments of opportunity.

And that, it seemed, was where you had always fallen short.

Oh, you had it all mapped out, didn’t you?

The life you were meant to have. A good career, a happy marriage, kids running around in a house with a garden, maybe a dog or two. You had imagined it all so clearly, like a perfect picture in your mind. But that picture had never come to life. Instead, you had watched the years slip by, each one more disappointing than the last.

Maybe if you’d paid more attention…

Maybe if you hadn’t been so busy chasing the perfect job, you would have noticed the cracks in your relationship with your now ex-fiancé before it all fell apart. You should have seen the signs. The strange messages, the late nights, the unexplained absences. Maybe if you’d been more present, more attentive, your roommate wouldn’t have been the one to sink the knife of betrayal deep into your back. You hadn’t been watching and he slipped through your fingers, into the arms of someone you had once called a friend.

You had been so fucking busy chasing the perfect little future you thought you deserved that you hadn’t noticed the waving red flags in the life you were living.

And by the time you did, it was too late.

And your parents. Gosh, your parents.

You should have spent more time with them when you had the chance. You should have seen it sooner—your fathers’s illness. Would it have made a difference? Maybe if you had been more involved, it wouldn’t have progressed the way it had. Maybe there would have been more options, more time. But you were too wrapped up in your own life, in your career, in trying to piece together the version of yourself you thought you should be. And now your dad, your hard-working and loving father, was suffering, and you were left with the guilt of not having been there when it really counted.

The truth was, you had been drifting through life.

Existing, but not really living.

And now, as you stared down the seemingly endless stretch of road, the grey world outside your car, you couldn’t help but wonder if you had been doing it all wrong. You had always prided yourself on knowing your limits, on being self-aware enough not to overestimate your capabilities. But now, sitting here, you realised that maybe that was the problem. You’d been too cautious, too reserved, too unwilling to take the risks that mattered.

Maybe if you had fought harder for the things you desired, if you had been more aware of the moments passing you by, your life would be different now. Maybe you wouldn’t be driving back to a small flat in London, alone, with nothing but regrets for company.

It was bloody funny, wasn’t it?

As a child, you never think you’ll fail. You dream about the future with wide eyes and open hands, certain that everything will fall into place. You never think that one day you’ll look at your life and feel like you’ve betrayed yourself. Jesus, if you could meet your younger self now, what would you even say? You would probably sink into the ground with shame, unable to look into your own eyes. You should have done better for yourself. You should have loved yourself more, been braver, taken more risks.

Because the truth was, you didn’t know how you ended up here.

Somewhere along the way, the fire in your soul had gone out. The ambition, the hope, the belief in the greater good—it had all faded, replaced by this dull acceptance of mediocrity. You’d convinced yourself that this was enough, but the truth was it wasn’t. You could have done more. You should have done more.

And you didn’t.

But you could change, couldn’t you? You could pick yourself up, move out of the flat, find a job that made you happy, and take better care of yourself. It was all within your grasp. But you hadn’t done it yet, had you? You had let the years slip by, watching them drift past like birds on the horizon, too far out of reach to ever catch hold of.

Such thoughts became your constant companion over the following days.

Or had it been weeks? Months? Honestly, you’d stopped keeping track of time—everything blurred together into the same dull rhythm of work, sleep, and self-doubt. Life in London had become a strange, muted existence, the days bleeding into one another without distinction.

Tonight was no different.

You were sitting on the sofa, a thick blanket wrapped around your shoulders, working on a presentation for the following morning.

The small living room was bathed in the bluish light of your screen, the rest of the flat swallowed by darkness. Your focus drifted in and out, the words on the screen barely registering as your mind kept wandering, as if waiting for some small spark of inspiration that would never come. You sighed, running a hand through your hair, trying to will yourself to focus, but it was pointless.

Then you heard it—a knock. A soft, uncertain tapping at the door.

Your fingers froze over the keyboard, eyes narrowing in confusion. You glanced at the corner of the laptop screen. 02:29 AM. Who the hell would be knocking at this ungodly hour? Then, the knock came again, low but insistent, cutting through the quiet.

Your heart began to race, a prickle of unease settling over your skin.

You weren’t expecting anyone.

Not at this time. Not at all, really. Your parents were in Birmingham, visiting an old friend for the week, and you didn’t have anyone else in London who would drop by unannounced, especially not in the middle of dawn. You swallowed, suddenly very aware of how alone you were. The knocking didn’t stop, each thud echoing louder in the stillness of your apartment.

With a tight throat and a hammering heart, you carefully pulled the blanket off, your bare feet sinking into the softness of the carpet. Every step you took toward the door felt like it carried a weight of its own, your breath coming shallow as you pressed your ear against the wood. The knocking stopped for a moment, and you strained to listen, the eerie silence in the flat amplifying your heartbeat.

Slowly, you peered through the peephole, breath held. You blinked, your brain struggling to make sense of what you were seeing.

Hazel eyes, shadowed but unmistakable.

Simon fucking Riley.

A surge of adrenaline shot through you, your hand fumbling with the lock before you flung the door open with more force than you’d intended. The cold air from the hallway rushed in, but all you could focus on was him—standing there in the dim light, his broad frame filling the door. He looked the same as that night outside the pub back in Manchester, the same quiet intensity in his gaze. But here, now, it felt different. More immediate.

More real.

“Jesus Christ,” you snapped, words tumbling out before you could stop them. “Do you have any idea how much you scared me?”

“Didn’t mean to.”

His response was simple, understated, however, it didn’t calm the storm of emotions raging inside your chest.

You stared at him, your mind racing, your pulse drumming in your ears. He stood there, wearing a dark surgical mask that obscured half of his face and a beige baseball cap, the unmistakable Union Jack patch stitched on the front. His outfit was as unassuming as it was intimidating—black jacket, blue jeans, and military boots. And the way he was built, solid, bulky and imposing, would have made anyone else wonder if this wasn’t some kind of robbery. Or worse. He was an intimidating man after all.

But you knew those eyes.

Those sharp, piercing eyes that could cut through the fog of a thousand thoughts.

You’d know them anywhere.

For a moment, you both just stood there, staring at each other in the stillness of the dark. You looked up at him from under your eyelashes, your arms wrapped around yourself, whether for warmth or self-protection, you couldn’t say for sure. Simon stood still, his hands tucked into his pockets, his gaze locked onto yours, unreadable behind the mask. The air between you was thick with a kind of tension that was hard to place. It wasn’t quite awkward, but it wasn’t far from it either, making the space feel too small, too intimate.

As the seconds stretched out in that strange, suffocating silence, you swallowed hard, trying to gather your thoughts. Your palms were sweaty, a reminder that this was real—Simon Riley, here, at your door. In the middle of the night. You shifted on your feet, feeling the chill of the hardwood floor seeping through your skin, and wrapped your arms around yourself tighter, as though that could ward off the growing sense of vulnerability creeping up your spine.

“Well… this is, you know, sudden,” you stated softly, your voice coming out quieter than you intended, almost lost to the tension hanging in the air.

Simon shrugged, his gaze flicking away before meeting your eyes again. “Told you I’d visit,” he replied, his tone casual, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

You snorted, your nerves bubbling to the surface.

“Yeah, well, could’ve picked a better time, mate,” the sarcasm in your voice felt like armour, something to protect yourself from the whirlwind of emotions crashing against your ribs.

Simon tilted his head to the side, his eyes narrowing slightly.

“You want me gone, then?”

“No!”

The word flew out of your mouth far too quickly and with far too much force. It hung in the air between you, heavy and raw. You cringed at how desperate you sounded, biting the inside of your cheek as you quickly looked away, your gaze falling to the floor.

God, why did you always manage to make a fool of yourself in front of him? You were always like this around Simon—your emotions too close to the surface, your heart too vulnerable. It was like he had this power over you, and no matter how much time passed, you couldn’t shake it.

The familiar feeling of embarrassment crept up your neck, heating your cheeks and making your skin prickle with discomfort. Huffing softly, you dug your nails into your upper arms, grounding yourself in the sting of it.

“Do you... want to come in?”

Your voice was quieter this time, trying to hold onto whatever scrap of dignity you had left. But it felt clumsy and out of place, like they didn’t quite fit the gravity of the moment.

For a split second, Simon hesitated.

You could see it in the way his broad shoulders tensed, the slight shift in his stance, as though he hadn’t really thought through what would happen if he came here. Somehow, he seemed just as uncomfortable as you were, which surprised you. For a man who seemed to navigate life with such confidence and discipline, the idea of stepping into your flat, into your personal space, seemed to give him pause. You couldn’t quite understand why, but the longer the quiet stretched, the more you realised that maybe he hadn’t thought this through. Maybe showing up at your door in the middle of the night was more impulsive than calculated. And maybe he didn’t know what to do, just as much as you didn’t.

After what felt like an eternity, he gave a small, almost imperceptible nod.

You immediately felt lighter as you stepped aside, awkwardly motioning for him to come in. “Sorry for the mess. I wasn’t expectin’ company. I mean, not that you’re company, well, you are, but… you know what I mean.”

He stepped past you, his frame taking up more space in the small flat than you’d anticipated. His presence seemed to dominate the room, making the icy air feel thicker, more charged. He glanced around briefly, his eyes scanning the room with the same quiet intensity you’d come to associate with him. Your tiny apartment felt even smaller with him inside it, his towering figure somehow making the room feel claustrophobic.

As he moved past you, you caught the faintest scent of something familiar—the earthy scent of leather and steel, mingling with tobacco. It was subtle but unmistakable, a reminder of the life he led, the world he inhabited now. A world so far removed from yours, yet here he was, standing in your flat like it was the most natural thing in the world.

You closed the door behind him, your fingers trembling slightly as you locked it.

You murmured something about making tea, your voice barely audible as you rushed into the kitchen, turning on the cheap neon bars over the sink. It was easier to focus on something as mundane as boiling water than on the knot of nerves tightening in your chest. You could feel Simon’s presence behind you, a silent weight of his intimidating aura pressing into the room. As you busied yourself with the kettle, your hands shaking just enough to make you scowl at your own weakness, you stole a glance at him.

He was still standing near the door, watching you intently.

His eyes tracked every movement, and it made your skin tingle under the scrutiny. He still wore his usual guarded expression, as though he hadn’t quite decided whether he belonged here or not. Plus, there was something unnerving about being the focus of his attention—Simon Riley had a way of making you feel exposed, as if he could see through every weak attempt you tried to hide behind.

Frowning slightly, you asked, “Why the mask?”

Your question seemed to jolt him from whatever thoughts were running through his head. He blinked once, twice, then slowly began to peel away the layers.

The cap came off first, revealing the familiar mess of sandy blond hair underneath. His boots followed, then his jacket, each item discarded neatly by the door with military precision. But it wasn’t until he tugged off the mask and placed it carefully on top of the neat pile that you realised how much tension you’d been holding in your chest.

It felt strange to see him wearing a mask indoors.

However, as usual, Simon didn’t bother answering your question.

He just continued as if you hadn’t said anything, leaving you to piece together the puzzle on your own. That was how it had always been with him, wasn’t it? The kettle’s shrill whistle startled you back to reality, pulling you out of the trance his presence always seemed to cast over you.

You cleared your throat and asked, “How d’you take your tea?”

“Plain.”

Of course.

His familiar, deep tone that rumbled in the small space between you. You nodded and made the tea, handing him a mug with a cartoon character plastered on the front. Simon glanced at it briefly but, to his credit, didn’t say anything. He leaned against the counter, holding the mug with one large hand, his gaze once again sweeping over your small, cluttered flat. You watched him silently, mimicking his posture, leaning against the other side of the furniture.

The distance between you somehow felt too wide and too close at the same time. The sleeve of his shirt was slightly rolled up, revealing the edge of a tattoo that snaked its way along his muscular arm. Odd. You hadn’t noticed it before. The bold, black lines etched into his skin told you that this was something new, something he hadn’t had back then. You wondered what kind of significance it held.

There was a strange warmth pooling in your stomach, something unsettling about the way your mind lingered on his tattooed skin.

Before you could spiral any further into your thoughts, Simon broke the silence.

“Didn’t mean to wake you.”

You quickly averted your gaze as heat rushed to your cheeks.

Had he caught you staring? God, how embarrassing. You tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, brushing your fingers through it in a futile attempt to detangle the mess.

“I wasn’t asleep,” you said, gesturing vaguely toward the living room where your laptop sat abandoned on the sofa. “Was workin’, actually.”

You ran your fingers through your hair again, an unconscious attempt to make yourself look more presentable. It was absurd, really. You hadn’t exactly dressed to impress. The last time he’d seen you, you’d been more put together, more presentable, wearing makeup and decent clothes. But now, in the privacy of your apartment, you felt exposed, like he was seeing a side of you you hadn’t meant to show. You felt like a mess.

He nodded, taking a slow sip of his tea.

If Simon noticed your dishevelled look, or if he even cared, he didn’t say a single thing. The quiet stretched out again, the weight of his presence filling every corner of the room. You could feel your poor nerves fraying at the edges, but you didn’t know what to say. You didn’t know how to act. You couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking, whether he was already regretting seeing you again.

“You know… I didn’t expect you to actually visit.”

Simon shrugged, almost imperceptibly. “Told you I would.”

There it was again.

That simplicity in his words, like everything with him was black and white. Promises made, promises kept. It was as though, with Simon, the world was reduced to the simplest, starkest truths. There were no shades of grey, no second-guessing. You almost envied that about him, the way he seemed to live without being tangled up in the anxieties and doubts that seemed to haunt you.

You stared at your hands wrapped around your mug, feeling the warmth seep into your skin, grounding you, as you let out a small huff of disbelief. You weren’t really used to someone following through so directly, so earnestly, and it unnerved you.

You shifted, “But… how did you even find me?”

Simon’s response was immediate—a sharp look that made your already timid stomach twist in embarrassment. The kind of look that seemed to say, Are you serious?

“I didn’t give you my address, did I? I mean, I didn’t think—”

Simon interrupted you with a heavy sigh, one of those annoyed sighs that made you feel like you were the one missing something obvious. It was the same tired sound you remembered from years ago, when he had little patience for things he considered trivial.

“Your dad,” he said simply, as if that answered everything.

You blinked, confused. “My dad?”

He gave a small nod. “I asked him for it. At the funeral.”

His words struck you like a direct punch to the gut, stealing the breath from your lungs. For a moment, all you could do was stare, mouth parted in silent shock, your mind reeling.

Slowly, you pressed your lips into a thin, resolute line, eyes dropping to the floor as your bare foot nudged the kitchen furniture, seeking distraction in the quiet chaos.

“And you remembered.”

Simon, ever the pragmatic, gave a faint frown as if confused by your surprise.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

His response made your heart clench. Of course, only Simon Riley would remember something like that. He remembered everything, didn’t he? It wasn’t just a detail to him, it was a promise fulfilled, a matter of duty. You swallowed hard, your throat suddenly tight as you stood there in the dimly lit kitchen, the weight of his words hanging between you like an anchor pulling you both down into the murky depths of the past.

You had no words.

What could you say? That you were touched by his effort? That it meant something more to you than you could articulate?

Suddenly, the memory of the day after you met him came flooding back. The drive home from Manchester that felt endless, the silence inside the car thick with questions that swirled in your mind, never letting you rest. Those thoughts haunted you ever since, clinging to you in the days that followed like shadows, never letting you move on.

The questions that swirled through your mind like ghosts you couldn’t outrun, questions that felt urgent, vital.

And now, standing here in this moment, face to face with him again after everything that had happened, it felt as though the universe had conspired to bring you both back together. Every moment you’d spent wondering, waiting, longing, felt orchestrated by something greater than chance, as if God himself had pulled the strings, aligning the stars to give you this one moment.

This second chance.

But the questions you once agonised over, the ones that kept you awake at night, suddenly felt insignificant, small against the weight of this moment. What you thought you needed to ask him paled in comparison to the one question that now consumed you, burning through your thoughts like wildfire.

Nothing else mattered—only this.

“Did you… read my letter?” 

Your quiet words hung in the air, fragile and exposed.

It felt like a moment of reckoning, as if everything that had passed between you, the years of silence, the unspoken feelings, the grief, and the regret, had all led to this point, this moment. You weren’t sure if you even wanted to hear his answer, but you couldn’t stop yourself from asking. You had to know.

Simon’s expression didn’t change much, but you noticed the flicker of something in his eyes, a flash of impatience, perhaps, or maybe just weariness. He let out a small grunt, his tolerance clearly fraying at the edges.

“Fuckin’ hell. You gonna keep askin’ daft questions all night?” His tone was sharp, but not unkind, and you could tell that, despite the frustration, he wasn’t trying to hurt you. It was just Simon—blunt, honest, unflinchingly direct.

The letter. He had read it.

Every word you had poured onto those pages, every emotion you had bared without ever expecting him to see it—he had seen it all. And not only that, but here he was, standing in your flat, at your door in the dead of night, as though he had been drawn back to you by the very things you had written down. It made you feel exposed, like you had laid your soul bare without realising it.

“And…?”

Simon’s beautiful hazel eyes flicked toward you, sharp and searching, as though weighing the unspoken between you both, carefully deciding how much to reveal. The silence stretched, thick with uncertainty, and for a heartbeat, you wondered if he would say anything at all. His expression remained unreadable, the hesitation palpable, until at last, he spoke—his voice low, gravelly, and frayed at the edges, like words worn down by years of being held back.

“Didn’t need the letter to know.”

You took a shaky breath, letting the reality of his words wash over you like a gentle wave.

Simon remained still, leaning against the counter, his piercing eyes locked onto yours. But that quiet intensity—the way he simply waited for you, like he was giving you the space to process everything, it was almost too much to bear. It was like he was standing on the edge of something, waiting for you to join him, but he wouldn’t force you to make the leap.

You placed the mug down on the counter, the ceramic clinking softly against the surface.

You squeezed your eyes shut, willing the tears to stay at bay, but the dam broke, and before you could stop it, you buried your face in your hands. Because for the first time in a long time, maybe since birth, you felt like you could start to let go of the past.

Not entirely, not yet, but enough to stop letting it define you.

The sobs tore through you before you could catch them, erupting from deep inside, the kind of crying that you’d never really allowed yourself to do. It wasn’t the silent, dignified kind of tears that you’d always kept private, tucked away in the safety of solitude. No, this was raw, unrestrained. The kind that made your chest ache with the sheer force of emotion behind it. You were crying like a child again, vulnerable and scared, as if every moment of hurt you’d ever felt had been stored away for this exact instant. Your whole body shook with the release, as you gasped for breath between the words that tumbled from your lips.

“I’m so sorry,” you cried, your voice breaking under the weight of the apology. “I’m sorry for everythin’. For never bein’ there. For not doin’ enough. For not sayin’ enough. I’m so sorry, Simon, I’m so sorry…”

The words spilled out like a flood, each one soaked with years of guilt and regret.

“I’m sorry you had to go through it alone,” you gasped for breath, clutching the edge of the counter for support as your legs threatened to give way under the weight of it all. “About… about all of it. I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”

You apologised for every moment of his pain that you weren’t there to stop. For his father, for the abuse. For his losses, his suffering, the unimaginable hurt he had endured. You apologised for not protecting him, for leaving him alone, for not being enough. You apologised for all the ways the world had failed him, as if you somehow could have prevented it.

The tears were relentless, burning hot as they streaked down your face as you hunched over, your hands covering your face as if to hide from the enormity of what you were feeling. You were just a child yourself back then, powerless and naive, but still, the guilt was suffocating. You couldn’t shake the feeling that you had let him down. That you hadn’t done enough to save him from that life. It was everything—everything you had buried, everything you had held onto for far too long, coming to the surface at once.

And it hurt. God, it hurt so much.

But amidst the pain, there was a strange sense of relief.

Like the weight you’d carried for so long, the heavy stone in your chest that had been there for years, was finally being lifted. You cried like the rain had finally broken through the clouds, years of pent-up emotion falling in a flood. For the first time in what felt like forever, you could finally breathe. The air filled your lungs, crisp and cold, and even though you were a mess of tears and shaking limbs, you felt lighter. Free, in a way you hadn’t felt since birth.

Your hands shook as they covered your face, trying to stifle the torrent of apologies that kept pouring out, unstoppable. “I should’ve done more. I should’ve known… I should’ve—”

But Simon didn’t let you finish. 

It was his voice, even after all those years, after a decade of longing, that cut through the storm inside you.

It was Simon—always Simon.

His words were simple, but they hit you with the force of something much greater.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

And you believed him.

Where We Part Chapters

[songbirdseung]

i did it first / park jongseong

where cute, playful, and innocent arguments with your boyfriend are welcomed and appreciate as they lead into the sweetest moments genre fluff, established relationship

as you and jay walk back to the car after your date, the cool evening air still carrying the warmth of your laughter and lingering touches, you can’t help but feel a little smug. tonight had been perfect—dinner at your favorite restaurant, a walk along the river, and now a comfortable car ride back home. but as soon as you both climb in and buckle up, jay’s signature teasing smirk reappears, and you already know what’s about to happen.

“you know you’re wrong, right?” jay starts, his voice playful, throwing a quick glance your way as he starts the engine. “i definitely loved you first.”

you roll your eyes, half-expecting this after a night like tonight. "oh, please. there is no way that’s true. i’m the one who fell for you first!"

jay laughs under his breath, pulling out onto the road. "y/n, you can tell yourself whatever makes you feel better, but we both know i fell first. you didn’t even realize i existed at first."

crossing your arms, you lean back in your seat, your competitive side already on high alert. "are you kidding me? i knew exactly who you were. remember that time i ‘accidentally’ bumped into you in the library? that was totally planned, just so i could talk to you.”

he gives you a side-eye, the corners of his mouth quirking up. "oh yeah? well, i noticed you way before that. i was already into you the first time you asked me what time class started. you literally already knew, but i could tell you just wanted to talk to me."

"and you think that means you fell first?" you ask, raising an eyebrow. "i strategically sat near you during every lunch period! i even switched friend groups just to get closer to you."

jay shakes his head, smiling as he recalls those moments. "okay, but who was the one who went out of his way to offer you help in chemistry? even though i was just as lost as you were?"

you can’t help but laugh at that memory, your attempts to look like you understood the periodic table just as hopeless as jay’s. "oh, please. that was nothing compared to when i pretended i needed help with my project just so i could come over to your place.”

jay glances over at you, raising his eyebrows. "you did know how to finish that project, didn’t you?"

“of course i did! but i wanted an excuse to spend time with you,” you admit with a playful smile, knowing that your antics back then were nothing short of ridiculous.

“remember the time i stayed up all night baking cookies for your birthday? that definitely means i was in love with you before you even had a clue.”

“those cookies were good, but come on, y/n,” jay says, grinning as he keeps his eyes on the road. “i was the one who found out your favorite drink at that coffee shop you went to every morning, and then i ‘just so happened’ to show up there at the same time.”

"oh please, anyone could’ve done that," you shoot back, laughing. “i took hours picking out your birthday gift that year. i went to three different stores to find something you’d like.”

jay's laugh bubbles up, shaking his head. "okay, fine. but do you remember when i walked you home in the rain after class, even though i didn’t have an umbrella and was soaked by the time we got to your place?"

you bite your lip, remembering that moment vividly. you had felt guilty for days afterward, thinking he’d catch a cold just because he didn’t want you to walk home alone. "alright, that was sweet, but it still doesn’t prove you loved me first."

jay rolls his eyes playfully. "yes, it does. i was the one who volunteered to carry your books every day even though you insisted you didn’t need help.”

"oh, so now you’re just gonna keep using the ‘nice guy’ routine?" you tease, unable to stop the grin spreading across your face. "because i waited for you outside your basketball practices just to see you for like five seconds."

“and i,” jay interjects, “started wearing cologne because you once told me that you liked how a guy smelled when he walked by in class. i literally changed my entire scent just for you.”

you burst out laughing at his confession. "are you serious? i had no idea! that’s actually kinda cute.”

“yeah, well, i was pretty obsessed with you,” jay admits, a sheepish grin on his face.

as you both make your way to the front door, the conversation picks right back up, neither of you ready to let the other win. the entire way up the stairs to your apartment, you continue to volley back and forth, trying to outdo each other’s arguments with more memories and playful jabs.

“i showed up to your first big presentation, remember? i even sat through two hours of boring speeches just to support you,” you say, sliding off your shoes by the door.

jay follows closely behind, grinning. "well, i drove two hours to surprise you at that concert you were dying to go to, even though i hate crowds."

you stop in the middle of the hallway, turning to face him. “oh, so now it’s a contest of who made the biggest sacrifice?”

jay laughs, leaning against the wall, arms crossed as he watches you. "well, if it is, then i’m winning. i literally skipped out on a game with my friends just to hang out with you at that café. and i never miss game night.”

you shake your head, feeling your heart swell at how much effort he had put in. "okay, fine. but remember the time i took care of you when you got sick? i stayed up all night just to make sure you were okay.”

jay smirks, stepping closer to you. "and who was the one who brought you soup when you had that horrible cold and couldn’t get out of bed?"

"you did," you admit with a smile. "but that still doesn’t mean you loved me first."

jay takes another step closer, his grin softening into something sweeter, more intimate. "you really want to keep this going, huh?”

you nod, crossing your arms and trying to look defiant, even though your heart is racing.

“fine,” jay says, his voice dropping to a teasing whisper as he stands right in front of you now, eyes locked with yours. “there’s only one way to settle this.”

before you can respond, he gently cups your face in his hands, his lips meeting yours in a soft, lingering kiss that melts away any lingering debate between you. his kiss is warm and sweet, like a silent reminder of how much he loves you, whether he fell first or not.

when he finally pulls away, you’re both smiling, breathless but content.

"now will you admit that i loved you first?" he asks, his forehead resting gently against yours.

you laugh, shaking your head slightly. "not a chance."

jay chuckles, pulling you into his arms as he hugs you tightly. "fine. as long as you know i love you now."

“that,” you whisper, snuggling into his chest, "i know for sure."

and with that, the playful argument fades away and whoever fell first be damned.

[starsewl]

Weekend Getaway

pairing: BestfriendModel!Mingyu & Dancer!Hoshi & Athlete!Dokyeom x Novelist!Reader

rating: 18+ | word count: 4.1k

summary: You join your longtime friend Mingyu and his two equally irresistible friends, Hoshi and Dokyeom on a quiet weekend getaway to a secluded villa. What begins as an innocent escape quickly turns into a night of unleashed lust. When the men discover your writing inspired by them, they decide to help your “research”—taking you through a wild, unrelenting night of overstimulation.

tw/cw: explicit sexual content, 4some, overstimulation, squirting, cigarette, piercing, harsh words

That weekend means nothing. No birthdays. No events. Just another two days in the calendar when Mingyu suddenly invites me to a getaway with him and his two friends. I say yes right away—I mean, who says no to spending a weekend with three stupidly attractive men?

Mingyu is a model. Not just “IG pretty”—he’s billboard, magazine cover, can-make-anything-look-luxury kind of gorgeous. The camera worships him. Every pose is deliberate, every angle flawless.

Hoshi’s energy hits different. He’s a dancer, owns a studio, and his body moves like it’s speaking a language only muscles and rhythm can understand. There’s power in every step, and joy in every spin.

Then there’s Dokyeom. A national swimmer. Tan lines, muscle lines, the kind of sunny smile that makes you think maybe the world isn’t all that bad. He’s friendly, comforting, and ridiculously built. He glows.

“You need healing,” Mingyu tells me, his deep voice wrapping around my bones like velvet. “I invited Hoshi and Dokyeom too.”

“They’re coming?” I sip my iced coffee, glancing over at Mingyu sprawled on my couch. His white t-shirt stretches across his chest like a second skin, and the shorts? They show off those lean legs way too easily. I swallow.

“Scared?” he teases, lips curving. He toys with my hoodie string, slow, seductive, like he knows.

“So confident.” I try to hide behind my coffee glass. “Why would I be scared?”

“Good.” He chuckles low. “We all need a break.”

I’ve known Mingyu since we were kids, growing up on the same street, fighting over swings and comic books. But this Mingyu? The man with the body, the voice, the look—he’s dangerous now. And still my best friend. Maybe that’s the problem.

“Maybe I’ll get some writing inspiration,” I shrug, though my last novel was already a thinly disguised fantasy involving these three men. They don’t know. Only they know I write adult romance. Everyone else just thinks I’m a writer.

“Bring your laptop,” Mingyu says as he stands and walks closer. Each step is slow, like he’s stalking something. “You might get new ideas.”

He stops beside me, towering. I tilt my head to meet his eyes. He smells like cologne, cedar, and something warmer—his skin maybe? My mouth goes dry.

“This weekend, okay?” he murmurs, eyes locked to mine. “Don’t forget.”

***

Two days later, Mingyu's car drove slowly along a narrow path framed by tall pine trees. The rows of sturdy trunks formed a kind of green tunnel, wrapping the road in natural shadows that made this place feel like another world. After the last bend was passed, a two-story wooden villa appeared in front of our eyes—looking like a house from a romcom movie: a spacious terrace with wooden chairs, large windows welcoming light, and a backyard directly bordered by dense forest. Fresh air. The sound of birds and wind whispers through the leaves.

“Wow, this is so cool!” Hoshi bursts out first, running toward the front door with arms stretched like a kid.

“It’s way too close to the forest,” I mutter. “What if someone tries to kidnap us?”

“They’d give you back for being too loud,” Dokyeom laughs, pulling bags from the trunk.

“Asshole,” Hoshi fires back, still grinning.

Inside? Oh god. Wooden walls. Dark floors that creak just right. A stone fireplace. A soft L-shaped sofa facing the forest view. Kitchen gleaming with marble and metal. A huge table in the middle—thick wood, perfect for late dinners... or something else.

“There are three bedrooms,” Mingyu says, tapping the door code. “One downstairs, two up.”

“Perfect,” Hoshi says, flopping onto the sofa. “So how are we splitting?”

“Room with me,” Dokyeom answers instantly.

“Okay!!” Hoshi chirps, no hesitation.

***

Night settles in like a blanket. Hoshi insists on cooking—claims he makes “god-level ramyeon,” even though he’s clearly never touched a kitchen in his life. We don’t argue.

The result? Surprisingly good. Spicy, hot, with soft-boiled eggs and dumplings Dokyeom makes from scratch. We sit around the massive wooden table, laughter echoing through the room, stories tossed around like old shoes.

“You never talk about your novel,” Hoshi says suddenly, giving me a sly look over his chopsticks. “Mingyu said you write hot scenes.”

I choke on broth. “I didn’t say that!”

“But you did,” Mingyu smirks, handing me a tissue. “Over lunch. Last month.”

“What genre is it exactly?” Dokyeom asks, tone too innocent.

“Romance,” I reply quickly. “Just… normal romance.”

“What kind of romance?” Hoshi leans forward, elbow on the table, mischief in his eyes. “Vanilla? Or with a little spice?”

My face burns. They can’t know the truth. Can’t know my last draft is basically them—but naked and tangled in sheets.

“A little spicy,” I mumble, heart thudding.

“A little?” Mingyu raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t you tell me it made you hot while writing it?”

Fuck. Did I really say that?

“I want to read it!” Hoshi perks up.

“You brought your laptop, right? C’mon, share it!”

“No,” I protest fast. “It’s not done. Still a mess.”

“So when it’s finished?” Dokyeom smiles. “You’ll let us read it, right?”

My chair scrapes back. “Anyone want dessert? I saw ice cream.”

“She’s running away…” Hoshi whispers to Dokyeom, just loud enough for me to hear.

***

After dinner, everyone returns to their rooms except for me. I am alone in the living room. The atmosphere is calm. I sit on the long sofa in the living room, laptop on my lap, a glass of wine on the side table. Only a small lamp in the corner of the room is on, creating a dim atmosphere perfect for writing. Outside, the sound of wind and night birds can sometimes be heard, interspersed with the creaking of wood.

I continue my pending novel draft. This chapter is really difficult to write, not because I don't know what to write, but because it is too... intense. The main female character in my novel is trapped in a situation similar to mine now—in a remote place with three guys who make her breathless.

"Five minutes passes in torturous silence. She can feel their gazes like physical touches on her skin. His hand slips in, his breath heavy in my ear. Amid the beating, I can only surrender. Surrender to their bodies drawing closer—three men, three scents, three tongues, three sins."

I stop typing. Take a deep breath. Somehow my fingers move uncertainly over the keyboard. I sip the wine slowly, trying to calm myself. But the images are already clear in my head—three pairs of hands, three pairs of eyes, three...

"So this is how you write your steamy scenes?

A familiar deep voice. I turn, and there—Mingyu, standing half-leaning against the wall near the kitchen, wearing a thin, slightly wrinkled t-shirt, loose boxer shorts. His hair is messy and his eyes half-sleepy.

"Shit," I hurriedly close the laptop. "What are you doing?"

"I'm not spying. You're sitting in the middle of the room, how could I not see?" he says casually, sitting at the end of the sofa, near my feet. "I'm just curious. Who's that about?"

"It's not about anyone, it's fiction." I answer quickly.

"But the inspiration must come from somewhere."

He leans back, his large shoulder almost touching my bare leg. "You're writing a scene with three guys, one girl, in the middle of the night. Coincidence?"

I open my mouth to answer, but a sound from the direction of the stairs cuts off our conversation.

"Oh, you're both still up?" Hoshi appears walking casually, but his eyes immediately go to the laptop on my lap.

"You're writing?" He walks closer and immediately sits on the sofa back behind me, bending down from above, his chin very close to my head. "Can I read it?"

"No," I answer quickly.

"Then you must be writing a steamy scene, huh," he replies with a laugh. "You're really... it's always the innocent one."

Before I can hit him with a pillow, one more person appears from the room hallway, Dokyeom. His hair is messy, his voice hoarse typical of someone who just woke up.

"Why is it noisy here? I thought someone was fighting."

“Our little writer here’s working on a threesome,” Mingyu says, poking my leg.

“Insane,” I mutter, pinching his thigh.

Dokyeom just grins and sinks to the carpet in front of me. “Tell us what it’s about.”

Three pairs of eyes on me. I freeze.

Mingyu leans in, voice low. “If you don’t want to tell us…”

His fingers brush my thigh.

“…maybe show us instead.”

 I don’t know when the laptop slides under the table. Maybe it’s when Hoshi’s fingers tug at the back of my shirt, making that slow, drawn-out creeeek sound, like old wood cracking under pressure. Too suggestive. Too real. Or maybe it’s Dokyeom—now sitting on the sofa beside me, one hand curled around my calf, the other gliding up the inside of my thigh. Those fingers? Big. Warm. Deliberate.

My thoughts are gone.

Mingyu’s hand finds my cheek, brushing a strand of hair away. “Do you write like this every night?”

His voice drips with something darker now. Closer. He already knows the answer.

“No…” I whisper, breath catching. “Only when I’m… needy.”

He leans in, lips grazing my ear. “Are you needy now?”

I don’t answer with words. I kiss him.

Soft. Slow. Wet. His lips crush mine like he’s been waiting years. His tongue slides over mine, coaxing, tasting, controlling. The wine on his mouth mixes with the heat in my blood.

“Mmhh…”

My moan is the spark.

Behind me, Hoshi chuckles. “I want my turn too.”

He dips down, mouth meeting the side of my neck. His lips are warm, tongue bold, tracing fire along my skin. Then—Dokyeom. His hand is no longer idle. It slides under my shirt, palms my breast through the fabric, thumb brushing my nipple until I shudder. He kisses my shoulder. I gasp.

They lift me.

I don’t resist. Don’t question.

Mingyu and Dokyeom each take a side, lifting me like I weigh nothing. They carry me toward the thick wooden dining table. Hoshi follows, steps silent but intent sharp in his gaze. They set me on the edge, the cool wood shocking against the backs of my thighs. My shirt is half off already, crumpled around my arms. Hands strip the rest—tugging, sliding, exposing me fully. I’m left in nothing but thin black panties. Breathless. Goosebumps everywhere.

“You guys…” My voice trembles. “…I’ve never—ahh…”

Hoshi steps forward, eyes flicking down. His tongue peeks out—and that’s when I see it. The piercing. Silver. Gleaming on the tip of his tongue.

“You like what you see?” he teases, licking his lips. “Wanna know how it feels… on your pretty pussy?”

His hand wraps around my throat. Gentle, firm. Seeking permission. When I nod, barely—he moves.

His tongue trails from my collarbone to my chest. Slow. Deliciously slow. He doesn’t suck. Not yet. He teases. The cold metal of his piercing circles my nipple, sending shocks through me. I arch, hips bucking.

“H-hoshi…” I moan, louder now.

“Don’t hold back, princess,” Dokyeom whispers, behind me. His voice rumbles like thunder. “I want to hear you.”

Mingyu kisses my stomach. His hands rest on my thighs, spreading me wider. The kiss lowers. Each one more unbearable than the last. Behind, Dokyeom unclasps my bra. He doesn’t kiss. He blows. The cold air hits wet skin—Hoshi’s tongue still dancing—and I nearly break.

“S-shit…” I cry out. “Feels good…”

“Do you know…” Hoshi murmurs, still licking, “…I’ve imagined painting your body with my tongue… one line… all the way down…”

I’m writhing. Moving without meaning to.

Then Mingyu’s fingers slide inside my panties.

They don’t move at first. They just… rest. Pressing against soaked heat. Then—he starts. A slow rhythm. Deep strokes. His knuckles graze the soft lips between my thighs and I lose it.

“Ahh—fuck… Gyu…” I choke on the moan.

“Damn,” he grunts. “You’re leaking.”

He kisses below my navel, tongue dipping down, lower. Dokyeom’s hands are everywhere—palming my ass, guiding my back into his chest, whispering filth into my ear.

“You've been thinking about this, huh? Getting ruined by all three of us?”

“No—I—fuck—”

I didn't finish the sentence. Hoshi’s still sucking, piercing grinding my nipple. Dokyeom now on his knees behind, kissing the small of my back. Mingyu lowers, mouth nearing the place where his fingers just were. He peels the panties down—slowly. So slowly. Until I’m exposed. He doesn’t hesitate. He eats. Tongue first. Broad. Heavy. Licking up every drop. His lips seal over my clit, sucking hard.

“Akh—fuck!”

My whole body arches. I grab the edge of the table, the wood creaking beneath my grip.

“Time to make some material for a new chapter,” Mingyu growls between licks.

I moan. Loud. Unrestrained.

Hoshi’s hands work my chest. Dokyeom kisses the shell of my ear, still whispering.

I lose track of time. My orgasm crashes through me like a wave. Legs trembling. Breath gone. My panties hang off one foot. The table is a mess of sweat and slick.

And they’re not done.

Dokyeom had already returned to sit on the previous sofa. He leaned back casually but full of dominant aura. Legs spread wide, his hoodie already gone. His body was already completely naked, one hand patting his left thigh, signaling me to climb up and sit on his lap.

"Come on," he said slowly. But his voice was sharp.

"I want to feel you on my thigh."

"Thigh?" I was still panting.

"Practice everything you write."

And somehow, my body immediately responded to that command. Without asking. Without thinking. I got down from the table, walked slowly toward him. My legs were trembling, not because I was afraid. Rather... because I was curious. Because I imagined the hardness of his thigh—just looking at it, the muscles were as sharp as carvings. Especially when he sat like that, the position of his legs was very enticing. Big. Hard. Solid. Like covered in concrete.

I climb up. Slowly. One of my legs passed over his thigh, and my butt landed right on top of Dokyeom's left thigh. I leaned against his chest, hands resting on his shoulders for balance.

And when I moved a little... "Ah, fuck." I immediately moans loudly. I felt the hardness of his muscles parting between my legs. The friction immediately hit the most sensitive point.

"Enjoy it." Dokyeom leaned back, his eyes half-closed. But his hands went up to my waist, holding, directing the movement. "Move slowly first."

I start to move. A little. Up and down. Rubbing back and forth. "Mmmh... unghh..." my moans got louder, more uncontrollable.

Every time I rubbed forward, he deliberately hardened his thigh muscles. When I moved backward, the wet feeling from my own fluids made the friction even more slippery. My hands start to tremble, my nails pressing into his shoulders.

"Feels good... Dok-yeom... ahh... so good...shit!" I moaned in his ear, making him squeeze my hips harder.

When I looked behind, Mingyu and Hoshi were sitting not far away, in chairs across from us. They were busy watching the movement of my hips while stroking their own.

"Do you see her hips, Gyu?" muttered Hoshi to Mingyu, eyes not leaving me. "Fuck... I'm so hard."

Mingyu didn't answer. But his hand was clearly licking the tip of his finger, then stroking himself. His eyes focus, sharp, shifting to look from my lips, to my chest, to my hip movements that were getting wilder up and down. Dokyeom grins, tightening his thigh, making the pressure brutal. “Faster,” he whispers, slapping my ass. “Soak me.”

I whimper. I grind harder. Loud. Wet. The sound of skin and slick fills the room. Just as I’m about to explode—

“Not yet,” Mingyu growls.

I cry out in frustration. He stands in front of me. Hard. Thick. His cock hovers near my lips.

“Open,” he orders.

I do.

He slides in. My lips wrap around the head. His taste is salty, hot. His hand grips my hair while Dokyeom moves behind me. His hand still grabs my waist. I feel him shift slightly—then I hear it.

A soft click. I glance back. A lit match glows between his fingers. A cigarette rests between his lips. My breath catches.

“Do you mind?” he asks, the flame dancing near his face. Calm. Controlled.

Fuck. That’s so fucking sexy of him.

I shake my head, slow. No way in hell I’d stop him. He smiles—lazy, sinful—and lights it. The tobacco scent fills the air, thick and expensive with a hint of mint. He exhales upward, smoke curling around the soft lamp light, casting shadows on the ceiling.

Then Hoshi moves in front too. Replaces Mingyu. He pushes in deep. His piercing scrapes my lip as he moans, the smell of mint and smoke filling my lungs as I gag around Hoshi’s cock. Then he pulls back, smirking. “Time to show you what this tongue ring can really do.”

He drops down, squatting in front of me. Dokyeom’s hand flies to my back, steadying me so I don't fall from the shift. Hoshi's face is now right in front of my cunt, his eyes gleaming mischief.

“Pull her legs wider,” Hoshi tells Dokyeom. “I want to see everything.”

Dokyeom obeys immediately, his large hands hooking behind my knees and spreading me open, obscenely wide. I have no shame anymore—it's gone. Completely. Too good to care. Hoshi starts kissing my thighs, soft, barely there. Moving up, inch by inch, taking his time. He pauses at my center, blowing softly. My entire body jolts.

“You want to feel it?” he whispers, flicking out his tongue to flash the metal glint. “Been thinking about this since I met you.”

Before I can answer, his tongue touches down. Oh fuck— the cold metal meeting the heat of my cunt punches a moan from my throat that I can't swallow. That tiny barbell moves with wicked precision, gliding, pressing, circling all the right places, stealing the air from my lungs.

My head falls back against Dokyeom’s chest. He’s still smoking, still impossibly calm, his fingers threading through my hair. “Feel good?” he whispers, blowing warm smoke into my ear.

“Nnghh…” That's all I can manage. Because Hoshi’s piercing is dancing, up and down, cold in the middle of all that hot wet. His tongue’s a weapon. That metal? Unfair.

Mingyu’s still standing nearby, eyes dark and locked on me. His hand’s moving on its own, stroking, his breath short and shallow.

“Want to switch?” Dokyeom offers, exhaling a lazy stream of smoke.

Mingyu nods, taking a seat. I’m shifted, lifted from Dokyeom’s lap to Mingyu’s thighs. Hoshi doesn’t stop—his head still buried, tongue still working, god, that fucking piercing. Dokyeom stands, approaching. His eyes low, hungry. He unzips, cigarette hanging loose between his lips. The smoke swirls, thickening the air, choking it with tension.

“Open your mouth again,” he says, standing before me.

I do it without hesitation. Not because I’m scared—but because I want it. Desperately. His cock pushes past my lips, and the taste of mint and tobacco from his breath set me on fire.

Below, Hoshi goes feral. His tongue presses, swirls, that piercing spinning like a toy built for my destruction. My hips jerk on their own. I’m drowning in sensation.

“She’s about to cum,” Hoshi mutters, watching my thighs quiver. “Look at her tremble.”

“Don’t hold back,” Mingyu whispers, his hand tightening around my waist. “We want to see you lose control.”

Dokyeom removes his cigarette, blowing smoke up, lazy. “Show us,” he whispers, thrusting deeper into my throat.

And I break. Hoshi’s cold tongue, Mingyu’s warm hands, Dokyeom’s deep thrust and smoke curling through the room—it blends, it explodes, and my body shakes violently. Moans trapped in my stuffed mouth, tears leaking from my eyes as my orgasm rips through me.

Dokyeom collapses onto the sofa, his cigarette spent. Hoshi’s head rests against my thigh, that damn gleaming metal catching the light. Mingyu is still behind me, steady hands holding my shoulders.

My body’s wrecked. I’m trembling on the table, limbs limp, cunt soaked and twitching. I’ve lost count—Mingyu’s tongue, Hoshi’s piercing, Dokyeom’s fingers—it’s all just a blur of brutal pleasure. My lungs can’t keep up. My hair’s stuck to my face, sweat-slicked, my skin humming.

Then Mingyu leans close, breath brushing my ear, voice deep, cruel, so fucking composed.

“You look done, baby,” he says. “But we haven’t even fucking started.”

My stomach tightens. I try to move—protest? beg?—but my body’s shot. I don’t even notice until he grabs my hips, yanking me to the edge of the table, legs forced wide again.

Hoshi’s voice cuts in, thick with amusement. “She looks ruined.”

“She’s not ruined,” Dokyeom says behind him, voice like thunder. “Not yet.”

Mingyu’s cock presses to my entrance, thick, hard, slick with my own cum—and then he slams in. No warning. My scream tears loose, hoarse and raw. My whole body jolts, fingernails clawing at the table, grasping for anything. He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t even pause. Just pounds into me, merciless.

“Still fucking tight,” he groans, dragging out, slamming back in to the hilt. “Even after soaking the whole table.”

Then—fuck. Hoshi’s there again, sliding beneath me, mouth open, tongue already out.

“No! no, fuck—don’t—” I gasp, too sensitive, too much—

But he dives in, licking where Mingyu’s cock’s plunging in and out, flat tongue, cold metal tapping my clit. I scream again. My body’s spasming, unable to escape, unable to breathe. Mingyu grips tighter, using me like a fuckdoll, cock pounding.

“She’s already shaking,” Hoshi laughs, face glossy with my slick. “Sensitive little thing.”

“Make her cum again,” Dokyeom growls, lazily stroking himself in the shadows. “I want to see her break.”

Mingyu’s rhythm intensifies. The sound is filthy—wet, deep, messy. The stretch is brutal. Every thrust slams into something that makes me cry out. And that piercing—fuck—it flicks, circles, devastates my clit without pause.

And then I lose it.

My hips seize, my body jerks, and a burst of liquid sprays out, soaking them both. I scream into the wood, legs twitching, my pussy clamping around Mingyu’s cock so hard he groans. He pulls out. Cock twitching. Still not done.

“Clean it,” he commands.

Hoshi obeys instantly. Mouth open, licking up Mingyu’s shaft, dragging his tongue through the slick mess. I’m barely conscious. Then I feel breath—warm and heavy—by my ear. “Our turn.”

It’s a blur. Everything is soaked, ruined, twitching. My brain’s melting, cunt leaking, but I’m not empty for long. Hands find my hips—two pairs. One set is Hoshi’s—playful, familiar. The other? Big, rough, possessive. Dokyeom.

“Please…” I whisper, no clue who I’m begging. “More…”

Hoshi bends over my back, chest to mine, whispering in my ear. “Think you can take both of us, slut?”

I don’t answer. Just arch, spread my legs wider, that fluttering hole inviting them in. Dokyeom groans, low and hungry. “She’s still fucking leaking.”

They both press in. Hoshi first—curved, smooth. Then Dokyeom, thicker, his head nudging the same soaked entrance. They slide in together, side by side, stretching me impossibly.

“Oh god—oh fuckfuckfuck—” I can’t speak. The stretch is overwhelming. My pussy fights it, then yields, takes them both in like it’s what I was made for.

“Look at her,” Hoshi whispers. “Taking both of us. So fucking greedy.”

“She was made for this,” Dokyeom growls, gripping my hips. “She’s sucking us in.”

Once they’re both balls-deep, they start to move. Slow. Together. Fucking me like one monster cock.

I scream. Loud. Raw. Mingyu watches lazily, stroking himself. “You wanted inspiration, right?”

No answer. I’m too far gone.

The pace picks up. The wet slap of hips, the obscene sound of their cocks rubbing inside me, the feeling of being stretched to my limit—it rips me open. Juices pouring, thighs shaking, everything soaked. I’m clamping down on them, trying to trap them inside.

“Gonna cum,” Hoshi pants. “Gonna cum inside her—”

“Not yet,” Dokyeom growls. “Make her squirt first.”

They fuck me harder. My body locks up. Nerve endings burning. And then—boom. Another jet sprays out, harder than the last. Splattering everything. My scream’s already half dead, but I make some sound. I can’t even tell what. They don’t stop. They hold me down. Ride me through it, through the aftershocks, until I feel their own groans building.

“Fuck fuck fuck—cumming—”

“Me too—take it—take all of it—”

They slam in together one last time. Their cocks pulse, spilling thick, hot cum inside me, so much it leaks out immediately, white rivulets dripping down my legs. They stay buried for a moment, twitching, before they finally pull out. I collapse, limp, stretched open, cum pouring out.

And then—Mingyu leans close, presses a kiss to my cheek, and murmurs with a smirk—

“Ready for round two?”

[igotanidea]

Bumpy road: Jason Todd x reader

Aka: the one with the first fight.

***

They were warning her.

*They* as in pretty much everyone – family, friends, even strangers on the street.

They were warning her that every relationship hits a rough path sooner or later. That the honeymoon phase cannot last forever. That arguments, fights, misunderstandings and other rocks on the yellow road of Oz are about to happen.

Like she was a kid, not knowing that already.

Of course she was aware of all that! Hell – her parents had enough of a clash of characters and silent days to somehow immunize her against it.

She thought herself ready for the stormy days, making a bucket list of things she wouldn’t do with Jason.

Like *not going to bed angry* or *talking through things* or other silly and completely immature naïve things.

Well – having a plan and putting it into action turned out to be two completely different things.

***

The shy sun on the sky, gentle wind and little white fluffy clouds were nothing of a sign of an impending torment.

Y/N was walking back home from work, having taken a few hours for a personal leave with a set date of working it off. Though if it meant spending 10 hours in the office on Thursday to have some more time with Jay on Friday, so be it. 

Absolutely worth it.

Not even fighting the happy smile forming on her face, thinking about the little surprise she had planned for him, she rode along the streets humming the songs coming from the car radio.

Even their shabby apartment in the shitty district of Gotham seemed more vibrant for no reason.

“Jay? Jay, I’m home!” her bag landed on the rack, shoes on the shelf, coat in the wardrobe. “babe? You’re here? Oh – oh, Jay, what happened?”

Jason was sitting on the couch, staring blankly into the space, fidgeting with his phone, but not paying any attention to whatever might have flashed on the screen. Anyone else might have been fooled, after all Jason always seemed a little detached and immersed in his own thoughts, especially when he was alone. Y/N was not one of those people, seeing through him almost instantly.

“Hey?” The soft sound of bare feet on the floor approaching him from the side finally threw him off and back into reality. 

“Hey.” No smile, no sparkles in the eyes, no sign of acknowledgment. Only a slight flinch as if he was trying to pull back and away from her.

Y/N frowned.

“Jace-“

“I’m busy.” His gaze immediately fell back onto the screen, scrolling mindlessly, finding himself a substitute occupation.

“With what?”

“God, why are you being so nosy?” Jason rolled his eyes, not stopping whatever was so interesting.

“Nosy?”

“Yes, nosy. I’m browsing, ok? How do you think I get the fucking intel for patrolling?”

“Through a Facebook page?” she tried to crack the joke.

“Yeah. That too. Do you want to go through my texts now? Is this what this is about?”

“What? No, of course no. What’s with the hostility?”

“I’m not fucking hostile.”

“Right… Not at all.”

“I just need some freaking silence, is that too hard to understand?”

“No, no, it’s fine.” It was shockingly difficult to say those words, considering the fact she made quite different plans for the afternoon, but apparently the relationship also required compromising. Even if the meaning of the word was forgetting about oneself all together, all for the benefit of the other half of the duet.  “I’ll go get us some snacks, hm? And maybe I could help you with – “

“Whatever.”

Oh, okay. He wasn’t hostile, he was indifferent.

Or maybe just busy.

Right, right, of course, just busy, it was okay. First time for everything, even ignoring her.

She could understand it, obviously, being understanding and giving him necessary space like any considerate girlfriend would.

***

Shit broke free three days later.

Any target group asked would unanimously agree that Monday mornings were absolutely the worst, and external circumstances had nothing to do with it. The loads of easy work from Friday that could be left and handled on Monday suddenly became increasingly difficult and seemed to multiply.

99% of people liked that.

Y/N was no exception.

Good humor? Gone.

Optimistic attitude? Lost.

Exhaustion? Skyrocketing.

Sudden thirst for blood and unparalleled rage? Present.

Incoming storm in her relationship….?

Yeah… Inevitable.

***

It was like the entertainment replay.

Jason was sitting on the couch, staring blankly into space, fidgeting with his phone… yadda, yadda, yadda.

Only this time she had zero patience and zero strength to handle it, heading straight to the bathroom, wiping her makeup, cleaning her face.

Standing in front of the mirror, removing the mascara, the foundation, putting her hair in a messy bun, slowly transforming back into her domestic version.

Just. Wanting. Some. Rest.

Meeting with an angered, almost reproachful look on her boyfriend’s face.

Once again, trying to be sympathetic.

“Hi.”

Jason grunted.

“What’s going on?” she tried again.

He rolled his eyes.

“Oh for crying out loud!”

“Stop being a bitch.”

“a – a bitch? I’m sorry, what the-“

“Yes, bitch. You heard me right. You’ve barely been giving me attention lately!”

“Attention!? What the hell, Jason!? You’ve been AWOL!”

“I’ve been here all the time!”

“In body! But sure as hell not in mind! You spend eight hours in front of the phone and computer on Saturday!”

“Did you go through my PC?” he took a step back, fury in his eyes taking her by surprise.

“What? No! What is this about!?”

“Did you go through-“

“Jason!”

“Did you!?” he half-yelled and all her resolutions about being an understanding, caring partner, showing respect and love for the other one went through the window. 

“Are you accusing me of spying on you!?”

“Maybe I am! Answer the fucking question!”

“You’re paranoid!” she yelled. “Yes!” though it wasn’t true at all. “Yes, I did. Happy now!?” she hissed with a vindictive smirk, suddenly wanting to enrage him further for no reason in particular. Maybe for the sheer satisfaction of giving him the same shit he was giving her.

“Brat!”

“Asshole!”

“Idiot!”

“Jerk!”

“I hate you!”

“Maybe you shouldn’t; have gotten into a relationship with me in the first place!”

“You know what?” he hissed, “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t have because-“

“Because you’re an asshole-!”

“Because you’re completely immature!”

“Oh, I’m immature!” Y/N cried out, throwing her hands in the air “hypocrite! You’re always go about work and job  and crime rate and vigilantism and crime lords and-“

“You fucking knew it! You fucking knew who I was when we started – “

“You have changed!” her words came without any thinking and Jason felt like it was a slap. For a moment eerie silence, electrified with tension fell between them.

The only sounds being the heavy beating of their hearts, ragged breaths and unbearable weight of both spoken and unspoken words.

“Maybe I did.” He said coldly.

“Yeah, maybe you did. But maybe it’s my fault.”

“Maybe I fucked up your life.”

“Maybe.”

“And maybe you fucked up mine.”

“Right.”

The screaming match turned into an exchange of icy cold gazes and sharp as knives words.

First fight and they were already pulling out the arguments that their relationship might have been a mistake.

Y/N flinched internally realizing she was acting exactly like her parents after 15 years of marriage.

Though clearly the generational trauma poured on her, resulted in an accelerated speed and she was becoming a hag after 15 months.

Fucking great. If anyone was a hypocrite, she just scored a gold star in the category.

Not that she was going to admit it, since he started it.

Besides he was a man, and she was a woman so it was his responsibility to resolve –

God! She was having every little hated characteristic of her mother.

“Do we break up?” he asked and her eyes grew wider.

So easily?

Giving up without fighting or trying to fix things?

Seriously?!

Did he even love her at all or was it all just a game?

“Y/N?”

“What?”

“Do we break up?”

“You know what, let’s finish this. I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

“You didn’t answer the –“

“Just leave me alone!”

So much for *not going to bed angry*.

***

In the back of his head, Jason turned into a little kid.

It wasn’t like he enjoyed this stupid fight and the amount of harsh words and malignancy terrified him.

Truly.

Just like back in the days when he had to stand up for his mother when she was fighting with another pathetic counterfeit of a man.

It was hard to grow up without any male role model, but even if he didn’t know who he wanted to be as a partner, he had a clear idea of who he didn’t want to be.

He hated the concept, the sheer possibility of becoming suspicious, violent, aggressive in words, crude and rude. The exact image of what he had just displayed towards her.

The woman he loved.

The woman he wanted to be protective and  supportive of.

“Great fucking job, Jason.” He hissed to himself and even though his body was aching to rush to the bedroom, wrap arms around her and silently apologize with hugs and warmth stupid pride prevented him.

She started this after all.

And in the back of his mind he was a five year old, starving for affection and validation, feeling like there was no one who loved him.

Like maybe he was doomed and destined to be alone.

Thinking depressing thoughts to the sound of Y/N’s breaking heart behind the thin wall.  

[theonottsbxtch]

MARNE LA VALLEE | MV1

an: so everybody look at @luvstappen and BLAME HER FOR THIS PAINFUL ANGST. kidding, this is something that will discuss some very sensitive topics and is based off a film i recently watched called vermiglio. please read the warnings before reading this. i had a lot of fun attempting to write this in the style of a cold film, i hope you guys like this as much as i loved writing it.

wc: 10k

PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS: Mentions of war, death, suicide, murder, childloss? please tread with caution when reading.

THE WAR HAD MADE GHOSTS of men long before their bodies were laid to rest. Max knew this well. He had seen it in the trenches, in the hollowed eyes of soldiers who spoke in murmurs of home but carried death in their pockets. He had seen it in the streets of his own country, where hunger and fear clung to the air like fog. He had felt it in himself, that slow erosion of self, until he was no more than a name in a ledger, a rifle in trembling hands.

So he ran.

The border was not easy to cross, but desperation is its own kind of compass. He walked where roads would betray him, hid in barns where the straw was damp and the air thick with rot. He slept little, ate less. It was not death he feared, it was capture, the weight of another man’s orders pressing against his back, the certainty that the next bullet would be his own.

And then, the village.

It was small, forgotten, crouched in the hills of Le Grand Est called Marne La Vallee where the war was a distant, bitter echo. There were soldiers, but few. There was hardship, but it had not yet hollowed out the land. Smoke curled from chimneys. Bread still cooled on windowsills. It was a place that had learned to survive, not by fighting, but by waiting.

She found him first. Or perhaps he found her. A moment, a glance, a silent understanding. The village did not ask questions, nor did she.

It was enough. For now, it was enough.

Charles was the first to welcome him in.

It was not kindness, not entirely, there was a wariness in his gaze, a careful assessment in the way he looked Max over, as if measuring whether he could be trusted. But Charles knew war. He had fought in it, had carried it home in his bones, had felt it unravel him from the inside until they’d sent him back, useless to the cause. His hands still shook when he held a cup of tea too long. His knee still stiffened in the cold. He knew what war did to a man.

And so he let Max stay.

Arthur was different.

Arthur had wanted to fight. He had watched men go off to war with their heads held high, had watched them march into something greater than themselves, and he had burned with the need to stand among them. But he had been too young. Too young to enlist, too young to do his part. Instead, he had been left behind to mend fences and stack firewood, to listen to wireless reports and write letters to boys who would never write back.

Now, he looked at Max with something colder than contempt.

A deserter. A coward.

He did not say it outright, not in those first days, but Max could feel it in the way Arthur’s gaze lingered too long, in the way his jaw tightened when he entered a room. Charles would speak to Max with quiet acceptance, a nod towards a seat by the fire, a mumbled instruction on where to find work. But Arthur? Arthur would let the silence stretch, would make a show of stacking wood in the yard with twice the force necessary, would scoff under his breath whenever Max turned away.

Still, the village did not send him off.

There was work to be done, and Max had hands enough to do it. He fixed shutters that had been rattled loose by winter winds, patched roofs before the rains came, carried sacks of flour to and from the mill without complaint. The old men who sat outside the bakery in the morning watched him with quiet curiosity; the women at the well spoke in hushed voices, glancing his way, assessing.

He knew what they saw. A foreigner, a man without a country, a man who had walked away from a war that had not yet walked away from him.

But she did not look at him like that.

She did not ask him why he had left, nor what he had left behind. She did not probe at the wounds he had carefully bound. Instead, she let him exist in the quiet spaces between things. When he passed her in the fields, she would smile. When she brought water to the men working, she would set a cup down beside him without a word. And when, one evening, Charles invited him to sit at their table, she did not flinch, did not look away, did not question why a man like him should be given a place among them.

Arthur, however, did.

"You’ve seen no trenches," Arthur said that night, the words slipping from his mouth like something bitter. "You’ve never fired a shot."

Charles exhaled sharply, setting his knife down. "That’s enough."

But Arthur did not stop. He leaned forward, fingers curled around the edge of the table, eyes burning. "Did you even try?"

Max did not answer.

He had learned, long ago, that there were no right words. No defence he could give that would not be spat back at him. He had tried once, had spoken of the men he had seen with their bodies torn apart, of the cold, of the hunger, of the way the fear had made his hands useless on the rifle. He had spoken of the moment he had realised he could not do it, could not march to a death that was not his own, could not fight for a cause that felt as distant as the stars.

And yet, to men like Arthur, there was no excuse.

Cowardice had no poetry to it.

The silence stretched, thick and heavy. Then Charles reached for his glass, took a slow sip, and spoke without looking up.

"You don’t know what war is, Arthur. You think you do. But you don’t."

Arthur’s throat worked, his knuckles white against the wood. He pushed back from the table without another word, chair scraping against the floor, and left the room.

Max did not move.

She did not look at him with pity. She did not look at him with judgment.

She simply passed him the bread.

The days folded into one another, each passing like the slow turn of a page. Max worked where hands were needed, mending, lifting, carrying. He moved through the village as a man untethered, neither fully belonging nor entirely cast out. Charles treated him as one of their own, offering him work where he could, speaking to him in the steady, measured tones of a man who had seen too much to care for past grievances. Arthur remained distant, his contempt quiet but unwavering.

And she watched.

It was not a watchfulness of suspicion, nor one of curiosity. It was something quieter, something that did not press or pry. She passed him in the fields, nodded to him when he carried grain from the mill, handed him bread and water without ceremony. They spoke little at first. But when they did, it was in French, hers slow and careful, his rough and uneven.

"Tu n’es pas d’ici," she remarked once, not as a question but as a truth. You’re not from here.

"Non."

She did not ask where home was. Perhaps she knew better than to ask a man who no longer had one.

It was Charles who first noticed. "You speak it well," he said one evening, as they worked side by side repairing a fence post. "Better than most who pass through."

Max nodded. "I learnt young."

"And yet, you don’t write it."

The words were said simply, without malice, but Max still felt them land like something sharp-edged.

The realisation had come quietly, as all things did in small villages where news travelled fast. The baker’s wife had frowned when he hesitated over the chalkboard list of rations. The old priest had watched him too long when he signed his name with careful, deliberate strokes, each letter slow, uncertain. And Charles, observant as ever, had noticed the way Max never reached for a newspaper, the way he did not write down numbers when counting grain, the way his silence stretched a little too long whenever someone pointed to a letter, expecting recognition.

She had noticed too.

It was her father’s school that took in men like him. Grown men who had spent their lives in fields instead of classrooms, who had worked with their hands instead of books. The village saw no shame in it. After all, the war had stolen more than lives; it had stolen time, stolen youth, stolen the years where learning had been a luxury few could afford.

Still, when Charles first suggested it, Max hesitated.

It was one thing to be a deserter. It was another to be a fool.

"Come if you want," Charles said with a shrug. "Don’t if you don’t."

It was a choice left in the air between them, one Max let sit for days.

Then, one evening, he found himself at the threshold of the school, hands curling into fists at his sides. The room was dimly lit, warm despite the chill outside, the low murmur of voices filling the space. Other men sat hunched over desks, brows furrowed, chalk dust settling over rough hands. And at the front of the room stood her father, spectacles perched at the end of his nose, patience carved into his very stance.

She was there too, stacking books at the back of the room, moving with the quiet ease of someone who belonged in such a place. She glanced up when she saw him, and something unreadable flickered in her gaze. But she did not question why he was there.

She only nodded.

And so he stayed.

The lessons were slow. The letters did not come easily to him, twisting and blurring on the page, refusing to settle into meaning. But she was there in the evenings, sitting near enough that he could hear the scratch of her pen against paper, the murmur of her voice as she recited passages under her breath. When he struggled, her father guided him with quiet patience, tracing letters with a steady hand, never once letting frustration slip into his tone.

One evening, as the others filed out, Max remained behind, frowning at a page of words that refused to yield. She approached, glancing at the paper.

"C’est difficile?" You find it difficult?

He exhaled sharply, shaking his head. "Toujours." Always

A pause. Then, she reached for his chalk, her fingers brushing against his for the briefest moment. She wrote a word slowly, deliberately.

"Espoir."

Hope.

She tapped the page lightly. "C’est un bon mot à apprendre." It’s a good word to learn.

He looked at her then, and something settled between them, not a shift, not yet, but the quiet understanding of two people who did not need words to fill the space between them.

The days stretched into weeks, and still, Max stayed.

Autumn thickened into winter, the air sharp with frost, the village settling into the quiet rhythm of survival. Wood was stacked high against the cold. Bread was made in careful measure. And at night, in the dim light of the schoolhouse, Max traced letters onto paper, his fingers stiff and unsteady, his breath curling in the chill of the room.

She was there more often now.

She did not hover, nor offer help unasked, but he felt her presence like something steady, something sure. Sometimes, when the lesson was done and the others had gone, she would remain behind, tidying books, straightening chairs. And sometimes, when neither of them spoke, it did not feel like silence at all.

It was on one such evening, when the lamps burned low and the snow had begun to fall in slow, drifting flakes, that he found her beside him at the desk, her sleeves pushed to her elbows, ink staining her fingertips.

"You’re improving," she said, glancing at the words he had written.

He exhaled sharply, shaking his head. "Not fast enough."

She picked up the chalk, tapping it against the wood. "Then don’t rush."

There was something about the way she said it. Steady. Certain. As though she knew him well enough to understand that patience did not come easily to him.

He did not answer. Instead, he let his gaze linger on her hands, on the curve of her wrist, the delicate smudge of graphite along her knuckles. She noticed, of course. She always noticed. But she did not look away.

The space between them had narrowed, almost imperceptibly.

She was close enough that he could see the flecks of ink on her skin, the way her breath caught, just slightly, when he lifted his gaze to hers. He had seen war, had seen death, had seen the way the world could collapse in a moment. But this, this was something different.

A risk of another kind.

He moved first. Or perhaps she did. A breath. A shift. A closing of space. And then, before thought could intervene, before hesitation could creep in, he pressed his lips to hers.

It was not urgent. Not desperate. It was slow, deliberate, as though neither of them quite believed they had reached this moment. Her fingers curled, just slightly, against the desk. His hand found the edge of the chair, steadying himself against the sudden, impossible certainty of her.

And when they pulled apart, there was no rush to speak. No need to fill the quiet.

She only touched her fingers lightly to his, her thumb brushing over the calloused ridge of his knuckle, and in that touch, he understood.

They were married in the spring.

It was a small ceremony, the kind that did not require grand declarations or elaborate arrangements. The village gathered in quiet understanding, some watching with knowing smiles, others with wary curiosity. Charles clapped Max on the back with a gruff nod, his approval unspoken but present all the same. Arthur stood stiffly at the back, arms folded, eyes dark with something Max could not quite place, but he did not object. Not aloud.

When she took his hands in hers, when vows were spoken in soft, steady voices, Max did not think of the past, nor of the war that had shaped him.

He thought only of her.

The days moved forward, indifferent to the weight of war.

Max worked as he always had, his hands shaping the world into something steady. Fixing shutters that rattled in the wind, mending the fences that winter had broken, stacking wood for the months ahead. The village still stood in the shadow of the war, but here, in the quiet rhythm of daily life, there was something that felt like peace.

She was at the heart of it.

Their marriage was not one of grand gestures or endless declarations. It was built in small moments—the brush of her hand against his as she passed him a bowl at supper, the way her head rested against his shoulder when sleep found her, the unspoken understanding that tethered them together. It was not a love that demanded to be seen. It was a love that simply was.

And now, it was growing.

She told him on a morning where the birds chirped in the trees beside the house, her hands curled around a cup of tea, the warmth chasing away the cold. She did not say the words at first, only reached for his hand and placed it gently over the curve of her stomach, a touch so light it could have been mistaken for nothing at all.

But he understood.

The breath left him all at once. He had not expected it—not now, not yet—but the weight of it settled in his chest, something fragile and terrifying and impossibly real.

He had not known what it was to belong somewhere, not truly. But here, in this quiet moment, with her beneath his hands and their child growing between them, he thought perhaps he did.

The war lingered still.

Men returned home in pieces. Some missing limbs, others missing something far worse. News came in whispers, names passed from mouth to mouth, a tally of those who would not be coming back. But in the village, life carried on. It had to. The cows still needed milking, the fields still needed tending. The earth did not stop for grief.

Max continued his lessons in the evenings. He was improving now, the letters less foreign beneath his fingers, the words coming with greater ease. When he wrote, she watched, sometimes offering corrections, sometimes only smiling to herself, as if pleased by the quiet determination that kept him at his desk.

Her father still oversaw the lessons, but now he looked at Max differently. Less like an outsider, more like something known. And yet, there was something else beneath it.

Something Max did not understand.

Not until he heard the conversation.

It was late, the schoolhouse quiet but for the faint rustling of papers. Max had stepped outside, breathing in the cool night air, when he heard them—her father and Charles, their voices low, serious.

"He should go back," her father was saying.

Max stilled.

"You think he would leave her now?" Charles’s voice was wary.

"He must," her father said. "His mother will believe him dead. He has a duty to her, if nothing else." A pause. "And perhaps, then he can come back to her."

Max did not move.

"Do you think he would?" Charles asked.

Her father sighed. "I don’t know."

The words settled, heavy and uncertain.

And then, before Max could think to step back, the door opened behind him.

She stood there, her breath caught in her throat, one hand resting against the curve of her stomach, her expression unreadable.

She had heard.

The war was ending.

And now, for the first time, the question hung between them. When it was over, would he leave?

The day he left, the air was thick with the weight of something unspoken.

Summer had begun to break through the last of spring’s cold hold, the frost fully retreating from the fields, the earth softening beneath cautious footsteps. Life stirred in the village—buds on trees, the hum of bees, the slow return of warmth. And yet, for her, the world felt caught between seasons, hovering in the space between what was and what would be.

Max was leaving.

Not forever. Not truly.

She knew this.

And yet, as she stood at the threshold of her home, watching him pull his coat tighter against the morning chill, she felt the ache of it settle deep in her bones.

"I will write to you," he said, his voice quiet but certain. "A long letter. Every word I can give you. They will be my words."

She nodded, her hands resting against the curve of her stomach, their child shifting beneath her fingers. "I will hold you to that."

Max exhaled, a small, unsteady breath, before reaching for her hand. His fingers curled around hers, rough and calloused, warm even in the cold. He had never been a man of many words, but she did not need them.

She had always understood him.

Charles stood by the cart, his expression unreadable. He had insisted on going with Max, though no one had asked it of him. It was his way, she supposed, a quiet kind of loyalty, the kind that did not need to be spoken aloud.

Arthur had said nothing. He had only stood at the doorway that morning, watching, arms crossed tightly over his chest. And then, without a word, he had turned away.

She did not go to the station.

She could not bear to watch the train take him from her.

Instead, she stood in the doorway of their home, the house still smelling of woodsmoke and morning bread, and watched as he climbed into the cart beside Charles.

Max turned back only once.

Their eyes met across the distance, something unbreakable passing between them.

And then, he was gone.

Two weeks passed, and the silence began to weigh on her like the heavy stillness before a storm.

At first, she had told herself it was only natural. The letters would come when they could, after all. Max was in Belgium now, a place torn by war and time, and perhaps the roads were not as kind as they once had been. Or perhaps he simply needed time to gather his thoughts, to find the right words. She had told herself this again and again, but with each passing day, the empty space between the world she had built and the world he now occupied seemed to grow.

She had not heard from him.

Not even once.

The doubt began to settle in her bones, thin and insidious, like a quiet chill that grew colder the longer it was ignored. She tried to shake it off, to tell herself there was nothing to fear, but every morning, when she stepped out into the quiet of her home, there was only the faint echo of absence, the ache of his absence in every corner. The house had once felt full of him, full of the promise of their future, but now it felt still, as if waiting for a sound that would not come.

And still, no letter.

It was late afternoon when her little cousin, Madeleine, arrived. She always had a way of filling up a room, her chatter endless and her laughter a steady hum of cheerfulness that cut through even the darkest of moods. Today, though, there was something else in her eyes. A glint of excitement, perhaps, or the way her footsteps seemed to bounce off the earth with a new energy.

"Don’t you look miserable?" Madeleine teased as she pushed the door open, all wide eyes and bright smiles.

She gave a small, strained smile in return. "I’m not miserable."

Madeleine raised an eyebrow, her gaze flicking over the half-empty room, the quiet that hung in the air like a thick veil. She knew. Madeleine always knew when something was wrong, even when she pretended not to. "You’re missing him, aren’t you?"

Her cousin had a way of cutting straight to the heart of things, and she didn’t have the energy to pretend otherwise.

"I haven’t heard from him," she confessed, her voice tight, though she did not allow herself to dwell on it. "It’s been two weeks."

Madeleine frowned, then instantly brightened. "He’ll write soon enough, I’m sure of it." She tossed her bag onto the table and gave a determined little nod. "And even if he doesn’t, you’ve got me to keep you company."

The words were meant to comfort, but her cousin’s cheerful voice only highlighted the hollow ache she was trying to ignore. Still, she appreciated it.

Madeleine grabbed a chair and swung it around to face her. "So, tell me. Have you decided what to name the baby yet?"

The mention of the baby made her pause. For a moment, the weight of everything else faded, and she felt a warmth spread through her chest, a quiet reminder that there was something to look forward to, something that would grow despite the world’s many uncertainties.

"I don’t know," she said after a pause. "I’ve been thinking about it, but... I don’t know."

Madeleine looked at her with wide, eager eyes. "Well, I think you should name it something strong. A name like... Jacques, or Henri."

"Henri," she repeated softly, turning the name over in her mind. "Yes. That’s a strong name."

Madeleine’s eyes lit up. "Henri! Yes! And for a girl..." She looked up at the ceiling as if searching for the perfect answer. "Marie. It’s a classic, isn’t it? Marie Henriette."

She couldn’t help but laugh at her cousin’s enthusiasm. "Marie Henriette, you say?"

Madeleine grinned. "Yes. Very elegant."

Her laughter softened, but the edges of her worry still lingered. She had not expected to feel the absence of Max so acutely, not in the way she did now. She had thought, foolishly, that time and distance would not matter. But it did. It mattered more than she had ever known.

"You’ll get your letter," Madeleine added, sensing the shift in her mood. "And when you do, you can tell me all about the baby names. I’ll be here to help pick, of course."

Her cousin’s light-hearted chatter, so simple and full of life, was a balm she hadn’t known she needed. And for a brief moment, it felt like everything was okay again—like they could sit there, in the warmth of her home, and dream of names and futures and things that were still far from certain.

But just as the afternoon sun began to dip, casting long shadows through the house, the door opened again.

Arthur.

He stepped inside, his gaze flicking to the two of them, his expression unreadable. She hadn’t seen much of him in recent days. He’d kept his distance, ever since Max had left, as though he had quietly decided that his presence no longer mattered in their little world.

He had always been like that, closed off, his thoughts hidden behind that wall he never let anyone cross. But today, something felt different. There was a quiet tension in the air, a shift that she couldn’t quite place.

He didn’t speak right away, instead giving a curt nod to Madeleine, who was still sitting across from her with her bright, inquisitive eyes.

"Have you heard from him?" Arthur asked, his voice soft but heavy with something—concern? Or was it guilt?

She shook her head, the ache returning with the question. "No. Not yet."

Arthur paused, his eyes flicking to her stomach, then back to her face. "He’ll write. If he knows what’s good for him." The words were blunt, but they didn’t carry the usual edge of bitterness.

Madeleine, sensing something unspoken between them, stood up, stretching dramatically. "Well, I’m off, then. Don’t sit in the dark and pull faces, the minute the wind passes you’ll hate that your faces stay stuck like that!" She gave them both a quick, knowing smile before grabbing her bag again. "Remember, Marie Henriette."

And with that, she was gone, leaving behind only the soft sound of the door closing and the heavy silence that followed.

Arthur lingered, still standing near the threshold, his gaze turned toward the floor. Then, quietly, almost as if the words hurt him too, he spoke again.

"You’ll hear from him soon."

She nodded, though she wasn’t sure she believed it. The silence was a bitter thing now, one that seemed to stretch longer with every passing day. But she didn’t say it aloud. Instead, she simply let the quiet sit, holding onto the hope that perhaps, just perhaps, it wasn’t the absence of letters that hurt most—, but the absence of the man who had promised to write them.

A week passed, and the silence was suffocating.

She had told herself it would be different, that he would write, that he would return soon, that everything would fall back into place. But the days bled into one another, each one heavy with the unanswered questions that hung in the air. Her thoughts, once clear, had turned into a constant murmur, a nagging hum at the back of her mind that she could not escape.

Still, she waited. Still, she hoped.

But as the days wore on, the silence between them seemed to grow louder, more oppressive. It was now nearly a week since Madeleine’s visit, and still no word.

She had tried to keep busy, to do the things she knew she needed to do, to care for the house, to tend to the garden, to keep the world turning despite the weight in her chest. But every moment without a letter from Max felt like an eternity, and every hour without him felt like a piece of herself slowly slipping away.

It was late in the afternoon when she heard it.The distant sound of hooves against the dirt road.

At first, she thought it was a trick of the wind, a memory of sounds past. But then it came again, unmistakable, the rattle of a chariot’s wheels, the rhythmic pounding of horses' hooves, a sound she knew well.

Her heart leapt in her chest.

Max.

It had to be Max. She knew it. He was coming back to her.

Without thinking, without hesitation, she ran downstairs. Her breath quickened with the anticipation, her pulse racing in her throat. She was halfway to the door when she saw him—or, at least, she thought she did.

But when the door swung open, her eyes met Charles’s somber face instead.

Her heart dropped.

Charles.

He stood in the doorway, his expression grim, his coat heavy with the weight of the journey. He didn’t smile, didn’t even look at her the way he usually did, with that familiar, steady warmth.

Behind her, Arthur appeared, his face unreadable, his movements stiff. He had heard the chariot, too, had followed her down the stairs with the same hope. But when he saw the look on Charles’s face, he fell silent, his shoulders tight.

Charles stepped inside, his eyes meeting hers briefly, before he looked away. He didn’t say a word at first, but in his hand, he held a single item. A newspaper, folded in half.

She reached for it, her hands trembling as she took it from him.

Her eyes flicked to the front page, and for a moment, her mind couldn’t quite process the words that stared back at her. The letters blurred, and the ink seemed to swim before her. But there they were, the headlines clear and cold: Max Verstappen, Dead at 28—Killed by His Wife in a Tragic Act of Honour.

She blinked, her breath catching in her throat.

The article went on to describe the unthinkable. How Max had returned to Belgium after having deserted his post in the war, how he had started a new life in the Grand Est of France, had taken a wife, and had gotten her pregnant. And then, the piece de resistance—the final, damning words.

His first wife had found out. In a fit of rage, in a jealous fury, she had killed him. A matter of dishonour, they wrote, a wife who could not tolerate the shame of her husband’s new life, of his betrayal.

She read it again.

And again.

But the words didn’t change. They were the same.

Max was dead.

The life they had built together, the love they had shared, it was gone. The future they had planned for. It had never existed at all.

And then it hit her. The reality of it. The finality of it.

She screamed.

A raw, guttural cry of pain that tore through her chest like a knife. The paper slipped from her fingers, falling to the floor as she sank to her knees, her body trembling with the force of the scream that had escaped her lips.

Charles moved quickly, kneeling beside her, his arms wrapping around her. His strong hands held her tight, steadying her against the overwhelming storm of grief that had overtaken her.

And then, as if the world had stopped, Arthur was there too.

His arms around her, just as Charles’s had been.

The two men, so different in many ways, but here they were, their presence a quiet support, their strength a solace. But still, no words came. There was nothing to say.

She cried.

She cried for the man she had loved. For the man she had lost. For the future they would never share. For the baby that would never know his father.

She cried for the unfairness of it all. For the way the world had turned so cruel, so unforgiving.

And in that moment, she wasn’t sure if the tears would ever stop, or if she wanted them to. She didn’t know if she could bear this loss, this betrayal of the life she had dreamed of.

But Arthur’s arms tightened around her, and Charles’s hand pressed against her back, and she let herself sink into them, into the grief, into the feeling of being held by something that wasn’t quite enough to mend what had been broken.

She would never be the same again.

Time passed, but she did not follow it.

Days bled into nights, seasons shifted, but she remained unmoved, caught in the static of grief. The world outside carried on as though nothing had changed, but inside her, everything had unravelled.

She did not cry anymore. There was no use in it. Tears did nothing, solved nothing, brought no one back. And so, she stopped speaking, too.

Words were hollow things, useless things. They sat heavy in her throat, unwelcome. She let them wither away, let silence take their place. It was easier this way.

She left the house not long after that day. Left behind the ghosts of what once was, the warmth of home now foreign to her. Charles had tried to stop her, had begged her to stay, but she had only looked at him—empty, silent—and he had understood. Or maybe he hadn't, but he let her go anyway.

She moved into the school.

It was cold there, unfeeling. The walls held no memories of Max, no scent of him in the blankets, no echo of his voice in the halls. That was what she needed.

She did not sleep in a bed. She made a place for herself beneath the desks, curled beneath the wood like a child hiding from the world. Some nights, she sat upright against the bookshelves, staring at nothing until her body gave in to exhaustion.

She barely ate.

Food had no taste, no purpose. Her father left things for her. Bread, soup, fruit. But they would sit untouched for days until mould took them, and only then would she move them aside. Hunger gnawed at her, but she welcomed it. Let it consume her from the inside out.

She wandered through each day in a haze, drifting like a ghost through empty corridors. The sound of children’s laughter filtered in from the classrooms, but it never reached her. She did not teach, did not speak, did not live.

And she avoided Arthur.

She could not look at him.

There was something in his eyes, something that had been there from the start. A knowing. An unspoken I told you so that he never voiced but that sat between them like an unbearable weight.

Arthur had known. Somehow, he had always known.

And she hated him for it.

She hated that he had seen what she had not. Hated that he had been right. Hated that, in some way, he had been waiting for this, for Max to fail her. And now he was watching her crumble beneath the truth of it.

She was afraid of him, of what he saw when he looked at her now, nothing but a woman broken by her own blindness, by a love that had never been real.

She did not know how long she had been like this. Time was nothing now.

But one night, as the rain pounded against the school’s windows and the wind howled through the cracks in the walls, there was a sound at the door.

A soft knock.

She did not move.

Then another. Firmer.

Still, she did not answer.

And then the door opened.

She knew it was him before she saw him.

Arthur.

He stepped inside, his coat dripping from the rain, his boots heavy against the wooden floor. He did not speak right away. He only stood there, staring at her, taking in the wreckage she had become.

She sat curled beneath one of the desks, her knees drawn to her chest, her hair tangled, her skin pale and hollow.

For a long moment, neither of them moved.

And then, finally, Arthur exhaled, a slow, measured breath.

“This isn’t living,” he said.

She flinched. The words were soft, but they landed like a blow.

Still, she said nothing.

Arthur took a slow step forward, then another, until he was standing just before her. He crouched down, levelling his gaze with hers.

"You think this is what he would’ve wanted?"

She clenched her jaw, her throat burning.

He sighed, shaking his head. "No. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to disappear into yourself. You don’t get to do this to your child. You are still here. And you—" He stopped himself, his jaw tightening, his fists clenching at his sides. "You are not alone, no matter how much you wish to be."

She let out a slow breath, her shoulders curling inward. She wished he would leave. She wished he would stop looking at her like that—like he still saw her, even when she was nothing but fragments of who she once was.

When she did not answer, Arthur’s voice dropped, quieter this time.

"Come home."

Home.

The word felt foreign, like something from another life.

She looked away, her eyes burning, her body trembling with exhaustion, with hunger, with grief.

Arthur did not move. He only waited.

And for the first time in weeks, she felt something other than numbness.

It was not hope. Not yet.

But it was something.

Arthur did not leave.

The first night, she had ignored him. She had curled beneath the desk as she always did, her back to him, willing herself to disappear into the silence. But he had not moved.

She had thought, perhaps, that he would go home, that the rain and the cold and the weight of her grief would drive him away. But when she awoke in the grey hush of dawn, stiff and aching, he was still there, sat against the door, arms crossed, head tilted back, eyes closed but alert beneath his furrowed brow.

The second night, she had tried to tell him to go.

She had managed only a whisper "pars" but her voice was thin, barely there, swallowed up by the emptiness of the school.

Arthur had only looked at her.

"Nan," he had said simply.

And that was that.

Days passed in a slow, painful blur. He did not speak much. He did not force her to eat, though he left bread and water where she could reach them. He did not drag her home, though he could have. He only stayed, a quiet presence in the corner, as though he had decided that if she was going to waste away, he would not let her do it alone.

And then—

The pain came like fire.

It was deep and sudden, tearing through her as she lay curled on the wooden floor. At first, she thought it was nothing, another wave of exhaustion, another punishment from a body she had long neglected.

But then it came again. And again.

Stronger. Closer.

She gasped, her hands gripping the floorboards. A fresh wave of pain seized her, and a sharp cry escaped her lips before she could stop it.

Arthur stirred.

She did not see him move, but suddenly he was beside her, crouching at her side, his hands hovering over her as though he was afraid to touch her.

"What is it?" His voice was sharper now, edged with something unfamiliar, something like fear.

She could not answer.

The pain stole her breath, locked her inside her own body. And then it dawned on her, with a slow, creeping horror—

It was time.

She wasn’t ready.

"No," she whispered, her breath hitching. "Not yet."

Arthur swore under his breath. Then he was up, grabbing his coat, already halfway to the door.

"Stay awake," he ordered, his voice clipped, urgent. "I’ll be back."

And then he was gone.

The minutes that followed stretched into something unbearable. She curled in on herself, sweat slick on her skin, pain rolling over her in relentless waves. The schoolhouse blurred, the candlelight flickering, the world tilting.

Then the door burst open again, and there were hands on her, familiar, steady hands, voices murmuring, lifting her, guiding her through the storm of it.

Her father’s house was warm. Too warm. She had not been inside it for so long that it felt foreign to her now, the walls too close, the air thick with the smell of lavender and candlewax.

Then her mother. Her aunt. Hands pressing against her clammy skin, gentle voices cooing words she could not hear.

She barely saw Arthur, but she knew he was there. A shadow in the doorway, pacing.

Time twisted.

Pain consumed everything.

She heard them tell her to push.

"Non."

She clenched her teeth, shook her head.

"You have to, ma fille." Her mother’s voice was gentle, pleading.

"No."

She could not.

If she did, it would be real.

If she did, Max would still be gone.

If she did, nothing would change.

Hands gripped hers. Soft, warm, trembling.

Charles.

She hadn’t even realised he was there, hadn’t noticed him come to her side.

"I know," he murmured. "I know it hurts. But you have to."

Her breath shuddered. Her body trembled.

And then, with the last of her strength, she did.

A cry pierced the room.

Small, desperate, new.

And just like that, it was over.

She fell back, her body drained, her mind floating somewhere beyond reach.

She did not want to look.

She did not want to see.

But then there was a weight against her chest, a warmth, a softness.

And she saw her.

Blonde curls, wet with birth. A small, perfect nose. Eyes squeezed shut opening briefly to show crystal blue eyes, lips parted in a wail of protest.

She could barely breathe.

Max.

The child was Max.

His mouth, his cheeks, his eyes, his shape.

Something inside her cracked.

She turned her head away.

Someone took the baby from her, and she did not stop them.

She did not want to see.

She did not want to feel.

She closed her eyes.

And let the world fade to black.

Time passed.

The world carried on, but she remained untouched by it. Days slipped into nights, and the child, her child, grew.

But not by her hands.

She kept away from the girl.

Her mother took care of her, cooing to her in hushed lullabies, stroking the blonde curls that were not hers. Arthur, too, had taken to the child in his quiet, steady way. She caught glimpses of him sometimes, holding the girl with a carefulness she had never seen from him before, as if she were something fragile, something precious.

She did not ask what they had named her.

She did not want to know.

The days were dull, empty things. She drifted through them like a ghost, neither living nor dead, lost in the spaces between.

And then one evening, the weight of it all became too much.

The house was suffocating. The candlelight too warm, the sounds of laughter, not hers, too distant, too cruel. She could not bear to be inside those walls any longer, where Max’s absence clung to every corner, where his daughter existed in a world he would never see.

So she walked.

She did not know where she was going, only that she needed to move, to be away, to escape the skin that felt too tight around her bones.

It was cold outside. The wind gnawed at her as she walked through the empty streets, as her feet carried her further than they ever had before.

And then she saw it.

The bridge.

She stopped at the edge, looking out over the water below.

It was dark, the river black and endless beneath her. The wind howled through the trees, rattling the wooden beams of the bridge, but she did not feel it. She did not feel anything at all.

She stepped forward.

Sat down on the ledge.

Her feet dangled over the edge, the fabric of her dress fluttering in the wind.

She thought, briefly, of how easy it would be.

How quiet.

How peaceful.

A step. A fall. And then—nothing.

She closed her eyes.

Breathed.

And then—

Arms wrapped around her from behind.

Strong, desperate, shaking.

A gasp broke the silence, a choked, ragged sound, and then a voice—low, broken, breathless.

"Nan."

Arthur.

His grip was iron. He pulled her back, dragged her from the edge, his hands clutching at her like she might slip away, like if he just held tight enough, he could stop the world from taking her.

He turned her to him, pressing his forehead against hers, his breath uneven, his body trembling.

And then, something she had never seen before.

Arthur cried.

He let out a sob, raw and shuddering, and held onto her as if she were the last thing tethering him to the earth.

"Please," he whispered, his voice thick with grief. "Please don’t."

She did not move.

She did not cry.

She only sat there, numb, hollow, weightless in his arms.

And as the wind howled around them, as Arthur clung to her with everything he had, she wondered—

Why did he care so much when she felt like nothing at all?

Arthur did not let go of her that night.

Even as she sat there, silent in his arms, distant and detached, he held her as though she might slip away again if he loosened his grip. His breath was unsteady against her hair, his fingers tight around her wrists.

And then, without a word, he pulled her up.

He carried her home through the dark streets, his arms steady, his jaw clenched. She did not protest. She did not have the strength.

When they reached the house, he did not hand her off to her mother, nor did he let her retreat into the shadows where she had been dwelling for so long. He led her up the stairs himself, into her room, and sat her down on the edge of the bed.

She felt the mattress dip beneath her weight, but she did not move.

Arthur knelt before her, unfastened her shoes with careful hands, and pulled the blankets up over her shoulders. She let him.

Then, he pulled up a chair, placed it in the corner of the room, and sat.

Watching.

Waiting.

He did not speak.

She turned onto her side, curling into herself, staring blankly at the wall. The room was heavy with the sound of his breathing, slow and deliberate, as if he were grounding himself with it.

Sleep did not come easily. But eventually, the exhaustion took her, dragging her into the depths of a dreamless slumber.

When she woke, the sun was already high in the sky.

Arthur was still there.

He had not moved from his chair, though his eyes were no longer fixed on her. Instead, he sat forward, his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor with an unreadable expression.

She did not speak.

He did.

"Lève-toi." Get up.

His voice was quiet but firm.

She blinked, sluggish with sleep, confusion flickering across her hollow features.

He stood, stretching out the stiffness in his limbs, and turned to face her.

"On part." We’re leaving.

Her brows knitted slightly.

She hadn’t left the house in days—properly left.

But Arthur wasn’t looking for a fight. He didn’t offer explanations, nor did he wait for her to question him. He left the room, and she was left with little choice but to follow.

She dressed slowly, without urgency, and when she finally made her way downstairs, he was already waiting by the door.

The journey was quiet.

Arthur did not tell her where they were going, and she did not ask. The train ride stretched on for hours, the countryside rolling past in a blur of greens and greys.

She watched the window, detached, her hands resting in her lap.

Arthur did not look at her. He sat beside her, arms crossed, gaze set ahead, his body still as stone.

It wasn’t until the train began to slow that she finally saw it.

A sign.

Hasselt.

Her breath hitched.

She froze.

Her pulse hammered in her throat, a cold, sharp dread settling in her stomach.

She turned to Arthur then, her first real movement in hours, her lips parting—

But he did not give her the chance to speak.

He took her by the wrist, guiding her off the train with steady, unyielding hands.

Outside, the air was cool, crisp with the lingering bite of winter. Arthur wasted no time in finding a caddy, speaking to the driver in low, firm tones before helping her in.

She did not protest.

She barely breathed.

The carriage ride was long.

The silence sat thick between them.

And then—

The caddy stopped.

She knew before she even looked where they were.

Graveyard gates loomed before them, iron and ivy-clad, weathered by time. Beyond them, rows of headstones stretched into the distance, names carved into stone, lives reduced to mere dates.

Her stomach twisted.

Arthur stepped out first.

He turned to her, his gaze unreadable.

"Vas-y," he said. Go in

She did not move.

Arthur’s jaw tightened, but his voice softened.

"C’est le moment.” It is time

She swallowed hard.

Her hands curled into fists, nails pressing into her palms.

The weight of his words settled over her like a stone.

It is time.

To face what she had spent so long running from.

To look upon the grave of the man who had lied to her.

To stand before the earth that had swallowed him whole.

Her breath trembled.

She stepped forward.

And walked through the gates.

The grave was unremarkable.

A simple stone, weathered by wind and time, standing among countless others. His name was carved into it, the letters etched deep, final, unchanging.

Her breath shuddered.

She had not cried since that day. Since the newspaper. Since Charles caught her before she could collapse under the weight of it all.

But now, here, standing before the cold earth where he lay, something inside her cracked.

Tears welled in her eyes, thick and hot, blurring the words on the stone.

"Max."

It was the first time she had spoken his name in months.

She fell to her knees.

The grief struck her like a storm. Wild, relentless. Sobs tore from her chest, raw and unrestrained, pouring out all that had been festering inside her for so long.

She clutched at the dirt, her nails digging into the damp earth as if she could pull him back from it, as if she could unbury what had already been lost.

He was gone.

He had always been gone.

Yet now, for the first time, she felt it.

The weight of it. The finality of it.

And it shattered her.

She did not hear the footsteps at first.

Not until they stopped just behind her.

Slowly, she turned her head.

A woman stood there, watching her with sombre eyes.

She was not much older than her, perhaps the same age. Dark dress, fair hair tucked neatly beneath a scarf. There was something exhausted in the way she held herself, something heavy in her presence.

But it was not her that caught her breath.

It was the child at her side.

Small. Fragile. Barely past toddler years.

Blonde hair. Blue eyes.

Eyes that she knew.

A sickening realisation twisted in her gut.

Her breath caught in her throat as she looked from the child to the woman, her mind reeling, piecing together a truth she had not been prepared to face.

The woman’s lips parted.

"Je suis désolée." I’m sorry.

The accent was off. The words clumsy, unnatural.

She had not spoken French for long.

Her throat tightened.

"Why," she croaked, her voice hoarse from crying, "would you be sorry? He left you to fend for yourself and I took him from you."

The woman exhaled sharply, something bitter in the sound.

"Your only crime," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, "was falling in love with a man who was not honest with you."

The words struck like a blade, but there was no malice in them.

Only truth.

She should have hated her.

Should have despised the woman who had killed the man she had loved.

But she didn’t.

Because she knew—she knew.

She had seen the truth in that newspaper.

Max had not been the man she thought he was.

He had belonged to someone else.

Her hands trembled as she wiped her damp cheeks, her breath still uneven, but her words came steady.

The air between them grew still.

The woman looked at her for a long moment, as if searching her face for something she could not name.

Then, silently, she reached into her coat.

Pulled out a stack of letters.

She held them out.

"Il t’a écrit." He wrote to you.

She stared at the bundle, her chest tightening. The pages were worn, the edges curled and soft with use.

"On his journey back to Hasselt." The woman’s voice wavered slightly, as though she were speaking of something that still pained her. "He never wrote to me."

Her fingers closed around the letters hesitantly, as if they might disappear the moment she touched them.

"He couldn’t even spell his family name when he left," the woman murmured, something almost wry in her voice.

She swallowed thickly.

Of course.

He could not write.

She had spent months teaching him, watching him fumble with letters, struggle to form words.

"I suppose," the woman said, a quiet sigh in her voice, "he truly loved you."

Her breath shuddered.

She did not know what to say.

Did not know how to respond to a truth that should have comforted her, yet only made the loss feel sharper.

So she did not speak at all.

She only clutched the letters to her chest—

And let the weight of them settle into her bones.

The silence stretched between them, heavy and unspoken.

The wind moved through the graveyard, rustling the brittle grass and carrying with it the distant toll of a church bell.

She clutched the letters tightly, as if they were the last pieces of him she would ever hold, but her gaze had fallen to the child standing beside the woman.

Blonde hair. Blue eyes.

Max’s face, staring back at her with quiet curiosity.

She swallowed, her throat raw.

"Comment tu t’appelles?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

The boy blinked at her, tilting his head slightly. His lips parted, his voice small, yet eerily familiar—

"Emilian."

The breath left her lungs.

It wasn’t just his eyes, his hair—it was his voice too. The same soft lilt, the same gentle way Max had once spoken to her in the quiet of the night.

She felt the weight of it press against her ribs, tightening around her heart.

The woman exhaled, a sound almost bitter, almost tired.

"For a while," she murmured, her gaze fixed on the child, "I couldn’t look at Emilian without seeing Max."

Her fingers curled slightly.

"I hated him." A pause. "Myself. Everything."

The words landed like a blow.

Her breath caught.

Her mind spun, twisting, unravelling, until the truth struck her with brutal clarity—

It was exactly what she had been doing.

To her daughter.

To the child with his eyes.

She had kept away, had let others raise her, because every time she looked at her, it was not just her daughter she saw.

It was him.

And she had hated her for it.

Her stomach twisted, her grip on the letters trembling slightly.

The woman’s words echoed in her head, reverberating through the hollow spaces she had carved out of herself.

She had not even asked for her own daughter’s name.

She had not wanted to know.

A sharp pang of shame coiled in her chest, cold and unforgiving.

Her lips parted, but no words came.

Because for the first time in months—

She did not know who she was grieving.

She did not know how long she satthere, rooted to the earth, the weight of the past pressing down on her like an unforgiving tide.

The woman and the boy lingered a moment longer, then turned away, disappearing into the quiet streets of Hasselt.

She remained, clutching the letters, staring at Max’s name carved into the stone.

She was not sure what she had expected to find here. Closure, perhaps. Answers.

But all she had found was herself, reflected back in the grief of another.

And for the first time, she did not run from it.

She let it settle, let it ache.

Then, slowly, finally, she turned away.

Arthur was waiting just beyond the gates.

He had not paced, had not fidgeted. He had simply stood there, arms crossed, eyes fixed ahead, as though he had always known she would return to him.

When she saw him, something in her crumbled.

She moved to him without thinking, closing the distance between them in a few short strides.

And then she was in his arms.

Arthur stiffened for the briefest moment, as if caught off guard, but then his grip tightened, his arms locking around her.

She pressed her face into his chest, the sobs wracking through her once more, but this time they did not tear her apart.

Arthur said nothing.

He only held her.

Not as he had that night on the bridge, when he had caught her from the edge of the abyss—when he had held on as though she might slip through his fingers.

But as a brother does.

Steady. Constant.

As though he had been waiting for her to come back.

The train rocked gently beneath them, the countryside rolling past in a blur of muted greens and greys.

Arthur sat across from her, his gaze fixed on the window, arms folded.

For a long while, neither of them spoke.

Then, at last, she did.

"I’m going to Paris."

Arthur’s brow furrowed slightly, but he said nothing.

She exhaled, her hands smoothing over the letters resting in her lap. "In the week. I’ll find work—maybe in one of the grand houses, a governess, a maid—something with a rich family." She swallowed. "And I’ll come home on the weekends. To her."

Arthur’s eyes flickered to her then.

"I will raise her." The words came steadier than she expected. "I will be her mother."

For a moment, Arthur said nothing.

Then, a slow breath left him.

And he nodded.

"Je suis heureux de te retrouver, sœur." I’m glad to have you back, sister.

A lump formed in her throat.

She turned to the window, blinking hard.

Outside, the world blurred past, shifting, changing.

She was not the same girl who had arrived in Hasselt.

And when she returned home—

She would not be the same girl who had left.

The months that followed were slow and unsteady, like learning how to walk again after a great fall.

She found work in Paris, just as she had planned. A grand house, high windows, polished floors that never scuffed beneath hurried footsteps. She was a governess to the children of a family so rich they barely saw them, her days spent teaching soft-spoken boys their letters, combing through tangled curls, buttoning coats that would never feel the bite of winter.

It was a quiet life, a measured one. And yet, it was not hers.

Hers was the life waiting for her beyond the city, in a house worn by time and war, in the arms of a child she was learning to love.

She returned each weekend, stepping off the train with a bag heavy on her shoulder and the weight of the world lighter in her chest.

On the weekends she could not come, Charles brought her daughter to her. He never let her miss more than a week, never let the distance stretch too wide between them. He would arrive at the door of the grand house, his cap pulled low, her daughter bundled against the cold, and the moment she saw her, everything else fell away.

Arthur was the one who raised her in the days between. He never spoke of it, never boasted, never asked for thanks. But he was there, always there. Holding her daughter's small hands as she took her first steps, lifting her onto his shoulders when she refused to walk, murmuring stories into her ear when the night grew too dark.

At first, she had been afraid. Afraid that when her daughter looked at her, she would see the ghost of a man who had lied to them both.

But she did not.

She saw her mother.

And that was enough.

She did not let her daughter suffer the sins of her father.

She let her be her own.

And though grief lingered, though it always would, in some quiet corner of her heart, it no longer held her captive.

One evening, as she sat in the schoolhouse, letters spread before her, candlelight flickering against the ink, she thought of Max.

Not as he had been. Not as the man she had once loved, nor the man she had lost.

But simply as someone who had passed through her life.

Someone who had given her something more than pain.

Something that would outlast him.

She dipped her pen in ink, her fingers steady.

And for the first time in her life.

She wrote his name without shaking.

THE END.

taglist: @lilorose25 @curseofhecate @number-0-iz @dozyisdead @ihtscuddlesbeeetchx3 @n0vazsq @dying-inside-but-its-classy @carlossainzapologist @hzstry8 @oikarma @amyelevenn @iamred-iamyellow @obxstiles @iimplicitt @oscduck81

[alessandra-14]

Quiet sister, concerned brothers

Dean and Sam Winchester x little sister!reader

Summery: Dean and Sam Winchester have a 15 year old half sister who often feels neglected and overlooked by her brothers. Her sadness and loneliness build up until she can no longer hide her feelings.

Trigger warning: way to much use of Y/N, emotional neglect

Word count: 1.5k words

A/N: I used a different perspective this time. Please please let me know which one you prefer so I know what to continue with! Thanks.

The creaky old bunker was silent, a rare occurrence given the nature of it's inhabitants. Y/N sat on her bed, the flickering light from a nearby lamp casting long shadows on the walls. She hugged her knees tight to her chest, feeling the weight of another day spend in the background.

Sam and Dean, her older brothers, had been on a hunt all day. She texted them but unsurprisingly received no answer from any of them. They returned the next day around noon with stories about demons and near-death experiences, hardly acknowledging her presence as they recounted their tiring adventures.

Y/N was used to this. As long as she can remember, she had been the quiet, shy girl who stayed in the shadows while her brothers were always the center of attention.

She loved them dearly, of course she did. They have raised her, they gave her a family. Something she never new before them. But the constant feeling of being forgotten gnawed at her heart. She knew they didn't mean to emotionally neglect her, it was just how things were. Sam and Dean are hunters and she is just…. there

….

A week later they were on the road again, driving to a small town in Nebraska where strange disappearances had been reported. Y/N joined them this time. She felt as if she is going to suffocate if she stayed in that bunker for any longer.

She sat in the back of the Impala with her head resting against the cold window. The low rumble of the engine was almost comforting, a familiar sound in her otherwise tumultuous life.

Dean glanced at her in the rear-view mirror, a frown creasing his forehead. "You okay back there kid?"

Y/N forced a small smile. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Sam turned around in his seat, giving her a concerned look. "You sure? You've been pretty quiet lately. More than usual. You barely talk to us." "Yeah I'm fine, just tired", she lied, hoping they would drop the subject. She didn't want to burden them with her feelings. They had enough to worry about.

Dean just shrugged and turned up the music, and Sam went back to his research. Both of them just believing her lie for now. None of them had the energy to deal with it at the moment.

Y/N closed her eyes, trying to push away the sadness that threatened to overwhelm her.

The hunt went relatively well. Sure it could have gone way better but it's not the worst one they've had so far. Turns out the disappearances were caused by a little groupe of vampires. Fortunately for them it was easy to track them down to an abandoned warehouse. The killing part was a bit more tricky though.

Y/N helped out a lot this time. She was quite proud of herself for that. Thought that Sam and Dean would be impressed but did they even acknowledge her hard work? absolutely not.

"You did good kid but you could definitely improve your skills with the machete and you also need to work more on your stamina you are way to slow." Those are the first words she hear from Dean as they walk back to the car. Of course it hurts. She tried so hard to make them acknowledge her skills but apparently all they see is her weakness or simply nothing at all.

Sam doesn't confirm Dean's criticism but he also doesn't defend his sister in any way. The walk back to the car is just silent and tense. A feeling Y/N is simply sick of.

It doesn't get any better in the car so all she does is put her headphones in to listen to music to drown her loud bad thoughts and her brother's voices.

....

The next time they went on a hunt didn't go differently. Y/N was allowed to join again. She even tried to show of her great skills against the witch they had to fight but once again it went mostly unnoticed by the two brothers. The only thing that stuck with them was how slow she moved and how much she apparently hesitated when shooting the witch.

She kept quiet for the whole ride back to the bunker. What was she supposed to say anyway.

Back at the bunker Dean is the first one to break the silence between the siblings. "Hey kiddo remind me to teach you how to use a gun properly. You suck a little at that" He said as he went to grab a beer. His words were meant in a playful way but for Y/N it's enough to set her off completely.

"Can't you just stop with that?!" Sam and Dean both turn to look at her with a confused frown. "Stop with what?" Dean asks bewildered.

"With t-this! I just can't listen to you constantly telling me that I am not good enough. Every time I do something good you find something bad to say. Both of you just completely ignored the fact that I killed the witch on the hunt today all that was important to you was to tell me I suck at shooting! And when you don't criticize everything I do, you just don't talk to me. I simply get ignored. That's not fair!"

Y/N stopped once she ran out of breath but she was not anywhere near done letting everything out

"Y/N what-" Sam immediately gets interrupted by his sister. "No! I'm done. I'm done with hunting. I am done doing anything in my power to make you acknowledge my hard work for nothing and I am done with seeking your validation and attention at all times!"

None of the brothers get a chance to say anything because the second the girl is done she storms off to her room. Not that they knew what to say anyway.

The silence that follows is a tense one. Both brothers are at loss for words. Her speech was something none of them expected to hear. "Should we go check up on her? That was pretty intense"

But Sam shakes his head at Dean's suggestion. "No, we should let her cool off for a bit. I'll check up on her later"

....

Dean can't help but think about every interaction he had with his sister after every hunt and he unfortunately has to admit to himself that what Y/N said was true. The guilt is more than visible on his face it seems as if he is drowning in it. Sam isn't feeling any better. He is trying his best to no stand up and rush into his sisters bedroom and apologize for everything he and his brother said to her to make her feel as if she was not good enough.

He is holding that urge back fairly well but the moment he heard loud crying from her room he decides he is done with waiting and giving her space. He just needs to see if she is alright and fix this.

He walks up towards the door of your bedroom and softly knocks on it. "Hey...do you mind if we talk for a moment? I just want to make sure you're okay" Sam waits for a couple seconds which feels like minutes to him. But he receives no answer from the girl on the other side of the door. So he tries again but yet he gets no answer this time either.

Sam knows her silence is answer enough and turns around to leave. Not even two steps later he hears the door opening and his little sister's sad sniffles. He turns towards her and the mere sight of his sibling standing there with red rimmed eyes and a tired expression, was enough to break his heart into many pieces. Especially because he knows he is at fault.

"We can talk if you want" Her voice sounds raspy and her words come out quiet. A big indicator that she has been crying for a long time.

Sam simply nods and follows her into her room. Both sit down on the bed. Y/N looks towards her hands and keeps her gaze fixated on that.

"I wanted to apologize for making you feel as if you are not good enough. That was really not alright. You are great kid. You help us out so much. Doesn't matter if it's with research, or hunting or just helping around the bunker. Dean and I appreciate it. We appreciate you"

Y/N scoffs which slightly takes her older brother by surprise. "Well none of you know how to show that said appreciation"

Sam sighs since he knows she is right. "I know we don't but I really mean it when I say that we do care and do acknowledge your help and hard work. Even when we tell you about the thing you could improve. I also know how harsh Dean's words must have sounded to you and he feels bad. He really does."

The teenaged girl stays silent for a moment before finally nodding. "I forgive you. But I still want to take a little break from hunting. I'll help with research, sure but that's all. It's just too much right now" Sam agrees with you. "Sure that's fine. I understand, kid. And so will Dean"

Y/N looks up from her fidgeting fingers and turns her head towards her brother while wiping her tears. "Thank you Sam"

"Don't thank me, sweetheart. Please" Another silence follows after Sam's words. Yet this time it's not tense or heavy. It's comforting.