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jeanbie · 6 months

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FANTASIZE ★ masterlist.

pairing: jake x reader

warnings: explicit sexual content, fem!human!reader, semi-public sex, piv sex, dirty talk, size kink, manhandling, breeding kink, cumming inside, glowy cum | wc: 16k | ♬

note: i've been promoted to: avatar writer. my first time writing for it (def not my last!) lemme know what u think ;-) also his smirk in the header....GET INSIDE ME

★ ⏤ fantasize | all the time (if you were mine)

⏤ It's official - Jake is sick and tired of Norm giving him shit. While he can't claim to know as much about Pandora as Norm does, there's still a few things Jake can afford to do to piss him off even more for the fun of it, and it just so happens that Norm's sister works as a scientist in the lab - which to Jake spells perfect revenge in its simplest form.

It’s official — Jake has had enough of Norm’s bitching and whining.

For the last two months, Jake has endured a lot, more than he ever asked for or wanted; whether it was Neytiri on his ass about becoming an Omatikaya and never missing a single beat of training for it, Grace nagging him about video logs, or even Norm giving him so much shit over every single thing he didn’t spend three years learning in simulations and classrooms — he’s sat and listened to all of it without complaint.

Jake has never once fought back, never once raised his own grievances about how tedious and time-consuming everything actually is on one man’s shoulders, and yet it all keeps coming.

The worst thing is that he can understand all of it to an extent. There’s a necessary need for attentiveness when learning the ways of the Omatikaya, and the longer it takes, the worse his chances get with the rest of the clan. The video logs? They’re not that important, Jake thinks, but it keeps Grace off his back for the small kernel of time he actually spends in the real world and not inside of his avatar.

But with Norm, Jake can’t seem to understand what is actually bothering him enough to be so goddamn bitter about every little thing.

Of course, he’ll never fit into Tom’s shoes, not in the way everybody expects him to. He didn’t spend three years of his life learning how to control an avatar or how to function on Pandora — every day is quite literally a learning experience, a practical education that neither a lab nor a stuck up prick like Norm can teach.

And, while he’s on the subject, Jake actually thought Norm would be a decent ally, at least until he almost died and got saved — with reluctance — by the daughter of the Olo’eyktan and somehow ended up being thrust into learning their way of life.

Nobody seems to remember the giant part of the story concerning how he almost got devoured by an oversized dog in the process.

Instead, Norm wants to bitch about how Jake knows nothing, and treats him like a genuine idiot. Jake might be a few years short of being educated on the Na’vi, but he’s not stupid. He can still do stuff, stuff that Norm can’t; but reasoning with the man is like trying to convince the Na’vi that the Sky People are actually friends and not foes, and it’s pretty obvious that that’s never going to happen.

When Norm begins his daily ritual of berating Jake on his lack-of knowledge regarding the Hallelujah Mountains that surround their shitty little containment, Jake’s willing to sit through it and take it like a champion.

Norm starts weaving his conspiracies to the cluster of scientists about how Jake is a terrible candidate for joining the Omatikaya clan and that all he cares about is sucking up to the Chief’s daughter — not true, by the way, for Neytiri can only stomach being near Jake because she has to and on rare occasions, he can do something absurdly dumb to make her laugh — and Jake begins to mentally tap out of the debate, rolling his eyes to the side and sighing as he watches you duck your head through a low archway with a bowl of slop in your hands.

Jake watches you for around three seconds before the lightbulb flickers alight above his head.

And then he grins.

It’s hard to believe that you and Norm are related — Jake can’t find any similarities between the two of you. You’re incredibly compassionate and communicative, never letting Jake suffer in his silent struggle of stupidity, and not to mention you’re incredibly beautiful; whereas Norm is just… Norm. A bitter, angry, red-faced man who does a piss poor job at hiding his insatiable jealousy of how wasting your life in a classroom or behind a book actually means very little in the grand scheme of achieving your goals.

Example A: Jake of the Jarhead clan, ex-military, future Omatikaya. Cross-reference to Norm: sad loser. Jake signs his name on the mental essay he’s compiling as Norm drones on about culture and ignorance and narrows his gaze on you as you close in on the group.

Jake’s actually always liked you. You’re a no nonsense kind of woman who loves science and the Na’vi, and, unlike your brother, you actually treat him like an equal. Even now, as you slip next to him and lean back against the low metal work-surface, you meet Jake’s gaze with an eye-roll and smile, and his grin only widens from it.

Oh, how he loves that you like him. Although you spend so much time engrossed in your work and documenting on paper whatever Jake recites from his daily activities within the clan, Jake happens to know that you like him, and in hindsight, it’s never been a secret. For the first time, Jake lets himself consider the possibility of that being just another reason for Norm to suddenly despise him, but the idea warms his stomach rather than churns it.

“I can totally see Jake ruining all of our chances at building bridges by just burning them all together,” Norm huffs, folding his arms and wrangling a dirty glare in his direction. Jake welcomes it with the same smile that’s been blooming over his face for the past two minutes, which worsens Norm’s mood.

“I don’t see you building any bridges, either,” you say to Norm. “Jake’s been more valuable to this program than you have as of late.”

Norm bristles. “One of us has actually been doing research while the other is trying to seduce an Olo’eyktan’s daughter—”

“Jake’s doing field research, Norm,” Grace says, her eyes still glued to her microscope. “And he knows better than to seduce anybody when we haven’t properly studied the relations between Na’vi and avatars yet. And there are bigger issues at stake right now.”

“I can get results on that if you want me to,” Jake offers.

“No, Jake.”

Jake shrugs. While Norm continues his tirade against Jake’s rather noble endeavours with the Omatikaya, he turns his gaze back towards you and lets his mental clogs turn.

At this point, Jake thinks that even if you agreed with some of Norm’s points, it wouldn’t make any difference. There is absolutely nothing he can do to please Norm, and so maybe he should just stop trying. Then again… There’s something hideously funny in how worked up Norm gets when somebody jumps to his defence, particularly you.

And considering most of Norm’s insecurities come from seeds he planted all by himself without any concrete evidence to support most of the points, Jake knows that anything he does from here on out will drive Norm into a slow burning insanity.

“Is it because I’m in a wheelchair?” Jake asks suddenly.

Norm huffs. “Of course not. It’s because you don’t take any of this seriously. Everything is a game to you. All of us here have spent years building up to this assignment while you read a manual and called it a day.”

“What? I’m serious. I’m one of the best avatar drivers here,” Jake says smugly. Grace finally looks over with an irate look — something tells him he wasn’t supposed to tell everyone that she had told him that.

Norm’s face turns a whole new shade of pink.

“I’m also a quick learner. The Omatikaya are trusting me more and more each day, so while I go out there and find out valuable field research for this program—” Jake looks at you with a deliberately sweet look and you laugh quietly, “—you can stay here and look at plants and mud and cells.”

“You probably don’t even know what a cell is.”

“Sure I do. Where they lock up all the bad guys.”

Norm opens his mouth to say something more, probably missing the joke like he does every time, but this time Grace swirls in her chair and sighs loudly, looking between the two of them like they were children.

“Alright, ladies, you’ve measured your dicks at equal length. You’re both doing good work around here, so Norm, why don’t you just let Jake go back to doing his work with the Omatikaya and you can just get some rest. Jesus, you’re both making everyone miserable, it’s affecting my work ethic…”

“Yeah, sweet dreams, Norm,” Jake calls, and Norm gives him a filthy scowl before snatching his things up off the desk, holding them secretively to his chest as he stomps towards the back room lined with their bunks.

Jake feels the dark and evil energy follow him out the room and then he finally looks around the lab in disbelief.

“Jake, go, you’ll be late, don’t keep Neytiri waiting,” Grace reminds him, switching off the bulb to the microscope and stretching her arms as Trudy claps her hands and silently announces her retirement to the bunks after Norm. “Don’t forget to make a log when you get back. Don’t let him forget, will you, Spellman?”

Grace looks at you with a look that suggests no room for negotiation. It was an order. She collects her things, claps Jake on the shoulder and grabs a cigarette from the net by the archway and takes it with her towards her separated bedroom.

When the door to her little cubicle rattles shut, Jake shakes his head with a quiet laugh and rolls himself forward, giving you room to assemble your own work station where he had just been.

“Staying up late tonight?” he asks you, taking a swig of water before pushing one of the buttons to the link unit, waiting as it whirs to life.

You settle your stuff down and walk towards him. “Yep. I actually do have some work on cells to finish up.”

Jake’s lips quirk. “Not your usual ballpark, is it?”

“No, but there’s not really a surplus of Na’vi around here to communicate with,” you say in reply, rummaging with the unit to help Jake into the gel pack mattress. Usually he dismisses the help, but when it’s you helping him get comfy, then he’ll stomach his pride and accept your kindness. He’s surprisingly light, as normal, and you frown.

“Don’t forget about the real world, Jake, you gotta take care of yourself.”

“Don’t worry, I got this,” he assures you. “You need anything while I’m out?”

Another thing that will shave a few years off Norm’s life — Jake bringing you things, extraordinary and otherwise unattainable when stranded in the mountains things for you to study and report. You hum thoughtfully at the offer, pushing his head down softly when he wriggles restlessly, a little to eager to get to whatever he’s doing in the forest tonight.

“If you happen to cross paths with a tsawksyul, a simple cutting would be appreciated,” you tell him, opting for something a little more simple than normal, considering Jake’s busy these days training. “If you don’t forget while you’re busy seducing daughters, of course.”

Jake’s grin returns, if not out of genuine amusement then just to see you smile in return and do the little head-tilt thing that Jake’s discovered he adores.

“Not my thing. More into scientists,” he tells you, watching in the final moments before you shut him in the pod at how you shake your head and turn yourself away from him.

There was no rejection. No refusal. Just a smile.

A smile that sets his plan into motion.

No wonder Norm is always in a terrible mood. You find that his notes on the cells found in the mossy undergrowth of the forest is as chaotic as it can possibly be, which has left you using Grace’s Bible on Pandora botany as a guide and squinting to find the connections between his barely legible notes.

It’s basic knowledge that when cells die and a genetic material begins to unfold, a charge of energy is released; this concept has been the fundamental structural point to Norm’s notes on the moss and how each step at night causes a ricochet of expanding light, but there has to be something more than everybody is missing. Even in Grace’s book, there’s not enough information regarding how it works; if it’s connected to Eywa, if it is a response to another organism, whether it breathes and lives as its own entity.

Alongside Norm’s notes, you very sparingly begin to make an analysis of the communicative features of Pandora plant life, and begin jotting a vocabulary to use in a later research assignment, when a sudden knock against the glass above your head makes you jump quite literally up and out of your seat.

The Hallelujah Mountains are so isolated from the rest of the human population on Pandora and used rarely by the Na’vi during the night, but you distinctly make out Jake’s looming form standing outside with a smile on his face and relax. His skin is a bioluminescent explosion of colour, and for a moment you’re struck dumb staring at him until he waves his hand as if beckoning you outside.

You throw a cautious look over your shoulder, but the lab is silent and still. With that in mind, you reach for one of the exo-packs and shrug on your cardigan hanging on the back of the chair you were just on and hesitantly begin to make your way outside.

Very sparingly have you been outside of Site 26 to explore, and never once on your own. Grace has drilled into you the strict importance of respecting the laboratory rules and curfew, and if you’re going to wander outside after hours in the name of research, then please, wake her up too.

But you won’t be alone out there, not when Jake is waiting for you outside.

Jake drops to a squat in anticipation when the airlock doors to the lab force open with a wheezy breath, and he sees you cautiously step out and secure a button on your cardigan in place. The gesture almost makes him croon. He rarely sees you at night since he’s learned the value of getting rest in between his adventures in his avatar, but now he can’t believe what he’s been missing out on seeing past his bedtime.

You look tired, your hair out of place and messy, but he recognises your attempt to look more alert when you step towards him with a slight bounce.

“Hey, tìyawn,” he calls to you, as you stare up at him even whilst drawing near. Thanks to the crouch, you’re about eye-to-eye, and he watches your expression widen with wonder as you map out the illustrations of light across his nose and cheeks, before sweeping to his forehead, then his neck, and then his bare chest.

“Hey, yourself,” you laugh, finding his eyes again as they glow in the low light. The Pandora skies are littered with stars and balls of unimaginable white light, but even the surrounding forest gathering around the lab to protect it from the harsh dropping winds of the mountains are pulsing with purple light, every single shrub and leaf and plant glowing with life.

Jake stares at you for a moment before producing a gift from behind his leg. You take it from him with a wide and gasping smile.

“No way!”

“Way,” Jake says, watching you handle the flower with so much care that one might assume it would break with your touch. With the way Jake was swinging it around on his way up here, he’s actually shocked that it’s still in one piece, but something in the way you respond to everything Jake does or brings tells him that even if he’d brought a portion of it, you’d be just as pleased.

“Thanks,” you say, turning slightly as you tell him you’re going to put the tsawksyul in the lab for safe-keeping. But Jake reaches his arm out to trap you from leaving, cocking his head to the side with a soft smirk when you round back on him curiously.

“It’s not gonna die if you leave it out here, it’s a flower,” Jake tells you, jerking his head in another direction. “Wanna look around with me?”

You pause, and he can tell you’re genuinely conflicted. Grace said not to leave the vicinity under any circumstances out of respect for the Na’vi and the lab rules. But she also said not to go outside without her, and here you are.

“Grace will be mad if she finds out I’m gone,” you tell him slowly.

“Probably.”

“And Norm.”

Jake feels a rush of something at the mere mention of your brother, and his tail swishes against the rocks behind him.

Jake leans closer to you. “Well, him I don’t care about.”

Mindful of the plant in your hand, you gently push Jake’s chest back until he rolls on his heels, unable to fight the smile on your own face.

“…Where will we be going? I can’t go far just in case Grace wakes up and comes looking for me.”

Jake tilts his head up to the sky and to the top of the mountain peak that houses the lab. From his own experience scouting up there, Jake knows there’s a small incubation of trees that offers a compelling view of the entire mountain range, as well as offering a minor collection of plants he thinks you’ll die over once you see.

But that just wouldn’t be as evil as what he originally had planned. He then rolls his head towards the small section of trees that border the back of the lab, close to where the bunks are, and he then looks back at you with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“We’ll stay close,” Jake promises.

You hesitate once again and guiltily look at the lab. It’s not like it’s going anywhere…

“Alright,” you sigh, looking back at Jake and watching his smile widen as if he’s just obtained a great victory. There’s no room in your stomach for suspicion to grow — it’s overrun with butterflies when Jake points his head in the direction of the snug tree line and holds out his finger for you.

You stifle a laugh and reach to hold it, setting the tsawksyul on the ground tucked under the same window he just scared you from and join him on the slow walk to wherever he means to take you.

Being with Jake has always felt easy, but being with Jake’s avatar is practically uncharted territory. It’s a struggle to remember that it is actually the same man you like so badly back in the lab, the same guy who deliberately rams your ankles with his wheelchair just to watch the way you catch yourself as you fall, the same guy who you think uses you as a factor to piss off your brother but in a way that you find strangely attractive.

Now, he’s an almost ten foot Na’vi leading you in the whimsical dark towards a cluster of trees, and you don’t know how to begin separating the feelings you have for Jake from the feeling of nerves you feel around his alter ego.

You can barely make out Jake’s face all the way above your head, not until he feels your stare and looks down at you beside him. There’s a similarity in his human expressions with his Na’vi ones, which is fortunate considering there was a time where you thought the avatar looked more like Tom than it did Jake. Now that they’re one in the same, and now that Jake is in front of you in his avatar form and the feelings you have for him are still lingering, you’re beginning to accept the likeness between the two of them.

“What did you do today?” you ask him, referring to his ritualistic training with Neytiri.

Jake hums thoughtfully. “Nothing compared to Norm, I’m sure.”

At that, you laugh. “I’m seriously asking, Jake.”

“Alright… Neytiri has me reading the signals of the forest whenever we go hunting,” he explains sparingly, seeming not in the mood to talk training now that you’ve reached the lay of forest near the back of the lab. He surveys the setting and the space between the lab and the fringe of leaves and bushes and nods, as if satisfied but then pulls you deeper into the thrush of leaves.

“She says everything’s connected,” he continues. “She also says I’m a terrible shooter.”

“You’re missing your shots?” you tease. Jake turns back to you with a grin that you honestly walked into when you asked.

“Not all of ‘em.”

After the short walk, Jake is finally satisfied with the burrow of bushes and rocks that outline the small selection of forest behind the lab, and he looks up to once again gauge the distance and is pleased when the lab doesn’t look too far away. Jake hears you rustle and sit on one of the low rocks with your knees to your chest, and then drops to his usual squat in front of you, arms rested on his knees, gently fiddling with his fingers.

“How’re your cells?” he asks, but you’re so busy gazing at the forest around you and the stars above your heads that he fears you’re not even listening. Jake instead settles for watching you.

He knows he’s in over in his head when even his avatar likes you. Jake’s had nowhere near as much experience navigating his way around how to use this body than the other drivers, let alone time to understand the signals his body sends him or the feelings different things have to him, but he can tell the difference between being you friendly and not, even when he’s not totally familiar with how it all works. And on top of that, there are so many random variables to being Na’vi to get his head around that he never even thought of until Neytiri or Grace filled him in on what the hell was going on with his body at certain times of the month.

He’s stupid sometimes, true, but not totally naive. Jake recognises the tug in his chest as he looks at you — he feels the same thing when he’s in his human body. He’s no expert on Na’vi, never claimed to be, but he feels there must be something instinctive in the way he feels for you and the way his avatar senses it. And with Norm’s fresh-faced hatred in full flush whenever Jake makes that fact known, he’s not at all surprised that those feelings have suddenly become so full frontal now that he’s had enough of Norm’s bullshit.

“It’s amazing out here,” you say, to Jake but also to the wind as you completely crane your head up to look through the cracks in the branches and leaves. “Don’t you ever wish Earth had looked like this?”

“I haven’t really thought about Earth since I left,” he confesses, shuffling closer to you while you’re occupied with mapping out the stars in the sky.

“Not once?” You look down at him. If you’re taken aback by the sudden closeness between you, you hide it well.

Jake shrugs. “Nothing I need is there.”

Fair enough. You stare at him for a moment and think about that before agreeing.

“Me too.”

The branches above your heads sway in a gentle breeze and Jake watches you hug your cardigan around yourself before asking, “So, why’re we here? Did you wanna show me something?”

“What, the stars not enough for you?” Jake looks up to the sky.

You laugh quietly. “I’ll never get enough of them, actually. Beats the lab ceiling by a long shot. Looking at the stars through the window’s not the same… I wish I didn’t have to use this mask—” You throw him a playfully exasperated look, “—I wish I had an avatar.”

“Why don’t you?” Jake’s never asked, never thought to ask. But you’re the only scientist in his close collective of scientist ‘friends’ who doesn’t actually drive an avatar, and is instead limited to just studying everyone else's.

“It was never really my thing,” you explain, settling comfortably atop the rock and throwing the glances to the sky away to focus on him. Like the lab, they’re not going anywhere, and the ones tattooing Jake’s skin are far more interesting. “Okay, that’s a lie. I think the avatars are fascinating, just like the Na’vi, but sometimes you take what you’re given when you’re given it. Norm has always had to be better than I am, always one step ahead. Plus, our inheritance only stretched as far as to cover the contract costs of one avatar driver.” You laugh, “And Norm’s older.”

“Damn, so we just got stuck with Norm,” Jake comments, only to make you laugh again, which thankfully works. “I’d have a better time out here if it were you and not him.”

“He’s actually very insecure about that,” you tell him, watching his amusement grow without knowing the exact reasons for why. “He always goes on about how your avatar is much more built. I guess Tom was just more athletic and the avatar reflects it, I don’t think Norm’s used so much as an elliptical since high school… Anyway, he’s very vocal on how unfair the avatar program is in that regard.”

“You agree with him?”

Jake’s fingers ghost across your ankle.

“One: he’s my brother, and I’m not going to answer that question honestly. And two: let’s not forget who the avatar is modelled off. Tom was very handsome.”

“Growing up, I was always the pretty twin.”

You hum. “I couldn’t tell.”

Jake’s never ever considered the fact of you knowing his brother well before he died. He’s never had to think about it before, not until now, but he pushes the thought away and falls back into the thoughts of what he came here to do in the first place.

“You don’t think I’m handsome?”

He watches your grin widen. “I didn’t say that, did I?”

Jake creeps forward slightly, and this time you notice, moving your toes back further towards your bum on the rock while Jake continues his close creeping.

“I think you’re a very pretty woman,” Jake murmurs. “Beautiful, even.”

“Norm’s not here to get mad at you for saying that,” you remind him.

“‘m not saying it for Norm to hear.”

You feel Jake’s hand sliding to wrap around your ankle and you shudder when he smooths his way up to your calf. You’ve never interacted with any Na’vi like this before, never felt their skin pushing against your own. With a glance down at his hand, you frown and work your way back up to his face, his eyes lit up in the dark.

“It’s not fair that you’re using your avatar against me right now,” you mutter, making him laugh through his nose and bring his body closer to the round edge of the rock. He considers it progress when you remain rooted in place once his hands run up the length of your legs to your waist.

You watch his nostrils flare slightly as he observes you, which only makes you feel more nervous and trapped here.

“All I’m doing is talking,” says Jake.

You scoff at him. “Does all your talking involve hands on the waist, Sully?”

He shrugs. “Only with really pretty people.”

Jake’s ears prick when you sigh and look back up at the stars. He doesn’t move his hands, but he senses your body tensing beneath his touch, smells the change in your body as he speaks. He’d love that part of being Na’vi a lot more if he knew what those changes meant exactly, and he can’t figure it out even as he stares at you intently.

His thumbs smooth from left to right, feeling the nub of your ribcage with every stroke over your tank top and tries to level his face into one of absolute neutrality when you look back down at him.

“What are you doing, Jake?”

Not what he was expecting you to say, if he’s being honest.

“Nothing,” he says.

“You’re being weird,” you reply, narrowing your eyes suspiciously. It has the opposite effect, and you watch him struggle not to smile. His hairline raises when his brows do, and you fight the urge to roll your eyes when you figure him out, “Did you actually bring me out here just to flirt with me?”

He does nothing except look at you, as if the answer is painfully obvious and you’re stupid for not realising it sooner.

You sigh loudly. “Jake, I’m sorry that you didn’t get the memo like everybody else, but you didn’t need to lure me out the lab in your avatar if you wanted to get my attention.”

His thumb continues to move and his eyes drop slightly.

“I wouldn’t say I lured you out here,” Jake replies. You watch his eyes zero back in on yours and you fight your body against the urge to wrap up and hide from him.

“You can’t be that stupid, I refuse to believe it,” you laugh disbelievingly, which makes him raise his brows questioningly. Even with a layer of plastic obstructing your face from his, Jake can’t get over how pretty you look. “You have to know that I like you even when you’re not a big blue alien.”

Jake’s grin widens, his fangs glinting in the moonlight. “I know. You’re really bad at hiding it.”

“Okay,” you say, feeling under your cardigan for his hands and attempting to wrestle them away, but he doesn’t budge. You laugh again, as if the whole thing is genuinely funny for you, “then you can always make your thoughts about that known when I see you in the lab. In person.”

“I’m not doing anything I wouldn’t in there if I had the chance,” Jake tells you, moving his hands but only to sandwich them between your tank and your skin. The feeling of his palms flat against your stomach makes you jump slightly and reach for his wrist.

“Please. I see you every single day.”

“Yeah, and your brother, and Grace, and Trudy,” Jake points out. “I can’t get a second alone with you. What would you have me do, make a move with your brother breathing down my neck about it?”

“You could just be upfront. Save me from looking like an idiot.”

“Come on, baby, let’s be real.”

The smile he has on his face is unmoving, and you search every corner of it to find signs of his sincerity falling and find nothing. But something feels wrong.

You’ve spent close to two months in the long shadow drawn by everything else in Jake’s life, and considering Jake’s newfound role of future Omatikaya warrior, you feel that the time he spends in your company has become less and less. So now that Jake has decided to pick up on whatever signals you were sending him and respond to them, you assume it’s all in the name of good fun to piss off Norm.

Feeling Jake’s hands creeping up your body in the middle of the Hallelujah Mountains and with no older brother here to glare at either of you, you’re rethinking everything you thought you had figured out.

“I don’t get it,” you say finally.

Jake just laughs quietly. “You thought I just rammed my wheelchair into your feet for fun?”

“You mean to tell me that was your way of showing interest?” you ask unconvincingly.

“…Nah. I liked watching you fall, though,” he grins. Jake picks himself up from his squat and looms over you like a shadow, watching you fall back onto your forearms as you stare up at him. He sets one knee between your legs and leans down slightly, breathing in deeply in a way that has you thinking he’s actually sniffing the air around you.

“Honey, I’m all kinds of obsessed with you.”

You blink. “You certainly gave nothing away.”

“I bring you shit all the time.”

“I’m a scientist, I didn’t know you did that because you liked me. I thought it was just because I wanted better samples than Norm.”

“I mean, that definitely helped motivate me to find everything.”

“You never even told me you liked me.”

“Well, I’m telling you now.”

“Okay, well, tell me tomorrow when you’re awake and not all…big,” you frown.

Jake chuckles. “You don’t like me now, or something?”

“I definitely never said that. I just want to hear human Jake Sully tell me how he feels without using his avatar to try and win me over.”

Jake’s tail swishes behind him. “You prefer the dummy in the wheelchair?”

“I like your wheelchair,” you tell him quietly, running your hand up his arm as he pins you flat against the boulder with a hand on your stomach.

“I don’t,” he murmurs. “I like being like this. I like being bigger than you. I like smelling how much you like me.”

All of a sudden, your legs swing shut around him and you look at him in disbelief.

“Freak.”

All he does is smile.

“Come on, Jake, I actually don’t have time for this,” you say around a groan, trying to move against him but failing miserably. An exasperated smile falls on your face. “Really? What are you even trying to achieve? You’re seducing me with your avatar?”

His ears twitch and he angles his head to the side. “Yes?”

“Why am I getting the impression that all of this has something to do with Norm somehow?” you sigh in reply, but Jake notices the way you fall relaxed underneath him, and he has the feeling you’re in no real hurry to get anywhere else tonight.

“Well, it might have something to do with it,” Jake confesses, his voice lower than it was before as he draws his nose close to you and takes a deep inhale. The feeling of his braid flicking down from his back and brushing against your thighs makes you shudder, not to mention the feeling of his snout against your collarbones. “Really, I just want to spend some time with my girl while I got the chance to.”

Whatever you want to say or have planned to say dies away when you feel Jake’s lips wander and press against your sternum.

Sighing, you shift your hands to his arms that have you pinned down and carefully squeeze. “Good luck with that, Sully.”

He runs his tongue flat against your skin and hears you exhale through your nose, a noise of satisfaction muffled by your closed mouth, and all at once, Jake’s decision is final.

He is going to fuck Norm’s sister.

And he’s going to rub salt on Norm’s wounds by doing it in the way that will piss him off the most.

Jake kisses his way down the length of your body, his hands moving around your figure like a sculptor until his hands find their way to your thighs. Though oversized and covering most of them, Jake’s hands circle around the width of your thighs and he strokes his thumbs across the inside skin of them, all while laughter bubbles in your chest.

All of this is just so absurd. If someone had told you this morning that Jake so much as liked you back, it would have taken some convincing, but if they had gone as far as to suggest he’s be attempting to seduce you in his avatar in a little chunk of forest behind the lab you pretty much live in, you would have laughed at the delusion of the thought. But now, there’s no denying the very tangible view of Jake’s Na’vi hands pressing down on your thighs, his eyes staring up over the slope of your body as you pick your head up to look down at him.

“This is crazy,” you gasp.

Jake’s teeth reveal themselves against the stretch of skin he was just pressing kisses onto, his smile widening as he speaks. “You don’t want to, baby?”

You weigh your options. It’s either leave and go back to the lab and hope that Jake follows through on his apparent feelings for you in the morning… Or you can relax and enjoy.

“Jake…” You pause for a moment. You want to enjoy it, and you feel the pool of desire deepen inside of you and know it’s a sensation Jake can most likely smell.

He’s still your Jake, still the same guy you dote over when he remembers he has a life outside of being Na’vi. The only difference now is that he’s blue, and mobile, and double your size in every definition of the word. And suspiciously attractive, but you don’t know for certain if you think that because it’s Jake or because it’s actually true as a fact. But you just can’t help but wonder if Jake’s climaxing feud with Norm is the only reason he’s pinning you to a boulder in the forest and kissing your stomach.

“You’re not just doing this to piss off Norm, are you?” you ask, feeling serious all of a sudden. The only way you know Jake notices is from the way his ears flatten against his head and his eyes grow round with concern.

In the light, his tail flicks from side to side in the way you recognise most Na’vi do when they’re nervous, and you fight the urge to look away from him when he stays quiet for a second, thinking of what to say in a loud silence.

Of course he’s doing this because he knows it will piss Norm off if and when he finds out. As soon as Norm catches a stinking whiff of Jake on your body when he’s in his own avatar surveying the mountains, there will be nowhere for Jake to run or roll off to and avoid Norm’s volcanic rage. But he knows as well that this is a long time coming — that he’s been chasing circles around your feet for the fun of it, and now the chance has come for him to bring what he’s buried to the surface and shape it into something more.

Jake very carefully thinks of what to say. “Knowing that if I fuck you right now it will piss off your insanely annoying brother makes me want to do it more. But if the only reason I was fucking you was to piss him off, then I’d be doing it in front of him.”

Your brows raise.

“Okay, that came out wrong,” Jake says quickly. “My point is… I go crazy thinking about you. And everything I think about doing to you can be made possible when I’m, as you said, all big.”

“But… Norm—”

Jake groans, all smiles. “Oh my god, can we please stop bringing up your brother for a sec? It’s a huge turn off.”

“It doesn’t make me feel any sexier, either,” you point out, “but I’m just thinking—”

“Don’t think,” Jake tells you. “This is the one time you don’t have to think about anything at all except for how you’d like me to take care of you.”

Jake returns his face to your stomach as you blink furiously, a flustered feeling creeping up over your body at the bluntness of his words. If you thought he was playing around, you’re officially convinced when his hands tighten around your thighs and he spreads them apart, pinning them down against the boulder he’s made your bed for the night. You inhale a deep breath when Jake’s thumbs dip underneath your shorts, bunched around your inner thighs.

“I suppose it would be like killing two birds with one stone…”

Jake laughs against your skin. “Jesus Christ, Spellman, quit talking so much. Who knew you were such a yapper?”

“Am not,” you protest.

You shudder when he plants another kiss on your abdomen, pings the fabric of your shorts back against your skin with a sharp sting and he grunts with a nod.

“Okay,” Jake agrees, his ears high and tail swishing playfully. “Now take off your cardigan.”

Still watching Jake on your forearms as he hooks his fingers around the waistline of your shorts in an effort to pull them down, you wrangle a sigh of protest and lift your lower body up for him, all whilst reaching for the buttons on the front of your cardigan.

You breathe heavily as you mumble, “Do you really need to take off all my clothes, Sully?”

“One of us is halfway there, honey, and it’s not you,” replies Jake. His golden eyes watch with intent as he pulls the shorts down the expanse of your legs with your underwear in tow. As you shudder with the breeze fanning between your legs, Jake takes a big inhale and stares.

He barely moves an inch once the shorts and panties are in a bunch around your feet, but you busy yourself by sweeping a look at Jake’s own attire, or striking lack of. Between his legs hangs his tewng, a simple and sparsely intricate item of clothing that leaves little to imagination when it comes to what is growing between his thighs.

It’s standard attire for the Omatikaya, but you’ve never seen it up close, and never on Jake himself. It hits you then that he’s still in his entire hunting gear, as if he finished up with Neytiri and brought himself here right away.

Jake’s thighs clench as he finally moves, readjusting his footing in his dropped squat; to him, this position has become as natural as breathing, but you stare at his thighs bulging and wonder how he’s not in agony from it alone.

Jake looks up at you after his allocated time spent analysing the spot growing wet between your legs and you gulp, feeling almost nervous.

“Well, you’re gonna be an Omatikaya soon. One of the consequences is wearing your little g-string everywhere.”

His head leans to the side as his amusement grows. “It’s called a tewng, genius.”

That makes you laugh, and say in a melodic and sweet tone, “I know.”

But Jake bites back with the same sweet tone as you and says, “Then shut up,” and you comply. It’s the least you can do for him when he smooths his big hands back between your legs and up close to your cunt.

Pressing a kiss to the inside of your knee, Jake inches his hands further, relishing in a deep breath as he returns to staring at the spot just inches from his fingers. From his perspective, you are hideously tiny; given the obvious lack of research on Na’vi and human sexual relations, Jake isn’t totally sure you’ll be able to withstand what he wants to give you.

Worth a try, though.

Jake’s chest rises and falls as he stares in wonder at your pussy, the scent divinely pronounced, and he runs one of his fingers between your folds and up, collecting the juices on his finger as he rounds your clit in a rather observational manner.

You bristle, your legs instinctively trying to close — all the good it does, as Jake pushes them back open. His eyes flicker back up to yours, as if assessing his next steps, before he lowers his mouth to your cunt and without doing you the kind service of looking away, stares at you as he spreads his tongue flat between your folds.

His actions earn him a strangled moan of pleasure, and his ears twitch in satisfaction. The feeling of his tongue against you is strangely addicting, rough and soft at the same time, warm and wet and enough for your hips to lift.

“Jake…” You gasp, feeling your eyes close, half with the pleasure of it all and also sheer embarrassment.

Like a predator watching its prey, Jake never looks away from your face and the way it twists, your jaw hanging open as he licks your cunt. With the size of his head alone, his tongue virtually covers every corner of your pussy with no difficulty, leaving you with no untouched itch, no ignored stretch of wet skin.

You can’t even bear to look down at him again, and you toss your gaze up to the stars as they twinkle above, blinking, conspirators to your escapade. Biting down on your lip to stop yourself from moaning too loud, your hips slowly roll up and down as Jake sucks around your clit, his big hands working overtime to keep you from wriggling away entirely off the rock and to the ground.

“Oh, god…”

Between your legs is a flurry of warmth, a tingling feeling rippling down to your toes. After five dry years, it comes as no real shock that even someone’s tongue could be ripping this kind of response from you.

“You good?” Jake murmurs.

“Mmh. Hot,” you rasp. It doesn’t help that there’s an exo-pack warming your face with every deep breath you take. Jake moves his mouth from your cunt momentarily as if trying to hear you, watching with curious eyes when you bite back another noise which stirs as he slides his finger towards your entrance.

“This mask is really ruining my vibe right now,” you groan, your voice so throaty and strangled that Jake has to fight a smirk. He fails miserably.

“Take it off and hold your breath,” Jake replies; a laugh rumbles from his chest when you lift your head to scowl at him.

“It would frighten people if they knew how much of a genius you were.”

Jake hums, his eyes glistening as he cocks his head, “I’m incredibly humble.” Then he wastes no more time talking and sinks his finger into you.

He sinks in with plenty of ease, your wetness guiding his finger all the way in to the knuckle and you choke back a strangled sound; one of Jake’s fingers feels like two of your own, the stretch unfamiliar but not unwelcome after your dry spell of five cryo-stolen years.

Jake grins widely and inches his tongue back between your legs, swiping it over your clit and forcing the moans out from hiding in your throat.

You turn your head to the side, sparing a glance at the distant laboratory. You can only hope you’re not loud enough to startle your sleeping colleagues and brother.

“Eyes down here, Spellman,” Jake mumbles, his voice vibrating across your pussy and pulling your eyes back towards him. Tears spring to your eyes as he looks up at you, working his fingers in and out of you slowly while matching his licks to the tempo.

His tongue is slightly rough and textured, each lick leaving you feeling almost ticklish. A rush of warmth pulls from your cunt up to your neck, and your thighs tremble around his head with a flushed squeeze, but Jake doesn’t seem to mind; he pulls your one leg further apart with his other hand and slips in a second finger, the stretch of your hole making your back arch with a half pained, half pleasured moan.

“Jake!” you gasp, your hips bucking up against his mouth, his fangs brushing across you. He has the nerve to laugh all of a sudden, pulling his mouth away after pressing a sloppy kiss to your clit. “Jesus, fuck, Jake—”

“Goddamn, you are a yapper,” Jake comments, and you glare at the almost human look of pure smugness on his face, his chin coated with saliva and juice.

“Fuck you,” you huff, feeling the absence of his tongue immensely, despite his continuously moving fingers. Jake’s fingers are thicker than they looked from afar — it feels like you’re full already, but you’re not willing to confess that to him. He already looks far too proud with what he’s doing.

You suppose, now that you’re thinking about it, Jake’s had years to become familiar with a pussy; he seems to be back between your legs with a certain hunger for you, the taste of your juices sweeter than he initially expected.

His fingers are coated in juice, slipping into you with no resistance and curling his fingers up to make your hips lift once more. He almost wants to make a comment to fluster you, to tell you how insanely good it feels for your cunt to be quivering around his fingers, welcoming him up there as if you’d prepared for them beforehand. Jake parts his fingers inside of you, stretching you out, his mouth comfortably attached to you.

His ears twitch when you let out a wobbly cry — actually, he’s not sure if you’re crying for real or not. His eyes follow your hand as it creeps down to the hood of your pussy, just above his nose, and he pulls his mouth away for a split second.

“No, no, go back,” you pant, and like a dog given a command, Jake pulls his soggy fingers out of your cunt and pushes his head back between your thighs, satisfied by your own pleasured sounds when he does.

Jake hooks his arm across your lower stomach, effectively pinning you to the sloping boulder while he uses his other hand to keep your legs wide apart. You forget all about modesty and self-control and open them as wide as you can for him to help, your hand stroking the top of Jake’s hair as he burrows his way back between the wet spot he was devouring.

You suck in a tight and high-pitched breath when Jake’s tongue shifts from left to right over your clit, the feeling of his tongue strange and almost like a vibration. Your hips lift from the boulder again and shift up and down — Jake’s barely even trying, barely broken a sweat, but when he glances up at you he’s both amused and surprised by how twisted in pleasure you look. All he can see is the underneath of your jaw tilted to the sky, and one of your hands curling up around your tit under your tank top.

Jake guides his arm from trapping your abdomen up to push the bottom of your tank up above your wrist. There’s no way he’ll let you gatekeep the sight of your tits when he’s the one making you touch yourself in the first place. His eyes are wide with excitement when you fist the fabric of your tank and yank it up above your boobs, the curve of them bouncing with the quick movement of your hand.

Jake groans into you, his tail curling up high. Jake’s tasted a lot of pussy in his life, but he doesn’t know what exactly you’ve done to taste so good to him. He momentarily convinces himself that it feels different because he’s in a whole other body — it must just be because he’s big and strange and he’s been fucking you in his mind for a while now that you somehow feel ten times better than anyone else he’s ever been with.

The pool of warm juice between your legs leaves you incredibly soft and squishy, like a tìhawnuwll that he has to remind himself he can’t just sink his teeth into.

It could be because you’re Norm’s sister. Could be because you usually appear so big when he’s resorted to sitting down all day, but now you’re helplessly tiny underneath him, trapped by his arms and head. Or it could just be because he’s an idiot who quashes his feelings rather than gives in to them.

He blinks. Your hips are so high off the boulder that Jake has to bring his arm back down to hold you in place. The less you squirm, the more drawn out he can make it, but he’s acutely aware of the tremor in your legs, the impatient rutting against his lips, the painful hardness under his tewng.

“Sweet,” he grumbles. The word leaves you flustered, and the heat brewing like a bomb against his open mouth begins to rise through your body again. You forget to be quiet as you let out a high-pitched moan, feeling your toes curl in your boots and you desperately finger at your nipple, rolling and tugging on the hardened nub of flesh as Jake pins you tighter against the boulder. He laves his tongue down your cunt towards your entrance, the warm tip of it pushing to the tightened hole that Jake wants more than anything to squeeze himself inside.

“Mf — Jake, come on,” you whimper.

One of his thin brows raises. “You seduced yet?”

“Fuck off. Yes.”

You feel the rumble of his laughter against your pussy. Jake presses a kiss against it and then moves his mouth to the soft skin of your inner thigh.

“I never let a woman go without making her cum,” Jake says, his voice muffled against your leg. He feels you quiver beneath him, and his grin widens. “You wanna at least cum first, right?”

“Please, Jake—”

A startled cry of pain rips from your throat when Jake gently sinks his teeth into your leg — Jake knows his own strength and pulls back before he can draw blood, glancing at the red outline of his teeth imprinted into your leg, a ridged ring of saliva in his wake. Your head is lifted entirely to gape at him, and he looks at you with a coy expression.

“Did you just bite me?”

He smirks. “Accident. Sorry.”

“Yeah right.” Your legs shift slightly around him, but Jake can smell the twisting agony of pleasure leaking out of you — he’s never been more thankful for his Na’vi body and its strange sense of smell than he is now, to be able to pick up on the need you try to hide from him, a scent he actually understands. Normally he can admire your determination, but right now, he’s more concerned with finding out how to break down your walls and unravel you the way he knows you’ve been wanting him to for the last two months.

He smooches the bite one more time, his ears pricking when you whimper out a sort of desperately small sound and say, “Come on, Jake. You got me out here, don’t torture me about it.”

“Me eating your pussy not enough for you?” he asks smugly. He knows it would be more than enough — call him conceited, but he’s sort of an expert on it by now.

You don’t say much, nothing worth noting, at least. Jake’s ears are tall as he lifts his head slightly, but his thumb continues to rub up and down your slit, carefully smoothing over your swollen clit almost sympathetically.

“Please,” you beg in such a small and desperate voice that Jake smiles at the sound. You see his eyes flutter, half-lidded, as he cocks his head to the side until his temple is against your knee.

“Hm? You just wanna say please and get it over and done with?” Jake mutters. “You can’t take any more of my fingers?”

“Don’t be a prick,” you whimper. “You want it, too.”

You feel that unkind heat simmer over you again, but not for the reason you expect. Jake blinks at you lazily, like an unimpressed cat, and then you watch as his eyes curve into crescent moons, the slint of gold virtually glowing in the Pandoran night. Then, the fucker smiles again, looking so smug that you feel embarrassed somehow, caught under his gaze.

“Yeah, I do,” agrees Jake. “I’ve been wanting you a long time.”

“Then, come on,” you urge. Something excited claws at you, and you feel your heartbeat race when he lifts himself slightly. “Come on, big guy. You got me out here, you win.”

He swells with pride, pleased by what is leaving your mouth in a flustered flurry.

“You think you can take me all by yourself?” he asks, his hands coming to rest on your knees as he turns his gaze back to the clenching hole between your legs. Jake looks almost thoughtful as he stares at you, as if analysing. “You could only just take two fingers.”

For such an intelligent woman, Jake finds himself amazed when you look anxious about that statement. What, do you really think he’ll just give up and go? Jake doesn’t care if it takes all night to get himself up your snatch, because no matter what, he’ll get himself in there.

He sniggers when your mouth flounders like a little fish, your tank sliding with the angle of your body back down over your tits, but then he tuts and reaches back to pull it up. In fact, he decides it’s better off, and he uses one finger to pull the whole thing up to your chin, and lets you suffer in an anxious string of actions — you tug the tank up over your head, eyes wide, lip pouting.

“Wanna try?” Jake asks, if not to speed along the increasing agony of his hard cock tenting under his tewng then just to put you out of your misery. “Or should I go back for seconds?”

“Jake…” Your chest rises and falls as you gape at him. He went through all the trouble to get you here, and although you never expected to look at Jake’s avatar and feel a throb between your legs, you can’t even look at him without feeling overcome with the terrible, pressing desire to squeeze whatever weapon he has under his loincloth into your cunt. Jake watches your eyes look down at the darkness between his legs, to the pretty band of string tied around his middle, and then looks back at you with a sickeningly sweet expression.

“Aw, honey. You want me to fuck you?”

It takes an incredible amount of effort not to scowl at him. Jake is lucky he looks so attractive with your arousal around his lips, otherwise you’d be up off the boulder and marching back to the labs for being so unbelievably full of himself.

But even though he’s double your size and consumed by a cocky smugness from being able bodied and towering over you, you can’t think of enough reasons to warrant your leave. The only things on your mind are how much it’ll hurt to get him inside you, and how good it’ll feel once he is.

“That’s why you brought me here, after all, isn’t it?” you murmur, your lips curved slightly when he bows his body over you, his hands flat against the boulder on either side of your waist. “You’ve been thinking of me, right? Oeyä sayrìp tsamsiyu — you must have thought about this every time you went and found me a flower, right?”

Jake’s smile turns wolfish. “Yap, yap, yap.”

You all but whine underneath him. It is so unbecoming of you to be so desperate for something that you resort to writhing like a brat, but with Jake just straddling over you without doing anything, you feel the eager feeling of want coiling in your lower stomach. Your hole clenches around the air, as if trying to feel for Jake’s fingers again, and you lift your hips up off the boulder as if to entice him.

He barely even looks down at you, which only infuriates you more.

For a moment, you wonder if the only reason he lured you out here was to satiate a desire of his own; maybe he just wanted to prove that he still had what it took to make a woman beg for him — though he needn’t have tried so hard, considering you’d have writhed and whined for him just as much, if not more, had he just made it known that he knew about and returned your feelings sooner.

But having you touch him in an impossible silence in the shared bunks pales in comparison to now, to having you look so small and soft and inviting; for you to beg for him, to let yourself be ravaged by him in all of his strength. Why would he prefer to have you while he feels useless when he can make the most of the strong, brawny and big body his brother passed down to him?

Jake breathes deeply through his nose and chews on the inner skin under his lips. You watch in the dark as his tail coils, his ears flat, until he lowers his body down like he’s doing a press up and pushes his nose against your sternum.

“You smell so pretty, baby girl,” Jake mutters, pressing a kiss against the skin sloping between your tits. Biting your lip does little to suppress the moan that spills out when Jake cups one of his hands around your breast, and you hold the back of his hand as he gently squeezes.

The hanging cloth of his tewng brushes past your pussy and you jolt in surprise, just in time for Jake to bring his mouth down over your other boob. The sheer size of Jake dwarfs every feature of yours, but something about your tiny size only excites him more.

With his lips wrapped around your tit, you try your hardest to muffle another moan at the feeling of his tongue toying around your nipple, desperately trying to find something to focus on that isn’t the absurdly good feeling of Jake’s mouth or the tewng brushing past your pussy every time Jake rocks his hips backwards and forwards.

You clench your hand over his, feeling your legs squirm around him as his sharp teeth scrape against the squishy curve of your breast. Fear should rip through you when you feel his teeth tighten around the top of your tit, but it doesn’t; instead, a rush of warm excitement burns you from the inside out when Jake’s cheeks hollow, sucking a purple blot into your skin.

“Hey—” you say cautiously, but the damage is already done. It’s as if Jake’s determined to make you the same shade as him; the mark he leaves is blooming and bright, and he looks all too proud of himself when he looks up in acknowledgement of your voice. His tail thrashes excitedly.

“Leaving that so everyone can see what you were doing when they wake up,” Jake explains, licking a strip from the swelling bruise to your neck for good measure. “My dirty scientist.”

That is if you ever make it back to the lab in one piece.

Feeling the pleasure spreading across your body, you’re half contemplating staying here on this rock forever, hoping that Norm or Grace never come back here looking for samples only to find your corpse. You’re overcome with a conflicting contrast of emotions — you suddenly feel so exposed, so unraveled, half guilty for encouraging Jake to shove his big blue fingers up your crotch, and even guiltier about the fact that you want more from him.

“Enough. Come on,” you huff, and Jake dips his attention back to the rutting of your hips, the glossy shine of your arousal. “While I’m wet.”

“You really think I’m gonna let you dry up before I can get inside you?” Jake asks, as if the idea is beneath you both. “Have some confidence in me, Spellman.”

“I do. Full confidence. So, come on, gimme.”

Jake grins; he leans his weight up on one knee and in the light, you can just about see the protruding point of his tewng and feel your desire pooling. It’s only when Jake undoes the string around his waist and frees what hides beneath that you start to feel your body tense unexpectedly; it is beyond you how Jake has managed to keep the spear he calls his cock hidden for so long, and even more unthinkable as to how it will fit inside of you.

You stare at it with wide eyes. Meanwhile, Jake holds the base of it with his hand and assesses the space between your legs again. When he guides the tip to your folds and strokes himself up and down, you feel your heartbeat quicken and your legs turn like jelly.

“You like it?” he asks, ever so sweetly, as if it’s a new gift brought back for you to enjoy. In a way, it is a gift, something for you to sample. Jake’s body seems to vibrate with nothing short of delight at the speechless state his dick has left you in — and he hasn’t even put it in yet.

“Big, right?” he continues to ask, a smirk on his face.

All you can say is, “how do you walk around with that thing?”

He barks out a laugh, his head tilted to the stars as his smirk widens. Jake then pushes the tip against you again with his thumb, choking down his amused sniggers as he drags himself up and down your cunt, and more than anything, he wishes he could see your face better in the moonlight. Luckily, Jake’s spent hours staring at you in his wheelchair to be able to piece together the smudges of your features he can see in the reflection of light hanging over the front of your mask. And what he can’t see, he’ll hear, and what he’s not satisfied with not seeing he’ll seek from you again later.

“It’ll be a tight fit,” Jake thinks out loud, prodding the tip of his cock against your entrance and looking up at you once you whimper, “but I know you can take it.”

“I dunno… Looks kind of big—”

“You can fit it in,” he tells you confidently.

But now you’ve seen it, you’re slightly nervous. “What if I can’t—?”

“You were just begging me for it,” Jake says pointedly. “While I’m wet, you said.” Then, he leans forward so that the wide slope of his nose is pushed against the front of your mask. “I don’t care if it takes all night trying. I’ll help you fit it all in, okay?”

You breathe in sharply, feeling your hips grinding up against him. Jake tries to find sympathy for you; he supposes that if he were you and some ten foot Na’vi was trying to burrow his cock between his legs, he’d be apprehensive too.

“Just…” you rasp, watching him desperately, and he waits kindly, though his tip is on the verge of being swallowed by your cunt. Your legs tremble when he smiles at you, one hand on his cock, the other flat against the boulder. “Just go slow, okay?”

The way he looks at you is as if you’ve just said something stupidly endearing. “Sure thing, Spellman.”

Jake does his best to keep up his presented facade of coolness, but you feel so warm and wet, his arm begins to shake as he supports his weight on the boulder, grunting when he aligns his cockhead with your hole and very slightly pushes in. Even though he only just had his fingers up there, he can feel your pussy resisting, and it’s only the tip.

Your mouth hangs open with a pained whine, the stretch uncomfortable but in spite of it, you arch your back as if trying to feel more of him inside of you.

“Easy,” he chuckles, very slowly pushing more of himself into your pussy. The noises from your mouth grow louder, and something proud purrs in his chest. His tongue pushes against the inside of his lower lip as he smirks, teeth showing, as he makes an almost amused groan. You’re insanely tight, and unbelievably squishy and wet — and hey, it’s been five years for him, too.

“Yeah,” Jake groans, pushing his hips further and pulling out, each stroke gentle and tentative. He wants more than anything to go rough, to make you mewl and cry and curl up against him, but the tearful look on your face makes him reconsider. Each time he sinks in a little bit deeper, softening the resistance of your walls as they make room for him.

It takes an incredible amount of self restraint to stop himself from shoving all of it in at once; you’re so tight, the tightest pussy he’s ever felt closing around his cock, and easily the best. Jake closes his eyes for a second, honing in on the squeezing clench around his cock and the unnerving, uncharacteristic silence leaving your gaping mouth.

“Talk to me, Spellman,” Jake groans, inching deeper inside. His ears perk again when you cry as he sinks in deeper. “Say something.”

“You told me I talked too much,” you manage out, admirably trying your hardest to remain quiet despite the pushing twelve inches of Na’vi cock up your cunt. Jake’s barely even inside of you; more of his dick is out than it is stuffed inside.

“I love hearing you talk,” replies Jake, even though he had just poked fun at your ability to talk someone’s ear off. Had he known it would swear you into silence now, he’d have never said anything. What Jake wants now most of all is to hear your voice again, hear your pleasure, your instructions, your pleas.

Hearing you slip out a high pitched moan when he pushes more of his cock inside of you feels like a reward almost.

“Could listen to you yap away all damn day,” he murmurs quietly, his eyes finding yours behind the glaze of the exo-pack. “I know you’ve always got something to say, so why’re you so quiet all of a sudden?” Jake’s grin brightens when you manage to suck in more of his length, “Talk to me, baby, tell me what you want, hm?”

“Just… Put it in,” you whimper, and his eyes widen excitedly.

“You said to go slow.”

“I know what I said, but I need more.” Your eyes are so blown open he’d laugh if it didn’t look so goddamn sexy. “Please, Jake.”

“You sure?” he croons.

“Mm. Please — come on, please—!”

Jake snaps his hips forward so quickly that more than half of dick disappears inside of you, and the primal noise that leaves your mouth takes Jake completely by surprise.

“Fucking shit, mama,” Jake groans, his voice rasped as he bows his chest over yours, dropping to his forearm on the boulder as he adjusts to the warmth enveloping him. “Holy shit.”

You swallow a deep breath, your hands gripping tightly to Jake’s shoulders which forces his eyes to your face. He can make out the distinct shimmer of tears under your eyes, and he brushes his fingers across the side of your neck, tapping you to bring your eyes open and searching for him in the dark.

“You with me?” he asks, chuckling slightly. “You good?”

“Oh my god,” you squeal, cunt clenching. “Wait—”

��Breathe,” Jake says quietly, pressing a kiss to the swollen bruise he sucked into your skin earlier. “You can do it, pretty girl.”

“Keep moving, it hurts when you just stay still.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he mutters, his hips falling back into a slow rhythm to keep you adjusted to his twitching cock. It’s almost disturbing how easily you’re taking him now he’s forced more of his length inside, how wet and responsive you seem to be as he sinks deeper into you.

At first, Jake goes slow, familiarising himself with every noise you give him, every twitch and shift in your body, every clench around him. You feel the smooth ridges of his cock kissing your insides, the sensation unfamiliar and strange but so fucking good. He snakes one hand under your back when you lift up off the boulder; his large palm is flat against the arch of your spine, his fingers curled around your hip.

You look like a toy underneath him, something he could easily just hold with one hand and fuck himself up into.

His hips snap again, faster than he intended, and more of his dick disappears inside of you. You could easily take all of him if he took his time getting you to that point, but the warmth wrapping around him like a glove is so sinful that he can’t think of anything less appealing than going slow. He sucks in a deep breath through his teeth and squeezes your waist with his hand; one desperate little cry from your mouth later, and Jake forgives himself for having waited so long to get you in this position, to fuck you stupid.

It’s been so long since Jake’s been able to fuck a woman like this, and for his first time since his accident to be with you, of all people — well, Jake could think of no greater victory, no better reward for all the shit he’s endured so far.

He stares down at the gap between your legs, watching as his dick vanishes and reappears with every rock of his hips. You’re taking it so well, like a champion. Pride blooms in his chest — he’d expect nothing less from his woman.

Pulling your hips down slightly to meet him as he thrusts up, Jake shoulders the control and moans in a low tone, pushing until he feels your body seize underneath him. Then, he pulls back, falls back in, and gets himself comfortable.

The stretch no longer burns the way it did, but you feel as though you can barely breathe as Jake ruts his hips up. He’s so big in every definition of the word. He doesn’t seem to notice nor care about the deep indent of your fingernails in his shoulder; he seems entirely devoted to gaining momentum, creating his own pace with his ears flat against his bowed head.

“God… Jake,” you moan, feeling the slight point of the boulder against your shoulder blades and his hand squeezing your middle as you finally speak, after what feels like eons of silence to Jake.

He latches his gaze to the rise and fall of your breasts as he fucks you, his breathing heavy. “Oh, you like that?”

Ever so slightly, he hastens his pacing, eliciting a tearful sob from your mouth. “Mmf—”

“Is it everything you hoped for?”

His stomach churns when you laugh, albeit with a strangled kind of tone, and clench around his cock again.

“You’re so full of yourself.”

“So’re you,” he points out, lifting his chest slightly to glance down at your stomach. It should be criminal how turned on he feels by the sight of his own dick outlined in your lower tummy — it should be criminal how insanely good it feels knowing he’s fucking a part of you nobody else has before. You’ve lost all self control as you decide to let yourself be noisy, which Jake is all too pleased to hear.

Peering down at your hips, you marvel at the sight of Jake’s frightening length pushing up against your stomach. It looks just as weird as it feels. Jake hisses and runs a hand across the spot his dick is hitting.

“Feel that?” he asks. He knows you do. It’s a stupidly dumb question, but you whine at it all the same. “I told you it would fit. Look at you, taking it all, no problem.”

“Mhm. Feels good; so, so, so good, Jake…” Your body feels limp and tingly, and you let your head fall back so your gaze is pointed up at the sky. Even as you blink dazed up at them, they have the striking appearance of Jake’s skin, the dark blue wash of sky with littered balls of bright white light. The image of him is printed on your mind, and no matter where you look to avoid his gaze, you find him again.

Jake shifts. Keeping his dick sliding in and out of you with more of an upbeat rhythm than before, he bows his chest back over yours and brings his ears close to your ear.

“A perfect fit for my perfect girl,” he mutters. He becomes so reliant on his one hand on the boulder when he uses the other to hold your leg up around his waist, bringing forth an entirely new burn from the stretch of it. His breath is warm on your ear, making you shudder. “How long you been waiting for me, baby?”

You scoff disbelievingly, trying to think of something to say despite your mind being both full and empty at the same time. All you can think about is the building pressure in your tummy.

“Long,” you offer, snaking a hand up his neck to the back of his head.

Jake licks his tongue across the arch of skin connecting your neck to your collar. “Thinking of me with your fingers up your cunt at night, huh?” His hand squeezes around your middle when you begin to shift with his thrusts further up the boulder. Even with your loud cries in his ear, Jake can hear the squelching wetness around his cock, the tightening spasms around his length bringing him closer to giving in to the dull ache in his own stomach. “Bet you wheelchair Jake Sully couldn’t make you feel like this. Next time you get off to the thought of him, I want you to think of what we’re doing right now, about who’s got you feeling this way.”

“How…how do you even know about that?” you gasp, half pleasured by his thrusting and half horrified by the revelation that Jake might have been privy to the fact you masturbated with him in mind when everyone went to bed at night.

Actually, he didn’t know. But he sniggers smugly that his teasing jeer turned out to be true.

Jake presses a kiss to your collar and peppers a line of them up until he is thwarted by the mask covering your face. Peering down at your face hidden behind it, Jake gives you a sad pout and says, “I wanna go fast.”

“I…” you start, his hips already moving and you feel the heat simmering below again. Anymore from him, and you’ll be finished, cumming all over him. “I don’t think… I’ll — I’m gonna—”

“Then let’s get it done,” he says with as much finality and refine as he can muster before he picks himself back up, finding the energy he had before to pin you down against the boulder. You keep your leg wrapped around his waist as he sets one hand down over your tummy, the other on your shoulder, and then the real fun begins for him.

Jake isn’t ignorant to the twisting ache inside of him — like you, he knows he probably doesn’t have that much longer until he’s completely tuckered out and ready to fill you up. What can he say? It’s been a long time, and he doesn’t have the same kind of stamina as he used to. You’re tightening up around him in anticipation; it’s like being gripped in a vice.

He pulls his hips back and then pistons himself back in with so much speed that you almost fly up off the boulder in surprise. Too fast, he thinks, so he gets accustomed to a regular fast pace and sticks to it loyally. In return, he’s rewarded with a litany of pretty sounds, your hands curling around his arms, desperately trying to hold on.

“Yeah, oh yeah,” Jake groans, feeling your cunt fluttering around him as he fucks in and out, slipping in and out of your wetness as if he owns it. The hand that’s pressing your shoulder slips to your throat, and while he doesn’t squeeze, you claw your fingers around his and feel his grip tighten ever so slightly.

“Fuck!” you squeal, clamping your eyes closed suddenly. “Shit—Jake, baby—”

He moans at that, really moans. A ringing rises in volume in his ears as his thrusts grow more rapid, relentlessly smacking his hips up until he slides all of his dick inside of you.

God, you’re fucking perfect — he can’t name many women, if any at all, who could take a dick this size with as much ease as you are now. But the increasing pressure in your tummy is so overwhelming that you’re not even too aware of the size of what’s getting comfortable inside of you. All you know and understand is that in the next three seconds, you’ll be seeing white.

Jake’s name falls like a mantra from your lips, and he looks at you in surprise to see that you’ve very bravely opened your eyes to stare at him, although the tears lining your waterline and smeared down your cheeks make your stare look ten times more attractive to him. He almost wishes he hadn’t looked — his hips stagger slightly and he growls, the noise earning him another whiney moan from the undone woman beneath him, the woman he’s committed to filling with his cum and making his.

“I—!” You say nothing — you don’t even have to. Jake feels your cunt strangling his length like a goddamn fist, and by the buffering look of pure ecstasy on your face, he’s fairly certain all of those things mean you’re about to cum.

“Yeah, mama, cum for me,” Jake coaxes. “Lemme feel you.”

The warmth around him clenches, and all of a sudden, your body seizes with a jolt, your back arched so high off the boulder that it leaves him hitting entirely new angles inside of you, pushing your orgasm to a new level.

For you, it feels like you’ve been blown up. Your entire body is consumed by a blazing heat, your legs going immediately limp as you cum around him. Jake’s eyes instantly shift to your quivering hips, to your cunt still swallowing him up, the white dribbles of cum leaking down the length of his cock. He watches the small cluster of glowing freckles decorating his dick disappear behind a rolling drop of your cum and his jaw goes slack.

“My girl,” he crows, his head bowing as he eagerly fucks into you a few more times, muttering the same thing as he does: “Oh, my girl, my pretty girl—”

The hand around your throat rips itself away only to squeeze into your hips, as though Jake intends to leave fingerprints there once he’s done. He grips you tightly and with a monumental and low, throaty moan, he snaps his hips one final time and feels a tug in his tummy.

You probably feel him cum before he does. Jake seems caught up in his thrusts while you register the unmissable burst of warmth inside of you, ropes of cum spilling out as if his sole intention were to breed you, stuff you full of his seed.

In actual fact, Jake just wanted to fuck you silly, fill you with boat loads of cum, and bask in the evil satisfaction of watching Norm smell Jake all over you, claiming you as his.

“Mm—fuck, Jake!” you rasp, squeezing your little hands around his wrists. The feeling is enough to bring him up to the surface he was drowning under, the ringing in his ears dulling as he catches his breath and opens his eyes, staring down at the embarrassingly wet mixture of cum and juice between your legs.

He stays inside of you for a moment, his dick still hard and even more pronounced up your cunt than it was before, and it’s as if his eyes are unfocused in absolute awe as he observes the sight of you stretched open, locking him in place greedily.

It sinks in that you managed to fit all of him in, that he just used his avatar to fuck you in the forest behind the lab. You. Norm’s sister. The object of his desire. The woman of his literal dreams.

Jake lets out a loud and heavy breath, a sigh of relief, and rubs his palms up and down your stomach gently. Despite having had him fucking you just seconds before, you feel a heat flush over your face when he looks up at your face, sweaty and tear-stained under the exo-pack, and he grins wolfishly.

“You’re incredible,” he laughs, which makes the act of looking at him feel ten times more rewarding. Your body warms with the praise: all you’ve wanted was for Jake to like you back, and now, to be full of his cum and knowing he thinks you’re incredible… You laugh with him.

A few disbelieving laughs later, and Jake finally moves his hands under your thighs and slowly pulls himself out of you. The bump of each ridge along his length knocks past you, and Jake stifles a howl of laughter at the whiney, high-pitched moan you make as his cock pulls out of you with a slick, wet pop. He cranes his head slightly to watch his cum pool out of you and you pick yourself up on your forearms, looking for his dick between his legs to have a final peek, a good look at him covered in your cum and his…

Your eyes widen. “Your cum glows.”

Jake raises his eyebrows. “What? Scientist of Pandora didn’t know Na’vi cum glowed?”

“I haven’t exactly had a selection of Na’vi men or women to tell me that it did!” you reason, your eyes still marvelling curiously at the shiny soft blue stain over the hanging fruit between his legs.

He hums, poking a finger against your folds and smirking when you flinch. “Hm. Put that in your research notes. Wanna take samples?”

“Fuck off,” you laugh, keeping your legs wide as you struggle to sit upright. The discomfort between your legs is suddenly making itself known, and already the cum around your pussy and thighs is drying, sticky and thick. “Jesus, Sully. Look at me.”

“I know,” grins Jake, his eyes soaking up the image of you. “You’re fucking sexy.”

You roll your eyes with a twisting smile. While Jake seems incredibly fascinated with the marks he has either left accidentally or on purpose over your body, you groan and roll your shoulders. Frankly, you wish Jake had just thrown you down on the grass and fucked you there — in hindsight, the boulder had been a bad idea and you know it will come to haunt you in the morning.

Lazily, and yet with a rush of shame and exhilaration, you glance back at the lab, sitting in the curve of moonlight and caged by bioluminescent flowers and shrubs, each glowing vibrant spectrums of cyan and purple and lime.

“You’re the luckiest woman alive if nobody heard you yapping,” Jake says playfully, rising upright to stretch the agonised muscles of his legs. “You’re so noisy, honey.”

“I apologise for not thinking too much about the volume of my voice,” you drawl sarcastically, your eyes still glued to the glazed thick glass windows looking into the back of the lab. Anxiously, you glance at him, “Was I that loud?”

He gives you a tight, sympathetic smile. You frown.

“You weren’t quiet yourself, you know,” you grumble, feeling the pinch in your back ease slightly.

“Yep.” And he seems smug about that fact, for reasons beyond you, although you wager a guess as to why he seems proud all of a sudden.

As you shuffle awkwardly off the boulder, you wince as you lean for your shorts and panties, dropping a little look at the sliding dollop of cum slipping out of you.

“You gotta keep it in there,” Jake says.

“Jake, as soon as I stand up and walk around, it’s all gonna come pouring out anyway.”

His lip curls with disappointment as he watches his cum drip out of you onto the edge of the boulder, splatting on the wisps of grass around your ankles. It’s a good thing he’s full of copious reserves of cum to give back to you another time.

“Can’t wait for Norm to get a whiff of me,” Jake tells you, and you fight the urge to sigh and roll your eyes, because of course — of course that had been a motive for the gallon of glowing blue sperm Jake just squoze into you. “The look on his face when he figures out I’ve been breedin’ his little sister—”

“I have never been more thankful of the fact that Na’vi and humans can’t reproduce together. Hand on my heart, I mean that.”

You slide your shorts and panties back up your legs and reach for your thrown tank top. The inconspicuous smudges of green from the boulder across the back of it fill you with a puny drop of dread — you’ll just pray really hard to both God and Eywa that nobody pays it any mind.

That and the bulbous bruise on your tit, the bite on your leg, the finger indents on your hips.

“I was doing that thing you were doing. Killing two birds with one stone,” Jake says as he searches the ground for his tewng. “Fucking you ‘cause I wanted to and fucking you because I know wanting you is gonna piss off your annoying big brother.”

You had said that, hadn’t you? And even though the entire scheme of Jake wanting to scorn your brother so badly that he has to use you as a human fuck-toy seems ludicrous, you can’t deny the very minuscule jolt of thrill it gives you. It would be fun to piss Norm off a little bit. He has been a total arse lately.

“Norm’s all you think about,” you tease. “You sure you don’t like him instead?”

“Shut up.”

Jake hands you your cardigan with an amused smile, his tail whipping to and fro happily.

“Your coat, ma’am.”

“Love how you only have one thing to slip back into,” you point out as you take the cardigan from him, and he reaches for the tewng and chuckles. “You could’ve just lifted it up.”

“Could’ve, would’ve, didn’t,” he replies.

There’s an uncharacteristic silence between you both as you climb back into your clothes, and while Jake fiddles with his tewng with his tongue between his lips, you look back at the lab and sigh.

Somewhere in that lab is the man you’ve been thinking of for two months — Jake in his human form, lying in a link unit as he takes control through another body. You wonder what he might think when he wakes up: will he come searching for you in the dark? Come kiss you, tell you how he feels?

Jake creeps up to you with an alarming light foot, and the feeling of his hand on top of your head makes you look up suddenly.

“What’s on your mind?” he asks.

“You,” you sigh, looking back at the lab. “Are you going to follow through with tonight when you’re back as yourself, or is this an avatar Jake exclusive?”

“Come on. You still want that loser in there?” Jake feels his heart tug — he doesn’t know if to feel offended that you’re still thinking of someone else, or flattered because that someone else is technically him, the real him, the version of him that Jake hates the most.

“You’re so mean to him,” you grumble. Then pause, and add, “To you. That’s literally still you in there. If anything, doesn’t that make me look a little bit obsessed?” Jake gently pushes your head as you fall into a slow walk in the direction of the remote lab. “Wow. Actually, I just realised that’s true.”

“Finding out that you liked me was the only reason I started spending more than five minutes at a time in the lab,” Jake tells you.

“Who told you?”

You both accept a short silence as you stride past the wall that most of the bunks are built against, and you feel an anxious knot forming in your stomach when the clearing at the front of the lab expands into view.

“I meant it when I said you were horrible at hiding your crush on me,” Jake reminds you.

Right.

The tsawksyul Jake found you is thankfully still where you left it, and you slip out of Jake’s touch to fetch it from under the window, but when you turn to him, his eyes are pulled back across the miles of suspended mountains.

“You have somewhere else to be?” you call.

His top lip curls into a half pout as he says, “Not now. But tomorrow I’ve got to do some hunting. If I make a clean kill, I start my iknimaya.”

“Impressive,” you comment, twirling the tsawksyul between your fingers. “You… Will you be gone long?”

Jake hesitates for a moment. Is he reading into it, or are you looking a little bit more crestfallen now you know he’ll be gone for a little while longer?

“Why, you wanna go again?” he asks with a laugh.

“Respectfully, I think my vagina is broken and I need to lie down,” you quip, making him laugh even more. “I was just…curious. If you’re gone too long, I’ll be asleep before you get back.”

Jake creeps towards you and drops to a painful crouch. He’s definitely going to feel the cry and protest in his legs in the morning from being haunched for so long. Still, he frames your face with his hands and takes a long look at your face.

“I’ll roll past your bed extra quietly,” he promises.

You snort and push yourself away from him. “Safe travels, big guy. I’ll see you in the morning?”

Peering up at him, you breathe in the sight of him one last time as he nods once and rises to stand. The long shadow drawn by his lithe figure falls over you.

“Affirmative,” he states. You look up at him for a second and smile. Did it take having his cock in your stomach for you to realise how pretty he is like this, or have you known all along?

“Go,” you tell him, nodding towards the edge of the cliff before turning to the door. Over your shoulder, Jake scoffs a laugh and turns on his heels, his eyes scanning the mountain range as he approaches the edge.

The bravery you had before died long ago and you quickly twist the air-lock to the door and force it open, your heart in your throat. You don’t look back at him, even when he looks back at you with an endearing smile on his face.

The lab is deathly silent when you slide back inside. You were half expecting someone to stir at the sound of the door sealing shut, but if anyone’s awake, they make no effort to show it. Tip-toeing to the small bathroom, you very hurriedly go about your business and wipe away the eternal flood of cum from between your legs. With the amount Jake just put inside you, you’re fairly confident that even a human with an average sense of smell could sniff him all over you.

The long stalk back to your bunk is made silently and carefully. Norm is fast asleep on the top bunk he unhappily shares with Jake, the aforementioned’s bunk empty and cold, the link unit whirring quietly. Just the sight and sound of it makes you unnaturally nervous, and you turn to speed towards your bottom bunk and peer at Trudy. She’s out like a light.

The thin blanket is pulled to your chin once you settle in the sheets, and you refuse to accept that it’s cowardice you feel when the sound of the link unit slowly begins to fade and Jake hauls himself out with a pained groan. You remain very still as he fumbles for his chair, though you fight the urge to get up, help him and while you’re at it, kiss him until he can’t breathe.

You hope your acting has improved since your terrible attempts of hiding your crush and try to make it look as though you’re asleep, but the distinct sound of rolling wheels makes its way towards where you sleep; you steady your breaths so it looks like you’re out of it, and perhaps Jake will fall for it this time.

Your stomach tightens when the wheels stop next to your bed, and you’re uncomfortably aware of the set of eyes staring at you curled up and facing the wall.

Jake’s hand brushes the back of your head gently, and you’re not sure if that means you’ve been caught, but then you feel Jake’s fingers brush a section of hair away from your neck and nearly sigh at the feeling of his mouth pressing a kiss to the nape of your neck. It is so sweet, so fond and gentle, and annoyingly quick. He pulls away and the sound of wheels roll towards his own bunk.

Every sound he makes feels like it’s right in your ear.

You almost wish you’d rolled over and took his face into your hands. But Jake’s smooch against your nape feels like a stolen secret, something shared between only you two, something special.

No matter, you think as you wriggle to get comfortable. He’ll be there in the morning. And it’ll be the man you’ve wanted the entire time who wants you back who receives all your stirring desires.

#jake sully #jake sully x reader #jake sully x human reader #avatar (2009)#avatar x reader #na'vi x human #avatar the way of water #avatar driver jake sully #human jake sully #norm spellman #jake sully smut #avatar smut #smut #ittojean #jeanbie

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macfrog · 8 months

Text

sweet child o' mine | pt. iii

now taking name suggestions for my joel's duck doodle. must rhyme with a curse word. most creative wins.

pairing: neighbor!joel x fem!reader

summary: as your pregnancy progresses, you and joel are getting closer. dangerously closer.

warnings: reader is literally pregnant so typical pregnancy symptoms & descriptions of stuff like extreme nausea and gagging (reader throws up off-page, no graphic description past sore throat/esophagus afterward), body changing, nerves around birth/becoming mom, another sonogram (gender reveal...?), baby kicks felt, labor pains shhh, age gap (late 20s reader, late 40s joel), joel is dating someone who isn't reader, our girl hates nye (she's valid), tommy uses colors to represent gender (he is Wrong), joel is for sure emotionally cheating at this point and reader knows it, joel kisses someone who is not his partner again, f masturbation, memories of the hot dirty sex they had whew, a SPRINKLING of breeding kink, praise kink, size kink, another parent dies (i love parents i promise ????), jealous!reader, protective!joel, alcohol consumption, cursing, a LOT of angst, lots of fluff, lil bit of smut, and duckie has the best comedic timing of any character in this entire series. :) DISCLAIMER: this series covers some issues which i know may be sensitive and possibly triggering to some. warnings will always be as thorough as possible, but if there’s ever anything you feel i’ve missed, please let me know. feel free to drop by my inbox anytime.

word count: 11.4k (sorry. lots to cover lots to do.)

pt. i / series masterlist | main masterlist | playlist | follow @macfroglets w notifs on to be the first to hear when i post 🩵

December.

The days are funneled by a quick pinch of dark, the breeze heavy in its sail. Houses lined with twinkling lights and windows pierced by pointed trees. Crooning from every radio station, teary-eyed movies on TV, and spiced apple everything.

You hate every fucking minute of it.

“Wait a second,” Tommy sits forward, leaning in, “you never do nothin’ for New Years?”

You shrug, lifting your eyebrows. “Nope. Just don’t like it much. That a crime?”

He considers it as he hands his empty tumbler up to Joel, his head lolling some. He’s on his…fourth drink of the night, right? Though, if you take into account his earlier argument – I’m eatin’ as I go. It don’t count. – it’s probably more like two. But it’s whiskey, so –

Never mind.

“Yeah,” Tommy finally decides, “kinda. The hell’s wrong with you, girl?”

“Tommy.”

Joel’s voice is a warning, edged by the sharp clink of three glasses pinched in his fingers.

His brother laughs amiably in response, though, nodding to your mock-offended expression. “At least you’re spendin’ it right this year. Last one before lil’ Dickie comes along, huh?”

Maria slaps his shoulder, rolling her eyes. “It’s Duckie,” she hisses, glancing over to you.

“Shoot,” he says, chuckling. “I knew that. My mistake.” And then, hand out towards you in an apology which makes your shoulders jerk with laughter, “I did know that, I swear.”

Tommy and Maria flew in a few days ago; the younger Miller adamant that he’d spend one last New Years with his big brother before he became a father. The night they arrived, they showed up on your doorstep – a hamper filled with diapers and muslins and baby socks hanging from Maria’s arm. They’ve asked to hang out with you every day since.

They’re good fun. Tommy likes you, at least, enough to tease you as much as you figure a brother might. He’s definitely the louder of the two – sometimes you swear you notice Joel cringing at him, something caught between a laugh and a frown on his face. And Maria’s sweet; she’s asked probably six times every hour since she first saw you if you’re feeling okay, if you’re tired, if you’re hungry.

Joel text you yesterday morning. Tommy and Maria wondering if you feel like coming over for NYE. No pressure, he added, I lie pretty good.

A smile snuck its way across your lips before you had the chance to tame it. Sure, you typed, I’ll bring the newspaper.

What Joel’s told them, about the wedding and the baby and everything since, you’ve no idea. You guys almost talked about it when he told you they were flying down after Christmas, but before you got the chance to ask him, Vanessa pulled up out front.

Not exactly a conversation you felt like having with the dude’s girlfriend hooked around his right arm.

She smiles at you, now, as you shuffle to the edge of the armchair you’re curled up in. Joel’s armchair – the plaid blanket cradling you, the leather soft and crinkled beneath. Your eyes quickly drop from hers when his hand reaches for your mug, your fingers crossing as you pass it up. “Let me come help,” you say, pushing from the chair.

He holds up a palm, shaking his head once. “Stay. I got it.”

“Thanks,” you murmur, settling back. Vanessa resumes smiling. You wish she’d fucking quit it. You wish you’d fucking quit focusing on her.

Joel knocks the mug gently against your shoulder with a small, almost sympathetic smile, and heads for the kitchen – leaving you sat between Tommy and Maria on one couch, and Vanessa on the other. You tuck your heels under your thighs, picking at a hangnail as you wait for the conversation to thaw.

Maria makes some comment about Austin in the winter: how different it is to Jackson, and the three of you nod and hum in agreement before the chatter fizzles to nothing again. You glance over to the clock, watching the hands chase one another to twelve.

This isn’t what you imagined a get-together with Joel’s family would feel like. Tight, tense. So tense that you can feel the weight on your chest, closing your lungs. Talking about the weather and the holiday traffic, talking about nothing to avoid talking about everything.

Tommy’s chin lifts, after a second too long of silence. “Hey, Joel!” he barks. “You ain’t shown me this nursery yet!”

Joel leans around the doorframe, half-distracted. “Barely even started it, little brother. Crib only got delivered yesterday.”

“Sheesh,” Maria’s eyes widen, “you sure are prepared.”

Vanessa laughs when Joel rolls his eyes and vanishes again. “You got no idea,” she says, “I have never seen him so…pedantic, right?” She looks to you, still smiling. So sweet, you worry your lips are pursing at the sight of it. Your neck tensing. Your eyes watering.

“Yeah,” you reply, nodding shyly and swallowing back the saccharine. “I think he’s more nervous than he’s letting on.”

Joel’s voice calls from the kitchen again: your name. When you answer, he says, “Why don’t you take Tommy up, show ‘im what we got so far?” and then, leaning back around the door, “She picked the color ‘n whatnot.”

“Ah,” Tommy says, palms pushing down on his knees, “so you’re the brains, then?”

You mirror him, accepting Joel’s request. As though you had any choice in the first place. Standing beside the younger Miller, you mutter, “Sure. Let’s go with that.”

He holds a hand out to usher you ahead, following you upstairs. Past the tousle-haired boy in grayscale, past the German shepherd, past the Christmas Day portrait. Wandering like you know the house inside out, like you might’ve picked the exact coordinates of each nail the picture frames hang on yourself.

Like the photographs pinned to the walls aren’t still as alien to you as they’d been that day you first set foot in here, the dress Joel would come to tear from your body slung over your arm.

You twist the gold handle and unveil a homely little room, painted by you and Joel just last week. The soft blue drying into his knuckles, random splatters on your palms and your jeans. The giggles drawn from your chest; the thief either the chemicals from the paint, or the man rolling it over the walls – and you’ve a pretty good idea of which.

Tommy sniffs roughly, nodding. Taps the toe of his boot against one of the two bulky boxes leant against the wall, a crib printed on one and a rocking chair on the other. His tipsy head bob bob bobbing. “Alright. ‘s nice, ain’t it?”

You settle against the window, the glass cold at your back. “Real nice, yeah. Be even better once it’s done.”

“What’s yours look like?”

“Mine?”

“Nursery at your place. Your one pink, ‘case it’s a girl?”

You snort. “Mine is a little greener. More…I guess it’s duck egg. Had some leftover paint.”

He clicks his fingers and points to you. “See what you did there. Duck egg. Duckie.”

“Hm. Wish I were that poetic. I just like the color.”

Tommy stuffs his hands in his pockets, wanders around the bare room. The faint lingering of whiskey putting up its best fight against the clean bite of fresh paint, the sweet scent shaking from him when he nods some more at the blank walls and naked windows. He clicks his teeth and asks, “How you holdin’ up, anyways?”

“How am I holding up?”

“Yep. With, uh…” he nods to the door, eyes wide, “…Vanessa,” he whispers. Louder than he must think – probably echoed, if anything, by the palm he curves around his mouth.

You cross your arms protectively, shoulders bunching. “She’s fine,” you say, voice deliberately low. You both ignore the crack in it when you add, “I like her. She’s – she’s taken this all like a champ.”

Tommy leans on the window ledge, a rugged hand you reckon you’d know was a Miller’s just by looking at it. Same rough-cut quality as Joel’s, like they’re torn from the same sheet of sandpaper. He props the other on his hip. “But, boy – it’s gotta be complicated, right?”

“I guess. But she’s real sweet about it. And Joel’s been great, too.” You sniff, the memory of your kiss flashing behind your eyes. The steady drum of Duck’s heartbeat, the gleam in Joel’s eye when he looked down at you. The guilt seeping from your skin like beads of sweat, prickling along your spine and fizzling against the cold windowpane.

Tommy blinks at you, liquor-glazed eyes scanning. His shoulders jerk, a loud huh propelling from his throat. When your head cocks in confusion, startled from your daydream, he spills. “He ‘n I had a mighty long talk when he told me.”

You feel yourself leaning in, magnetized to him – body hunched as though you’re gossiping in the corner of a house party. Inhaling secrets with the tinge of alcohol on Tommy’s breath. “Oh, yeah?”

Tommy hums. “Just wanted to make sure he’d thought it all through. Not you – I always knew he’d take care a’ you and Duck. But…involving Vanessa,” he lowers his voice again, glancing over to the warm light spilling in from the hallway, “I just wanted him to be sure.”

Your blood begins to warm, heat flooding through your body as you step closer, murmuring, “What’d he say?”

He flicks his head, seeming to toss his initial response to the wind. “You know Joel. He is his own man.”

Your face screws, head jerking back. “What’s that mean? He is his own man?”

A voice from the doorway interrupts. A shadow swimming in the golden light. “Who is?”

Tommy steps away from you, loosening his arms as his big brother drifts into the shadowy room. Dusting the conversation under the rug. The smell of whiskey backs off. “Speak of the devil. Nice paint job, Joel. Missed a couple spots, but – I’ll let you off.”

“Uhuh.” Joel’s eyes thin, his body slanted against the wall. Arms crossed, bottle of beer hanging from his fingers.

Tommy swaggers forward when Joel holds the bottle out, taking it with a wary glance at the tall figure. A dog meandering back to his owner, tail between his legs and ears flat. It takes his gritty voice to jolt you back to the room, splintering your gaze from Joel’s toned arms and huge chest. “Looks real good, you two. ‘s one lucky kid.”

Joel’s jaw lifts, his eyes landing on you. Dogs are terrible liars. “He talkin’ your ear off?”

You smile; recognizing the softer Joel you’ve grown used to over the last three months replacing the stern, cold version you once knew so well. “Only a little.”

“Tommy,” he says then, “Maria needs you for somethin’.”

The denim-donned Miller nods knowingly and heads out of the room, thud of his boots receding downstairs.

“Maria okay?” you ask, making space for Joel as he settles beside you.

He shrugs. “Only said that to get him outta your hair.”

You frown. “You sent me up here with him in the first place.”

“So I could come up ‘n check on you. Know this must be a lot – the two of them, tonight.”

“I’m fine. Promise. I’m a big girl.”

You both sigh, turning to look out at the dark street. Your arms cross, sitting somewhere above the tiny slope of your bump – a new development you’re still getting used to. Your stomach feels tighter, a little more solid than usual when you touch it. A little more…real. There’s someone in there, right? Like, actually there. They’re changing the way you look, the way you feel.

“This is it, right?” you say, staring at the white lanterns illuminating Alice Brown’s rose bushes. “This is the year.”

“The year,” Joel agrees.

“Mhm. Become a mom. Become a dad.”

He purses his lips. “Yeah, I don’t know. I’ve had bigger years, kid.”

“Let’s hear it, old man. Let’s hear about your biggest year. God knows you’ve had plenty to choose from.”

He sucks a deep breath in, eyes tracing the silhouette of the houses across the street as he thinks. “Senior year, nineteen ninety-three. Asked Stacy Moore as my date to the prom ‘n she said yes. I was so nervous that I forgot my bow tie. Was a pretty good year.”

You hum, agreeing, and then, “I see your ninety-three, and I raise you: two thousand and one. There was this bike I wanted for-fucking-ever; it had, like, little beads on the spokes – would make this ratatatat sound whenever it moved. Tassels hanging from the handlebars, all iridescent. I begged my mom the entire year for it, and on Christmas morning I woke up, and…” You lift your hands, air puffing from between your lips. “Santa Claus delivered that year, dude.”

“Well,” Joel clicks his teeth, shell hardening only a little, “thanks for making me feel old as hell.”

“You’re welcome.” You beam back at him, breaking into a laugh when he does.

The two of you stand a little distance apart, denying yourselves the innocent brushing of shoulder against shoulder, the nudging of elbows and swaying of hips. Admiring the empty sky and emptier street, bathing between the cold moonlight of outside and the warm lamplight in.

And from somewhere deep in your belly, somewhere tucked behind your ribs, beneath your slow-growing womb: an urge to ask about her. To bring her up. To tend to the curiosity that Tommy poked a clumsy, drunken finger straight into, tearing it apart at the seams.

Like pressing on a new bruise, satiating the hungry need to know where you were hurt, how you were hurt, when you were hurt. A bent fingertip, pushing heavily into a sensitive splatter of dark purple; the burst blood vessels hissing in response, whispering, You don’t know, and you don’t want to know.

But you defy them. You do want to know. Want to satisfy the disturbed thrill you felt, leaning into Joel’s brother. Hands turning over one another, wet bottom lip trembling as he rounded the corner on some sort of…what was it, a secret? Some sort of truth, a long-buried revelation about the other woman. She’s a witch, have you spotted her crooked nose? She’s plotting something, I swear. She’s up to no good.

Your eyes lift again, focusing back on the dull color of the outside world. The bland canvas of reality. She’s not a witch, nor some genius mastermind. She’s a boring, relatively normal woman. Kind, thoughtful. Naïve and a little too eager to please; too willing to forgive a situation which warrants no such kindness or empathy.

She’s just…fine. Lukewarm. And you’ve no idea why that pisses you off so much.

Which, incidentally, makes the bruise sting all the more.

“Maria, Maria,” Tommy’s voice claws its way upstairs, “turn it on, turn it – Joel? Joel! It’s midnight, Joel, you two better come on down, now! Have we missed it –? Have we –?”

The sound of cheering slowly bubbles to life behind his drawl as the TV volume picks up, the tittering of Maria and Vanessa chiming in.

“…five, four, three, two, one…Happy New Year!”

Joel’s looking over his shoulder, waiting for footsteps or voices or a girlfriend who never shows. And he ignores his brother, for he is his own man, and turns to you instead. Bracing himself on the ledge, he blinks down with a plain grin on his lips. “Happy New Year, Mom,” he whispers.

You return his smile, taking his hand when he reaches out to you. “Happy New Year, Dad,” you reply, squeezing his palm.

He pulls you in for a hug, kissing your cheek briskly as you hook your arms over his shoulders. His beard scratches your cheek, grazes the curve of your shoulder, and you don’t mind. Your small, swollen belly presses against his; the tiny curve safe in the midst of your embrace.

Outside, the sky crackles to life with the distant spatter of fireworks, color shattering across the black canvas – red, blue, green and gold, dissolving as quickly as they explode into the now-January night. A burst of purple light washes between the two of you, and you turn your head on Joel’s shoulder to watch as the sparks rain over your neighbors’ roofs.

“I should get goin’,” you whisper, feeling his heartbeat a little too strongly against your own. Becoming suddenly aware of the weight of your frames locked together.

“Glad you came,” he says as he leans away. “I know this ain’t…I know we’re all tryin’, but you’re tryin’ the most, and I appreciate it. I hope you know that.”

“I know it,” you tell him, rolling your eyes. “Now, go. Go kiss your girlfriend.”

He chuckles, making for the door. “You want me to walk you home?”

Your eyes close serenely, the image of him doused in flickers of gold burning behind your eyelids. “I’ll survive the walk across the hedgerow, Miller.”

Joel nods once and leaves, plodding downstairs to be greeted by his open-armed girlfriend, a peck between them, arms crossed behind his neck. The lyrics of Auld Lang Syne slurred against his lips.

And you think – You know what? If it’ll rip you apart from her, if it’ll keep her bright red lips and her shining curtain of hair away from you, if it’ll stop her sucking in your air and your smell and your attention for thirty fucking seconds –

Then, yeah. Walk me home. Stay for a drink. Sleep in the goddamn guestroom.

Walk me home.

You slip out of the front door when the two couples are in the kitchen, missing Joel’s calling your name – or perhaps just ignoring it altogether.

“Spread the love at St. David’s this Valentine’s Day…”

Joel slows alongside a wall of cerise hearts, each one fluttering like wings whenever the hospital doors slide open and the breeze sneaks inside. Slips scrawled with names and messages: Love you M! and J + A, crude drawings of stick figures holding hands. Your lips curl into a smirk, watching him flick through each one as you palm your round stomach.

You just saw Duck for the second time. The last time, Freya was kind enough to mention, before they’re tearing you in two. Sorry, she mouthed when your expression dropped, and went back to twisting the probe over your stomach. Silently.

You’re getting better at it, you think. Playing Mom. Like some little game of make-believe, which is only real for as long as you’re looking it square in the eye – attending doctor’s appointments, updating the neighbors on your newest list of symptoms en route to your mailbox.

A little surer on your feet, now that you’ve found a balance to it: taking it as seriously as it warrants, a dry little pill stuck on the cliff of your throat, and making it easier to swallow with humor like water, a huge gulp anytime the fear claws its way up your spine.

And no more panic, since at least before Christmas. Only a little flustered this afternoon when Freya asked if you wanted to know the sex.

It felt too big a thing to hear, too real. You’re only just getting used to the backache and the bleeding gums. (And why didn’t you know that your gums would bleed? Isn’t that something they should fucking warn you about? Congrats, you’re pregnant: prepare for blood seeping from your jaw.)

No. No, thanks. Your head shot around to Joel. No, right?

He shrugged. Makes no difference to me.

Are you sure?

I’m sure, kid. Promise.

‘cause we can find out. I mean – if you want to.

He rocked forward on the balls of his feet, tapping you amiably on the shoulder. I don’t. You’re good.

You don’t?

No, I – He sighed, a hand dragging through his hair. If you want to, I want to. If you don’t, I don’t. Alright?

Freya bit back a laugh, the closed fist over her lips doing little to hide it. You guys should write a book on co-parenting.

But then she left the room again, closed the door on that same old little bubble – the three of you perched on the bed, you and Joel blinking up at the grains of your child onscreen – and you cried. Again. More.

Everything clearer, everything even more human than before: the globe of their skull, the tiny slope of their nose. All glowing in the dark waves of your womb, twinkling like the most beautiful constellation you could ever come across. Their ankles were crossed, feet forming a tiny heart shape in the top corner of the sonogram. Your hand lifted to point it out to Joel, and before the words found voice, you choked and broke down again.

He held you, lips to your hair, body solid as a rock as you melted into him in waves of salty tears. Smiled that honey-glazed smile and said he was so proud of you, said, look what your body’s doin’, darlin’, look what you’re growin’ – which only made you weep more.

And you pretended not to wait for it – for the moment when you might tilt your head up and your lips might line with his, and he might close the achy space between you again, might shush your cries by stealing the air from your lungs and the beat from your heart.

But he didn’t.

Which is fine.

Right?

“Somethin’ on your mind, kid?” he asks now, eyes still glued to the sea of hearts.

Your stare snaps from him instantly, unaware it was even held there. You tug on the hem of your sweater and pull the sleeves over your hands, mumbling, “Fine, I’m – I’m just…Come on, man. I’m hungry. I didn’t eat lunch today.”

“’n whose fault is that?”

You glower at him. “How considerate,” you seethe, “Vanessa’s a fucking lucky woman, you know that?”

He ignores you, a dumb smile on his face. The usual. “Let’s leave one for ‘em.”

A hot temper begins to boil below the surface of your skin, squeezing between your teeth in a fist-swinging breath. Also the usual these days, apparently. “For who?”

“Duckie. Somethin’ to mark the second scan. Last time we see them, before –”

Your hand flies up, eyes closing with a wince. Shut the fuck up. “Enough. I know.”

Joel hms, still smiling to himself. His beard has grown out a little: thicker, darker, gray sewn through like little whip stitches lining his jaw. He fishes a heart shape from the tub along with a pen, which he twirls annoyingly around his fingers as he thinks.

You sink back against the clinical white wall, an offensively bright color, holding your cheeks up in something of a smile when a nurse wanders past, nodding to both of you. Your face drops back to a scowl as soon as she’s over Joel’s shoulder, and your eyes meet his again – his brows raised, expectant.

“What?” you ask, chewing on the inside of your cheek.

He holds the slip up. “What we gonna write?”

And whatever charm the moment may have held, withers instantly. You throw your arms up petulantly. “You wanted to do it! Pick something. See you soon, or something, I don’t fucking know.”

“I don’t fucking know,” Joel muses, creases by his eyes when he smirks. “Poignant.”

“That’s what you should write,” you step closer, shoving your shoulder into his as you study the trembling hearts on the board, “if you can spell poignant, write that.”

“Hilarious,” he mutters, bending to scribble onto the shape, shielding his work from your view when you hang around his shoulder to pry. Cupping over the message until he’s straightening up, tossing the pen back to the desk, stealing a pin from the tub.

“Let me read,” you protest, tugging on his flannel sleeve.

“I will,” he says, shaking you off. “Patience, darlin’.”

Joel turns to the wall and pins the heart higher than the rest, in a spot clear of its own on the corkboard – thick arms stretching higher higher higher and pulling your gaze with them. As he steps back, he takes you gently by the waist and positions you in front of his body, your shoulders brushing against his chest. Your ribs hold your heart back from hammering into his.

You push up onto your tiptoes and squint at the note, which quivers when the hospital doors pull open again. “Mom and…Mom and Dad f…You fucking…”

Joel dodges your batting arm, snickering with you as he turns to make for the exit. “You don’t like it?” he tosses over his shoulder.

The heart stares down at you, black ink carved into the paper, watching as you turn and hurry after him, giggling. “Mom and Dad fuckin love you? So much for my potty mouth. And the –” another wheezing laugh you’d otherwise be ashamed to let him hear, “– the drawing? It looks – it looks more like a giraffe than a duck. Or, like, you know those long-necked dinosaurs?”

Joel’s head tips back, his own laughter caught up by the breeze when you wander outside, slipping your wrist around the crook of his elbow. Something infectious about it, something which stirs your own laughter until you’re walking arm in arm to the truck with a man who, six months ago, you’d barely look at twice over the fence.

The blind rage bubbling from your empty stomach seems to dissipate, dwindled to nothing in the face of that same man – his swollen cheeks and crows-feet eyes. And you say, “You’re disgustingly sentimental, you know that? Like, sickening.”

And Joel smirks, the way he always fucking does, and says, “You love it. Can’t lie to me.”

“I love it,” you concede, nudging into him as he opens the door for you.

The drive home is quiet, but not uncomfortable. There’s another thing you’re getting good at: being around Joel without need for snide remarks, without feeling your tongue curl under the weight of some snappy quip, loaded and aimed. Being around him and talking about Duck, asking how Tommy and Maria are. Forcing your teeth and tongue to carve out words which ask how Vanessa is, what she’s up to, when he’s seeing her next.

None of this is ideal, that’s for sure. Joel’s girlfriend aside, you’ve spent the last five months cohabiting your body with a stranger who lives most peacefully in the eye of a raging tornado of hormones – flitting between fits of giggles and pulsating joy in your veins, to waves of tears and an anger so hot beneath your skin that you wonder if your emotions might dry up completely by the time this is all through.

It's tough. It’s scary. And some nights you lie in bed, alone, wet eyes fixed on nothing, waiting for someone to burst into the room and announce that it’s all a prank. Just a silly joke. You and Joel can go back to tossing newspapers and casting glowers.

But for now, sat in the passenger seat of his truck – the seatbelt warped around the curve of your belly, the Eagles lilting softly from the radio – it feels like you’re making a home out of that tornado, too. Feeling the swirling walls of wind toss your hair like the breeze through the truck window; the chilled caress of the evening around your outstretched arm, soaring down the highway.

Yeah, you think. I can make something outta this.

“You know what I’m craving?”

Joel’s watching the light, waiting for green. “What’s that?”

“A fucking bagel. Cream cheese, pastrami,” you groan.

He snorts, cringing when he adds, “Pickles?”

A moan tears from the base of your throat, head lolling against your seat. “I could orgasm just thinking about it.”

The light turns, and Joel swings right. “I’d rather you didn’t,” he mutters, turning the wheel with one palm. “I got bagels back at the house, if you want one.”

You stare at him, jaw loose, saliva pooling behind your bottom lip. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

He smiles, shaking his head. “Let me make you one, ‘fore you go home. Big day, ‘n all.”

And you hate it – hate the way your cheeks fill with a genuine happiness, something swollen and achy, impossible to ignore when it lifts your eyes and hurts your teeth. Appreciation, or admiration, perhaps, that you figure you’ll only ever have for him. You don’t know what the fuck to call it.

So you sum it up into three words. “That’d be nice,” you whisper, and Joel places his hand over your knee, shaking it lightly as he drives on.

It stays there, until he’s pulling into his driveway.

He pushes the front door open and steps back, an arm extended to let you by first. An after you, ma’am, between his lips. And you turn to make some mocking joke, the beginnings of some comment about how gentlemanly he is, when you’re socked square on the nose by a heavy-fisted, bitter scent.

“Oh, fuck,” you gasp, stumbling backwards across the threshold and onto the porch again. Your throat constricting around nothing, your tongue twisting, your stomach lurching.

Joel catches you just in time to stop you from falling on your ass. “The hell’s the m–? Oh.”

“Hi!” Vanessa calls from the kitchen, leaning around the doorframe to wave you both in. “Almost ready! Take a seat.”

“V–? Hey, sweetheart?” Joel calls back, one hand around your wrist and the other between your shoulders. “What – what’s cookin’?”

She pauses, glancing back at the stove. Pulls the dish towel between her hands taut. “I…I made pasta.”

“Yeah, what kind, sweet?”

“…Bolognese.”

He can’t cover his own sigh quick enough. Thick with something which feels like anger. “Shit,” he turns back to you, “I am so sorry.”

You pull in a deep, unsteady breath, your lungs struggling to separate night air from tomato juice. A weight rolling at the bottom of your stomach, your entire body beginning to tremble with it. “I feel like I’m gonna – Joel, I’m gonna –”

“Breathe,” he whispers, voice urgent, palm slipping to cup your jaw. “Just breathe for me.”

But your throat’s tightening, swallowing hard around gags which come stronger and quicker the more you try to fight them down. “I can still fucking smell it –”

Her shadow blocks the stretch of light from the house. A nervous little thing, a timid creature’s shadow stretched wide across the porch floor. “Is…everything okay?”

“It’s – it’s fine,” Joel sighs again, torn between comforting you and letting Vanessa down gently, “it’s just – tomato is one of her…her aversions.” He’s unable to pull his eyes from you, privately asking, “Are you okay?” when Vanessa turns back to the kitchen.

“I didn’t – I didn’t know,” she mumbles, thumbnail between her teeth. “I am so sorry.”

Suddenly, your will not to throw up is overpowered by your will to tell her, “It’s fine,” sucking in a deep, sickly breath before adding, “I’m just gonna – I should go.”

“I don’t want you to go,” Joel says, his teeth guarding the words from his girlfriend.

“I’m gonna clean up in here,” Vanessa points over her shoulder, and you think she must’ve heard him, “get outta your hair. I’m so sorry, again. I would’ve never…”

Joel lets go of you as you stagger backwards, the cold air tearing down your throat to meet the burning acid tickling up your esophagus. “Please don’t apologize,” you lift a weak hand, “how could you have known? I’ll –” another sharp gasp, “– I’ll see you guys around.”

He must say your name, must try once more to pull you back to his side, but the blood’s rushing through your ears, and your heart’s pounding at the back of your tongue, and your stomach’s notching its way up your spine. You make it to your kitchen sink just in time.

He keeps you waiting all of one hour before he’s calling you. Your arm reaches over to your nightstand, fumbling in the dark for your heavy phone, the screen cold against your cheek.

“Mhm?”

“Are you okay?”

Your lungs pull a deep, slow breath. The acid painted across your throat tickles as the air passes by it, an uncomfortable, scratchy feeling.“Mhm.”

“That a lie?”

“Only a little. Is Vanessa okay?”

He takes a second to answer. Lets go of whatever he was going to say with a sigh, replacing it with, “She just left.”

“Is she mad at us?”

Another second. “Just me. Not you.”

You massage the slope below your breasts, the ache in your esophagus throbbing when you move. “Why just you?”

Ruffling, like he’s settling back into his couch. Sinking into the cushion, his body as heavy as yours feels on your mattress. “I should’ve told her you didn’t like tomatoes. ‘cause now I’m a goddamn mind reader. I mean, why the hell wouldn’t my girlfriend be in my house cookin’ a damn pasta dish while I’m out, y’know? Jesus Christ.”

“Joel,” you turn slowly onto your back, bravely waiting for the waves of nausea still lapping around your stomach to turn with you, “it was a nice thing, what she did. She didn’t mean to…She probably thought she was helping.”

“Naw, I know,” he replies, the sharp bite of his words softening again, shrinking under yours. “I don’t care about her and her helping, though, darlin’, I care about y –” He barely catches it in time. “I care about you carrying my child, and I care about making sure you don’t spend your nights fuckin’…throwing up tomato sauce.”

You gulp, neck convulsing. The backwash of bile swallowed back. Your chest floods with a heat of quick panic. “Can we…maybe…not use the word? I just –”

“Sorry, baby. Sorry. This is just – it’s a lot easier if she would just…”

Your eyes close over, a salty sting sweeping behind them. If she would just lay off. Back off. Fuck off. “…but she won’t, Joel. She loves you. ‘n you…”

The words drift off, taken by the tide, swept off into silence. And neither of you bother with trying to retrieve them – you just watch, stood safe on the shoreline, as they fold under the waves of something too big for either of you to acknowledge. Too dark, too dangerous.

So, you say, “I get it,” instead; say, “I get why you’re mad. Just – let’s forget about it, okay? Sorry for…ruining dinner.”

Joel scoffs, that old, pissed-off Joel scoff. You can see his deadened expression on the back of your eyelids. You may as well have just thrown his newspaper to the end of the earth. “You know damn well that you didn’t ruin anything. How you feelin’?”

“Tired. Throat kinda hurts.”

“Still feel like that pastrami bagel?”

“Not really. Sorry. Appetite’s gone.”

“How about a water?”

“I got some here. Thanks.”

“Okay,” Joel sniffs, “how about: you take the hint and let me come over there to see you?”

You giggle, hand over your eyes to mask your expression from the dark. “I hate you. Yeah, come over. Door’s unlocked.”

Date night – six month anniversary or whatever. Call me if you need anything.

And I mean anything. OK?

Your thumbs hover over the two gray messages, an awkward jig as your brain scrambles to offer words back. Where are you guys going? Too interested. Too weird. OK, what if I’m bored? Delete delete delete. Trying too hard. Sure, have a good n–

The ellipsis pops up and you freeze. A stupidly polite swish delivers Joel’s third text.

Boredom counts as anything, by the way.

And the fucker steals another smile from you. You notice it when you look up, clocking yourself in the mirror. Accompanied by a warmth which drips down your spine, swirls around your tummy; a fluttering you’re not sure is Duckie or something else.

Have a good night, Dad, you type back, tossing the phone to the end of your bed when you hit send. Swiping for a pillow, holding it firm to your face. Pressing so deep into the plush that even the linen won’t be able to see your grin.

Joel told you about this six-month anniversary last week. He wasn’t too thrilled about it then, either. Dinner to celebrate six months? A year, fair enough. But six months?

You swallowed your pride, swallowed the same throttling ecstasy which seeped through your pores on New Year’s Eve, on that February evening she cooked– never mind; a desperate desire to tear apart the very notion of Vanessa and her cutesy little date nights and candlelit dinners. I think it’s a fun idea, you said. Y’all should do it.

And Joel listened. Because he always fucking listens to you, these days. Listens when you tell him that you like the watermelon Sour Patch Kids best, and picks them up anytime he’s at the store. Listens to you when you tell him he should move the crib away from the window, in case the streetlights shine on Duck while they sleep.

Listens when you ramble about how sore your feet are, how heavy your belly feels, how there’s a clammy heat lingering under your skin at all times, bubbling and bubbling and never rising to anything more than steam collecting on the underside of your flesh.

Listens when you tell him to go spend time with his girlfriend. And neither of you pay attention to the jealous shadow behind your words, the hesitant quiver behind his.

He replies almost instantly, the ping like a gunshot at the beginning of a race. Pillow slammed into the mattress, body lunging forward.

You too, Mom. Don’t have too much fun without me.

You lock the phone and slide it back under your covers, smiling dumbly.

There’s still a small part of you waiting for the big reveal: none of this is really happening. A dream, maybe, something you’ll wake from with a tiny throbbing headache, a dry mouth and a new reason to avoid your neighbor at all costs.

But it seems that, each time that thought crosses your mind, you’re quicker and quicker to quash it. Realizing each time that what lies ahead – Joel, your baby, this future version of yourself that you’re yet to meet, still just a little out of reach – fills you with more excitement and wonder, than it does fear.

Mom.

It’s not something you ever imagined for yourself. Not someone you ever thought you’d be. And yet, each time you say it out loud, each time you look in the mirror and picture a baby in the crook of your arm, a toddler perched on your hip, a kid stood by your side, tugging on the hem of your shirt – she feels a little closer. A little clearer. She just has to look over her shoulder, notice you waiting. I’m right here, she says. Come find me.

Mom. Mom and Dad.

You imagine Joel right now, sat in some ritzy restaurant with jazz music and stained-glass lamps on every table, ordering Vanessa some glorified lentil soup and slapping his card over the bill before the waiter has a chance to reveal the damage to him. Your lips twist at the thought – her jewels and her long hair and her sweet little smile laced with a smug possession.

And then you slap your own wrists, hissing to yourself to shut the fuck up.

“She’s nice,” you argue out loud, thin air holding no debate. “She’s kind, and I like her. She’s good for him.”

And then the air replies. Good for him, it swirls, but you could do it better.

Your arm lifts, lingering for a beat before batting the thought away.

Three weeks. Three fucking weeks, between pushing yourself out of his embrace in bed, and pulling yourself back into it – armed with a pregnancy test and a chest full of fear. Three weeks of dodging him, of your cheeks bubbling with embarrassment and regret anytime you thought of it; of hoping to God that Alice or Diane or Steve and Kris across the street wouldn’t clairvoyantly know what had transpired that night and corner you on your own front lawn.

A one-night stand. That’s all it was. Two lonely bodies, excitement enough to convince you both that it was a good idea; a fitted suit and a backless dress crumpled together on the floor. Liquid courage lacing it all together.

Three weeks, then, of reminding yourself how it felt: how amazing you were together. Your hand between your legs and Joel’s name between your teeth.

Fuck. If only he knew. Goodforhimgoodforhim she’s so good for him but I’m better.

You did it better. You know you did. The sun was cresting the horizon by the time the two of you stopped. You hauled yourselves down to breakfast and sat at least three people apart, made forced conversation with Maria about the DJ stumbling off with one of her cousins, while the ghostly ache of Joel’s body churned somewhere deep inside you.

It travels through your veins the way that everything does right now: urgent and unforgiving. A need to be dealt with, immediately. Coursing through your body, an arrowhead pointing somewhere you know it shouldn’t. But your hands lift anyway – following it, loosening the waist of your sweatpants and skimming beneath your underwear.

Your body lights at the first touch. The first dip of your middle finger against the plush over your clit. Knees bend, thighs part. You push your underwear down your hips, settling your bottoms loose on your legs. You’re already wet. You’re already there.

Good fucking girl. She’s good but I’m better, right? Take it, baby. Does she take it like I take it? Take it. Can she take you like I did?

Quicker and quicker and quicker, your fingers heavy on your clit. The other hand sifting between your folds, dipping to collect a glimmer of wet. Yeah. Just like that. Do you fuck her like you fucked me? You feel what you do to me? Fuck no, you don’t. You’ve never fucked anyone like you fucked me.

Head back, eyes fluttering closed, lips parting to breathe answers to a man who isn’t here. To a man who, as he dips sourdough into an overpriced soup, sure as hell isn’t thinking about that time he fucked you so good he got you fucking pregnant.

Well. Maybe he is. You are, right?

Voice without body, drawl etched in your memory. Think she can take it all? You hum in amusement, waiting for him to answer his own question. Yeah, she can.

Attagirl. Your legs spread further, knee lifting as you insert two slick-coated fingers. His hands are on your thighs, following the dip of your hips, holding your waist as you guide him back inside. Attagirl. That’s my – Fuck, Joel, you’re so b– That’s my fuckin’ girl. Take it. Touch it. His thumb on your clit – his, not yours. You like that? Yeah, that’s nice, ain’t it?

The flesh of your breasts filling his palms, squeezing and nipping and rolling between. The warmth leaking between your legs: his and yours and fuck, he’s so deep and he’s filling you again and he’s groaning as more dribbles from where he splits your body around his own, holding you still until he’s done. Until he’s empty.

“Joel,” you whine, a third finger pushing in.

Between your hips. Headboard hammering against the wall. The sun hanging loose at the bottom of the sky. Gonna make me come again, baby. Do it. Do something irreversible. Change me forever. Fuck me fuck me fill me and then pull out, push back in with the wet squelch of your come mixing with mine and changing me forever. Making me brand new. Making me yours.

Another moan. Louder. Sharper.

Yours yours yours. All mine? All yours. We’re good at this. I know we are. Who fucks you like this? No one – No one – just you – just me. It’s so big, fuck, but I can take it. Been thinkin’ about this all fuckin’ day, baby. All I do is think about you. All I fucking do – You gonna come for me? – is think about you.

Know you need it. Let ‘em hear you, downstairs.

Fuck, I’m thinking about you. Come home. I need you to come home, need you to –

Fuck me, Joel, I’m –

Good girl.

– fuck me.

Atta fuckin’ girl.

She’s good but I do it so much better.

We’re good at this. ‘s do it again.

She’s not as good as me.

Again? Again.

She’s not as good. She’s no fucking good.

Your walls clamp around your fist, entire body shuddering to a stop. Breath held by something shaped like the hook of his accent, two fingers either side of your throat. The same smirk on his lips that convinced you in the first place. Fuck, baby, fuck me.

“Joel,” you cry out, the sound ripping between your vocal cords, punching against the ceiling and reverberating in your ears. Your body convulses on the mattress, back arching and slackening again. “Fuck, I’m – oh, my –”

Just feel it, baby. Feel me. You got it.

Let go.

Your lungs lurch open again, breath flooding in like waves spilling over the gunwale and rushing down to pool at your feet. A lulling rock to your movements, chest rising and falling like the steady tide. Soothing, coming down. Foam and salt carrying the flotsam away, the jagged glass of his name disappearing to sea again.

And then he’s gone.

And you’re just alone in your bedroom.

Last you checked your phone, now face-down on the carpet at your hip, it was eight p.m. Streetlights on, the sky painted by the pale dregs of daytime.

Now, you lie in near-darkness, blinking up at the ceiling. Hand sifting through a bag of glow-in-the-dark stars, comparing the different sizes, considering where to stick them, and then tossing them back in frustration.

Your front door clicks open, a pause between the sound and his voice.

“Anyone home?” Joel calls, and you lift your wrist as though he can see it from the bottom of the fucking stairs.

“Up here,” you eventually announce, knuckles rubbing your tired eyes until Catherine wheels spatter across your eyelids.

His shadow splits the light from the hallway, the long rectangle crossing over your swollen belly. “The hell are you doin’?” he asks, wandering in.

You lift the bag. “Decorating. The hell are you doin’?”

He pulls your nursing pillow from its temporary home in the crib and tosses it down on the carpet, bending to lift your shoulders and slot it underneath. “Scooch,” he says, groaning as he lays back beside you. He smells like whiskey and cologne. All woody, pine and spice.

“You got a bad back,” you warn him. “You shouldn’t be all the way down here.”

“You’re seven months pregnant,” Joel clicks his teeth, “neither should you.”

“What if you get stuck ‘n can’t get back up?”

Offense pulls his brows together. “What if you do?”

You smile in response, feeling the heat of his shoulder against yours. Sucking the scent of him through your nose. The pair of you exchanging smirks and batting eyelashes, wrapped in the cool darkness of the room. It’s juvenile and intimate.

You’re trying not to think too much about it.

“I can’t fucking figure this out. I put two of the big stars over there,” you point to the far corner of the room, streetlight splintered by the shades on the ceiling, “but it looks stupid having two so close. So, then I thought,” moving your arm to the right, “a cluster of smaller ones, right over the crib. But I couldn’t move the damn thing to climb up, so…I’ve been down here ever since.”

Joel lifts his hand, stopping your train of thought. “Please do not climb on anything, bein’ that you are…with child.” And then, when your eyes roll to meet his, he grins, adding, “Nesting got you good, huh?”

“You should see my kitchen cupboards. Never been tidier.” Your expression dissolves, voice quietens – your most desperate plea since that morning you shook hands on his doorstep. Your broken wardrobes and his lonely wedding invite. “Will you help me?” you ask.

He thinks it over less than once, dragging his gaze from the twirling star in your fingers. A quick shake of his head, like it’s obvious. “’course I will. ‘s what I’m here for.” And then he yawns, lowering a hand absentmindedly to settle on the curve of your stomach; a gentle pat in greeting to Duck.

“How was dinner?”

“Good,” Joel lies.

“Vanessa okay?”

“Good,” again.

“Sorry.”

Joel’s eyes roll, fingers pausing. “Why do you always gotta be sorry for som’?”

You shrug when you realize it’s not a rhetorical question. He’s genuinely asking. “I don’t know. Just tryna be polite. I know you’d probably rather be at home right now, not…deciding where some plastic fuckin’ stars should go.”

“For my kid’s bedroom? For you?” He huffs something shaped like disapproval. “Do me a favor – stop with the sorrys, alright?”

“I’m not even done with the last fucking favor I said I’d do you.” Your eyes flit down to your bump.

He stares blankly. You know there’s a laugh gathering like hot air on a windowpane behind his eyes, threatening to shatter the glass.

“Fine,” you concede, “dickhead.”

“Better.”

You sigh, looking back down at the phosphorescent shape in your hands. Turning it over and over and over, matching the rhythm of his fingers tensing and then untensing on your belly. His fingers, matching the rhythm of your chest rising and falling with breath. The room quiet. The night’s eyes averted, even just for this moment.

“If it’s anything,” Joel says, “I think the stars look alright.”

Another stolen smile. Another defiant show of teeth. You place your hand on top of his: a thankful gesture, an invitation. Something in between.

Joel blinks back at you, his eyes flitting from yours to your lips. The dim light in the room swallowing the two of you whole, secluded in the upstairs of your home. And you think, Kiss me, kiss me kiss me kiss me, and you will the words over your tongue in a ragged breath – hoping that Joel might breathe them in and feel their sharp edges as they absorb into his bloodstream, each cell flipping like the star in your hand and whispering the same two words to him: Kiss her kiss her kiss her.

But right then –

There’s a burst of movement. Under your fingertips. A fluttering, like bubbles popping right below the surface of your skin.

Your eyes snap down at the same time Joel’s do; your fingers separating and hovering over your tummy.

“Did you – did you feel –?”

“Yeah. Did you?”

“Uhuh. Was that –?”

“I don’t know. Was it?”

He takes your hand, pressing it back against your stomach with his on top. Your knuckles safe in the canopy of his palm. Both staring into space as you hold your breath.

“They’re not…they’re not doin’ it, now…”

“Maybe it was just –”

“Wait! Did you feel that?”

A second burst on your womb, a tiny beat on the other side of your bump. A wide grin breaks across your cheeks, a disbelieving laugh escaping.

Joel laughs, too. “Is that – is that the first time they’ve ever –?”

“Yeah,” you sniff, tears prickling at the corners of your eyes, “that’s the first I’ve ever felt ‘em, anyways.”

“Wait,” Joel says, lifting his hand and holding a finger up. Just yours on your belly. “They doin’ it?”

Your head shakes.

When he lowers his hand, Duckie kicks again. The two of you lean in to one another, exchanging laughter. You lift your own hand, watching his expression as he waits patiently.

But then his head shakes, too. “Nothing. They’re only doin’ it when it’s both of us.”

“What the fuck?” you laugh, replacing your hand and waiting for the baby drum. “How can they even tell? What the f–?”

You shift your hands around the globe of your bump, pausing every so often to feel for Duck’s movements. A tiny fist punching, or a heel kicking, or an elbow shoving right above your navel in a way that’s bordering on painful, but numbed by the sheer thrill of it.

And for a while, it’s all you do: play tag with your unborn baby, giggling when they respond to your tapping fingers and cooing voices.

Joel sits up, leaning on his elbow to talk to his kid; runs two fingers across your shirt like a pair of legs scaling a cotton covered hill. And he laughs, and you laugh at his laugh, as if he’s a kid himself again – tearing apart gifts on his birthday, gasping and throwing his head back with glee at whatever he uncovers.

“It feel weird?” he asks, glancing up at you.

“So fucking weird,” you tell him.

“Does it hurt?”

“More…ticklish, if anything. Might get kinda annoying, if they start doing it when I’m tryna sleep, or somethin’…”

Joel lowers his jaw to your stomach, whispering, “You know what to do, Duckie. Make your daddy proud.”

You slap his shoulder, muttering, “Asshole.”

“Alright,” he says, splintered by a laugh. He pushes himself to his feet, swiping the bag of stars from your side. “Let’s get these up so you two can get some sleep.”

You groan as he pulls you upright, one last pat on your stomach, looking at you a second too long and a touch too meaningful. Too warm, too inviting.

It’s the calm before the storm, though you’re still stood motionless. Still trying to work out whether the tornado is moving away, or headed directly for you.

At five in the morning, Vanessa’s sister calls her.

“Heart attack,” Joel tells you a few hours later, the rustle of paper crinkling in your ear. The truck hums in the background. He speaks through a mouthful of sandwich. “Her dad always had a condition, but they thought they were managin’ it with medication,” another crinkle, and then, voice even more obscured, “but he got rushed to hospital durin’ the night, and…”

“Poor Vanessa,” you reply, nail drawing shapes on the curve of your bump in attempt to lull Duck into a more relaxed state than the sharp kicks they’re throwing at your ribs. Now big and strong enough to do considerable damage, your voice falters each time they swing. “Is she – son of a bitch – is she okay?”

“Shaken up,” he says, turn signal ticking over his voice. “She’ll be alright. She’s pragmatic like that. Problem is – they’re in Houston. Her whole family. So I guess that’s where the funeral’s gonna be.”

You swing your legs off the couch, heaving your awkward, nine-months-pregnant body to your feet – the irritating scratch of hunger suddenly gnawing at your stomach. “Yeah?” you say, waddling through to the kitchen. “So?”

“So,” Joel takes another bite of sandwich, “she has to – I mean, we have to…go. To Houston.”

“We?” You slot the phone between your cheek and shoulder as you fish out a couple slices of bread.

“Me ‘n Vanessa.”

“Uhuh,” you carve a knife around a jar of peanut butter, “you gotta be there for her.”

Joel sounds a little defensive. “I know. And I am. I’m goin’ to be. ‘s just – I gotta be there for you, too. For – for Duck.”

Your stomach swirls, a fire catching which lights your chest in a trickle of flame.

“You are. You will be. Houston’s only, like, three hours away.”

He sighs.

The turn signal fills the silence between you, between Joel and an appropriate answer. Clicking like the sound of a tennis match, his head spinning between his grief-stricken girlfriend, and the third-trimester mother of his child.

“I’m here,” he says, and you hear the squeal of brakes out front. “Give me a sec.”

The door pushes open as you sink back into the couch, balancing the plate on the planet beneath your breasts. Joel crumples his sandwich paper in his fist and lowers his hand over the back of the couch, scrunching his fingers over your belly as he passes.

“Thought you hated that stuff,” he calls over his shoulder, disappearing into your kitchen.

“I had a craving,” you say, ripping the first bite from your sandwich. “You made me hungry.”

He returns a minute later with a glass of water which he sets down on the coffee table in front of you. He lifts your legs, letting them fall gently in his lap when he collapses into the opposite end of the couch, heels of his palms pressing against his eyes.

You tap his thigh with the ball of your foot and he turns to you, placing a hand over your ankles. A sticky paste of peanut butter and bread between your molars, you ask, “What’shup?”

Joel holds back a smirk at your chipmunk cheeks. “Just – just worried that you…you know, while I’m gone, is all.”

You scoff, gulping. “Come on. I am not gonna go into labor in the, what – two days? How long would you even be gone?”

He seems to wince at the thought, fingers sifting through his hair – a gray sweep sat casually over his left eyebrow; flicks following the curve of his ear towards the hinge of his jaw. “Less than that, if I can help it.”

“Joel.”

He turns to you, saying your name just as deflated in response.

“You have to go.”

He rolls his eyes, thumb and middle finger massaging his temples. Crosses his arms and huffs like a teenager. “Well, I ain’t happy about it.”

You snort, unable to hold it in as you take another bite. “I ‘on’t think Vanesha’sh too happy about it, either, to be honesh wih ya.”

Joel’s jaw slackens, a choked laugh bursting from the back of his throat. He lifts a cushion and swings it in your direction. “Heartless. That’s heartless, you know that? Jesus, baby.”

He leaves on Saturday morning.

You stand on your porch, watching him shove a suitcase into the backseat of his truck, squinting in the sunlight as he stalks across your front yard. Joining you in the shade, he leans into you, shoving you lightly.

“Quit it.” Your hand locking with his, steadying yourself. Something in the back of your mind begging him not to let go.

And as if he can hear the thought: “I can stay. You know I can stay, right?”

“I don’t want you to stay,” you tell him, sweeping the hair from his forehead. “We will be fine. We’ll stay up late, eat junk food and watch TV; I’ll do audio description for Duck…”

He scoffs, glancing across the street.

“…and then you’ll be back home, back to buggin’ the hell out of us. It’ll be Monday before you know it.”

Joel’s jaw tightens. “And what if…?”

“You really think that’s gonna happen? You think your kid’s that much of an asshole?”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “Yeah,” he shrugs, tongue in his cheek, “they’re half you.”

“Alright,” you click your teeth, turning away from the simper on his lips, “why don’t you just fuck off to Houston now, asshole?”

“I’ll fuck off, that’s what I’ll do.”

“Uhuh. Here’s hoping you don’t break down, or get a flat, or get struck by lightning, or anything.”

“You’re so funny,” he whispers, leaning closer.

“Hm. Now go.”

His jaw turns, beard grazing your skin. And then his lips; soft and warm, damp when he kisses your cheek. A moment too long. And he doesn’t pull away, doesn’t lean back the way you both know he should. No, he lingers – his lips by your ear, eyes flitting up to the street to make sure nobody sees.

“Joel –”

“I know.”

“We shouldn’t –”

“I know.”

But your arm is hooking around his neck, asking him to do it anyway, and his lips are lowering to yours, submitting to your request, and what’s supposed to be a goodbye kiss lasts at least a few seconds too long for it to mean anything less than a don’t go kiss.

You pull away when you feel the wet dab of his tongue against yours, realizing with an ice-cold shock where you are, and who he is, and what’s happening. Realizing how fucking stupid it’d be for both of you, how catastrophic and terrible the outcome.

A one-night stand.

A one-night –

He leans his forehead against yours, nose nuzzling your cheek. “I’ll call you when we get there.”

Your arm loosens, letting him go.

Just – letting him go.

Saturday Night Live ends just after midnight.

You arch your back into the couch, your swollen belly pushing forward. It’s an effort to get to your feet, what with the steady ache in your back all day, the weight on your front, and the fucking human being smushed into every vital organ inside you.

A deep breath feels like it inflates your lungs only halfway, Duck using the bottom half as a fucking ass cushion, and scaling the stairs takes another ten minutes – by the end of which, you’re slumped against the handrail, pausing before making off for your room.

You sink into the mattress, creasing the cool, smooth sheets. Duck stirs inside you, stretches out and throws a right hook against your bladder. You curse under your breath, hoisting yourself back to your feet.

“We gotta sleep, baby,” you hum, swaying back and forth with a hand under your belly. “Shh, ‘s okay. Take your fuckin’ fist outta my bladder, you little asshole.”

Whichever traits of yours and Joel’s have blended into the human cocktail growing in your uterus, you know one thing for certain: this kid has your stubbornness. The weight remains on your bladder, regardless of how much swaying, or pacing, or rubbing, or threatening you do.

You growl, wandering through the upper floor of your house in attempt to shift Duckie, or distract yourself, or, at the very least, tire the two of you out enough to fall asleep.

From the nursery door handle hangs a little wooden star, a tauntingly sleepy smile painted on it. You push the door open with two hesitant fingers, stepping into the still bedroom, the weak wash of streetlight meeting moonlight on the greenish walls.

You suck in a deep breath, floorboards squealing as you take your first step. Over the crib hangs a plastic mobile, soft plush shapes twirling slowly. The matching changing table slotted alongside it, a rocking chair over by the window.

You pad across a fluffy rug and lower yourself into the chair, tilting back and forth on your toes as you glance around one of the two rooms you and Joel have spent the most time in since that October morning bonded you forever. A baby duck ornament perched on a shelf above the dresser, its orange legs dangling. A multi-photo frame Joel’s mom bought you, both scans in the first two slots and the third empty, lying in wait.

Your breathing fragments, struggles, eyes slipping over to the baby clothes hanging in the closet. “You know, little Duckie,” you whisper, rubbing your bump and thinking back to Tommy’s words six months ago, “you are a pretty lucky kid.”

The hooded towel robe on the back of the door, the perfect size for a newborn. The framed prints sat atop the chest of drawers, waiting to be nailed to the wall: a rainbow, a frog, a starry sky.

“You got two houses. Two bedrooms, all to yourself. You got two parents who already love you more ‘n the whole world. And,” you gulp, “you got Vanessa. And she loves you, too.”

You glance down, watching the tiny pulse of movement when the baby stretches in your womb. Your hands scoop them up, as if holding them closer than they already are. As if already cradling them, forcing yourself to feel less alone.

Duck seems to quieten, to still; seems to consider what you’re avoiding. Reads between the lines, hears the words you’re not speaking.

Two of everything, you think, and I barely even had one.

The most evidence you have of being loved by anyone in your life is the house you live in. Four brick walls and three decades’ worth of belongings, more inheritance than memories. But they roll around like marbles – they echo against the walls when they hit them. There’s nothing binding them, no thread of love, or family, or anything real enough to hold it all together.

You’re the only living organ inside a skeleton’s cage. A lonely little heartbeat, making noise for no one to hear.

And that’s the way it has been, at least since you were eight. The absence of warmth and safety isn’t anything new to you – it left the second your parents did. The last scrunch of your mom’s nails on your head, the last kiss of her lips to your plump little cheeks. The passing over to your grandma, like you were cargo, like you were a box to be checked.

Maybe you found some distant flicker of heat in the way Joel looked at you, the day you told him you were pregnant. Maybe you saw the same glimmer of a flame that you used to see in your mom’s eye. The rosy smell of her perfume, the feel of her finger inside five of yours. Maybe, for the first time since you were a kid, you felt safe.

We’re gonna work it out, he said. I’m here. We’re in this together, alright? I am not running out on you.

Together. And yet, now, sat in your child’s nursery – a room built from scratch by Joel’s two hands and strung together by every beat of your heart – you’ve never felt more alone. The same two hands that are wrapped around Vanessa right now, consoling her, wiping her tears away, massaging her shoulders and sweeping her hair from her eyes.

And the same heartbeat which quickens now, fueled by an angry desire, an impulse scratching deep into your flesh to march all the damn way to Houston and tear the pair of them apart. Like he’s yours; like the way he touches you and looks at you and talks to you means anything more than his child growing inside you.

Like it’s you he’s touching and looking at and talking to, and not Duck. Like his attention won’t cease to shine on you, the second this little baby leaves your body.

And then, washing over the scorching hot sand of anger: a foam-lined wave of guilt. Of shame, for wishing for the breakdown of something that clearly makes the two of them happy. That makes Joel…happy.

He doesn’t owe you anything – he was never yours to begin with. Just one drunken night, a mistake until you noticed the two pale lines on the pregnancy test. And by that point, he was already hers again. You had missed him without even knowing it.

You sigh, pushing up from the rocking chair and reaching for a tissue from the changing table. Turning back, giving the room one last teary glance before closing the door, you sniff.

“You’re just…the luckiest little kid who’s ever gonna live.”

At one twenty a.m., cicadas chirping and trees rustling, the low breeze carrying the sounds through your half-open window – your back begins to ache. A blunt, gnawing pain. Feels like your period, and in your doze, you stuff a pillow between your legs and pray you don’t stain the sheets with a show of blood.

The realization comes over you as if that stifling breeze flips to freezing. You slowly come around, eyes peeling open as you think it over twice, then three times, then four. Duck shifts somewhere deep inside you, somewhere you’ve never felt them shift before.

“…No. Not right now, Duck. You gotta give me, like, twenty-four hours. Just – wait until your dad gets ho–”

A blinding pain interrupts you, the moonlit-blue room fading out of focus for half a second before you’re wide awake, clutching the bottom of your spine where you’re sure the kid just tore a fucking hole straight through your uterus.

“You’re a fucking dick,” you whimper, fingers clenching in tight fists around the bedsheets. “You’re a fucking – dick.”

One twenty-three. You go into labor.

#i think duckie is my favorite character i've ever written. that fetus has more personality than vanessa icl #joel miller #joel miller fic #joel miller smut #joel miller x reader #the last of us #tlou #macfrog #neighbor!joel #neighbor!joel miller #babydaddy!joel #tw pregnancy

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a-dauntless-daffodil · 3 months

Text

Charlie Morningstar, actual princess of hell, sitting very stiff and straight and awkward on the throne of hell during a Formal Thing, looking very Uncomfy about it... until....

Vaggie: "Are you guys all blind? She's gorgeous up there."

Angel Dust: "No surprises YOU'D like seein' her all stiff."

Vaggie: "Fuck off. She looks dignified. Formal-"

Alastor: "Tense?"

Niffty: "Like rigger mortis!"

Cherri Bomb: "Like she's sitting on TNT."

Angel Dust: "Stiffer than a porn star tryn'a pay rent."

Husk: "I can hear her fucking teeth grinding through that forced grin."

Vaggie: "Alright, she's a bit nervous sitting on the throne of hell for the first time, filling in for the absent queen mom and the shut in king dad. So what."

Alastor: "It is becoming SLIGHTLY detrimental, ha ha!"

Vaggie: "You told her to sit still up there and look pretty. Look. She's sitting. She's pretty."

Angel Dust: "You're gay."

Vaggie: "Hi gay I'm her girlfriend."

Husk: (snorts)

Alastor: "I'm SURE she is ALL those things, my dear-"

Vaggie: "Touch me and the sleeve comes off with your arm in it."

Husk: (SNIGGERS)

Alastor: "-but she IS mainly meant to be inspiring CONFIDENCE in her ability to run hell as it's de-facto ruler!"

Vaggie: "And?"

Alastor: "Well it WOULD be nice if she could make the symbolic at of sitting on the throne of hell, in full view of what is MEANT to be HER royal court, seem just a BIT more, hrmm... NATURAL~"

Vaggie: "What the fuck does that mean. She's princess of Hell. However she sits on the dumb chair is natural."

Angel Dust: "Toots, she's third in line ruler of all Pride, an' she looks..."

Niffty: "WRETCHED!"

Husk: "Fucking pitiful."

Alastor: "Once again I shall go with TENSE."

Vaggie: "You want her to relax up there?"

Alastor: "I would rather say, it is VITAL that she does so~!"

Cherri Bomb: "No sweat. Someone give me a drink and I'll slip her a chill pill."

Vaggie: "No."

Angel Dust: "NO!"

Niffty: "I could try giving her acupuncture!"

Angel Dust: "Cherri, we've TALKED about this-"

Husk: "You fucking know how?"

Cherri Bomb: "-don't be sucha stick in the mud, Angie."

Niffty: "You PUNCTURE!"

Angel Dust: "I ain't being a stick in the mud! You-"

Husk: "Unholy shit stop giggling and give me that fucking knife-"

Cherri Bomb: "Yeah, and I wasn't gonna get her royal highness high for real. Just something to take off the edge-"

Angel Dust: "She's got no history with that stuff! She'd be a KITE!"

Vaggie: "Someone hold my drink."

Husk: "-and where the fuck are YOU going?"

Vaggie: "Gonna go help my girlfriend."

Angel Dust: "Whoa whoa wait toots- ya supposed to be lying LOW here, Vagisaurus! Ex-exorcist bitch, remember? Lot's a people here who'd like to KILL ya???"

Vaggie: "If anyone's pissed enough to run up the dais steps and try murdering the princess of hell's partner right in front of her then they deserve to get at least one hit on me. You guys have fun, stick together, don't get killed."

Husk: "Take your own fucking advice-"

Angel Dust: "-aaaand she's took off, right in front of EVERYBODY oh that's just GREAT."

Niffty: "Alastor? Do you want her to die..?"

Alastor: "Right now, dearest? Well! If it helps our princess put on more of a royal bearing, then I fail to see why she shouldn't!"

Cherri Bomb: "Dude."

Charlie: "-eighty-three million ducks on the wall, eighty-three million duuucks... take one down.... pass it around..."

Charlie: "-don't think about how easy mom made this look don't think about her seeing you up here and wondering where she went wrong and maybe she did and that's why she left don't think about it don't think-"

Charlie: "... eighty-two million nine-hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-nine ducks on the waaalllll-"

Vaggie: (swoops down) "Hey."

Charlie: "-oh thank HELL Vaggie! I was just getting-"

(gets smooched)

Charlie: "..."

Charlie: ".... hhh...hi..."

Vaggie: "This armrest taken?"

Charlie: "What armrest. Oh! The THRONE right um no I mean yes you can, or- or we could get you your own chair if you want-!"

Vaggie: "Thanks babe, this is good."

Charlie: "It's- it's close!"

Vaggie: "Nice being on eye level for once."

Charlie: "or kiss level."

Vaggie: "Hm?"

Charlie: "NO NOTHING. Ahem!" (using gf's thigh as armrest)

Charlie: "Sooo, how's the party going down there?"

Vaggie: "Typical. Niffty brought a knife."

Charlie: "A knife? Just one??"

Vaggie: "We'll see."

Charlie: "I... guess just a knife's not too bad-"

Vaggie: "Heavenly steel."

Charlie: "H- Did you confiscate-?"

Vaggie: "Husk's working on it. I had better things to do."

Charlie: "Oh." (drooping) "Better things right. Other things. Just checking in on me huh? Um, what is the other things that need doing?"

Vaggie: "Charlie."

Charlie: "Shoot did I forget something?"

Vaggie: "You didn't-"

Charlie: "Something IMPORTANT?"

Vaggie: "Sweetie, you're things."

Charlie: "My things??"

Vaggie: "The things are you."

Charlie: "I'M things? What things- OH I'M THE-"

Charlie: "-I'm the things that need doing."

Vaggie: "Do you?"

Charlie: "N-not in public!"

Vaggie: "Guess you'll have to wait, then."

Charlie: "..."

Charlie: "You know, these are the only times I ever wonder about you maybe being a liiiittle itty bit evil."

Vaggie: "Punishment to fit the sin, babe. I've been having to look at you all evening."

Charlie: "I was WONDERING why your wings were showing!"

Vaggie: "You bring it out in me."

Charlie: "HEHEHEHEH."

Vaggie: "So now we're just gonna have to suffer together for the rest of the night."

Charlie: "That phrasing isn't helping."

Vaggie: "You playing with the hem of my skirt isn't helping."

Charlie: "YOU'RE the one almost sitting on my LAP."

Vaggie: "Emphasis on almost."

Charlie: (sigh) "I wish you were sitting on my lap..."

Vaggie: "You're basically melting into mine now, so there's that."

Charlie: "Your fault." (pouts) "Evil temptress of cuddles denied."

Vaggie: "Hellishly cute seductress."

Charlie: "Distracting tease."

Vaggie: "Speaking of distracting, think the whole room's looking this way now."

Charlie: "Can't blame them. You're lovely, Vaggie."

Vaggie: "Charmer."

Charlie: "Beautiful~"

Random Sinner: (charges over) "Murdering EXORCIST! You-"

(FwooOOM HELLFIRE)

Demon Charlie: (SNARLS)

Random Sinner: "...."

Random Sinner: "..... your wings are.. very pretty."

Vaggie: "Thanks."

Demon Charlie: "ANY oThER WORDS?"

Random Sinner: "C-congratulations on the girlfriend, your highness!"

Charlie: (beaming) (sparkling) "Thank you!!"

Random Sinner: (slightly charred) (eases back into the crowd)

Vaggie: "...."

Charlie: "I know I know..." (huffs) "That was a bit-"

Vaggie: "Hot."

Charlie: "Oh hush." (smirks) (drapes herself over gf's lap again)

Alastor: "...Well!"

Angel Dust: "She sure ain't stiff anymore."

Alastor: "Quite so."

Husk: "She's fucking liquefying."

Alastor: "Hrmm..."

Angel Dust: "Liquid like lighter fluid. She ROASTED that guy."

Cherri Bomb: "Are we like, SURE no one slipped anything in her drink..?"

Niffty: "Do you see any DEAD BODIES around Vaggie!?"

Cherri Bomb: "Uh, no?"

Niffty: "Awww. Then no."

Husk: "My grip hasn't gone limp though- Niffty, stop trying to take back the fucking angel knife."

Niffty: "THERE AREN'T ANY CORPSES HERE AT LEAST LET ME HAVE THIS!!!"

Husk: "Fuck no! You'll make corpses!"

Niffty: "I KNOOOOW!!!"

Angel Dust: "Not tonight, Niff."

Niffty: (hanging limply off of knife handle) (sobbing)

Alastor: "Oh dearest don't CRY~" (pats niffty) "Come now- why don't we RELISH how the crowd shies back in FEAR from our DARLING hotel founder!"

Cherri Bomb: "Uhh, they might just be cringing back from all the glittery rainbows..?"

Niffty: (sniffling) "Cr- cringing's good..."

Husk: "She sure as fuck does look full of pride now."

Alastor: "Indeed! MOST satisfactory!"

Cherri Bomb: "Gay pride."

Angel Dust: "In her fucked up battle scarred heavenly wash out murder girlfriend who's giving her big soppy I'm-so-in-love looks."

Alastor: "Ah HA...! Close enough~"

#hazbin hotel #vaggie #alastor the radio demon #charlie morningstar #chaggie #angle dust hazbin hotel #husk hazbin hotel #niffty hazbin hotel #cherri bomb hazbin hotel #incorrect quotes #if you give a nervous hell princess her cute gf-#she'll melt #if you Threaten the gf #she'll melt YOU #local hell PSA brought to you by one slightly crispy demon

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breadinanutshell · 1 year

Text

I made a list of Halsin facts for my own entertainment a while back but forgot to post it. Dunno if anyone would find this interesting but in case here it is, enjoy~ o/

ACT1

-He writes in tight scribbles, smokes the pipe and loves reading (likely non-fiction). He’s the studious sort, considering his unprompted interest in the parasites and his hunger for knowledge. This aspect of him was more defined in Early Access but sadly got lost during full release. It also briefly comes up during one of his banters in later chapters.

-He rarely drinks: he’s a lightweight and gets overly affectionate when drunk. He also sings when drunk. Badly, per his word.

-Is an actual Disney princess (he has birds scouting and reporting back to him).

-He has a strong sense of duty, so much so he will stop paying attention to other aspects of his life in the pursuit of it. At least in one instance, this has been depicted as a flaw (when he abandons the grove looking for the Nightsong).

-He enjoys spending time in his bear form, and appears to have been the main caretaker for the bears in the grove. Ormn in particular acts heartbroken that Halsin is missing.

-When given the chance, he’s eager to give up his position as archdruid, as he felt it was too draining and confining. Despite his insecurities in his ability as a leader, he’s more shrewd and wise than he lets on: he can play politics when necessary. And people around him have been more than happy to rely on him. He cares about those under his protection. A lot. “The grove is everything to me”.

-He doesn’t shy away from violence when provoked.

-He feels responsible for the shadow curse, and is compelled by the need to fix everything.

-This is a relic from Early Access but you’ll have to pry it from my cold dead hands: in the grove there used to be a fanfic titled “Shadow’s Kiss” written by the druid Roan that featured a certain “Balsin”. At the end of it a written entry by Halsin would threaten to feed Roan to Ormn if he ever saw the name “Balsin” again.

ACT2

-He likes open spaces, reading and whittling utensils and ornaments (ducks in particular). He’s got a sweet tooth and a fondness for honey. He finds it hurtful when he's made fun of for his interests: he admits people tend to underestimate his sensitivity.

-He’s a very religious man and invokes Silvanus any chance he gets. Even so he doesn’t believe in blind faith and chides Shadowheart for not questioning Shar’s teachings.

-He’s 350 years old.

-He has no mercy for goblins, to the point where he disapproves if you spare them in Moonrise. A bit funny, considering there’s a banter later on with Karlach where he insists that “mercy costs us nothing”.

-His scars were caused by a bear who didn’t appreciate being spurned during mating season.

-He’s a veteran who served in the battle against Ketheric Thorm in Reithwin, where eventually the druids and Harpers won. At the time he was likely second to the archdruid that led him into battle. When the shadow curse started spreading, said archdruid died, leaving Halsin in charge. He immediately evacuated the survivors. He still feels guilty for not being able to help more that day. From one of his party banters it’s clear Halsin suffers from survivor’s guilt. He’s lost many friends to the curse, so many in fact that “it would take a day and a night to recite the names of the fallen”.

-Considering how obsessed he’s been with the curse ravaging the land for the past 100 years, it’s unlikely he had any intimate connections during this period of time. He also claims that more good has been done since meeting Tav than in the 100 years before their meeting.

-His family is dead and buried at the foot of the Grandfather Tree in High Forest.

-He seems used to changing environments and affiliations. Once recruited, he’s quick to call Tav his new family.

-He remains polite in the face of scorn and ridicule. Right when he joins if you suggest all he’s good for is cleaning camp he responds with an awkward chuckle and a “wherever you need me”. Later in Act 3 his affections can be brusquely turned down by comparing him to a deep rothé, to which he calmly responds “a simple no would have sufficed”.

-As a child he befriended Thaniel, a spirit of nature, and ever since then he felt a higher calling. Thaniel appears to be as fond of Halsin as Halsin is of Thaniel, mentioning him often to Fist Art Cullagh during their imprisonment in the Shadowfell.

-He is the only expert of shadow curse alive, and if killed in Act 1 the curse cannot be lifted.

ACT3

-He believes himself, or at the very least aims to be, a protector. Any failure (or perceived failure) in fulfilling said role leads him to spirals of self doubt and insecurity. His self worth is heavily dependent on how useful he can be, and without a big purpose or mission to fulfill, he appears lost. In the same vein he seems incapable of staying still and relax, he always needs something to focus on.

-In true druid spirit, he considers cities to be intruding on nature’s realm. On his arrival to Baldur’s Gate, he's appalled and disgusted by the class inequality encountered in the city. He’s disturbed by the suffering of children, in particular.

-When called naive for his dream of a better future he mentions he gave up cynicism when he was 200 years old.

-He’s all for heckling Dribbles’ corny jokes.

-He sees his body as a vessel and his physical prowess as a tool. He takes no pride in it.

-He admits that he didn’t realize how much his responsibilities had been weighting on him until Tav showed up and took that burden away.

-He’s polyamorous, and pretty lax when it comes to sex and relationships: he has no qualms in taking pleasure where “desire finds purchase”. He mentions that he had many lovers in the past and that his heart doesn’t stir lightly. This might imply he’s laid with many, but cared for few. He also doesn’t appear thrilled by the prospect of marriage/tying yourself forever to someone. For a man so against putting a relationship into words, he acts incredibly smitten when romanced and showers his partner in all kinds of sweet praises.

-He’s so attuned to his wildshape that he tends to lose control of his transformations when overcome by strong emotions (i.e. anger, arousal). He appears embarrassed when this accidentally happens in an intimate situation. He does enjoy wildshape during intercourse though, as he even proposes it himself during an interaction with Shadowheart. Per his word, he doesn’t discriminate against any type: in an interaction with Lae'zel he implies he slept with a chimera.

-He considers lust to be the most essential of impulses and feels it’s only natural to be guided by it.

-He’s travelled far and wide. Where we do not know, unfortunately. He mentions he’s been to the Underdark many times and possibly the Nelanther Isles. In his youth he ventured into the Underdark to sate his own wanderlust, where he got captured, enslaved and sexually abused by drows for 3 years.

-He’s self aware of his obsession with nature. When Jaheira warns him not to fall into druid stereotypes, he comments that he does think about other topics such as high art and politics, but to him nothing compares to a tree.

-When speaking of his past, he comments that people seem to focus on the more “salacious chapters” and disregard his years of study. When confronted about it, he seems perfectly content with a life spent studying, meditating, counselling, fighting, training and fucking.

-He used to hibernate as a bear and mentions he spent at least 100 years of his life sleeping. It’s unclear if he’s still in the habit.

-At the end of the campaign he sets out to create a new community in Reithwin with the victims of war and refugees that were turned away from the city. The children of this soon-to-be-founded community refer to him as “daddy Halsin”.

-He considers himself an exceedingly patient man.

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #halsin #bg3 spoilers #long post #brainrot be real #i might have missed stuff #but i tried to be as thorough as i could #if you want confirmation feel free to ask

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cloudcountry · 4 months

Text

SUMMARY: you and idia prepare for a fun day at the beach!

COMMENTS: this is my entry for my own event, sweet shroud summer 2024!! be sure to check it out here!! (shameless self promotion)

IF YOU SEE A TYPO NO YOU DONT I READ THROUGH THIS ONCE AND I DONT FEEL LIKE DOING IT AGAIN

If you asked Idia, today would have been a perfect day to stay inside. The air was warm, the sun was out, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. That was the perfect weather to sit in with the air conditioning and a tub of ice cream, munching on some instant ramen noodles and binge watching one of his favorite anime or absolutely wiping the floor with some idiots in his new favorite game.

If you asked Idia’s partner of two years now, they would disagree.

They came knocking on his door late in the morning, calling his name through the door. Idia, still in his pajamas, scrambles to put a hoodie over his head to at least look somewhat presentable. He briefly checks his appearance in his computer monitor, and once deciding that you’ve definitely seen him looking worse, he cracks open the door.

He knows why he’s been so self conscious around you lately, the "summer body" season in full swing. He doesn’t like thinking about it. Regardless of his appearance though, you beam as if seeing him is the best thing that could have happened to you today.

“Hi.” you breathe, pupils blown as you take him in.

Idia scratches his arm awkwardly, shuffling his feet from behind the door.

“Um, yeah. Hi.”

You giggle, placing a hand on the door.

“May I come in?”

He lets you in, hurrying to clean up extra wrappers and misplaced mangas as you step into his room, eyes following his every move. He’s so cute when he gets nervous around you, shoving things into the various corners of his room to make it look cleaner even though you know his room has always been messy. He’s still in his pajama shorts and his fiery hair is even more untamed than usual.

It makes your heart flutter.

There’s a sweet sense of domesticity that bubbles up in your heart as you take in a sight nobody else has ever seen, the bare skin of his legs and the rolled up sleeves of his hoodie as he throws what looks like five instant ramen cups into a trash can by his desk.

His face is bright pink, and so are the tips of his beautiful beautiful hair.

You part your lips as he turns towards you, bashful and unsure, ducking his head before his hair. You giggle again and his heart picks up in his chest, sharp teeth gnawing at his lower lips. They’re chapped because he has yet to moisturize, and his heart jolts for an entirely different reason when he realizes you might be looking.

Why is he such a mess!?

“Idia, stop getting in your head, okay? Here.” you dig through your unusually large bag and pull out some chapstick.

Idia flushes pink as you cup your hand in front of him. He places his chin in your palm obediently, and averts his eyes as you apply chapstick to his lips. He rubs them together when you pull away and crosses his arms over his chest.

“Cmere.” you gesture him forward, closer to you again, and Idia feels himself get even warmer.

You lean in and give him a quick peck, murmuring “sharing is caring” against his lips. He snorts at the cheesiness and you can tell his nose is crinkling in half fake half very real disgust. It’s okay—he can take the cringeworthy couple things if it's with you.

“So...um, what do you want to do today?” Idia asks, eyeing the giant bag you have slung over your shoulder. He knows you have a plan, but he doesn’t know if he’d call it a good one.

Yet.

“I’m so glad you asked!” you beam, setting your bag on the ground and rummaging through it, “I was thinking we could take a trip to the beach! When we were watching that anime last night, you said you wanted to try out some of the things they were doing and I knew I had to take you!”

Idia freezes, the scratching of his arm ramping up in intensity as you riffle through the bag. He hadn’t been expecting you to be paying attention to anything he said during that marathon, much less plan anything like this for today.

“So I got us matching swimsuits, plus swim socks so we don’t poke our feet on anything.” you look up from your bag at him, smiling so brightly, “I wouldn’t want my baby getting hurt.”

Idia flushes even brighter at the pet name and you laugh, handing him a pair of swim shorts and a shirt. He silently thanks you for the cover up, and you two turn away from each other to change into your swim suits. He knows you won’t look at him when he’s changing but he can’t deny the anxiety that comes with being in the same room as you while he’s vulnerable, and so he changes as fast as he possibly can and tells you he’s done.

You take a little bit longer to change, but it isn’t long before you tell him he can turn around too.

He turns, and sure enough, you’re matching. He thinks you look so nice in that shade of blue, and little does he know you think very much the same.

“Can I help apply your sunscreen?” you ask, dangling a neon yellow bottle between your thumb and index finger.

“Are...are you sure?” he winces, “You don’t have to touch me.”

“Idia...I want to if you’ll let me. I don’t want you to burn.” you say softly, eyebrows furrowed.

It's like talking about himself like that hurts you.

“If...you wouldn’t mind...I’d like that.” he slumps down to the floor and tucks his head in between his knees, the tips of his hair turning bright pink again.

“Okay. Can you relax for me?” you ask gently, kneeling by his side.

He takes a few breaths before sitting up, turning to look at you. You beam as his eyes lock onto yours, and you pop the cap open. He holds out his hand to get his legs, and you squirt some into your palm to do his arms.

His arm hair is soft under your fingers as you rub the sunscreen in, making sure to hit every spot that the sun could possibly touch. You can feel his skin warming under your palms, and it makes a soft smile bloom across your face. You run your thumb over the inside of his wrist, and the pad of your finger catches on the tough tissues of his tendons. His fingers twitch at the contact, and you briefly find yourself fascinated by just how boney his wrists are. You sigh softly, your breath hitting his skin. He shudders, and you giggle.

“You know Idia...” you murmur, resting your chin on his shoulder, “You’re very soft. And warm.”

He huffs in annoyance, but the sound is empty of animosity. His red face tells you everything.

When it’s time to move to his other arm, you scoot over to Idia’s other side and press a kiss to the top of his head as you pass. It flusters him to no end, but it's so important to you that he knows how much you love him. That you don’t think he’s filthy and full of sin, for one reason or another.

“Are you done with your legs?” you ask, rubbing the last bit of the cream into his upper arm.

He nods in affirmation, wrinkling his nose.

“I don’t like the way it feels on my skin at all.” he groans, rubbing his fingers together and wincing, “Especially my hands. Gross.”

“Then let’s get your hands washed, honey.” you set the sunscreen on the ground before getting up, offering him a hand when you’re steady on your feet.

He tries not to think about the pet name as he stumbles after you, letting you lead him down the hallway and into Ignihyde’s bathroom. There's another student in there washing their hands, and they gawk when they lay eyes on their Housewarden in a bathing suit.

“Hey there!” you greet cheerfully, dragging Idia past him, “Don’t mind us!”

Apparently seeing Idia like that and with another person was shocking enough that he just listened. Stumbling out of the bathroom like he’d seen a ghost, the door swinging shut behind him.

Silence. Then, you chuckle.

“Wow Idia, your dorm members do not grasp the concept of subtly at all.” you joke, bumping hips with him, “Now come on, let’s get the gross sunscreen feeling off our hands!”

You two wash your hands in silence, only broken by the occasional humming from you or him.

“Is that any better?” you ask once you two are done, and Idia nods slowly.

You take his hands again and lead him out of the bathroom, picking up the pace to make sure you make it to his room before he runs into anybody else. That one encounter was probably more enough for Idia today, especially when you’d insisted the two of you wear matching bathing suits.

“You look cute in it, by the way.” you mention, turning to look over at him, “I don’t think I said it before, but you look cute.”

He squeaks and hides behind his free hand, muttering the fastest “thankyou” you have ever had the pleasure of hearing.

Once you’re both settled back in his room, you sit with your legs criss crossed on his floor, and Idia sits beside you. Your knees are touching as you take out your phone, calling your transportation so you can Idia can arrive at the beach safely. He busies himself with picking up the sunscreen bottle from the floor and folding your clothes, placing them on his bed. The sheets are wrinkled and he tries to smooth them out, cheeks pink as he sets your clothes down next to his. You confirm the ride and put your phone away, standing up and catching his attention.

“While we’re waiting for the ride I figured we could go on a snack run. Would you mind going with me?” you ask, eyes searching his for any apprehension.

“Um...there’s going to be people there, right?” he murmurs, grasping at a chunk of his hair and running his fingers through the strands nervously, “I, um...I don’t want to go, if that’s okay.”

“Honey, of course it’s okay. I’ll be right back.” you reach out and take his hand, planting a kiss in the middle of his sweaty palm before pulling away.

“Ack—! Um, why did you do that? My hands are really sweaty and—”

“And I love you, that's why. Sweaty hands and all.” you interrupt, reaching for his other hand and peppering kisses all over it, “I’ll see you later, love.”

You smile and wave as you leave, shutting the door securely behind you. Idia stands awkwardly in the center of his room for a short while, unsure of what to do with himself now that you’re gone. He finds himself lowering himself to the floor once again, next to your bag. The top is open and next to the sunscreen he threw in there earlier is the scrunchie you always put in his hair. Next to that is a small journal, the blank cover giving it an air of mystery.

He shouldn’t look why would he look he should leave it alone—

He grabs the notebook and cracks open the first page.

The words date plan are scribbled out in your all too familiar handwriting at the top of a lined page. You used your favorite colors of ink, doodling hearts in the margins and using little blue flames as your bullet points.

Invite Idia to the beach to get him outside for once! Pamper him so he doesn’t feel too uncomfortable.

He expressed a lot of discomfort with unfamiliar sensations. Offer to apply sunscreen for him so he doesn’t have to get any of his hands. (Note: he does not like his legs being touched. If he holds out his hand to get his legs just give him some.)

Make sure to give him plenty of kisses and buy him ice cream. They have a limited edition Premo ice cream stand set up by the beach today.

His eyes fly over the page, heart fluttering in his chest. It’s so silly but it’s so you, putting so much effort into a guy like him. The absolute bottom of the barrel.

It’s like his favorite character’s SSR card just came home.

It’s like his favorite anime just got a beach episode.

It’s like you’re everything he’ll ever look forward to, all at once.

If Idia gets burned, make sure you take care of him later.

If Idia wants you to stay over afterwards, stay over with him and do whatever he wants for the night.

If Idia says ANYTHING bad about himself, make sure he knows that it's not true at all!

His face must be bright red right now, the tips of his hair hot pink. You have such a visible effect on him, no matter what you were doing but especially when you were praising him so sweetly. Making up cute dating plans like he's seen in anime, Giving him his own beach episode experience. Taking note of that new Premo ice cream that he knew was only at a few select beaches, and you picked a beach that had one just for him.

And Idia, if you find this and end up reading it, whether I showed it to you or you just got curious, I hope this shows how much I love you. I want you to know that no matter what, I’m always going to be in your corner, even if you shove me out I’ll come back, because I know you want me there. Maybe not forever, maybe not always, but so long as you let me come back to you and chip away at your walls, I’ll be there.

I love how pretty your hair is. It moves so gracefully, like an actual fire. I love how warm you are, and I love how careful your hands are. I love how small your wrists are and the curve of your elbows, I love your teeth and your lips and your eyes, I love how you shine when you talk about the things you love and I love how you look in black. I love how your face twists up when you’re annoyed and I love how you look when you get your favorite character in a gacha. I love how you’re always so dedicated to improving yourself and your craft, I love how sweet you are to me even though you think you’re being slick. I love how smug you get when you win and I love how you lean over and teach me how to play video games when I’m confused. I love how you let me learn on my own but still give me guidance when we have game nights. I love how you let me drag you places sometimes, I hope you know I’m so so thankful you let me. It will forever be special to me that you trust me to take you to my favorite places, and I hope soon we can go to a Premo concert together one of these days

I’m sure I’ll love the way you swing your glow stick around, I’m sure I’ll love the way you’ll pass out on your bed after everything is over, I’m sure I’ll love the way you hold me as you sleep.

And if you let me, I’ll love the way wrinkles form in your features, I’ll love your stretch marks, I’ll love the way your joints creak, I’ll love the way your hair turns gray. I’ll love the way you grow older and wiser but the way you’ll still be the same Idia.

If you let me, I’ll make silly little date plans every single outing we have. I’ll tell your mother all about them years from now and we’ll laugh, and I’ll debrief her on my next one. I’ll get your favorite colored pens and use them until I’m sure they’re dead, I’ll decorate my heart and my life with you because I don’t want anybody else.

If you let me, I’ll love you forever. My sweet boyfriend. You’re the smartest, most talented, kindest soul I have ever met. I want to treasure you for as long as I live, if you let me.

A gargled squeak escapes his lips as he sinks even deeper into the floor, falling over in the fetal position. His eyes are full of tears and his bottom lip is wobbling—argh, he has such an ugly crying face—and he knows he looks like a mess but after everything he just read his heart and mind are full of love, love, love.

You see a future with him. You actually do. You seriously, seriously do. Even after everything that happened at STYX. Even after everything he’s told you about himself and his family.

You’re just so impossible. How is he supposed to deal with so much affection at once!?

A knock on the door and a soft announcement of your presence is the only warning he gets before you enter his room, turning to shut the door behind you.

“So you’ll never guess what happened, Sam had a sale on ramune soda so I picked up a few—!” you finally turn around, freezing when you see your boyfriend on the ground, curled up around a familiar notebook.

“Um...I love you.” he chokes out, so quiet you barely hear it.

He turns over completely, eyes puffy and red and watery, and mouths it again, like no noise could come out of his throat even if he wanted it to.

Your eyes go wide at his quiet, tearful declaration. He must be overwhelmed.

You set down all the snacks before you take him into your arms, rubbing his back as he clings to you. It’s rare to see him like this, all vulnerable, but your expression goes soft when you think about that note you wrote for him.

You were vulnerable, and it hit him right in the heart.

He trusts you so much.

“I love you too. I love you so much.” you whisper against his forehead, pressing kisses to every inch of exposed skin you can find. His hair tickles your cheeks, brushing against your skin like individual caresses, like each and every part of his body loves and adores you.

Like every atom of him yearns for you.

“Let’s go get some Premo ice cream.” he sniffles, leaning into your touch as you wipe away his tears.

“Alright.” you smile affectionately, pulling the two of you up from your crumpled positions on the floor, “Our ride is probably going to arrive soon anyways.”

Idia helps you pack all of the snacks into your bag, but not before giving the journal one last hug when your back is turned.

He’s so lucky. It’s not just that letter that shows it either, he thinks. It’s the shiny ramune bottles and his favorite chips, it’s the candy you picked up and the fruit salad full of sweet, bright colored fruits. It’s the way you kissed his sweaty palms and applied sunscreen to his arms, it's the way you respected that he didn’t want his legs being touched, it’s the way you wrote down all of the things he knows you would have done anyway because you’re you and you’re wonderful.

He zips up the bag for you and slings it over his shoulder, shielding it with his body when you try to grab it. You roll your eyes playfully, getting the message. You go to open his bedroom door and Idia is right behind you, stomach twisting in anticipation. There’s a fair share of nerves, sure, but you’re right in front of him, shielding him like you always have, and when the hallway comes into view he lets you grab his hand and pull him outside.

The pair of you walk down the hallway and outside the building together, hand in hand. You only run into a few students, all of which are too occupied with their own things to gawk at Idia. It makes him feel less nervous and makes you feel better for him.

Sure enough, your ride arrives a little while after you reach the meetup spot, and before he knows it, he’s off on a beach episode adventure with you.

He hopes you won’t change your mind, and that it won’t be the last one you have.

But when he looks over at you and sees you already looking at him with a look that screams love, love, love, he knows for sure there will be more days like this one in his future.

#sweet shroud summer 2024 #auburn's fics <3 #twst #twisted wonderland #disney twst #disney twisted wonderland #twst wonderland #idia shroud #idia shroud x reader #idia shroud fluff #gn reader

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alicelufenia · 3 months

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There's lots of signs that someone has either never recruited Minthara, or at least never talked to her before or after doing so—things like claiming she's a genocidal maniac, that she's dangerous around children, that she hates Gale—*EXTREMELY LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER* on each of these

By far the one that gets to me the most is when they claim she hates anything fun or silly. And yes I'm thinking of that "what companions would do with a sticky hand" post.

She would NOT throw it away! She would act disinterested while planning to ambush everyone in camp with it when they least expect it. FWIP! to the back of Astarion's neck while he flirts with Tav, FWIP! yoinking one of Halsin's wooden ducks, FWIP! right in the center of Gale's forehead mid-monologue. And Tav would be the one laughing the hardest.

Do you think we're kidding around when we say "my good friend Minthara is the funniest person I know?"

#bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 minthara #minthara baenre #minthara #minthara bg3

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hotheadedhero · 4 months

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Like 'em Big

AN: I have so many stories to write but I had to do this. Blaming being sick, m'kay? Fever has got me bad and these meds got me loopy. Thinking we need some good, silly fun in our lives, right? Plus, now that I've watched Rise, I'm hungry for some big Raph appreciation. I know I ain't the only one

Part 2

All characters are aged up

Raphael x Reader

Warnings: near peril, easily smitten, possible errors due to fever (what kind of fever is up for deliberation🥴)

Cutting right to the chase. You like big dudes. That doesn't necessarily mean muscles, either. You just love you a big man - someone with a bit of something-something to them. More to love, you know? Given your track record with the greater world, it shouldn't be all that much of a mystery. Cats? Get yourself a tiger that you can cuddle into. Jumpers? Comfort central, baby. Beds? If you can't spread eagle then you see no point. The old-age saying does declare that the bigger the better, so who are you to disagree? How true that is may be up for debate but it’s merely as simple as understanding what your preferences are.

However, this makes dating a difficult ballpark to play in. No matter how tall, jacked, or voluptuous someone is, it never feels like enough. Human biology and genetics can only go so far in the conceivably possible sense. You just want to be absolutely engulfed when you get a hug. Is that such a crime? Apparently, it is. Unfortunately, you also seem to come across the worst jerks when you attempt to date within this set of criteria. One might argue it's your karmic justice for being so superficial and picky but a woman has needs. Not those kinds of needs, either. Get your head out of the gutter.

All hope seems lost and after yet again, another failed date, you decide to call it in for the evening and make your way home. A fresh failure and another wonderful outfit gone to waste. By no means is it anything flashy but you put a lot of work into it: pencil skirt, turtle neck sweater, and a nice pair of boots to compliment the look. The whole shebang! All of that effort for nothing. This is the last time you spend three hours doing your hair and makeup. Block after block, your feet grow heavier with every step. What you would give to come across a mountain-like man you can climb who is also a kindred spirit. Perhaps this dream guy will forever be that - a dream. Men like that don't just fall out of the sky.

"Look out!!"

The sudden shout almost scares you into tripping over and you look behind yourself, wishing you hadn’t. Two very large, very dangerous-looking figures entangled in battle, those of which are approaching your helpless little self. You quickly duck as the giants hurdle over you. One falls on its side whilst the other claws and skids against the ground, regaining its balance. It shakes its head and locks onto you, a guttural snarl rumbling past its jowls. Such a creature is surely from the stuff of nightmares. An indescribable nightmare whose sights are set on you. The smart option would be running away but it's as though your shoes have melted into the pavement. Pawing into the tarmac, the beastly thing growls and lunges for you. Great. This is how you die: torn limb from limb by a demon dog. Well, assuming your clothes join you, at least you’ll look like a total babe in the afterlife.

"Oh no ya’ don't," the other one yells from behind the predator, grabbing it by its tail. “Pretty ladies are not food!”

With a mighty tug, he pulls it back and swings it as far away from you as possible. You release a shaky breath, legs trembling beneath you. That was far too close for comfort. The fight isn’t quite over, however. Just as it approaches him, the green goliath swivels on his feet, full 180, and whacks the creature's jaw with a closed fist. His speed alone has you in awe but the force is astounding, practically earth-shattering. It completely knocks the air around you and pushes you onto your backside.

When the dust clears, the first thing you see is your saviour panting, his spiky shell(?) pointed towards you. Just past him in the distance, you notice three more figures in blue, purple, and orange taking a closer look at the unconscious tyrant. You swear one of them pokes at it with a stick. Witnessing strange beings such as this isn't entirely new. Anyone who's watched Chateau Pretenche knows about the celebrity chef turning into a grotesque pigman. To describe it in one word? Horrifying. It's just whether people choose to believe it genuinely happened or if these bizarre entities exist. Being up close and personally observing it now puts your scepticism in check.

As the humanoid turtle calms, he turns to face you, recapturing your attention. A red mask sits over his eyes and there’s a noticeable snaggle tooth poking past his upper lip. Typically, the prerogative is keeping out of sight but it’s much too late for that. He gradually advances towards you. You watch him warily and he keeps his movements slow for that very reason. It wouldn’t be a shock if you were to try and make an escape. He wouldn’t blame you. Currently, all he wants to do is make sure you weren’t hurt during that fiasco provided you don’t suddenly come out of your bewilderment and run off. You have good reason to but he just saved you. Either that or he’s as ravenous as that beast and wants you all to himself. The irrational conclusion remains as such - irrational - when he descends to one knee and outstretches a hand. There’s an irrefutable kindness in his eyes; a caring nature that can’t be replicated in the face of savage brutes.

"You okay?" he asks.

You continue to gawk without a word but, bit by bit, you reach out for his offer. Your fingers lightly trace the centre of his palm before comfortably trusting the proposal. His hand engulfs yours completely and Raph hopes to mercy that you don’t realise how sweaty he’s getting. He can feel his heart beating like crazy. He wonders how much of that is the adrenaline from the fight and how much of it is being in the presence of such a beautiful gal. As he helps you to your feet, he rises to his own. Someone of his stature shouldn’t be capable of being this delicate but he is. It has you running through a loop and you unintentionally stare at the remarkable behemoth.

Quite pathetically, you nod, unable to verbally respond to his question. How can you? You are effectively starstruck. Once you gloss over the turtle-y features, all you see is the sheer size of him as he towers over you. Height, width, the magnitude of those arms! All of it is glorious. You can hear the universe asking, “You want a big man, huh? How about one who isn’t human?” to which you answer, “Who gives a damn?”. If the only way a man can be this big is not to be human, so be it.

Amidst a whisper, your mouth moves on its own, "You're beautiful."

"What?"

"Huh?" Blinking out of your trance, you realise what you’ve said and giggle sheepishly, "I mean, you're be... ba... booming! Totally awesome with the whole- uh... saving thing." Nailed it.

He blinks right back down at you. This is certainly a first. He can feel his face heating up and he withdraws his hand lest you endure the wrath of his bashfulness, opting to hold the back of his head. At this moment, he seems to look anywhere but you.

"Heh. Gee, thanks." His humility is adorable and you’re glad he doesn’t question your initial statement. He turns to you once more, regaining some composure. "You sure you're okay, though? That thing was pretty scary looking."

It’s clear that you haven’t sustained any physical injuries but even bearing witness to something so unsightly can have lasting effects on one's mind. His brows furrow gently in concern down at you and it occurs to you that there’s a soft heart under all of that shell and muscle. Bonus points. This makes you smile for the first time in front of him and Raphael is sure that the streetlights got brighter.

You laugh fondly, “Yeah, I’m okay. Thank you.” Twiddling your fingers, your lips purse up in his direction. “Is there any way I can repay you?”

He places his hands on his hips and chuckles cutely, “Just doing my duty, ma’am.”

He may be indulging in his alter ego - the Red Angel of Preventing Harm - but it’s not every day he gets paid thanks when he saves someone. It’s also not every day he gets to save such a pretty woman, either. You, however, can’t just leave it at that. There must be some way in which you can properly thank him. Ulterior motives include getting to know this already loveable lug better but shh. It feels like the odds are finally turning in your favour and you won’t let this slip away from your grasp. That’s when it hits you.

Muttering under your breath, you erratically search through the confines of your little handbag. You are certain that you had one in here somewhere. In the spare pocket maybe? Ah! Found it. Fumbling to take the lid off of your pen, you hold out your hand, gesturing for his. He slowly complies, to which you jot down a series of digits on his palm accompanied by your name and a tiny 'x'.

"Gimme a text sometime," is the last thing he hears before you disappear around a corner.

Oh? Oh. Ohhh. Wow. Getting your number is the last thing he expected. Did he get hit on the head during that scuffle or something? Was everything from the last few minutes a dream? He bores holes into the writing on his skin, scanning it over and over, scared that it’ll disappear if he so much as blinks. A dumb, wobbly smile not so gracefully decorates his lips as he trudges back to the turtle tank. He takes his seat but it’s obvious that he isn’t all there. Being so caught up in his rose-tinted bubble, he doesn’t register his brothers' voices. In an effort to gain his attention, Michelangelo jumps onto his shoulder, partly intrigued by what their leader is so absorbed by.

"Oh me gosh!” the young brother screams in shrill excitement, “Raph's in love!"

Careful not to smudge the neat ink, he’s quick to hide his hand against his chest. "That's crazy talk!”

Donatello sniffs the air and mockingly covers his nose. "The overwhelming manifestation of your nervous stink indicates otherwise, dear brother."

"I got a girl’s number!” he continues to defend, feeling his face go all kinds of red. “'Course, I'm nervous but that don’t mean I’m in love."

Lies and slander. It was practically love at first sight. He just doesn’t like the idea of his brothers knowing that. It’s easy pickings to be made fun of.

"Don't worry, Big Red. Lucky for you, you got a guy who knows all about the charm." Leonardo points both thumbs at himself as he falls back into his seat and props his legs up on the dashboard. "First, you just need to..."

The "helpful" advice drowns out as the large snapper opens and gazes at his palm again. He just can't comprehend how a gorgeous individual such as yourself could take one look at him and give him your number. It's puzzling but he supposes there’s a first for everything? That also doesn't mean he won't text you. The only thing getting in the way of that is fear. Raphael thinks he’d rather go toe-to-toe with that mutant dog again than have to face the risk of embarrassing himself. To anyone who knows him, it’s no surprise that he caves under pressure. No. He will do it! A chance like this is one in a million.

Oh boy. What could possibly go wrong?

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mokulule · 9 months

Text

Take Out for Dummies - Part 3

Aka Danny has been hired to take out Red Hood, there may or may not have been a misunderstanding.

First | Masterpost

Jason had carefully checked their surrounding for cameras, but they ended up doing as Danny had suggested, sitting back to back each with their own collection of various meats and vegetables on sticks.

Danny groaned and leaned his weight back against Jason. “What is it about food on a stick that makes it so delicious?”

Jason chuckled, “I don’t know.”

It was simple fare, charred just the right amount from the grill and spicy in a way that warmed.

There was a moment of silence.

“You have a very nice voice, you know? Like I get the voice modulation is meant to be scary and all and it makes sense. Just… you have a nice voice.”Jason swallowed. He wasn’t sure why his throat felt so tight all of a sudden.

“Thanks.” He didn’t know what else to say.

They finished eating and Danny jumped up with renewed restless energy, still turned away from Jason.

“Tell me when you’re decent.”

Jason snorted as he pulled the helmet back on and it came online. “I’ll show you indecent.”

Danny squeaked. Jason turned around to find him hiding his face in his hands in embarrassment. At least Jason wasn’t the only one with the dirty thoughts.

“Alright-“ Jason peeled one of Danny’s hands away to hold it, “show the way. Are we breaking in?”

“Uh-“ Danny looked from Jason to the hand, his cheeks were dusted a very becoming pink - turnabout really was fair play. Finally he seemed to come back online as he shook his head.

“No, I have a key.”

Jason grabbed the trash bag in his other hand as Danny was still carting around his unicorn.

“Why do you have a key to the ice rink?”

“I do maintenance here sometimes, so I asked to borrow the rink for tonight.”

“Are there anyone in Gotham you don’t know at this point?”

“I’m sure there are plenty still,” Danny answered the rhetorical question as he opened the roof access door. Why that was the door he had a key to was another question entirely. Though they may of course just all use the same key.

They went down a stairwell and out into the cold hall with the frozen rink as centerpiece. Jason eyed Danny’s thin button down shirt, if he’d planned this why hadn’t he brought a jacket?

“There’s skates over there,” Danny pointed to the skate renting counter on the left side of the room. “will you grab me a pair of size seven skates, while I turn on some music and lights?”

Jason did as asked jumping the counter. There was a convenient trash can behind the counter where he could dump the bag.

When he returned to the main hall with skates in hand his eyes widened. When Danny had said turn on the lights he hadn’t expected them to be from those multicolored disco balls, nor for the music to put them back to the 70’s with an upbeat disco track.

“What do you think?” Danny yelled from where he ducked out from an operator room.

“It’s something alright,” Jason yelled back as he sat down on one of the benches and started pulling his boots off. He snorted as he realized something: if this was still an elaborate hit, Danny would be the type to love the double pun of taking out Red Hood by putting him on ice.

Jason didn’t actually think this was a hit. Hadn’t thought so in quite a while. He’d let his guard down.

Danny walked over with that small smile on his face that made Jason wonder if this was just his base state; just happy, enjoying himself, doing his little odd jobs, helping kids out for pebbles because he could, taking Red Hood out on a date.

Jason still didn’t know what to think about that. Like even if he genuinely thought whoever asked him to take out Red Hood meant on a date, there was still that logic break where Danny had decided, yeah sure sounds like a fun time, let’s just corner the former crime lord current vigilante on a rooftop in the middle of the night to ask his date preferences.

Danny was definitely not normal in any sense of the word, but Jason found that he couldn’t help but like that. Some good kind of crazy in this city for once.

“Never been to a skating disco before?” Danny asked when he within easy speaking range.

“Can’t say that I have.”

“Well not that there’s really any expectations here since it’s just the two of us, so we can do whatever.” Danny grinned, sat down next Jason and pulled his shoes off. He was in his skates and jumping to his feet in no time at all. He wobbled, and windmilled his arms so as not to fall and Jason had to grab him and steady him.

“Are you sure you have tried this before?”

“I’ll have you know I’m a great skater.” Danny sniffed, brushing Jason off, as he started awkwardly walking towards the rink in his skates.

“Just not at walking in them.”

Danny sent him a bewildered look. “Nobody is good at walking in skates.”

Jason rolled his eyes and tightened and tied off the last lace. He didn’t jump up carelessly like Danny, instead he rose and took careful steps. While it was indeed neither comfortable or normal to walk on the bladed edge of the skates, he did make it seem a great deal more natural than Danny had.

Danny stuck out his tongue at him for that and Jason couldn’t help but laugh.

“Yeah yeah, laugh it up. Join me on the ice and we’ll see who’s laughing.” With that he stepped onto the ice in a languid, confident glide, that immediately made it clear, that Danny did indeed know how to skate.

But Jason was no slouch either. He could skate even if it’s been a while and he never said no to a challenge. It took a moment for Jason to get used to the ice below his feet, but he quickly gained both speed and confidence.

Danny caught his eyes then with a wink, turned, and built up speed in a few quick glides and then he was jumping off the ice, spinning in the air and at what seemed like last moment he landed on just one leg, the other leg stretched out behind him as he leaned forward in something almost like a bow.

Okay so it turns out Danny couldn’t just skate he could skate. As in he could do not just spins but flips - Jason could do flips fine on the ground; he was not quite Dick enough to try it on ice. Of course Danny was also being a little shit about it.

There was something about that smile he was sporting that made Jason just want to reach out and grab him - and do what? He wasn’t sure. But there was an invite to try and catch him in the way he glided around Jason, responding to Jason’s movements by darting away like a fish only to come back, but never close enough to reach.

Jason smiled. Okay, he would bite.

When next Danny passed, he lunged. Danny shot forward with a delighted laugh. Jason wasn’t far behind him, but Danny’s turns were needle point sharp as he lead Jason on a merry chase across the ice. He was slippery as a fucking eel, the way he kept himself just shy of Jason’s fingertips every time he reached for him.

He was doing it on purpose too, Jason realized. He was letting Jason get close only to twist and turn and escape with a laugh and leave Jason to regain the balance he lost by lunging. Jason didn’t immediately pick up the chase this time.

“What’s the matter Hood? Can’t keep up?”Jason huffed. No, he couldn’t. That much was clear at this point. But that didn’t mean the game was over. It only meant Jason had to work smarter not harder. He stuck his hands in his jacket pockets and started on a leisured circuit of the rink.

“Did you skate a lot as a kid?”

Danny came into Jason’s field of view, skating backwards effortlessly. There was a slight pout on his face at the interrupted game, but he answered Jason’s question, “Not really.”

“Huh, how did you learn to skate then?” Jason asked surprised.

That wiped away Danny’s pout and Jason felt a twinge of anticipation for what surely boded another fun story, but nothing could have prepared him for what actually came out of Danny’s mouth.

“I was taught by a yeti named Frostbite, he’s like my mentor in everything ice.”

“A yeti?” Jason spluttered.

Danny grinned in a way that showed he knew exactly how outrageous it sounded, but still kept his voice perfectly even when he said, “yes, it’s their national sport.”

Jason laughed. He couldn’t help it. “Uh huh, and where did you meet this yeti?”

“A place called the Far Frozen, not many people have heard of it. They tend to be rather reclusive.”

Danny didn’t falter one moment in his explanation. He either had a selection of stories he told or he was extremely good at improvising. He was also suddenly within reach, guard down as he thought Red Hood had given up on the game.

Jason lunged. Danny’s eyes widened comically as he realized his mistake and tried to backpedal, but it was too late. Jason had him wrapped in his arms. They both went down overbalanced from Danny’s struggle. Jason twisted them so he took the brunt of the fall. Danny didn’t deserve to be caught beneath 225 pounds of vigilante even if he’d been asking for it.

They laid there on the ice catching their breaths.

“Bastard, you caught me.” Danny finally spoke giggling like he couldn’t believe it.

“Yeah, you shouldn’t have-“ Jason stopped, finally noticing how cold Danny was. “You’re freezing!”

“No really it’s fine-“ Danny protested as Jason pulled him back up, but Jason wouldn’t have it.

“Who forgets to wear a jacket when going skating,” Jason grumbled pulling his jacket off and wrapping it around Danny shoulders. It looked comically large hanging off Danny’s small frame, but Jason only gave himself a small moment to appreciate it before drawing Danny close again.

It took a moment but then Danny relaxed into the hold.

“How’s this? Better?” Jason asked after a while.

Danny looked up his eyes wide and blue and maybe a little overwhelmed. “Y-yeah.”

Jason frowned looking around to locate the bench where their shoes were. “We should probably get out of this cold.”

“No,” Danny said immediately pressing close, then flinched, before saying quietly, “can we just stay like this for a bit?”

Jason blinked in confusion. It didn’t make sense to stay in the cold, but he found himself agreeing quietly.

The music at this point had turned to quieter songs. Jason was starting to feel the cold himself by staying still, and he started to sway to the music, moving just a little across the ice. Danny looked up. He wiggled around and it took only a moment for him to actually find the sleeves and push his arms through. Jason let go to let him and soon found his hands captured in still cold but no longer freezing hands.

“Dance with me?” Danny asked.

Jason couldn’t say no to that, but “I’ve never danced on ice before.”

Danny grinned and glided back in close, getting them positioned for a waltz. “It doesn’t have to be right, but you lead and I’ll follow and make sure we don’t fall on our asses.”

Jason scoffed as he lead them into a glide that had Danny moving along mostly backwards on the ice.

“You don’t trust me to follow.”

“No,” Danny grinned, “But I do trust you to catch me.”

Jason rolled his eyes fondly behind the helmet. Then dipped Danny suddenly to make him prove it. There wasn’t a hint of struggle, he stayed relaxed in his hold as if they’d danced together like this a million times. Jason didn’t know what to do with that, and pulled him back up.

Jason didn’t know how long they danced. Danny had started talking quietly after a while admitting he hadn’t gone on a date since he went to high school, and got Jason to admit he liked reading. but he did know his feet were starting to hurt. Still he was reluctant for it to be over.

It was only when Danny failed in hiding a yawn they left the rink.

Jason rolled the bike to a smooth stop putting one foot down to keep balance. He let go of the handlebars and straightened up to allow Danny to get off.

However instead of getting off Danny took off the helmet, hung it on a handlebar and twisted around bringing his legs up until he faced Jason and could wrap them lightly around Jason’s waist. Jason’s mind went blank at the way it brought them closer, the only thing keeping the position somewhat decent for the public was the unicorn now squished between them. If Jason now wished he’d never won the thing, that was a secret he was taking to his second grave.

“So,” Danny said conversationally, wrapping his arms loosely around Jason’s neck, leaning his forearms on his shoulders almost thoughtfully, “I had fun.” He smiled. “I hope you also had fun, that was the whole purpose after all.”

He paused - maybe waiting for a response, but Jason didn’t even know what to say. He certainly wasn’t going to admit he had fun. That was- Red Hood wouldn’t do that. He’d already behaved way too much like himself tonight.

There was a momentary frown on Danny’s face before it smoothed out replaced by a soft smile, that Jason had no idea what to do with. “This is the point where a successful date is usually rewarded with a kiss - you can say no?”

Jason stiffened.

Surely he wasn’t going to?!

Danny leaned in, his smile turned wicked for a moment as his hands splayed out on either side of the helmet. Jason needed to stop him, but instead his traitorous hands landed on Danny’s waist.

He needed to push him away; he didn’t.

Danny’s hands tightened on the helmet, pulling-

Except he didn’t pull the helmet off, he just pulled Jason closer and tilted his head backwards and then pressed his lips to the helmet, right were his mouth would have been. It was chaste, but not just a quick peck. No, it was a slow and languid press in a way that made Jason all too aware that there was little more than an inch between their lips, but it might as well have been miles for the barrier between them. Slow in a way that made Jason’s breath catch in his throat and his treacherous brain wish Danny had removed the fucking helmet.

Danny drew back, his blue eyes practically sparkling in mischief and he lightly bonked his forehead against the helmet before twisting around again and jumping off, Jason letting him reluctantly.

“See you around, Hood.” Danny waved once before he started walking down the road, unicorn plushie under one arm, utterly unafraid to walk the most crime ridden streets of Gotham in the early hours of the morning. Presumably he was going home to his mystery residence.

Jason should follow him. It was the perfect time to find out more about the mystery that was Odd-Job Danny. It was why he’d agreed to the date in the first place. Right?

Instead his brain was going around in circles, wondering if he had pulled up his helmet when Danny first mentioned the kiss, not pulled it off of course, just up to his nose or so, would Danny have gone through with it? Would he have actually kissed him? Or did he only do it because he knew the helmet was there in between them?

Did Jason want him to kiss him?

Fuck. He did.

Danny was gone now, nowhere to be seen. Whatever chance he’d had of figuring out more was gone. And yet that seemed the least of Jason’s problems.

So that's the end of the date, though of course not the end of the story. Consider commenting or writing something in the tags if you liked it, things irl are gonna be very busy for the next year so I could use all the motivation for writing I can scrape together. You can subscribe at the masterpost for future updates. Next

#take out for dummies #dead on main #dp x dc

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the-modern-typewriter · 6 months

Note

Can i get an immortal villain×mortal hero please please please🥺

I'll give you my croissants 🥐🥐🥐

"How would you like to die?" the villain asked. Their eyes were closed where they sat upon a park bench, head tipped back to the cool breeze and the clear blue sky.

The hero stopped, a little uncertain, but not exactly startled.

"I've tried every kind of death," the villain said. "I can make a recommendation if you prefer."

"I'm not going to die."

The villain's lips twisted - a smile, of sorts. "All mortals die. It is the linchpin of their condition."

"I won't die because of you."

The villain's smile broadened. "Drowning, perhaps. Or maybe suffocation. I don't want to disturb the ducks."

"Why those in particular?"

The villain finally deigned to open their eyes at the question, considering the hero where they stood. The hero couldn't quite read the villain's expression, but their voice remained casual. "Everyone always thinks they can survive those ones. If they just thrash, just fight, hard enough. Then they go very still and very quiet when they realise they can't. You have time to realise what's going to happen to you, see."

"Nice to see you at least put thought into your craft."

"What can I say, I'm a sweetheart. You only get one death."

"But you don't."

"You've done some research. Not enough," the villain added, tipping their head, "seeing as you're still standing there talking to me. But some. Kudos. I guess we'll see if you're brave or stupid."

"I'm not trying to kill you."

"Contain me. Incapacitate me." The villain waved a dismissive hand. "You might save your generation, perhaps, if you get lucky. Are you feeling lucky?"

"I'm not trying to do that either."

"Oh?" The villain sat up a little, finally tuning in properly to the conversation. "Are you not a hero? You dress like one."

"I'm hoping to find a more peaceful, effective solution."

The villain slumped, bored, again. "Mm. This should be good."

"Because I have done my research," the hero said, taking another step closer. "You're immortal. You only kill people when they attack you or are in the way of you wanting something."

"As I said, I'm a sweetheart and a saint."

The hero's jaw tightened. The villain had slaughtered thousands across the decades after all. They were many things, and had lived many lives, but in none of them had they ever been a sweetheart or a saint.

"And what you want most," the hero ploughed on, "other than your comfortable life, is not to be bored. There's no end, after all. So you need distraction. Diversion. Something to make time a little less of of a prison."

The villain was silent for a long moment, watching the hero. "I take it back," they said, finally. "I'm going to drive a knife through your ribs. Nice and slow. You know it's much harder to die from a stab wound than people think? Often it's the blood loss that gets ya."

"And then what?"

The villain shrugged. "Feed the ducks. Go back to my book. Make Christmas lights out of your bones. The possibilities are endless!"

"Sounds lonely."

"You think you're the first to try this, don't you?"

"I think you haven't met me before."

"Maybe I will entertain myself with you," the villain said. "Maybe I'll destroy your life and the live of everyone you talk to from now on. That could be fun. It's been a while since I've been so personal a devil."

Despite themselves, the hero swallowed. Despite their resolve, they considered walking away. Just for a moment.

The villain pushed to their feet, tossing their paperback carelessly aside.

The hero squared their shoulders. They felt their suddenly-fragile feeling heart begin to race. They let the villain stop in front of them, they tried not to let out a desperate shudder as the villain's fingers wrapped around their throat.

"Pick an option," the villain said, caressing their pulse. "Lose air. Lose blood. Or lose everything, but get a few more years before you go. If you ask really nicely, I might even make it quick. "

The hero shifted. They passed through the villain's fingers as if it were nothing, as if the villain were nothing. A ghost. Untouchable.

When the villain turned, the hero sat on the bench the villain had vacated. They made a show of picking up the villain's book, willing their once-more solid fingers not to tremble.

The villain raised an eyebrow. "Phasing. Cute."

"I don't age when I'm in ghost mode. Any injuries I have heal. If someone kills me, I stay dead, presumably. I'm mortal, as you say, but..."

"Hard to kill."

"Hardest you'll find. Or does the challenge scare you?"

"Determined little martyr, aren't you?"

"Not like you have anything to lose experimenting. You have all the time in the world."

"You realise I don't have to honour any deal now that you've revealed your hand? I could just hunt you and continue hurting other people, especially now I know how much it bothers me."

"I'll disappear."

"I have all the time in the world. I'd find you eventually."

"I guess then I'd just vanish again, if you don't want to play ball."

"You really are just the cutest, aren't you?"

"Is that a yes?"

"Maybe." The villain held out a hand for their book. "I haven't decided. Buy me lunch. See if you can keep my interest for more than five minutes."

"Lunch."

"There's a new cafe I haven't tried. Apparently they make their own croissants."

"You want to go to lunch with me?"

"No, I want to go to lunch. All this talk of bloodshed is giving me the munchies! But I'm assuming you're currently planning to haunt me, so you may as well pay. Unless you want me to just...kill anyone who tries to charge me."

"No! No."

"That's what I thought. Great minds."

The hero pushed to their feet, as the villain had, tentatively offering them their book back. They weren't entirely sure if that encounter had gone well or not.

The villain smiled, full of teeth, eyes gleaming.

"For your sake, little hero, do try not to be boring."

And, so, they went for lunch.

#heroes and villains #villains and heroes #immortal villain #writing #villains #fiction #immortality #writing snippet #story snippet #writeblr

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soul-controller · 5 months

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Selfish Top Bottom

When it came to distinguishing whether a man was a top or a bottom, there was no way that anyone could look at Ryan Thompson and know that he was an absolute top. With the bulky and imposing physique of a powerlifter and an obscenely large cock that was instantly noticeable that no matter how loose or tight his pants were, the man could absolutely be the perfect individual to represent what a power top was.

Due to living in a relatively small urban town (at least in comparison to a huge city like Los Angeles or New York City), word seemed to travel fast around queer circles to the point where if you didn’t know who Ryan was, you at least knew of his reputation. He was a perpetual manwhore, constantly hooking up with anyone he wanted and discarding them immediately after they fulfilled his needs. Although most people understood that that was just the way that things worked in their community, the same could not be said about Mitchell. Although he had never actually met Ryan or been intimate with him, the young twink knew that it was someone he had no desire of ever interacting with.

However, all of that changed once Mitchell found out that the hunk had hooked up with his best friend Shane and mistreated him once Ryan had came. As Shane recollected how the stud ridiculed the “pale” and “pathetic” man and told him to leave his apartment as soon as possible before threatening to beat his “weak pansy ass” up, Mitchell could only see red at the other man’s behavior. There was certainly no problem with hookup culture if that was how Ryan wanted to live his life, but Mitchell drew the line at blatant disrespect and homophobic rhetoric. So with that in mind, he decided to put a plan into action – one of complete revenge to teach a lesson to the asshole meathead.

To Mitchell’s amusement, it didn’t take much for him to catch Ryan’s eye. All he had to do was show up to the same club where Ryan had met Shane and sneak peeks at the ginger-haired hunk’s beefy body and playfully avert his gaze once Ryan realized that someone was staring. After a good 30 minutes of this back and forth, the beefy stud and twink finally met before heading off to Ryan’s place to “have some fun”.

Once they were walking up the stairs to the apartment, Mitchell wasted no time giving a performance of a lifetime by pretending to be fully infatuated as he felt up the man’s thick muscles and remarked about how hot and sexy the stud was. As a result, the duo couldn’t even make it into the bedroom before they ducked into the first bathroom they saw to get more intimate. Upon undressing himself and helping Ryan take off his clothes as well, Mitchell’s right hand began to traverse down the man’s pectoral shelf and cobblestone abs as he quietly whispered under his breath. As the twink’s dainty fingers finally began to graze along Ryan’s impressive and girthy manhood, Mitchell then grit his teeth and smirked as he forcefully wrapped around the man’s cock and balls and tugged.

The immediate tension caused Ryan to gasp and scream in shock, but rather than intense pain, the tugging was soundtracked by a resounding POP that echoed through the spacious bathroom. As he looked down at himself, a guttural scream escaped his lips as he noticed two things – his crotch was completely flat reminiscent of a Ken doll and Mitchell’s frail hand was still holding onto his real cock and balls.

As Ryan desperately asked what was going on, he watched in pure horror as he watched the man whisper more words under his breath which led to a chain reaction onto his detached genitalia. Before his eyes, his cock and balls were losing its realistic organic composition and shifting to gain an artificial shimmer – his cock was turning into a rubber dildo (with a suction cup even added onto the end to fully seal the deal).

While the hunk was acting absolutely manic at the transformation that had befallen him, Mitchell was completely calm and even joyful as he savored the other’s utter helplessness. Revenge felt oh so sweet… and he still had one more thing planned to make it even sweeter! As he continued to recite the words underneath his breath, the young warlock couldn’t help but smirk as he watched his magic going to work immediately. In an instant, the man’s firm muscular butt had been replaced with an insanely large and flabby ass that would wobble with every step he took.

Despite wanting to wring out the pathetic twink’s neck, Ryan realized that there was something preventing him from either speaking to the man or physically attacking him. So instead, he could only watch in disbelief as the twink cockily stared at the man before turning and exiting the apartment.

Now alone with his new body and desires, Ryan stood at the sink and looked back at the dildo that still hung from a nearby wall. Despite how eager his mind was in regards to getting fucked, the perpetual top had no practice bottoming and thus knew what he needed to do before he got on Grindr and searched for a man to fill his needy hole…

Eager to read more stories like this? Head over to my Patreon to discover tons of hot transformation fiction including monthly mini-stories like this one!

#male transformation #top to bottom #mini-story #toy transformation

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thecoochiefairy · 5 months

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𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖈𝖔𝖔𝖈𝖍𝖎𝖊𝖋𝖆𝖎𝖗𝖞

━━ 𝑏𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑝ℎ𝑒𝑚𝑦 .ᐟ getou + gojo.

warnings 𑄽𑄺 9.7K word count. sex in a church, priests getou + gojo, talks of religion; catholic/christianity. third person omniscient pov, black woman, vaginal penetration, rough sex, sweet sex, hair pulling, squirting,creaming, oral [f] [m], choking, masturbation, praising, LOTS of dirty talk, a lil degrading, condomless sex, kissing, spanking, aggressive + cocky getou + gojo, minors aren’t welcome!

song to play while listening; 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑘 ; 𝑑𝑜𝑗𝑎 𝑐𝑎𝑡

━━ 𝒄𝙤𝒐𝙘𝒉𝙞𝒆𝙛𝒂𝙞𝒓𝙮 𝙩𝒉𝙤𝒖𝙜𝒉𝙩𝒔 .ᐟ ; surprise ;) once again, dedicated to my life, my love, my soulmate @hellavile . a lil’ fun fact, i am a christian girlie. but…i just couldn’t help myself. enjoy.

SITTING THROUGH THIS ENTIRE SERVICE WASN’T ON HER TO-DO LIST. YET, SHE FELT STUCK IN HER SEAT. Her eyes trail along the crowded room, seeing heads are bowed as they intimately whisper to themselves, guiding their own sense of mind in devotion to them. Not necessarily them, but at least that’s how she perceived it.

She feels like she’s the only person that isn’t taking this time to pray. Shit, she might be. Instead her eyes stare directly to the stage of the cathedral, eyeing the two men who seem to lead this congregation. She had been here only a handful of times, seating herself in the back as she curiously listened to sermons, wondering if they’d even stick with her. They hadn’t. She wanted to understand why such powerful words wouldn’t berate her mind outside of this building. Maybe she truly wasn’t a believer. Or maybe she was just distracted…by them.

She eyes them one by one. The one standing to the left stares stoically into the crowd with his darkly hooded eyes, pale skin and onyx hair longer than she could imagine. It was elegantly tied into a low bun today, a tendril of it separating from the group with his every movement. He’s covered in an all black suit, her eyes noticing the ink that swims beneath the wrists of his blazer, crawling all the way to his neck, hiding beneath the material of his clothes. A pair of tiny silver balls sink into his right eyebrow, a piercing she wouldn’t assume to be on a man of his stature. His eyebrows are constantly furrowed when he looks around, an almost disdain to his face.

They were like night and day standing next to each other. On the right, his calm expression seems more welcoming. His eyebrows don’t furrow as he stares, icy blue eyes striking into her chest without his attempt. His hair is as light as angels wings. His body is clean of any marking or holes, frame captured in a matching black suit. They were complete opposites. Another thing she noticed, despite the innocent physical stature of this man, a mischievous glint sat in those captivating eyes. More mischievous than a tattooed and pierced-man could ever hold.

It constantly piqued her own curiosity on why anytime she came here that instead of listening to them speak, she just watched the way they moved. It was a confidence, a leadership that clearly brought people together. A dominance. She wondered if they were dominant in other parts of their life, too. As she brings herself out of her thoughts, she notices two pairs of eyes have taken attention of her, regardless of being all the way in the back. She brings her eyes back down to her notes.

Members begin to exit as they’re released from service, her eyes following the line of people that stand.

“All new members are welcomed to meet the Priest,” a voice announces from the side of the stage. Her attention pulls back to the podium they stand beside, shaking people’s hands, kissing babies, she could’ve rolled her eyes. They were like celebrities.

There were multiple opportunities for her to meet the leaders of the church, but to risk the embarrassment of admitting that she was instantly enthralled by them, she would quickly duck her head out minutes before everyone was released. But she knew in order to strengthen her relationship with god—the whole reason she was here—she needed to stop being a wuss.

Gathering the miniature Bible and her notebook, she keeps them in one hand as she picks her dress slightly off of the ground, standing as the last person in line. The line had now shortened as everyone was beginning to leave, her head turning back in hopes that she really wouldn’t be the last person. Her luck was also shit.

She takes a deep breath as she lifts her stiletto heel onto the stage, bringing her face to meet the two men she thought so much of. They were just as intimidating up close. They both stare intensely at her, starting from her heels, to the black long sleeve top she wears that clings to her full breast and small waist. A pair of wide hips and an elongated torso are camouflaged underneath her snug black skirt.

As she strides up to them, her equally onyx hair is in an updo, a pink butterfly keeping it clipped together. A thick piece is curled and flowing on the side of her face with every step she takes. They both take in her curvy figure, following all the way up to her heart shaped lips, star shaped diamond pierced within her face, nose ring shining in the light. She definitely wasn’t anyone they’d seen before.

Her almond shaped eyes sparkle at them as she places her hand out, “That was a great sermon, Father,” She lies.

A tattooed hand reaches out and takes hers within his larger palm as he replies, “I appreciate that. And your name is?”

“Solana,” she replies softly. Her eyes come down as she sees he hadn’t released her hand yet.

“Beautiful. It fits you,” he observes, she’s not sure it’s a compliment as he remains serious, “Are you a new member? You don’t look like a familiar face.”

“Uh…not necessarily a member as of yet. I’m just…scouting for a new church,” She corrects, still seeing he’s holding her hand, “I’m a bit surprised to see that the Priests are so…young. I didn’t catch your names.”

He finally releases her hand, blue eyes twinkling beside him in amusement as he then joins the conversation, “Suguru’s two years older than me. Meaning he’s old. I’m young, I’m Satoru,” he takes her hand, his grip more softer than Suguru’s.

“Father Satoru?” She raises an eyebrow.

“Not yet, I’m mentoring him. For now he’s a Deacon, but most of the people in the church refer to him as Father Satoru,” Suguru replies, ignoring Satoru’s age comment.

“Oh, so you’re the one that runs this place?” She questions.

“With an iron fist,” Satoru interrupts. Suguru looks over at him with a slightly annoyed scrunch to his face.

“My father was in charge before me. It was passed down sooner than I thought due to him becoming sick,” Suguru explains, “What did you like about the sermon?”

“Tell him what’s in your notes,” Satoru points out. Solana looks over to him, hating that she was intuitive about the mischief in those damn eyes. She chuckles.

“It wasn’t much. Nothing to really tell,” she explains, keeping her attention to Suguru.

“Tell me then. I’m curious,” he prods.

Shit. Honestly, she was just being polite. She didn’t want her first introduction to be playing Devil’s Advocate.

She then speaks, “Well…your topic today was the temptation of lust. A constant debate of whether it’s someone’s true test of keeping their vows to god—I’d say people are just human with helpless desires,” She recites, “You see, I’m trying to build a personal relationship with him. Coming to church was a mere curiosity. I had a feeling that some things being said I wouldn’t necessarily agree with, hence me taking notes.”

Suguru’s eyebrows raise in mild surprise, “So I’m assuming you’re not entirely a believer, then?”

“Trying to be, Father,” she corrects briefly, “It’s just hard. Some things seem entirely unrealistic…I don’t mean to be nosey, but looking at all the work you have on your body that seems to travel beneath your clothes, there was a time you weren’t entirely a believer either, was there?”

Satoru grins, Suguru now raising a single eyebrow. It didn’t shock him for her astuteness.

“Sorry…” she mutters, a small smile on her lips, “I come from a time where church was extremely small-minded and traditional. To see you and all of your physical differences from a regular Priest, it’s just a bit shocking. May I ask, how do the older members perceive you?”

She then wants to face palm herself as she hears her own words. Solana curses, “Shit. I didn’t mean it like that. I mean—crap—I mean— I was just referring to your tattoos and piercings,” she mutters.

“You seem more fascinated by my appearance rather than the sermon itself, Solana,” he calls her full name, wanting her attention.

“‘Fascinated’ wouldn’t be the word, perhaps, bewitched? Beguiled?” Satoru taunts.

“None of the above. But I’d say you’re a bit presumptuous, Father Satoru?” She mockingly replies.

“Would you rather I use the word curious, then?” Suguru asks.

“I could just be a curious person in general. Maybe I’m just bored, don’t assume too much about me,” Solana shrugs, “Plus, isn’t curiosity a sin within the Bible?”

His dark eyes pierce into hers. “Hm. That’s true, I shouldn’t assume. But curiosity is a virtue, not a sin. Though I imagine members in my congregation might disagree. I’ll have to bring that up in the next service.”

She tilts her head, “Seems like I might miss that service, then. I don’t recall agreeing to come back…” she thinks to herself.

“Cute,” Satoru eyes her up and down, “You’ll be back.”

“‘Shed light on the proud, haughty, and insolent behaviors that underlie arrogance,’” She recited, “Proverbs. Curiosity may be a virtue, but narcissism isn’t,” She speaks, referring to his assumptions of being captivated by him. Sure, damned her if she was. But he didn’t need to know that.

“The non-believer has read almost every inch of the Bible, it seems,” Suguru leans against the podium, his face twitching.

“…But then again, perhaps you’re merely trying to impress us. A girl as beautiful as you knows how to get your way,” Satoru adds.

“Is it working?” She then asks.

“Nah,” Suguru responds.

Solana raises her eyebrows, “‘Nah?’ Is the Priest off of the clock?”

“Talking to you? Might be, you’re trouble,” Satoru replies.

“Says the unorthodox Priest and his vexing Deacon.”

Satoru puts his hand over his chest, “Offensive.”

“You and Satoru gonna’ keep flirting or are you gonna hand me that notebook of yours?” Suguru asks, Solana bringing her eyes back to him.

“Mmm, I won’t. I have to get going soon and prepare for work.”

“Where do you work?” Satoru asks.

“I work from home. I’m a Cam Girl,” She calmly responds. When the both of them have frowns come upon their face, she looks between the two as she continues, “You know, the ones that take their clothes off and—“

“Alright.”

“I’m aware of what it is.”

They both say this at the same time, Solana amused at their dismissiveness. She’s surprised at how open the conversation is, even with their hierarchy, they make her feel as comfortable as possible. They felt like two male friends in the span of one conversation. The thing was, she didn’t want them as just friends.

“Clock in, do what you gotta do. But you’ll be here again next service with a new set of notes for me, I expect you to pay attention to my sermon. I’m a bit impatient. Cool?” Suguru asks.

“But—“

“Good,” Satoru cuts her off, “Welcome, member.”

“I never agreed—“

“Who asked?” Suguru questions. Satoru shrugs his shoulders.

Solana looks between the two men, silver crosses around their necks, a facade they played all too well in front of everyone else. This was the first time in her life that she didn’t have a man wrapped around all of her fingers, instead she was wrapped in each of theirs.

“Fine,” She doesn’t argue, pressing her hands behind her back. She can feel her face becoming warm.

“Huh,” Satoru crosses his arms, light hair swaying as he tilts his head to look at her.

“What?” She asks.

“To be this… ‘Cam Girl’ you mentioned, I’m assuming you’re usually the one in control. But now you seem…so submissive,” Suguru observes. The intensity in his eyes was something she didn’t see in Satoru’s. This man was much harder to read.

“We make her nervous,” Satoru states, not questions.

Her mouth goes slightly agape as they ricochet off of each other. She has no time to reply or find a smart-ass comeback. She can’t help but become a little irritated with this newfound characteristic of herself—intimidation. She puts on a fake smile as she nods her head towards the both of them, turning as she makes her way down the aisle towards the exit.

“We’ll be waiting for those notes, Solana,” Satoru calls.

“He’ll be waiting. I expect them in my hand,�� Suguru finalizes, she doesn’t notice his eyes falling down to her ass.

She hoped that these two would be the complete opposite of what she imagined them to be before their meeting. Angelic, innocent, pure. But as she spoke with them, watching as they observed her every move, and told her what she was going to do, she seemed to be wrong. Devilish, guilty, impure. To make matters worse, she was going to do exactly what was asked of her. Motherfuckers.

ᡕᠵ᠊ᡃ࡚ࠢ࠘ ⸝່ࠡࠣ᠊߯᠆ࠣ࠘ᡁࠣ࠘᠊᠊ࠢ࠘𐡏~♡

A couple of weeks had gone by. It was the same routine, sitting in the back of the service as she listened to Suguru preach, taking her own interpretations of his words. She noticed the brief looks he’d give over to her. Satoru winked. As service ended she would politely speak to the both of them as she handed Suguru her notes, unable to fully make eye-contact. Here was the issue. The first time she saw them, all she could think was how badly she wanted them to fuck her. She thought it was a mere attraction. But as every interaction surpassed, the thought became worse. Was she losing her mind?

She was coming to know the two men that everyone adored. As she wished that she only adored them, she felt cursed with vivid dreams and fantasies she couldn’t rid herself of. Every time she looked at Suguru’s perfect face, long onyx hair, gauges in his ears, eyebrow piercing. The tattoos that hid beneath his clothes. Satoru’s light hair and cocky-son-of-a-bitch smirk. On the other hand, her reactions weren’t something that went unnoticed. The sudden flush of her cheeks intrigued them as they noticed her out of the corner of their eye.

She wasn’t like the other women that swooned over them, falling victim to their charms without any fight. She had always kept an arms length from the two, seemingly unaffected by their charisma and allure that drew others to them so easily. At least she pretended well enough.

They could sense her hesitation, the slight quiver of her bottom lip as they watched her from the front. She always kept her gaze away from them, eyes focused elsewhere.

A shiver came down her spine anytime Suguru shook her hand, the thought of that hand slamming down against her ass as he spanked her. Anytime Satoru looked her in the eyes, she imagined him staring down at her as she moaned in pleasure beneath him. Anytime they both spoke to her, she could hear them within her ear, whispering dirty blasphemies. She’d seen handsome men before. Why the hell were they so hard to remove from her mind? It had to be the forbidden fact that they were the church's chairmen, and she was only a member. It aroused her.

They noticed with more interaction that she distanced herself farther. The way her eyes always darted away, the flush in her face. She was always so…hesitant and reserved.

These qualities made her all the more enticing, Satoru found her obedience adorable. Suguru was losing his patience.

Nonetheless, every interaction showed how completely opposite they were. There were times that she assumed Suguru was the least bit interested, but then she would notice the looks he gave her. Like a predator patiently awaiting for its prey to look away before it made its attack. Satoru spoke with confidence, offering his hand when Solana was too afraid to reach out for it. But she couldn’t lie, there was a sense of arrogance to him. A cockiness where he knew the things she was feeling. Almost as if he could read her every thought.

As another service ended, she stood behind a group of women that spoke to them, waiting for her turn. They all turned towards her, eyes wicked and wanting to drain life from her presence. Just like they stared, she raised an eyebrow as she stared back, turning her head and watching until they walked out of the door.

“The hell are they looking at?” She twists her head.

“Solana,” Suguru calls, an irritation to his tone.

“Oh. Okay. The fuck,” she muttered to herself, apologizing in her head for the curse. She then brushes off the interaction as she speaks, “Good morning, I was just bringing my notes to you, Father. Didn’t mean to send away your groupies.”

“Groupies?” Suguru repeats.

“I’d say more devoted members,” Satoru corrects.

“Same difference. They all have more than one way of getting on their knees for either of you,” She fires politely.

Satoru raises his eyebrows, “Someone sounds jealous.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she turns her head back to Suguru. He noticed the way her dress clung tightly to her frame, the subtle way it emphasized her hips. The way it highlighted her figure was almost distracting, almost intoxicating. He fought back the urge to stare, to ogle, to fantasize...

“How are you today?” She asks him.

His eyes flickered for a moment with amusement. She was so different from the rest of the women who came to this church. Instead of replying, he tilted his head to the side and took in a few seconds before shrugging. "I feel fine." he spoke, his voice still rich with annoyance. But there would be no breaking his poise, no cracking his self-assured exterior.

Although at times she couldn’t stand Satoru’s more extroverted character, she sometimes wished Suguru was a little more open with her. It frustrated her as he was always short, but his eyes told something different.

“Good,” she replied softly. She then pulled her notes from the pages between her Bible, lifting her hand out to him.

He reached out to take the pages from her hand, his fingers brushing against hers. He noticed how her hands trembled slightly as if she were nervous, how the tips of her fingers were lightly stained black from the ink. His glance scanned the room filled with his congregation, people chatting away with one another, exchanging pleasantries as they exited the church. But he couldn't help his gaze, constantly drifting back to Solana.

“I apologize for my indignation, Father,” Solana shakes her head.

"No need to apologize." he spoke. And for a split second, another hint of amusement crosses his face as he notices her blush reemerging after she offers an apology. It was always so innocent, that flush of red on her cheeks, almost comparable to a little girl.

He couldn't help himself from wondering whether she was truly as timid as she seemed on the outside.

“I…what’s so funny?” She asks, realizing as he looks to be entertained.

“Your…covetousness…it’s cute,” Satoru replies.

“Nothing,” Suguru says.

He wanted to reprimand her for the foul mouth she had, imagining how red her face would be if he slammed his palm against it, gripping her chin as his dick shoved into her mouth. None of that appeared on his expression.

“Okay. Well, I’ll see you guys at the next service,” she nods, keeping her eyes away from him. This time as she stared at them, all she could see was Suguru taking her against the podium, her screams filling the cathedral as Satoru held her face, cockily grinning at her demise. She swallowed as she turned around, quickly walking away.

Suguru watched her leave, his eyes following the subtle sway of her hips as she walked. It made him want to grasp and hold onto her. A vision of him grabbing her by the arm and dragging her back to the church made itself prominent in his mind, his voice whispering all of the things he’d do to her. Yet as always, it was just a vision.

But his eyes still lingered on her.

ᡕᠵ᠊ᡃ࡚ࠢ࠘ ⸝່ࠡࠣ᠊߯᠆ࠣ࠘ᡁࠣ࠘᠊᠊ࠢ࠘𐡏~♡

Another week had gone by as she sat towards the back of the church. Her mind continued to run with images of Suguru and Satoru, just wanting to feel their lips against hers. This service they wore identical short sleeved turtlenecks and their usual cross necklaces, Suguru showing off the numerous tattoos down his arms, Satoru’s arms bulging through his top. She imagined those arms holding her up as they thrusted into her. The minute their eyes followed over to hers, she flew them back down.

They took notice of the way her gaze continued to dart away each time they looked in her direction, seemingly fearful. It was a far cry from the way the other women looked at them. In fact, it was almost as if she avoided their gaze on purpose.

She needed to do something about this. It felt like a sickness in the mind at this point, no medicine curable for her disease. As their usual routine played out, she handed Suguru her notes as he brushed his fingers against her hand, chills coming down her spine. The way her body responded to simple physical touches made him want to see what else he could do to crack her. His eyes watched as she darted away from them once again, he was becoming more and more agitated by her timidity. Satoru shook his head as he chuckled, Suguru making a mental note that the next time he wouldn't be so easy to dismiss her.

When she made it home that night, she forced herself to get dressed and do her makeup, planning a scheme as she made her way to the bar. She planned to erase them away with a good one night stand, twisting her drink in her hand as she stared over the crowd of tipsy eyes. She then found herself the perfect victim, a handsome smile seductive as he watched her.

She didn’t have it in herself for the small talk, or to waste any time. Their clothes shredded off as they fumbled into Solana’s condo, kissing messily as they landed on the bed. As she expected a full amount of pleasure to fulfill her, this random stranger rushed through the entire interaction. He pulled a condom out of his pocket, ripping the packaging harshly with his teeth. His lips against her neck felt sticky, attacking her throat in a way that was almost painful. She spread her legs as she awaited for him to bring his mouth lower.

He scrunches his face as he asks, “What?”

She frowns, “You aren’t gonna….?”

“Oh—nah, I don’t do that shit. I don’t really know you like that,” He responds, almost laughing at her question. She coughs as he then flips her body over to where she’s on her stomach, pressing her face into the sheet as he slides on his condom.

Before he continues he then asks, “I’m a little soft. Wanna give me some head?”

“Um, no?” She muffled through the blanket.

“Whatever,” he smacks his lips.

She hopes that the sex might cause them to create a better chemistry, awaiting for that incoming pleasure as he’s inside of her. This is all she needed, it would rid her of the annoying thoughts of Suguru and Satoru. As she thinks this, an overload of pain shreds through her lower abdomen as he enters her, realizing that she’s barely aroused. Even in the times that she wasn’t fully aroused, she’d be soaked at the thought of incoming pleasure. Not this time.

He pushes her head into the blanket as he thrusts wildly, giving her no air to breathe or even intake any type of pleasure—if there even was any. She grits her teeth as she tries to adjust herself, yet he grips her in place as he hastens, “Chill. Chill. You’re gonna fuck up my groove.”

She turns her head slightly as she tries to stare at him, his arms keeping her held down as he asks, “You like that?”

“Mhmmmm…” she responded, releasing a fake moan for him.

She closed her eyes as she became angry. All she could think about was Father Suguru and Satoru…

Before the blink of an eye, she suddenly hears the man behind her shout, “Oh, Sasha!” releasing within the condom he wears, pulling himself out as quickly as he went in. Bastard. She had told him her name.

She was frustrated beyond belief. The entire night had been unfulfilling, the way this random man had touched and kissed her was almost laughable when compared to the fantasies she had. His scent was uninspiring, his touch lacked a certain warmth. This man was boring, mundane, and unsatisfying. Her mind was elsewhere, all she could think about was Suguru. His smell, his voice and his touch. Then she thought about Satoru. She wished it was him instead of this random man who grunted above her.

The man's grunts and moans were almost amusing to her, but the sound of his snoring even more so as he collapsed against the bed, knocking out beside her. In all honesty, the man was more of a nuisance than anything. She didn’t even have the energy to kick him out as she turned over on her back, staring up into the ceiling as she continued to create those fantasies in her mind. She tried to relax, but his snoring filled her bedroom, drowning out any other noise.

Her mind began to flicker images again. She closed her eyes as she imagined the both of them crawling onto the bed with her, hands all along her body. She slowly brought her hand down between her legs, bringing a finger over her clit as she rubbed softly, biting down on her mouth as a small sense of pleasure rippled through her. She was always good at making herself cum, but tonight was like no other. She couldn’t finish. She wanted to throw a tantrum, banging her fists along the sheets of her bed. She turned on her side, hoping sleep would be better than any of this bullshit.

Waking up the next morning, she turns over as she sees this man still asleep in her bed, hoping he went into cardiac arrest. She relaxes within her sheets, assuming it was still early in the morning. As she picks up her phone to set her alarm, she sees it’s an hour after eleven. Her body springs up. She curses, “Shit! I’m late for church.”

She pushes the man out of her house, locking the door and blocking his number as she speeds to get ready. Solana pulls her hair into a claw clip, unable to have the patience to style it. A navy blue long sleeve clings to her upper body, yoga pants and matching heels, pulling her glasses over her face as she’s too impatient to put on her contacts. She grabs for her Bible and notebook, speeding out of the house and towards the church, hoping she’d make it in time.

She felt like a child in trouble. Sneaking her way into the crowd as she stands in the back, keeping her head down as she sees that everyone else has their head down in prayer. As she raises her eyes, she sees both Suguru and Satoru sitting on stage as another member speaks to the crowd. They immediately stare over her.

Their gaze locked onto her as she entered the church late, having somehow missed the sermon in its entirety. They looked almost…disappointed. But it had nothing to do with her punctuality.

Everyone begins to walk in different directions as service ends. She also realizes that she has no notes to give Suguru today as she awaits to speak with him. When she walks up to him, she immediately begins to apologize, “I’m sorry for my lateness, Father.”

His gaze was like a hawk. He said nothing as she apologized, instead he watched her lips move as she spoke, admiring the way they moved, how they'd look covered with his.

"That's alright" he finally spoke, his voice a deep and seductive rasp, "Don't worry about it, though I'm curious, what were you doing that kept you so late?"

“You haven’t missed a sermon since we officially met you,” Satoru points out, arms crossed over his chest.

“I was up a bit late last night watching tv, overslept. Indulgence, I suppose, Father,” she briefly explains.

She places a flyaway hair behind her ear that falls from her ponytail, wondering why a couple of members stare at her weirdly. She had never noticed the large hickey that was upon her neck, or that the stranger she’d slept with had given her one.

Suguru raises an eyebrow at this excuse. His eyes drift to the blotched spot on her neck, Satoru shaking his head. He noticed the way she fidgets nervously, taking in the fact that she hadn't noticed the mark herself. The look of slight amusement and disappointment were once again evident on his features.

"You were up late… watching tv,” Suguru repeated back to her, mocking her excuse.

She looks around, confused in everyone's eyes. “….Yes, Father,” she nodded, softly responding.

"Ah, I see..." Satoru’s smile widens, "And what was it that you were watching on tv that kept you up?”

His gaze remained locked on hers, his tone shifting to teasing and playful. She wanted to punch him.

“Documentary. Very uh…informational?” She tries to find her words, gripping the notebook in her hand.

“Very informative, huh?” Suguru questions.

“Why so many damn questions?” She becomes irritated, seeing they’re now playing with her.

Satoru shrugs, “Boredom peaks curiosity,” He reminds.

In reality they were just trying to tease her, to make her squirm as she tried to lie. There was definitely no documentary she watched, that much they both knew.

“I suppose you don’t remember getting this as you watched your show, right?” Suguru asks, lifting his hand as he dragged his thumb along her throat. Solana’s mouth parted as she froze, realizing he was referring to a hickey.

“I…I don’t…”

“You d—don’t?” Satoru mocks.

She glares as she thrashes Suguru’s hand away from her. He pulls away, placing his hand behind his back.

“Your show didn’t seem too...satisfying” Satoru eyes, grinning.

Suguru’s gaze remained on her neck nonetheless, his eyes slowly wandering to her face as he waited for her response. Would she admit what really happened? She refused to give them the satisfaction.

“Nothing to say?” Suguru prods.

“No,” she quickly replies, feeling her body becoming hot. A mixture of anger and arousal fills her. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to punch him, or fuck him. Maybe both.

“Fine. See you next time, then?” Satoru’s voice is sweet, more fake than anything.

As they begin to walk away from her, Solana closes her eyes. Embarrassing herself like this was enough to realize it was time to come clean, hoping this would rid her of all the vivid images of them. She just wanted them to stop. She places her own hand over her neck, remembering the hickey.

She squeezes her notebook harder as she states, “Wait, Father Suguru…I had a question for you.”

His expression shifted to one of curiosity, he could sense her sudden nervousness in speaking to him.

"Go ahead, what's the question?"

“I don’t want to take up too much of your time, but I have something I need penitents of. Would you…be here later tonight for a confessional?” She questions.

The sudden question surprised him. He expected this game to continue. Yet, she had requested a confessional, a place where one could go to share their deepest and darkest secrets with a priest. It was obvious that what she was hiding more than sleeping with another man, there were darker things at play.

He nodded shortly, "I’ll be here. Satoru will be in the presence of his first confessional and listen in, if you don’t mind.”

“That’s…fine. That’s perfect, actually,” she nods.

“Perfect?” Satoru questions.

She realizes how she spoke. She wanted to kick herself. She then ignores the smile on his face as she speaks, “I will see you guys later then,” turning as she nearly runs out of the church.

ᡕᠵ᠊ᡃ࡚ࠢ࠘ ⸝່ࠡࠣ᠊߯᠆ࠣ࠘ᡁࠣ࠘᠊᠊ࠢ࠘𐡏~♡

She stood in the mirror, staring at herself in her bathroom. Nightfall had come quicker than she hoped for it to, her heart swelling with fear of all the possibilities to come from this admission. Her midnight hair fell around her face, almost straight, still having a bit of body to it. She stared at the black dress she wore, turning in the mirror as her entire back was shown, washing her vision over the religious tattoo on her spine. Did it mean anything to her?

She slipped on her golden chromatic heels, hot pink irises seated atop of the thin straps. Her skin smelled of vanilla and a mixture of mint, always wanting to present herself with a sense of confidence. That confidence was nowhere to be found as of right now. Where had it gone?

All of these thoughts entered her mind as she drove down the road. What if she told them how she felt? Would she be banned from the church, shunned by the congregation? Declared as a personified sinner?

Unlike a regular church service, the entire cathedral is empty. The pews travel as far as the eye can see, walls a dimly lit champagne color. Her eyes fall to a mahogany wooden shed, two large crosses carved into the doors on both sides. It looked bigger than a regular confessional box. As she slid the door open to her side, she entered to see that it was big enough to fit almost five people, turning her head to see there was a large mirror across from where she would be seated.

As she looks through the wall that separates the two sides, she sees a pair of silhouettes, seeming as Suguru and Satoru are already there. Her heart beats faster.

She sits herself on the bench connected to the walls, bringing her eyes over her own reflection. Looking at herself suddenly makes her uncomfortable. She can see them on the other side, their eyes not facing her. It makes her feel less judged.

She asks, “May I know why my confessional has a mirror, Father?” She asks softly.

His silhouette moved as she spoke, the sound of her voice was more alluring than he had expected.

"The mirror is meant to allow you a clear view of yourself as you confess your sins. It’s intended to remind you to face yourself,” Suguru explains.

“Your face will be forced to stare directly at those sins as you speak of them. It’ll lead to self reflection,” Satoru adds.

She lets out a breath, nodding more to herself. Silence now fills the space, a tension she hadn’t expected to be so thick casts in between the wall separating the three.

“Speak your penitent,” Suguru’s deep voice demands.

A fear creeps up her spine. She couldn’t believe that she was actually doing this. Fuck it, she figured.

“Bless me, Father. For I have sinned…” she speaks, lightly crossing her hand over her chest.

Both Suguru and Satoru previously watched her as the confessional door slid open, watching her reflection as she sat inside, the dress she wears already making them think there was so much more to explore. They could only imagine what secrets hid under her loosely flowing hair, the tattoo on her back, and the way that dress draped off her form - highlighting the perfect curves of her body.

"Go ahead" Suguru spoke through the small slit in the confessional, his eyes gazing at her reflection in the mirror as he awaited her words.

“Right. Okay,” Solana takes another deep breath.

“Well…when you asked me about how my night went, I lied about what happened. I…had sex with a man I met at the bar…” she confesses softly.

“The sex was meaningless—and boring—if that’s appropriate to add. I thought that it would help me shake this feeling I’ve been having for a while. This…itch that I haven’t been able to scratch…”

Suguru listened. He didn't seem shocked, he didn't even seem disappointed—if anything he was unsurprised by it. As she mentioned the sex being meaningless and her inability to shake the "itch,” Satoru couldn't help the smirk that covered his lips.

They knew precisely what she was thinking yet stayed quiet, waiting for her to continue.

“I…” she breathed in, “Ever since I joined this congregation, I’d been having these…feelings. My mind filled itself with these vivid images and fantasies of sexual endeavors that become filthier as they continue, and I’ve been trying to parish them away. But…I can’t,” she speaks, unable to look into her reflection as she keeps her eyes against her lap, looking over to the wall that separates their bodies. She’s glad she can’t see them.

"Is there more that you want to confess?" Suguru spoke, his voice firm.

“Yes….” She spoke, “These…images, fantasies, I….I’d been having them of you and Father Satoru. Ever since I came here, I thought you were both immensely attractive. But I didn’t think that allowing myself to be physically attracted to the both of you would cause all of these imageries. I would imagine myself having filthy sex with you—anytime you stood in front of the congregation. For that…I’m sorry,” she keeps her head down.

She awaits for his voice, preparing for the disgust of her words. Instead, she hears nothing. Absolutely nothing. She lifts her head to look on the other side of the box, seeing that it’s now empty. Shit, did she really mess up that badly?

“…Father?” She then calls, hearing nothing in response.

She waits a few moments, still hearing nothing. She feels terrible. She shouldn’t have come at all—Maybe she should’ve just never returned to the church. As she stands to leave, her heart jumps out of her chest. The door to the confessional opens and quickly shuts, both Suguru and Satoru now standing in this space with her. Trapping her with them. Her breath catches in her throat as the door slams shut, the air in the cramped space becoming thick with the heat of three bodies.

Their gaze fixated upon her as they lean against the wall of the confessional box opposite of her, their frames dominating the confined space.

“Tell me exactly what you’re apologizing for, Solana,” Suguru firmly initiates.

“I don’t think I should be having these thoughts about…wanting to have sex with the both of you. And I do,” she swallows, “Your church members already have this idea of me. I see the way they look at me when I come in here. I could only think what you or Father Satoru would have to say—especially after my confession.”

“I think you’re honest,” Suguru observes.

They can almost see the relief weigh off of her shoulders at his response. But as she looks between them, it seems to be more that she’s missing.

Satoru then speaks up, “Poor baby. This has really been bothering you, hasn’t it?”

“It has,” she softly agrees. “So—“

“So we’ll just fuck you, then.” Suguru states, promises.

Solana’s eyes go slightly wide as she stutters, “What?”

“That’s what you want, right?”

Satoru fully extends, coming forward as he hovers his frame over her smaller one. She steps back as she nearly trips over the bench, holding herself steady as she feels Satoru’s hand come upon her hip, making sure she doesn’t fall.

“I—“

“I know that’s what you want, Solana. I just need to hear you say it,” Suguru speaks up, capturing her throat within his palms, digging his fingers lightly into the skin. She now has both men holding a part of her, her body completely on fire at their simple touch. They were inviting her into a dangerous situation. She could admit—she wanted every part of it.

“Yes,” She muttered softly.

“Look at me and say that,” he grips her face tighter, forcing her eyes to look into his.

“Yes, fuck me,” she repeated, more firm. Meaning it.

“Good,” Suguru leans down, slamming his lips along hers.

Her throat mewls at the warmth of his mouth. She’d never had a man kiss her like this. He had a grip on the back of her neck as he leaned down, sensually thrusting his tongue in and out of her mouth for her to catch it, eyes closing as she moaned softly at the feeling. His lips were warm and his tongue was even warmer as it danced within her mouth, exploring every possible crevice— every space that it had access to. His grip on her only tightened, trapping her completely in the embrace of his hand as his body pressed closer to hers.

“Greedy, aren’t we?” Satoru asked, harshly pulling her away from Suguru’s mouth. He stuck his tongue out which caused her to lean forward, sucking his tongue within her mouth, his lips plush and soft as he smashed them together, softer and more sensual than the first kiss she shared. It’s like he was trying to absorb her scent, inhaling the mixture of vanilla and mint. She was like a drug.

“Look at how responsive she is…” Satoru taunts, bringing his mouth down to her throat, sucking the skin into his lips. Solana’s eyes fluttered shut as she whimpered softly, hearing Suguru’s voice as he replied, “We’ve barely touched her.”

Satoru now stands behind her as Suguru stands in front, both beginning to remove the vestments they wore. They then help her remove her dress, their eyes hungry as her brown nipples perk out, figure even better without clothing. Solana’s eyes come to the mirror behind them as she sees his back is covered in ink, shadowing any of his olive toned skin. His hair that was in a half bun began falling around his attractive face, it felt almost too intimate to stare. Satoru stood behind her, skin clean and soft, body sculpted perfectly to her touch. They were fucking beautiful. Hands roamed all around her body, lips along her chest, while another pair bit into her shoulder. It was overwhelming in the best way.

“Hold her up. You want my tongue?” Suguru’s eyes raise to hers, she quickly nods.

“You’re forgetting to say please,” he reminds. Satoru places his arms under the back of her legs, effortlessly lifting her up as her back is now against his chest, legs bending upwards in the air.

“Please,” she becomes slightly irritated at how he wants things his way. Her breath hitches as Satoru somehow pulls her arms with her legs, keeping her firmly stuck in his hold.

“Wanna try again?” Suguru raises an eyebrow as he hears her attitude. He lightly smacks his palm against her face, shoving his fingers down her throat as he brings his face close to hers, dominance pooling into her veins.

“I’m sorry,” her voice is small as she inhales deeply from his actions, wanting more from him, “Please, baby. I want your tongue.”

“Next time I won’t be so nice,” he promises, traveling his soaked fingers down her body, rubbing her puffy clit. She wanted to clasp her thighs closed, Satoru behind her as his tongue drags along her ear, teasing her as she moans prettily. Her sounds are like angels singing, even as condescending as that might’ve been.

Suguru takes his index and middle finger as he sinks them inside her, moaning with Solana as she pulls him in deeper, her walls gripping him as if never wanting to let him go. She brought her eyes up to the mirror and watched as his fingers shoved in and out.

Satoru’s now in her ear as he chuckles sultrily, “Look at that, baby,” he talks to her, “I think she wants more.”

“I want more,” she mewls, “Please.”

“Give her what she wants,” Satoru commands.

Suguru leans down as he removes his fingers from her, capturing her clit within his mouth as he sucks softly. He goes slow, allowing the pleasure to hit every nerve within her body, rotating his head in circles as his tongue drags all along her core, saliva creating against tastebuds.

She leans her head against Satoru’s shoulder as she begs, “Kiss me,” he does without argument.

Suguru’s tongue doesn’t slow down, diving in and out of her, fucking her with his mouth as he moans against her, kissing her clit passionately in the same way he made out with her.

“Tastes so fucking sweet, baby. This some crazy shit” he groans, spanking her skin as Satoru holds her hips up higher, Suguru’s tongue delving deeper.

“Suguru…oh—shit,” she whined, wanting to grip his hair yet her hands were still trapped. Her back arches as she could only see the back of his head from the mirror, watching as he pleasured her. Satoru’s grip was tight, ensuring that her body didn't move around or move away from Suguru, arch becoming stronger.

He snaked his hand up to her face, pulling it downwards as he spoke, “Watch me.”

His breath was hot against her opening as he maintained eye contact. "Look at what I'm doing to you... Look at how you’re moaning from just my mouth…” he talks to her, slamming his palm along her thigh, watching the skin become red as he rutted his lips against her core.

Her hips swayed against his face, hair around her neck making her hot. She responded petulantly, “I’m watching, baby…I promise…”

“Good.”

He brought his free hand up to her chest, cupping the breast within his hand, squeezing and kneading the soft skin. She felt her lower stomach becoming tight. Her abdomen stiffened as she gripped Suguru’s hair, filthily spouting within his mouth. She was unable to hold herself back as her eyes rolled in her head, shuddering as she watched him dipping his tongue inside her, eating like she’d be ripped away from his hold at any second.

He stands up, gripping her face as he kisses her, sucking her lower lip before he pulls back, “Tell me who you want to fuck you first.”

“You, Suguru.” She whimpers.

“Fuck her, Satoru.” Suguru easily denies.

Satoru drops her legs that feel like jelly, her feet now flat on the ground. Hands bend her over whilst pushing her back inwards, watching as it perfectly arches. Light eyes took in the way her hips curved perfectly in his hands. He lowers himself down as he brings his mouth between her legs, Solana lightly jumping at the intrusion. She has no time to react as she feels a hand on her chin, pulling her eyes upwards to look at Suguru.

“She doesn’t deserve to have her pussy ate again. You remember how bad her mouth was?” Suguru reminds. Solana’s eyes close as Satoru gently laps between her folds, fondling the skin of her ass.

“Put something in it, then. This isn’t for her,” Satoru commands, attaching his mouth back onto her.

“I’ll ruin her throat,” he responds back.

“She’ll love it.”

“I know she fucking will,” Suguru gruffly responds, wrapping his free hand around his length as he forcefully opens her mouth, shoving himself to the back of her throat. Her mouth feels full, no room to adjust as he collects her hair in his fist, yanking her back and forth against his hips. She salivated, going to wrap her hands around him as Satoru gripped both of her wrists in one hand behind her. Suguru pulls her down farther, Solana choking as he slammed his tip against her uvula, her eyes watering at his movements. But Satoru was right about one thing. She did love it.

“Look at you, baby,” Suguru moans, gritting his teeth as she hummed against him, bobbing her head lightly from the little control she had. Her lips were becoming a pouty red. She could feel his nails digging within her scalp, tilting his head down to watch as he fucked her face roughly.

Satoru extends to his full height, taking himself within his hand, placing the other on Solana’s hip to angle her properly. His tip taps along her clit, kissing the pulsing throb. She became more aroused than before.

He slides himself in, Solana’s eyes fluttering shut as she moaned against Suguru’s length that was still driving within her mouth. She slows down the pleasure she gives to him, feeling as if Satoru is just as big as Suguru, if not bigger. He stretches her, her lower abdomen burning from the feeling, a stronger sense of pleasure overcoming the pain.

He starts off slow, only pulling halfway out as he pushes in deeper the second time, Solana shouting as he spanks her, “Open up for me. I’ll fuck you good.”

She tries to relax, Suguru holding her head as he asks, “When did I tell you to stop?”

Taking the both of them was something she didn’t imagine struggling with. Satoru places his hand on her shoulder as he pulls her back against him, the back of her thighs creating a squelching sound from how wet she already was. He keeps his other hand wrapped around her fists, moaning lowly as she grips every inch that deeply pounds into her. Her eyes remained closed as Suguru pounds her face on the other end, her jaw painfully twitching yet she opened her mouth wider, moaning at every movement.

“She feels fuckin’ amazing,” Satoru grunts, “Keep fucking her mouth. It makes her more wet.”

“Fuck her harder,” Suguru counters.

And they did. Satoru snaps his hips into her, the rhythm perfect as her mouth meets with Suguru’s hips each time. She moans with every thrust, body trembling each time Satoru slams his palm on her ass, each time Suguru slams his palm on her cheek. She mewls again, her body nearly relaxing in this position, lower abdomen trembling.

“She’s gonna cum,” Satoru eyes, never stopping his movements of fucking her.

“She better fuckin’ not,” Suguru threatens.

“Come fuck her. She wants you more. Don’t you?” Satoru pulls her upwards, her feet nearly off of the ground as he wraps both of his hands around her throat from behind. Her hips bounce against his own, her eyes closing as she whimpers, “Satoru.”

“Call my name like that again, baby. Maybe I’ll believe you. What happened? I thought you wanted Suguru?” He talks to her, clasping her throat under his palms, throwing her body back and forth against his length, Solana gripping his fingers that have a tight hold against her. She grunts in response, her voice trailing into a whine as she cries softly, “No, baby. I want you, too. Feels so…fucking…good…”

“I know,” he agrees.

“Oh, you don’t want me no more?” Suguru then asks, wrapping his fingers atop of Satoru’s that still sit on her throat, helping as he drags her down, slamming her back down onto Satoru’s hips.

“Can’t ever forget you, Suguru. Come fuck me, baby. I miss you,” she babbles. Her voice causes Suguru to grunt, kissing her aggressively at her pleads.

Satoru finally releases her. Suguru then effortlessly pulls her up to him, bringing her legs over his shoulders as he stands at his full height. Her body shivers as she feels hit tip, fat and throbbing against her opening. Her eyes close as he slowly slides her down, her mouth dropping open as he feels huge, stretching her so far that she thought she’d tear. His eyes flick down to hers to watch, Solana able to see her own pleasure within the mirror. She sees his perfectly sculpted back, resting her arms along his neck as her nails connected against the ink upon it, digging her fingers into his skin.

His hips moved slowly, the small movements he made were almost methodical as he leaned more into the sensation of her body meeting his. With his back fully visible to her through the mirror, she was able to completely take in his physique, watching the way that his muscles flexed as he moved. They watched each other, seeing him slowly thrust himself into her body, back still as stiff as a board yet with Solana in his limbs, he had a slight sway to him.

“Oh…my—“ she breathes in deeply, unable to speak as she stared into his face, nodding her head since her voice couldn’t do anything to help.

“You’re not so shy anymore, are you?” Suguru taunts her, lifting her body up with ease as he sinks her back down. Their bodies continue to move in rhythm, his hips picking up speed as he moves more intensely against her. She struggles to hold on, nails digging into his back as she brings her eyes down, watching his length go in and out of her. She was completely enthralled by him.

“Stop it…” she panted.

“She can’t take it. She’s going to take it,” Satoru speaks behind them, lightly kissing her neck as he grips her hair in his fist, pulling her up slightly.

“C’mon, pretty girl. You did so well taking my dick. You want more, huh?”

“Yes,” she bites her lip, groaning at his words. The back of her thighs slam against the front of Suguru as he grips her ass tightly in his palms, her skin clapping with his as he becomes rougher with every thrust.

“Then watch him. Look how he’s fucking you. I think you like the way he handles you,” he pulls the ponytail he’s created in her hair, Solana seeing as Suguru’s length disappears and then reappears again.

She listened. She watched intensely between their hips as he pulled out slowly, slamming her back down quickly. Fingers gripped his arms as she tilted her head down to watch, hair falling around her face. Her eyes rolled entirely to the back of her head as she spoke. She cried softly, “Oh my god…” groaning as if she were annoyed, “Yes. Yes. Fuck me just like that, I love bouncing on your dick like this, baby,” she hiccuped.

Her face was completely red. As she scanned Suguru’s eyes, she could see a sudden cockiness within him—and slowly, a grin spread across his face. It was the most terrifying thing she’d ever seen.

Both men laugh arrogantly, Satoru reaching around as he rubs her clit, Solana’s head falling back against his shoulder as she couldn’t stop herself from moaning.

“Calling god now? Shame. Seems like she needs more penitents,” Suguru laughs, humored at the loss of her pride.

“He can’t help you here…” Satoru talks within her ear, echoing into her mind.

It was as if she was drunk, babbling against the both of them, allowing them to have full control over her. Her head continued to spin, eyes captivated of his strength, legs over his shoulders flailing with every movement. Her nails dug into his back, free hand shoving her own fingers into her mouth as she sucked, moaning loudly against them.

“I’m gonna….”

“Cum. She’s gonna cum. Let her,” Satoru finishes.

“Nah. I’m not with the sweet shit. She better wait,” Suguru shakes his head.

He pulls out of her, Solana shivering as they quickly change positions. She looks down as Suguru is now beneath her, Satoru placing his length in front of her face.

“Come sit on my dick. I’ll make you squirt like this,” Suguru demands, pulling her down. He wraps his hands around her waist as he’s already shoving himself into her.

“Wanna feel your throat, baby,” Satoru speaks sweetly, separating her mouth as he pushes his tip past her lips. She complies, growing more horny by the second as she circles her hips atop of Suguru, taking her hand as she wraps it around the base of Satoru, sucking him within her own pleasure.

“Even through all this…you’re still so good…” Suguru grunts, spanking her.

Satoru strokes her face gently, seeing as tears drop from her eyes, not knowing how much longer she was going to be able to handle the both of them. She grips her own breast with her other hand, Suguru snatching the hand away as he replaces it with his palm, squeezing as he thrusts upwards into her.

“Relax, pretty girl. You wanna cum?” Satoru asks from above, rubbing her face to relax her, Solana nodding as she sobs softly, unable to do anything but take what was given to her.

“You’re lucky you have him. I’d make you cry like a fuckin’ baby,” Suguru spits.

“She already is. She looks so cute,” Satoru tells him, “You can cum, baby. I’m close too.”

“She’s creaming. Never had dick like this, have you? You’ll want more. You’ll be back,” Suguru promises once again, holding her firmly as grinds her against him, Solana’s hips involuntarily wining.

“Imagine what the congregation will think when they hear how good you take my dick. How you whine for more. Satoru was right, you are fuckin’ greedy.”

That was enough for her. Neither of them stop as she thrashes atop of Suguru, sobbing loudly as she orgasms, core squelching as she gushes against his length. Suguru laughs, spanking her so hard that it leaves a bruise.

As both men continue their non-stop fulfillment of pleasure, they watch as she relaxes, just wanting to be so good for them. They felt satisfied, able to break her in the way they imagined. Both men grunt, Satoru moaning as he holds Solana’s chin, pulling back as he shoots against her beautiful face. Suguru moans after, pulling out of her as he pulls her forward, cumming along her ass, gripping the flesh in his palm.

They all pant against one another, Solana wanting to feel embarrassed. She wanted to feel like this was the biggest mistake she’d made in her life. Yet, she felt the complete opposite. She felt trapped within these men, and she damn sure didn’t want out.

“I think you two might be the devil…” she breathes heavily.

“What if we told you that we were? What if we told you we were the worst people you’d ever met?” Satoru teases, Suguru chuckling in response.

“I think I might believe you.”

“Good,” Suguru replies, Solana jumping as he pulls her down by her neck, lips nearly touching hers as he speaks a deafening sentence.

“‘Cause we’re not done with you yet.”

505 notes · View notes