#dympna devers x fic

[velvet-paradox]

Traveler (Part Two)

Fandom: Calm With Horses/ The Shadow of Violence

Pairing: Dympna Devers x Female reader

Summary: your career as a photographer leads you to Ireland and an unsuspecting meeting with a well known family in town.

Length: Long

Warnings: NSFW 18+ ONLY, tobacco use, strong language, explicit content, phone sex, mutual masterbation, slight oral (f receiving), P in V (unprotected; wrap it up dummy), cream pie, heavily detailed smut.

Tagging: @synnersaint @druigbarnes01 @littleplutoisaplanet @brookisbi @yoursopretty15 @marauderswhoree @azurewitch @autumnrose929 @badbitsh13 @123crossiant123 @mrsmooneyshouse @milklungsblog @sniwstrom @pjnkhoe @dreadwolfxoxo @mrsilovevillains @Unbetitelt @amberrubens @naamloos @xkaoruu @purebillskarsgardtrash @dainty cupcake @barryswifey @mrsniallhoran505 @heylolitahey13 @emilie1993 @enchantingeggslimepeanut @oh-yeah-i-exist @greekktragedyy @celtic-orgin @alivnysstuff @itsthestutterforme @shityoudidntaskfor @tompetersebbuckyhazleo @chainsawvigilante @mothdruid @sarahreader134 @omgeternal  

ENJOY!!!

You didn't hear from the Irishman for a few days, and honestly you were on a hunt of your own. You'd overheard some kids mention the same name of one of the rock sites you were interested in, one that was already scrawled down on your handy notepad. You asked them about it as they pointed up the hill from where you had gotten breakfast, not the same diner where you heard the gossip, a but specific breakfast joint that faced the water.

You plopped in the coordinates into your phone and set off. 

It was breathtaking, the whole island was but this place was magical as if you might actually see fairies or elves, maybe an albino mythical animal. Maybe this was a place where unicorns did exist. You got out your camera and snapped quite a few ethereal pictures, these would fetch you good price back home for sure. 

The misty mountains behind you made this place feel like a dream and in a sense it was. You sat on the trunk of your rental, just basking in the beautiful sight around you, a lone sheep trotted across the road and down a little hill just out of view, it's fluffy beige body dipping out of sight as your phone rang.

You smiled and answered. "Hi."

"How do, Yankee girl? gettin' into trouble are ya'?" Dympna joked through the phone.

"I'm doing just fine, what are you up to?"

"Jus' wonderin' the same, what are you doin' in a few hours? say around two..."

You checked your watch, it was just a little past noon. "I'll be back down the hill by then, why?"

"Why don't you let me pick you up, I'll show ya' the beach, yeah? the sun'll be nice an' high by then."

"Sure."

"Yeah?" he sounded excited and you felt the same, you weren't expecting this trip to turn out this way, but were thrilled nonetheless. "You'll go out wit' me?"

"Sure Dympna, I'm on my way back now, should be at the hotel in a few."

"Excellent! alrigh' I'll see you then!"

Dympna was right, the clouds had parted and the sun snuck out just as you heard a few loud honks below your window, you looked out and saw his little red car parked out front, then his blonde head from the drivers side window. He hung both arms out of it, drumming on the door.

He waved at you as you came out of the doors, the doorman holding it open for you as you thanked him. Dympna hurried out of the car, ran around to your side and opened the door for you.

He smiled so wide his dimples looked the size of potholes in the sun. "Told ya' I was a gentlemen!" He shut the door, slapping the hood before hopping in next to you and took off, no doubt going over the speed limit as you drove around a bend towards the beach.

The sand was hot beneath your feet, shoes and socks left behind on a blanket he'd brought out from the trunk. You both rolled up the bottoms of your jeans to your calves, though it didn't matter as you made it down to the crushing waves, he took your hand as you ran down to the water. It was freezing! you shrieked while he doubled over and laughed, you kicked some of the water at him when a wave rushed up. He chased after you when you took off, he called out after you as you ran, steering past a few kids building a sandcastle and mote.

"You like it?" Dympna asked when you made it back to your blanket, lounging on your sides, facing each other though he was the one to be facing the high sun, squinting and yielding up his hand along his smooth brow.

"I love it, it's beautiful."

"Sure is," out of the corner of your eye, as usual you could see him watching you. His scent of tobacco and cologne now tinged with the salt from your frolicking. Your arm shook so you propped yourself up on both elbows instead of one. You turned to face him but he was quick to turn away.

"Why do you do that?"

"Do want, Yankee?" He looked out at the water with a coy grin.

"I know you're looking at me but when iI look you're always quick to turn away."

"Exactly!" he exclaimed and dropped onto his back, he'd rolled up the sleeve of his sweater, tucking his jacket beneath his head in a makeshift pillow. "Can't have you catchin' me lookin'."

"But why don't you just let me look at you back?"

Dympna made a face in the sun, still squinting. "It's too real, you're too real. Besides I'm tryin' my hardest not to kiss ya' every two minutes, so."

Oh.

You smiled and wiggled your toes, you felt your cunt clench at the way his voice dropped. You licked your lips at his unsuspected answer, though you had realized when he did talk to you his eyes always went to your mouth first then your eyes. "You want to kiss me?"

"O' course I do! been thinkin' about since I saw you at the diner, jeez."

You shifted when he closed his eyes, when he opened them you were blocking out the sun for him as you hovered above him, he dug his head back into his jacket. He squinted at you anyway. You stilled your shaky hand on his chest before speaking again.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course ya' can."

"Are... are you really as dangerous as I've heard?" Blood pounded in your ears as if you were at the front of bass speaker at a music festival. You watched him work his jaw for moment and thought you might have misspoke, you bit your lip in anticipation. 

Fuck.

Dympna sighed but grabbed your shoulder before you could move back from shading him. "You've no doubt heard about my family since ya' been here I suppose. I'm not dangerous Y/N, if I 'ave to get mean I can but for the most part that's Arm's job. He gets it done. Don' get me wrong now we're a powerful family here, we can shift our weight when we need to but if they stay in line so do we. We're not in the killin' business if that's what yer thinkin', more like... we'll knock ya' around a bit but we won't kill ya'," his hand moved up the side of your neck holding you there and keeping full on eye contact. He licked his lips and you saw his Adam's apple shift. "I'm loyal to those I need to be loyal to, I'm trusting just the same way, understand?"

You nodded.

"Does that scare you?"

You tilted your head a bit and shrugged. "A little."

Dympna smiled sweetly. "You don't need to be scared o’ me girly, you've been good to us an' we'll continue to be good to you."

You surprised not only yourself but the man beneath you when you bent down and kissed him. He didn't move at first, you could feel him jerk under your hand but then his lips started to move against your own, savoring your taste. He hummed against your mouth, you could feel the corners of his lips turned up in a smile as he deepened it, his free hand covering your own on his pectoral.

He nipped your bottom lip, swiping over it with his tongue as he slid it over your own.

"Aye get a room you two! there's wee ones about!" Someone shouted near by, grumbling.

Unfortunately Dympna's phone rang from his pocket next to your hip.

"Ah fuck off." He mumbled against your kiss, waving his hand on your neck way at the air around you.

"You should get that," you breathed but continued. "Might be important."

He shook his head, "Nothin' as important as right now."

His phone rang a second time and he pulled away with a grouchy face and plumper lips. "Fucks sake! what?," he pinched the bridge of his nose with a defeated groan talking about a job. He hung up and gave you a pouty look. "Sorry Yank, got a job to do gonna' have to cut this short."

"You do what you have to." You pushed off him to get your things but he stopped you short, pecking the tip of your nose before he tapped it with his finger, then pointed to your mouth.

"I'm quite fond of your kissing."

You felt hot when you stood, putting on your shoes. "I'm fond of yours too." You smiled, licking his drying spit from your mouth.

"I'll drop you off at the hotel, don' worry. I'll call you later."

....

As you settled into bed you're mind wandered back to Dympna. Meeting and hanging around the locals was apart of your job, of course they know their providence more than anyone else, where and where not to go, what hill was the best for wildlife, what creek was the prettiest at a certain time of day or where could you get the best tasting fish. But you weren't planning on kissing any of them except for Dympna. 

You felt unnaturally comfortable and ease with the man even though you shouldn't. You bit your lip as you thought about it, how often you'd heard the Devers name and how the people in twin talked about them. They had some skin in the game, Arm was a good guy you could tell, even if he was the muscle of the operation. 

The fresh cuts to his knuckles told anyone who dared to ask. 

Dympna told you you were safe, weren't a target as long as he was around. An honorary member while you were in Ireland but-- was it wise? You'd had a few run ins in other countries and States so this wasn't new but you had to keep your eyes and ears open. 

You turned out the lights. 

Not ten minutes later your phone rang, blurring your vision as you grabbed it from the nightstand.

"How do, Yankee girl?" Dympna sang into the phone and you smiled.

"Hey yourself. How was the job?"

"Oh that? Not too bad. Guy knew we were coming, had our money already set out and everything! Smart man. Listen I was thinking about today, at the beach..." you thought for a moment he'd bring up the kiss but he surprised you with a question instead. "You ever been to the beach at night?"

"Can't say that I have, why?"

"Excellent! There's a full moon Friday night, thought maybe you'd like a night date, bring your camera and get some good shots, yeah? They are called shots right?"

You laughed and imagined his cute face all scrunched up in question. "Yeah. That sounds like fun."

You heard Dympna hum through the phone followed by some light rustling. 

"You're having a lot fun on this trip huh?"

"I am. You're a bonus."

"Oh! I like the sound of that, so." You could hear more shifting on his end, no doubt himself getting tucked into bed too. It was well after midnight. "I had fun today."

"You told me that already, when you dropped me off."

"I know I know," you could hear the lilt and smile in his voice. "Can't 'urt in telling you again. You know... we could have some fun right now if you want."

Oh.

You switched ears, your heart plummeted down to your feet. "And what kind of fun are you talking about?"

"The phone sex kind." Dympna laughed.

You wiggled your toes against the soft sheets, honestly you weren't opposed to the idea. After he'd dropped you at the hotel you couldn't stop thinking about kissing him, how he smiled against your lips.

"What do you think?"

"I think you're trouble."

Dympna laughed. "How's about you put me on speaker then, put me next to your head."

You did as he asked, his voice filled up the space. "What do you want me to do now?"

Dympna was good, damn good. Maybe too good. His voice dropped a little lower, a playful tone in the way he talked to you, asking you to grope your chest and close your eyes. When Dympna sighed you moved your hand between your legs when his exclamation that he was touching himself on the other end. You moved the phone closer and could just barely hear his stroking. 

You hummed.

"You sound delighted sweetheart."

"I am," you purred, opening your legs. "I can hear you."

"Good. I wan' you to hear me, I'd like to really hear you though."

A thought twisted its way up your spine and turned on the lightbulb, you bit your lip and moved the phone between your legs, settled just near your cunt. 

Tearing off your panties you circled your clit before moving your fingers between your lips, fingering yourself for the man on the phone. You moaned. "Can you hear that?" you added a second finger, pulling them out with the sound of your arousal.

"Oh fuck, yeah sweetheart I can hear that," Dympna groaned again when you moved them in quick succession, building your orgasm that would surely rip through you in a sudden flurry if he kept this up. "All that for me, then? wish I could see it."

"You will." You gasped, using your other hand to grope your chest again, pumping your fingers in and out. Dympna grunted into the phone, the vibration of his voice and growing pants for release had you bucking your pussy into your hand. "Ha I'm close!"

"Shit yeah me too, keep those legs open and get yourself off. Bet you got the cutest little face right now." Dympna whined and you pinched your face, your mouth falling open as you felt yourself twitch and tighten around your fingers.

"I'm coming oh my-" your words garbled into a whimpering mess, soaking your fingers imagining it was the man on the phone, curling his fingers inside you.

"That's it that's it, sound so damn good sweetheart. Fuck yes!" Dympna groaned a few times, you had just pulled out your wet fingers at the sound of him coming. You breathed and moved the phone closer, back up to your ear.

"Now that was fun." You giggled.

"Didn't I tell ya' sweetheart?" Dympna said with a smile on his voice, you head him cleaning up a bit before he talked more about your night date before you two said goodnight.

....

He picked you up that Friday night, well into pitch dark territory as you walked down the beach. He was right, a night time beach date was absolutely stunning. You got some great shots of the waves on the surf, crashing against the sand in the moonlit sky. The stars were incredible. You were definitely going to get at least one award for these pictures; you were certain of it.

It had started to drizzle. You didn’t mind but the way Dympna had voiced his annoyance, hiding and smoking beneath his coat had you putting your things away; suggesting you two head back to your hotel. Dympna liked that idea, he ran around to your door first, opening it as a flash of lightning you wished you would’ve caught on camera lit up the sky over the water. He hopped, giving your shoulder a quick squeeze before starting up the old red beater.

Dympna sat on your bed, boots left unlaced against the door, his leather jacket tossed away by your open and messy suitcase scrolling leisurely through your laptop. You came out of the bathroom and he smiled up at you, his hand holding his jaw. 

"You said I could get a print if I wan' it right? Can I have a few more than one?" You nodded. 

"Which ones do you like best?" 

He clicked a few and you memorized each one but stopped when he took your hand. "I'd also fancy a request." 

"A request huh?" 

"I'd like one wit' you before you head out. For memory sake... and in case I do make it to America one day, I can show 'em the most beautiful girl I know and where to find 'er "

You felt your body warm through, his thumb rubbing over your knuckles. He was a charmer this Dympna and you were under his spell for sure.

"Suave. Of course we can take a few."

"Good."

His smile stretched all the way and possibly past his hairline, he kissed your temple when he got up to use your bathroom.

He came out with a grin. "That's a nice fuckin' bath you got in there!"

"I know I'm gonna miss that thing when I go home, I took one earlier.”

Dympna hummed and nodded, looking into the larger bathroom then back to you as you moved your laptop to the dresser. "You wanna take another one?"

Your head snapped just as he wiggled how eyebrows and bit his bottom lip. "Now?"

"Yeah. Why not? Take a bath with me."

"Pretty bold of you to ask but," you moved over to him, your hands on his ribs while all he could was look at you with a heated gaze. "Sounds like fun."

And it was. It really was. You watched him pull at the back of his shirt, fumbling with his belt and jeans. He stood there in his dark boxers briefs, joking that you were clearly over dressed. You out your arms up for him to undress you. He took his time looking over your skin, calling you beautiful with every new inch of exposed skin. 

You may have glanced down when Dympna slid out of his boxer and Dympna maybe looked a little too long at your breasts before you got in the tub. You shut off the water. Dympna got in first, flicking little hot droplets on your skin before you joined him, your back against his chest. 

You couldn't be certain if he was hot already or if it was from the bath, either way it was giving you goosebumps and made the tiny hairs on the back of your neck stand.

His arm came up to rest on the side of the tub, his fingers dipping into the water.

"This is nice." You said and leaned back against him, he moved his head for yours to rest against his shoulder.

"Know what would be even nicer?"

You hummed and closed your eyes. "What?"

Dympna moved his other hand beneath the water and cupped your mound. You gasped but didn't move.

"Is that a yes sweetheart?" You shivered at his voice in your ear.

"Yes."

Once you felt his fingers start to move you felt like you were on fire, his toned muscles flexing languidly building you up for what the Irishman had planned.

Apparently it was to break you apart, little by little he stroked between your folds, separating your lips, getting a good feel of your count. You splashed in the water and Dympna chuckled.

"Easy girl, easy. I've got you."

The way he moved his fingers, stomach muscles tightening against your back had you whimpering in his hand, the other came up and held your neck. He told you to open your eyes and when you did he was smiling sweetly, his lip between his teeth as he teased your opening with one finger then another. You moaned, your brows furrowing with delight. His fingers felt better then your own, fragments of your phone sex call bloomed in your brain. He pulled them out only to watch your face contort when he pushed them back in.

The barely there scar and tattoo on his face had never looked more soft.

"That's it. God you feel incredible, so fuckin' pretty in my lap like this. Does it feel good sweetheart?" Dympna asked, still holding your face under twitching digits.

"Yes! Oh my god yes..."

The only sounds were splashing water and his working breath on your face. You stretched when little gap there was left between you and kissed him sloppily, swallowing the moan that now filled your mouth when he started to fuck his tongue against your own.

You pulled away with a groan of your own, looking down between your legs at his thrusting hand. "Dympna please..."

"Oh that's nice. Cry for me again sweetheart."

He pulled them out again, circling and rubbing your clit faster and faster until you cried, grabbing the sides of the tub for purchase as he finally succeeded in breaking you. You came with a high wail of his name.

He brought his hand to a slower pace, using the pads of four fingers to linger on your clit, pressing down just a little more as you panted against him. You blinked rapidly as if from some delicious dream but you were there, right there in his arms and in this tub.

"Amazing." Dympna kissed you again, softer this time and without care, just talking your mouth pressed to his. Plumb and swollen from your own assault. He licked the corner of your mouth.

"Bedroom. Now." You sighed, your already worked cunt squeezing around nothing at the way his blue eyes darkened just a tad, a knowing smirk rising up his flushed cheeks.

"Ah you wan' more of Dympna then, huh?" He asked damn well knowing the answer. He laughed when you climbed out of the bath tub, legs a little wobbly as you grabbed a towel and tossed one his way.

....

Dympna enjoyed the way you clung to him, clearly trying to get as close to him as possible, trying to mold yourself into him. You didn't know where you ended and he began, he had you splayed out on your back, still a little damp but neither one of your could be bothered to care. 

He was fucking intense with that eye contact, picking up on what you liked as he gripped your hip glued to his waist. Dympna squeezed your thigh as he fucked down into you, his healthy cock had spilt you damn near in two especially if he hadn't eaten you before hand. Which he did, moving his mouth over your slit, teasing your hole with the sharp tip of his tongue. His dyed hair may have been short but what you could hold onto, you pulled him as close as possible to your pussy.

Dympna made you cum that way first before stroking himself against your mound and stomach, he had circled the blunt head of his hard cock around your clit a few times before holding himself steady and rocked into you. 

Dympna's cock punched the air from your lungs, holding onto his forearms while he studied you beneath him, a low groan of his own filling the room.

He was on the verge of drooling, you could see it glisten over his bottom lip. You leaned up and kissed him, whining into his mouth while you dug your fingernails into his triceps, dragging them down made Dympna snap his eyes shut.

"Holy fuck sweetheart. Ya' feel so fuckin' good, could fuckin' stay like this forever. God dammit, so fuckin' tight for me. You're on cloud fuckin' nine ain't ya' sweetheart? can feel your cute pussy gripping me damn good too." Dympna pressed himself off to one side, holding onto the arch of your foot against the outside of his thigh, you whined and pressed your head back into the pillows.

"Yes," you kissed his forearm, giving the inside meat a gentle bite. Dympna grunted and circled his hips, when he did that though he hit something deep inside your cunt that had you on the verge of tears. You sobbed again. "Fuck me. Harder Dympna, harder."

He bit at the inside of his cheek and gave you a nod, he gave one of your breasts a half solid slap, enjoying the way you arched up into him as he pinched the other nipple getting you to make a noise you hadn't made before. He picked his pace, sitting back onto his haunches with his hands under your back so your shoulders pushed into the mattress.

He was building himself up, gather up both of your legs underneath the backs of your legs, hefting them over one shoulder.

"Good fuckin' pussy sweetheart," Dympna grunted, giving your knees a quick and messy kiss as he continued to pound into you. His nails might have short and blunt but you could feel the way they dug into your skin, pinching the flesh there. "Ya' so fuckin' wet for me, yeah? beautiful... just b-beautiful. Can' wait for you to cum on me, fuckin' soak my cock sweetheart. Gonna' make me mess outta' you."

You moaned at the thought, gripping the sheets beneath you. You felt it, the steady pulse of blood in your ears, your heart hammering along with that satisfying ache that had been laid out by Dympna brick by brick. 

"Yeah, God yeah. I'm close, I'm gonna' cum." You panted.

Dympna lifted your hips just a few inches more that had you fucking spiraling, your eyes blurred shut as you felt his fingers swipe against your clit, using the same momentum he had in the tub to get your off.

You yelped and made another garbled noise that was meant to be his name but came out odd. Your chest heaved, your own hands going to hold just under your ribs, under your bouncing breasts.

Dympna growled at the sight, you clenched around him. Your mouth fell open with a silent sound as you gripped him, your walls holding his cock nice and snug.

"Tha's it sweetheart, fuck sake!" Dympna hung his head, centimeters from clocking his forehead to yours, he dripped sweat. "So fuckin' good. Ya' gonna milk me then? make me cum too..."

"Cum inside me," you held onto him, the thick slap of his hips against the backs of yours cacophonied around the room. "Please, wanna' feel you wanna'--"

That set him off; Dympna held your legs tighter as he looked down at you one more time, three more delicious thrusts had him grinding his jaw. He came with a pained voice, a grunt that had turned into an obscene moan when he filled you up. Fucked you empty only to made full of him.

Dympna collapsed on top of you, out of breath and fucking spent. You held him to your collar by the back of his head, your nails in the blonde mop of hair at the top of his  head. You stroked his back, an attempt to soothe him down. His back muscles twitched like his cock still hugging your walls.

"What I tell ya' sweetheart," Dympna mumbled against your skin, giving the column of your throat a few sloppy and tired kisses. "Stick wit' me and y-you'll be bound to have some f-fun."

[heartofwritiing]

just lemme squish his cheeks between the palms of my hands, let me kiss his nose, lips forehead, anywhere. let me cuddle him because i just know he’s phenomenal at it. let me spoon him while he has both his arms around my waist and is pulling me to him so were so close, while i gently run my fingers through his soft hair. I could go on for days… im literally begging god at this point to let me have it.

[basicrese]

Miscellaneous Fic Recs

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[slut4dympna]

Heyyy bestie! Just have a quick question, do you have any new fics planned??

boy, oh boy, do i have some fics planned .

CURRENTLY IN PROGRESS

NON-REQUESTED WORKS

'futile devices' - joe (mammal) x reader - rated E, 18+

sequel to 'care for you', very long awaited i am aware, thank you for being so patient with me. will contain copious amounts of both fluff and smut to make up for this <3

'old money' - dympna devers x reader - rated M, 18+

oneshot continuing the concept i proposed with my arranged marriage hcs a little while back. i've written it so it could easily be a standalone, but if people are interested, could also be a series !!

'i would never pretend to not know you' - joe (mammal) x reader - rated E, 18+

if you couldn't tell, a continuation of my normal people au. yes i had to make that quote the title, yes i do apologise for any heartbreak it may cause you.

REQUESTED WORKS

all of these are currently untitled simply because i am uncreative with titles and will not be able to settle on anything until i have finished the entire thing </3

martin (killing of a sacred deer) x reader - rated T

wherein you are martin's best friend, get jealous of him and kim, and then get thoroughly comforted by him. rated t for the canon-typical weirdness of martin's character and the whole story lol

the scavenger (green knight) x reader - rated T

just some general scavenger hcs because i am yet to write anything proper for him and wanted to start off simple ! again rated T for the canonical themes

martin (killing of a sacred deer) x goth!reader - rated T

martin rambling abt his sexy goth s/o because its what we all need . (promise there will actually be more plot than this)

dympna devers x reader - rated M, 17+

let me tell you this request alone is heartbreaking enough, i am only extending the suffering. only rated M because its so so angsty and is canon-typically dark and violent. if you're familiar with the ending of tasm2.... prepare your heart is all i can say

dympna devers x reader - rated T

some good old fashioned enemies to lovers <3 packed full of fluff to make up for the angst of the other dymp fic in progress

dympna devers x reader - rated T

maybe i'll sandwich the angst in between these other two because this one will be lovely and wholesome as well ! a little birthday themed drabble where dymp realises all you really need to have a good day is some time with him

TO BE POSTED SOON ...

12-day writing challenge - multiple barry characters x reader - all fics rated E (18+) for gore, violence, dark themes, etc.

in celebration of my return to this blog, i wanted to do a challenge / prompt series that really caters to my own writing interests. therefore, i would like to say, that these mini fics definitely will not be for everyone !! and that's okay !! i've taken six of my favourite / the most popular barry characters and over twelve days, will publish two fics for each of them. each fic is based on a goretober prompt selected randomly from a huge list i found. individual warnings will be posted with each mini fic, but here's the character and prompt schedule now to give you a little preview:

day one : dympna devers + run

day two : martin (koasd) + stitched together

day three : the scavenger (gk) + antlers

day four : joe (mammal) + organs

day five : george (dunkirk) + rotting

day six : druig + plant growth

day seven : dympna devers + darts

day eight : martin (koasd) + melting flesh

day nine : the scavenger (gk) + frostbite

day ten : joe (mammal) + self-mutilation

day eleven : george (dunkirk) + blind

day twelve : druig + marionette

i'm planning to start posting these at the end of this week / beginning of next week so stay tuned for that !!

i'm going to keep this as my masterlist of sorts until i have enough fics / pieces to make an actual one !! so check back here for updates on any of these very soon <3

[sunderlust]

SKSJFJKSOWFJSK My heart is so warm I love this so fucking much I can’t chose a favorite out of all these three. Props to Barry for his acting versatility, giving us so many characters but holy shit props to you for writing them so well in this hc! Love this

You coming to one of his fights would include...

with Boxer!Barry, Boxer!Druig, Boxer!Dympna

Warnings: Blood, minor violence, I did include she/her pronouns in this one!

A/N: I randomly decided to do more headcanons because I am simply a hoe for these lads! @waspswidows & @mothdruid for you ♡ poorly edited at 2am

B A R R Y

Barry had been begging you to come to one of his real fights for a while

you always sat in on his training sessions but when it came to the real thing you were hesitant

"It'll be fun, gorgeous," he whined cutely

he reached over the table to hold your hands

you sighed deeply and inspected his bruised knuckles

you let out a small chuckle, "Do you box without gloves or something?" you asked to deflect his question

"No," he huffed, "why don't you wanna come see me?"

you couldn't resist those blue eyes and overdramatic pout

"I don't want to see you get hurt," you finally admitted

the images of a broken nose and his blood on the mat made you shiver

he could respect that, but it still made him sad

"But you'll be my good luck charm," he hums as a last resort

"Barry..."

you did show up a bit after it started, not telling your boyfriend you'd be there

you took a few meds to keep your squeamish stomach at bay

it was a packed house, the only open seats were in the back

your meds weren't helping as you watched him

Barry was taking too many shots to the face

this wasn't the man you'd seen train so confidently

his opponent wasn't that good

the bell dinged and his coach dragged him to the side

"Get out of my way!" you shouted as you pushed your way to the ring

"Barry!" you grunt as you got to the ring, tapping him on the back of his helmet

his head whipped around

taking his mouthpiece out

you winced at the mix of blood and spit coming from his mouth

"Baby you came!" he grinned in between pants

"Yeah... I came to see you win, what's happening out there?"

"I don't know, I can't get around him."

your face softened

"You can do this, you're better than him. I believe in you!"

he took your kind words to heart and eventually ended up winning

after he left the locker room he scooped you in his arms and spun you around

"I told you, you're my good luck charm," he spoke before kissing you

you pulled away and smiled, "I must be, you were getting the shit beat out of you," you joked.

"Clean me up?"

"I suppose."

D R U I G

Druig was wary of you coming to one of his fights

not because of nerves or wondering if you'd be comfortable

but because of his friends at the gym

as soon as they found out about you they wouldn't let Druig live it down

"So when do we get to meet her?" Sersi asked with a wide grin as she tied up her hair

Druig threw his bag on the ground and pulled out his white hand wraps

"Never," he smirked

"Is she coming to the fight tonight?" Ajak chimed in from behind the front desk

the man huffed, "Does everyone know?"

"Yep," the two women answered in unison

"Is nothing private in this fuckin' place?" he groaned as he wrapped his knuckles tightly

"Nope!"

before the fights began Ikaris looked at the crowd "What does she look like?" he asked with a smirk

"You'll never know," Druig responded

"The blonde? Brunette? Second row?"

Druig tapped him on the shoulder before walking out of the locker room

his mouthpiece hung between his lips, "Not telling," he sang

the crowds were loud that night

most of the lighter-toned cheers were for Ikaris

and he ate it up

making all the other Eternals fighters roll their eyes

but there was one person in the crowd just for Druig

sitting dead in the middle just happy to be there

everyone cheered again when they called Druig's name

but one voice was louder than all the rest

the Eternals on the sidelines followed Druig's abnormally wide smile

they followed it to the girl in the center looking lovingly at him

"She's cute," Thena commented

Ajak and Sersi let out a loving "Aww!" when they saw you blow him a kiss

Sprite faked a gag as Druig winked in your direction

D Y M P N A

Dympna wanted you far away from the Devers Gym

"I want to come to your fight tonight, D," you persisted

"No," he responded simply

you two sat on the trunk of his car that was parked by the sea

somewhere his uncles wouldn't find the two of you

"You can't hide me away forever," you grumble

your eyes scan down to his knuckles that were barely scratched from his last match

Dympna wanted you there but only for him

you would be one face that didn't give him a grim reminder of what his family really was

your father was a shop owner in the heart of Devers territory

your family heard of their illegal activities and your dad forbade you from speaking to the blond boy

it was only fate for the two of you to fall in love

"I'm tryin' to protect you. If they see you in the crowd, they'll start askin' questions, love."

You leaned on his shoulder and sighed deeply

"Promise me you won't show up tonight, yeah?"

you couldn't make that promise

that night you didn't go into the run-down gym

but you went

you could hear the loud drunken shouts and cheers from the inside

you stood on the tall dumpster

your eyes barely able to see through the tall window

there he was, in the middle of the brightly lit ring

you smiled brightly as he moved effortlessly

he landed a punch square in the jaw

"Atta boy, Dympna," you whisper happily

once the fight was over his arm was raised in the air in victory

you cheered along with the others

the blonds head whipped up towards the window

he swore he saw someone duck under the window in front of him

♡taglist♡ (taglist is open)

@agalsmaraudersobsession♡@redheadspark♡@fizassyeda♡@casi-eternal♡@redroomproperty♡@iamburdened♡@zofps♡@greattragedy

[causticcauses]

Only Stop at Exits pt. 2

Part Two -> One, Three, Four

Pairing: Dympna Devers x (gender neutral) Reader

Summary: You wanted out of your rough life employed to the Devers family. Building a life with Dympna just wasn't possible when it meant dragging yourself through shit to be with him. When things came to a head, the only question was what you would have to leave behind.

Fic Warnings: Angst, mention of past death, drug use/reference, drug dealing, abuse reference, swearing.

Part 2 Warnings: Moderately graphic violence, drinking.

A/N: So I know I said part two would probs involve smut, but I’m an indecisive and long winded idiot so we’re not quite there yet. However, part three definitely will, so, like, hang in there? Lol. Besides that, thanks a ton for the interest, I didn’t expect to get so many notes on part one.

@omgeternal​

The weeks passed in a blur of grey disturbed by frequent spikes of red and black anxiety. You trotted through deliveries with impatient mindlessness, eager to be done each task but with little to do after the fact. You spent most of your time between jobs restless, searching up openings across the country or even further, looking up flight prices, apartment listings, costs of living in towns you'd never heard of. It didn't matter how much information you found, there was always something missing, some fact you hadn't discovered.

It felt like your hands were empty even when you were holding something. Like you were reaching for something that just... wasn't there.

You still saw Dympna. Frequently, in fact. He was, in the loosest sense of the word, your boss. You picked up deliveries from him, or from one of the people you uncharitably but not untruthfully called his lackeys while he looked on.

The thing was – he wasn't different. His grin was sharp as ever, his laugh quick to come. He draped himself over furniture like gravity was too much to deal with during parties, and the parties happened like they always did. Every weekend, clockwork. You still got the invites to the Devers’ home, and you went because if he wanted to act like nothing happened, you couldn't let that challenge go.

It didn't stop your eyes from finding him every fucking minute, though.

A time or two or ten, he caught you looking and grinned, his chin high, gaze evaluating. Mostly you tried to hollow out your expression and pretend to look through him, but you couldn't control the flush of heat through your neck and face. Let him think you were embarrassed – and to judge by his smirk, he did – but really you were pissed.

So very, very pissed.

It didn't help that he didn't do anything else to make you mad. You weren't suddenly given the shittiest, out of the way jobs along country roads with potholes so deep they were probably secret portals into hell. You didn’t have to meet up with the clients that made Paudi look like a calm, reasonable man. Those kinds of deliveries had ended when you started dating Dympna, nepotism at its finest, and they didn't start back up. You'd been afraid – a fear that shamed you both for the mistrust and the pathetic dependency – that he might dock your pay, or some other asshole move like that, but your money came on time, fair as fair could be.

You'd even wondered – fleetingly, in bursts of near-panic – if he might tell his uncles about your wavering loyalty, but in more rational moments, you knew that was totally unjust to him. What were the scars on his back, if not symbols of how loyal he could be when push came to shove?

He could be petty, even spiteful, but not like that. Not to people he loved.

And somehow, you thought you might still be in that category. Even personally, Dympna wasn't cold. He didn't avoid you. The opposite, actually. He drew you into conversation despite your attempts to be unfriendly, and if the discussions never went anywhere against the stubborn coolness of your resentment, were just casual flings of words that you fended off with thinly veiled disrespect, the fact that he bothered made you think...

You didn't know what to think. Hell, you didn't even know what you wanted to think. He’d made it clear, hadn’t he? And hadn’t you? Wasn’t it all over between the two of you? It wasn’t what you wanted, but wasn’t it what you needed?

You sure as hell weren’t fucking, and... you supposed that was a change. Since you’d left, Dympna hadn’t tried to touch you at all. No casually putting his hand on your hip, drawing you closer as he spoke to someone else. No teasing pinches to make you yelp and smack him reprovingly, or soft scratches at the back of your scalp, soothing in his idle but constant presence. He hadn’t kissed you – and you hadn’t kissed him, and, honest only to yourself, you wanted to. God, you wanted to. Your body felt empty, hollow, begging to be filled by something you tried to convince yourself was a poison.  

You half expected him to make moves on someone else, half hoped for it, if only to have another reason to be angry, to say good riddance to attractive garbage.

But he didn't. Though as usual he was the center of attention, he was no friskier with anyone than he ever was.

(Which was still pretty flirty, but that'd been something you accepted about him early on. Man just had a mouth for banter and bedroom eyes.)  

He was at the center of something now, raised voices and words flattened by the loud music into something you couldn’t quite understand. But from where you stood, leaning on the kitchen counter and chatting with two of his sisters, you could see Dympna and a few buddies in the living room, gesturing aggressively, getting in each others’ faces. Some kind of dick measuring contest, you guessed.

From what you could tell Dympna was playing both sides, egging on one guy and then the next. The usual shit disturbing. He was in a silver sleeveless shirt, with flashy black designs swirled across it, and it practically screamed amidst the darker colours the rest of the fellas in his circle were wearing. The thought made you pull at the rim of your white top, deliberately plain just to show how little of a shit you gave.  

“...Hun?” It slowly dawned on you that that was Christina, calling for the attention that you’d let wander.

You shook your head quickly, heat rising in your cheeks, and said, “Sorry, sorry. I missed that. You were saying...?”

The twins were observing you with open shrewdness. Under their identical eyes, you shifted your weight, brought your drink up and took a long swallow. Liquid courage wasn’t the best kind, but it was the only kind you had to ward off their looks.

The sisters were fraternal, but their eyes were spitting images of each other, pale blue with a touch of almost-silver near the irises that gave them an unworldliness that sometimes seemed to see too much. Dympna was always teasing them that they’d been swapped at birth by the fair folk, were faeries in disguise, and he got them each an iron ingot for their eighteenth birthday. They pretended to hate his taunting, but you’d been by their room on the way to Dympna’s, and the little grey bars were on the dresser, pride of place in the middle.

That said, they were a little… protective… of their older bro, and you were somewhat hoping they wouldn’t pursue where your attention had gone. Maybe just let it go.

The Devers were never very good at letting things go, though.

Fatima looked by you, into the living room, and her expression became knowing. She was the quieter of the twins, and you probably got on best with her of all the sisters, but she also liked to tease in a way that was a little more cutting than was comfortable. They’d made it clear they were aware of the drift in your relationship with Dympna, but never talked about it to you directly. Seemed like that was about to change.

“You’ll never plough a field by turning it over in your mind, y’know,” she observed with a small smile, surely quoting some questionable wisdom from her mother June.

Sometimes the best defense was a good offense. “I already ploughed that field,” you said, trying to shock her into dropping it.

Unfortunately, “that field” was Dympna and he’d been ploughed many a time, too much so for his sisters to be embarrassed by it. Christina laughed, light and quick. “Aye, and seems you’re letting it lie fallow, hmm?”

“I’m sure someone else will get to seeding,” was your reply, and you were a little taken aback by the tartness in your voice.  

Abruptly impatient with the metaphor, Christina snorted. “Way he’s been pure moping about, it’s no sure thing.”

Automatically you glanced back, over to Dympna... who was staring your way. Your eyes met and it was the usual smirk, a slight nod, and this time you peeled your gaze away through sheer force of will, trying to ignore the bloom of hopeful affection in your chest. You fell back on sarcasm. “Oh, yeah, looks like he’s in bits. Real torn up.”

Christina rolled her eyes, and Fatima replied, “Like he’d show it here, with all youse lot around. Trust us, he’s been unbearable. Like a kicked pup. You let him down hard, yeah?”

“I didn’t let–” you began heatedly, only for the protest to die down into a kinda unconvincing mumble. You supposed outside observers wouldn’t exactly describe your last conversation with Dympna as letting him down gentle. But you hadn’t even let him down! It was him, with his pig-headed, Devers’ stubbornness, that let your down. Refusing to at least talk through leaving – what did that give you to work with? Nothing. That’s what.

And yet… Pure moping about. Fatima didn’t seem like she was pulling one on you, no sly smile to let you in on the joke. Was he really that bothered by the thought of you gone?

Another look, but this time Dympna wasn’t angled towards you. He was still talking in the group, and if anything, all the voices over there had grown louder, more aggressive, clearer over the pulsing music. These days, the parties were wilder, and they had more people that came to ‘em, too. The house was packed tonight, and though there was a certain respect given to the Devers, even that space was being challenged; you were practically rubbing elbows with another group camped in the kitchen.

The people who came nowadays seemed more apt to spill into fights, with less harmless fun. Judging by the noise coming from the living room, sounded like things were heading that way tonight. Not something Dympna – or the Devers ladies – couldn’t handle, but it was another bit of friction sliding rough under your skin.

Fatima and Christina were still waiting for your response, unbothered by the tension over yonder, but you were saved from their expectant stares by an unlikely hero. Needles, staggering into you, stepping back with a squint like he didn’t quite know who you were before he brightened.

“Ohhhh!” he exclaimed, thick and drawn out. “It’s our mate! It’s our…” The slight man trailed off, looked around like he was expecting someone to be standing next to him, and took a few seconds to recuperate from the absence. When he did, he started going off about the beaver trade in Canada, which was not quite thrilling enough to keep the sisters hanging around.

With vague excuses and, on Fatima’s part, a wicked grin at you that Needles totally missed, they cut their losses and shifted to another area of the house. Leaving you alone with Needles.

Joke was on them, though, because Needles was the better company. At least he wasn’t trying to accuse you of dumping Dympna, just waxing eloquent now about something called a North American jackalope.

Besides, you’d always felt a bit bad for the man. He lived in an addled, sometimes barely functional haze, and when Arm had been around, he’d had something of a protector in the big boxer. Nobody picked on Needles while Arm or Dympna were around. Now, though… Well, Dympna had picked up new friends – new enforcers – who were far less patient than Arm had ever been, and Dympna himself was…

Busy was a kind way to put it. Distracted. You didn’t like to think he’d basically left Needles on the curb in his relentless push to grow the business.

At least Needles was still invited to these parties. You and he chatted for awhile longer, a conversation that looped and sagged and darted on incomprehensible paths. It was mostly amusing to try to follow his leaps of logic, and a few other people joined the convo as time went on. You drank, maybe more heavily than you should, but it felt good to turn your mind away from a certain someone and focus on other people, other thoughts. In turn, Needles drifted away, and you chatted with those left, mostly deliverers like yourself, just here for a good time.

You were starting to argue about the best pub in town – there were only two – when shouting from the living room caught your attention. Your attention, and pretty much everyone else’s, too. The sudden crashing and swearing that followed grabbed anyone else who’d missed the yelling.

As automatic as breathing, there was a surge to the living room. Everyone liked a good fight. Quick enough to grab a spot inside the room, you didn’t have to jostle much to stay near the front of the bodies. Dympna’s reputation – and hell, your own – guaranteed that much. Although once there, you sort of regretted your quick rush. As in, stomach plummeting regret, along with nauseating concern.

It was Dympna on the floor next to the overturned table. That much was obvious, silver shirt and blond head all. The fact he was on top of the guy – and you’d be hard pressed to say who it was, maybe Rory or that new guy, Dare – made it even easier to tell. Whoever it was, they weren’t down for long. With a heave, they threw Dympna off, and Dympna, slighter than his opponent, hit into one of the low side tables with a grunt and an awkward roll. You winced at the sound of a lamp on the table falling to the floor with a sharp crack.

There was a reproving buzz from the onlookers – bad form to start actually smashing furniture, you were supposed to take it outside before then – but no one moved to intervene. That would be even worse manners.

Your fingers were clenched into fists so hard it was producing an ache, dull in your knuckles, and you leaned forward as Dympna found his knees in time to get kicked in the stomach. He groaned and folded into the foot and for a second you thought, stricken, that he was –

Whatever you thought, it was stupid, because he just used the second delay to find a better position to launch himself at the other man’s legs, and yeah, it was Dare, and Dympna brought him down again. There was a much louder buzz, calls of “Get ‘em, D!” and jeers that rang in the numbness of your ears.

They wrestled for longer, piling into the chairs and tables that’d already received a beating, but as the initial rush of concern began to drain from your eyes, you started to see clearer. No stranger to fights yourself, you noticed what you hadn’t at first. Dympna wasn’t losing. Not even close. Hell, if you didn’t know better, you’d say he was drawing it out. Letting Dare get just enough space to get himself free, and then jumping all over him.

Except that couldn’t be. Dympna didn’t even like fighting. There was a reason he’d first towed Arm around, why he had big new friends now. Sure, he could fight, and did when it came to it, but for Dympna the only good fight was the one he’d won before he first punched someone. When the outcome wasn’t sure, he finished it as quick as he could, and if that meant being ruthless, he did that easy enough.

So what the hell was this now?  

Eventually, tired or just sick of it, Dympna got himself back on top of Dare, hit him a few more times, the hollow thud of his fists loud in the subdued murmur of the crowd. There was more than one experienced fighter in this room, and they’d seen what you had. This wasn’t just a good scrape between friends. By this point, Dare could barely cover his face, and one of the last punches plastered his nose across his face in a bloom of blood that left him choking and gurgling as Dympna heaved himself off.

There was a strangled attempt at a cheer as he straightened, but Dympna’s flat expression didn’t encourage praise, and that was off, too. He thrived off of admiration like a flower off sunlight, so why wasn’t he swaggering? Especially after a fight like that?

You didn’t have time to puzzle it out. In a slightly strained voice, Dympna called, “Get this scut outta my fuckin’ house.”

Two of his boys jumped to it with a will, laying hands on the barely conscious Dare. In the meantime, a few members of the crowd wandered away, while the rest sort of milled, watching uneasily. Sure, fights broke out more often than they used to at the Devers house, but those were a box and a jab and a wrestle, not a beating. No one – least of all you – understood what happened. People parted, watching two of the men carry Dare out.

You only had eyes for Dympna, and so you saw him bend down, grimacing as he picked up a bottle from the ground. A moment later, he straightened and then pressed his fingers to his side, then pulled them away. Checking something. Maybe the thick smear of blood covering them.

Your inhale was loud, fighting with the music that slogged on in callous indifference to the fight, and his eyes snapped to you. His eyebrows knitted together in a fierce expression you couldn’t put a name to, and he immediately straightened, rubbed his hand off on his jeans. There was a cut on his cheek, but that couldn’t account for the amount of red that’d been on his fingers. With tension vibrating through your muscles, a quivering agony of indecision, you held yourself still. Had – had he been stabbed? Did he need help? Should you–

“The gobshite tried to fuckin’ stab me,” Dympna said, and he’d recovered some of his aplomb, some of his performance. The loyal skins he’d gathered responded to the tone; there was a more energetic gasp, a wave of outraged muttering, some calls of concern. You didn’t stab a man in his own home when he’d invited you in, and you sure as hell didn’t try it on a Devers. They were probably thinking Dare was lucky Dympna hadn’t sicced his lackeys on him.

But why the lie? Why “tried” when you’d just seen that Dare had been more than a little successful?

The piercing weight of his blue eyes was on you, daring you to say anything. He gestured casually with his hand, the one holding the bottle, which, you now realized, was broken. “Eejit pup didn’t manage nothin’, but we don’t take kindly to that shite in the Devers house, do we?” He finally looked around, including everyone present in his demand, and received an immediate response. More outrage, denial, denunciation.

He’d always been good at controlling people, influencing how they viewed him. He was working overtime now. When he threw the bottle to the ground, where it shattered further, his whole frame tightened, a kind of shudder that went through his body, but only once. “Sorry fellas and fine things, we’ll be gettin’ this mess cleared. Get on outta the livin’ room now, we’ll just take a moment. Stay if’n you like, though, night’s young yet. Sláinte!”

Immediately, like his words were some kind of benediction, the tension snapped. People relaxed, laughed, repeated the toast with much downing of the forgotten drinks in their hands. Then, as directed, they began to leave the room, giving the Devers space to clean up.    

It was physically difficult to tear your eyes away from him. He looked – overwhelming. That was all you could think. It was like he was meant to be there, right at the center of this house, right at the center of admiration and control. Someone had tried to stab him and he’d brushed it off like... like...

There was movement behind him, and you automatically focused on it. It was Charlie. She must have been in the room when the fight started, been trapped or even unwilling to leave as her brother tussled. She was pressed up against the far wall, and her face was ashen, her breath coming in quick, panting bursts. What that animal Fannigan had done to her had changed the child, but you hadn’t seen her this bad in at least a year. She looked like she was about to break down.

You took a few steps her way before you realized it was the wrong move. Charlie wouldn’t be comforted by you. She’d not really warmed to you, just like she hadn’t warmed to most newcomers since it happened. You pivoted around. Finding Lisa wasn’t hard; she was at Dympna’s side, as were the other two sisters, speaking in low voices and with gentle hands on his shoulders. The matriarch June stood nearby, her glare warning away anyone who might wanna crowd Dympna and get a little favour by seeming concerned. It struck you how... apart... they seemed from the rest. The small family was a little island in the mess that was the living room.

June's glare didn't exactly diminish as you approached. You had literally no idea what she knew about you and Dympna, but she was one of the more intimidating people you'd met, and even before, you'd never been close. Dympna wasn't quite the type to introduce a lover to his mam, and while his stories painted a woman who could be warm as a home hearth and just as welcoming, you hadn't seen it. But your urgency must have been apparent, because after a moment she gave a brusque nod, grudging permission to approach.

"S'nothing, just a little..." Dympna was saying quietly as you came up, but he trailed away at your approach. You expected him to straighten, maybe brush off his sisters' consoling hands, just to appear as nonchalant as always, but his mouth was pinched, his face pale, and he did nothing of the sort. Your gaze flickered down, to his side, to see if you could catch sight of more blood, or maybe a tear in the fabric of the shirt, but Dympna shifted, leaned more into Fatima so the area was covered.

Whatever. You weren't there for him.

Except that he was ironically the only reason you were here at all.

You banished the thought from your mind with a frown. Speaking to Fatima's concerned head tilt, you explained, "It's Charlie." You jutted your chin in the teen's direction. She hadn't moved. "She's in a bad way."

They all stiffened. Lisa swore under her breath and instantly broke off from the Devers huddle. She beelined straight for her younger sister. It was a little amazing to see how much the hard woman softened as soon as she got to Charlie. Careful hands and careful words, soothing the lines from the girl's face, easing her from her cowering position against the wall.

All the other Devers turned to watch, anxiety obvious in their intent focus and sudden silence. Including Dympna, his hands drumming against his thighs, abruptly a shifting, squirming mess, like his body was begging him to go comfort Charlie. One particularly energetic movement, a stretch to his toes to try to keep better track of his sisters, had the air suddenly hissing out of his lungs as he winced.

"Stop playing the maggot," June snapped.          

Anyone else taking that tone would have received a glare – at the least – but Dympna just flashed his mother a flighty, apologetic smile that was gone about as quick as it came. He did stop fidgeting as much, though.

Before too long, Lisa led Charlie over, one arm protectively holding her close. “Think we’re gonna get some air, yeah?” the older sister said. “Place is starting to smell manky. You should tell your friends to shower, D."

The joke fell more than a little flat, but Dympna, his eyes on Charlie, managed a grin. "Then you'd wanna take 'em all for a ride, and we can't have that, can we? Nothin'd get done."

Lisa scoffed. "Most your friends, clean as angels and I still wouldn't touch 'em." Her eyes – blue, like the rest of the Devers clan, but darker, like her mother's – slid to you and then away and you couldn't tell if that included you in the "most friends" category, or put you out of it. A moment later Lisa continued. "Anyways, the Lord ain't sending showers atop their heads tonight, so we'll step outside. C'mon, Charlie."

Though she gave a gentle tug to her younger sister, Charlie resisted. She was staring at Dympna. "Are you...?" she whispered, couldn't seem to find the breath to finish the question.

Nonetheless, Dympna's smile became livelier, and he waved his hand. "Sure, sure, I'm fine. Right as a pint and then some, yeah."

"Look at him," Christina piped up. "Picks a fight with a man double his size and walks away suckin’ diesel. What a tool."

When Dympna protested, you took the opportunity to add, "Think his hair got a little outta place, though. He should fight a comb next." Dympna's reaction to that was more subdued, and he seemed taken aback by your willingness to throw out the friendly insult. Wasn't really for him, though.

"Worrying his mam, too, and do he care? Not a wit!" June added fiercely, and that was a signal, with the rest piling on Dympna with glee.

You had seen that before, the way they ganged up on him, and Dympna loved it. Parrying the comments with wordplay of his own, clever and sharp but never enough to cut. The Devers family could make an Olympic sport out of bickering, the amount of time they put into it, but it was rarely hurtful. They knew each other well enough to load their guns with nothing more than blanks, all sound and no piercing.

Today's performance, though, was just that. They were none of them fully invested in the codding, faltered several times, only to have the gap filled in by someone else. It was a family effort, working with the sole goal of reassuring Charlie. A few times one of the women took a quick look at Dympna, and Fatima kept a hand on his elbow, lightly squeezing. They were worried about him, masking it for Charlie's sake, and you admired them for it even as it made you feel... strange. Outside.

Fatima looked your way more than once, inviting you to take part, and a spot had opened up for you in the circle, so you were nominally part of the conversation. Dympna kept glancing at you, quick, spastic scans like the sight of you was burning him, and you didn't have the easy grace to jump back into the banter after your first comment. A few times some smart-ass remarks rose to your lips, but just looking at Dympna, at the way he had by now casually clamped his arm into his side, was enough to make the urge die.

He looked so... good... like this. So warm and secure, surrounded by his family. And meanwhile, the living room was trashed, glass and ceramics crunched underfoot. Dympna had been hurt, and Dare was probably bubbling out his consciousness through blood in a bush across the way. If the de-facto bouncers had even bothered to carry him that far from the house.

If you could cut this moment – this familial warmth and security – out of this place and put it elsewhere, somewhere clean, like trimming out a photo from a magazine for a scrapbook page, would the grimy light of the Devers’ house follow? Would the pungent scent of weed still drift through the air as the acrid taste of beer clung to your tongue? Would blood forever stain the picture? Or in a different place could they – could he – be something different? Something more? 

You yearned – ached – to know the answer. And you were reminded, once again, horribly, why you needed to leave so badly.  

He wasn't what he could be, and neither were you, and if you didn't leave, nothing would change.

With that stark realization a claustrophobic pressure weighing on your lungs, you retreated. As Lisa finally got Charlie – a little lighter, a little more relaxed – to agree to go outside for a bit, and Christina said she would come, too, you joined the small exodus for the door.

"Goin' so soon?" Fatima called from where she'd remained at Dympna's side, and you waved at her, feeling guilty. Trying to ignore the fact that Dympna's expression was even tighter than before.

"Yeah, stuff to do in the morning."

"Run over Dare on your way out," she said, voice sweet and eyes anything but. You thought if she wasn't so concerned about Dympna she might have gone out and given him a few extra kicks herself.

With a chuckle that was genuinely amused, you raised your hands. "No car tonight. Someone else'll have to do the honours."

She muttered something, and with the music playing it was a little hard to be sure, but you kinda thought she said, "Oh, someone will."  

You almost pitied Dare if he tried to show up on the Devers’ doorstep again. Almost. Of course, the last glimpse you snuck of him, Dympna was sagging into Fatima, June sweeping in to take a closer look, and you couldn’t think of a good enough reason to attack him like that, let alone in his own home. Part of you was demanding that you stay, talk to Dympna, try to figure out what happened and see if you could help, but you killed it relentlessly. He was in good hands. He’d be fine. He was always fine.

Until he wasn’t.

You weren’t going to stay around for that moment.

Free at last from the stifling heat of the party, you were quick to set your feet to the pavement, almost running to get away. You didn't see Dare outside; had he managed to stagger off, or was he in one of the alleys between the ramshackle apartment buildings? It still didn’t make sense that he’d attack Dympna like that in the first place. He was new to the crew. One of the extra hands they’d brought in as things got busier. So where’d he get off thinking fighting with the leader, let alone stabbing him, was okay?

And Dympna’s reaction, too. Why not just take it outside? Or let one of his guys beat the hell out of Dare?

You chewed out the thoughts on your cheek, but couldn’t get anywhere with them.

The streets were quiet as you walked, taking your time, breathing in the cool night air against the weight on your chest. It wasn’t a long walk to the house you were living in with Mrs. Byrne, your widowed landlady. The alcohol was a soft and steady buzz in your veins and to be honest you kinda wished you'd drank more. Somehow staggering home to pass out in a drunken stupor seemed more appealing than the lonely night facing you now.

In a house nearby, a dog barked, the sound deep and booming, and you flinched automatically before hustling on. The owner of the house was not particularly friendly. Behind you, someone screamed at the dog to shut up – to no effect – and you picked up your pace, not eager to have them come outside and accuse you of skulking. It'd happened before. You could fisticuff with the best of them but that didn't mean you wanted some old man going after you in a nightie that showed off his knobby knees.

You were concentrating so hard on the racket in the house that at first you failed to realize that a car was pulling up behind you. It wasn't until several steps later, when the vehicle followed your hurried footsteps, keeping idle pace, that you became aware of it.

The spike of fear didn't last more than a half a second, the time it took for your eyes to settle on a familiar, obnoxiously red paint job. A scowl twisted your mouth, and you turned away, kept going without acknowledging the driver.

The car followed, and you heard the sound of a window cranking down. "Oi, stall a sec why doncha?"

You kept walking. There was something distinctly unfair about Dympna deciding he wanted to talk after the revelation that you'd had tonight, a nail in the coffin of you staying in this town.

Dympna revved the engine for a second, the loud sound an outburst of frustration, before pulling more even with you. You couldn't help but glance over, and he was half leaned out the window, one hand on the wheel, barely looking at the road. He'd be a right menace to old ladies and kids chasing balls if it were daytime.

"Don't be like that, darlin'. I just wanna talk."

"Don't you have a stab wound to look after?" you replied tartly, needing the emotional space such a taunt gave you.

He chuckled at that, though the sound quickly died. "Me mam took a look, says it’s nothing. Patched me up good." June would probably know a bad wound when she saw it – you'd heard tell of the kinds of scrapes Dympna's father got into, not to mention Dympna himself – and you hated that you could feel some of your tension easing. You didn't want to be relieved. That just made it harder.

So, you kept walking. Dympna's voice was a unique brand of wheedling when he said, "C'mere to me. Just for a bit."

"I will, yeah," was your sarcastic response, and he snorted. Hard to tell if the sound was amusement or exasperation, but it didn't get you anywhere, either of you. You weren't gonna listen to him. What more was there to say?

You went for a while longer, the car a softly rumbling companion. Determined to keep your eyes straight ahead, you didn't peek at Dympna, and it was maddening to try to imagine what he was thinking. He kept following you, so clearly he hadn't given up, and you had a feeling, equal parts frustration, affection, and trepidation, that he was in one of his moods. The one where he wouldn't let go easy.

Your premonition proved correct.

With a suddenness that made you jump, he honked the horn. It was a sound that shattered the mellow silence that had settled over you, loud and ugly, and as you whipped around to glare at him you almost tripped and fell flat on your face. A wild windmill was enough to save your balance but not your pride, and that added more than a pinch of heat to your scowl.

He met your expression with a placid one of his own. An eyebrow raised, like he couldn't possibly imagine what had made you start.    

Berating him abruptly seemed like purposefully stepping on an open beartrap. You shut your mouth, jaw clenched, turned, and struck out abruptly across the road in front of the car. He didn't run you over, but he had to hit the breaks pretty hard to avoid it. The grinding screech almost made you grin.    

The colourful swearing that followed as you gained the sidewalk on the other side of the street was just icing on the cake.

Unfortunately, you were forgetting – or at least desperately ignoring – an important fact. Dympna was the eldest brother of a whole gaggle of sisters. There was nothing he didn't know about persistence and aggravation.

Another honk. You didn't balk this time, but it was a close thing. Another one, and then another, closely following on the heels of the last. And then it was near unending, some short honks, others long blaring wails. There was just enough space between a few of them to lull you into the belief – well, hope – that he might be done, but no. You felt like you were being followed down the street by a whole-ass parade. Any second now someone'd be throwing open their doors or calling the guard on you.

Plus, by this point you were getting near your home. That wasn't good. And he knew that full well, too. You couldn’t arrive at Mrs. Byrne’s with this production behind you. The widow was a good sort, in her way, but she also had traditional notions about not being woken up at two in the morning. At best you’d be getting an earful for the next few weeks, and at worst... hell, the noise Dympna was making, she might just throw you out.

At last, with a surge of aggravation that he was actually making you stoop to his level, you halted. Glared some more across the street. “Will you feck off?” you demanded, in a voice that was probably a bit ridiculously hushed given the cacophony that was still echoing in your ears and probably the ears of all the neighbours, too.

Dympna slowed the car to a stop, leaned across the seat to speak to you. It was all infuriatingly casual. Course, if the guard came – or worse, Mrs. Byrne – it wouldn’t be him who’d be getting jumped over. “Sure thing, darlin’. Just as soon as you hop in.”

Teeth grinding, you couldn’t even manage to say anything, just shook your head in sharp denial. Dympna shrugged, a grin curling his lips like a cat that spotted some cream, and his hand hovered over the steering wheel. “Don’t you fucking dare,” you choked out, and he paused, head cocked in a mockery of confusion.

“You about to come with, then?”

“Dympna...”

For a moment his smirk only grew, but after a second more of regarding you, it fell away, and so did his hand from its threatening position over the wheel. “I need to talk to ya,” he said, simply, but that wasn’t enough, that wasn’t...

“Please?”

It wasn’t that Dympna didn’t ever say please. He did. He wasn’t some savage. But the way he said it now, so lost, like he was reaching out for something he wasn’t sure was even there, it had your breath slipping out as your heart seized. It just sounded too damn much like you’d been feeling the last several weeks.

Before you’d even consciously made the decision, you were walking across the street. There were plenty of logical reasons to say yes. It would get him off your back. You wouldn’t risk getting thrown out by Mrs. Byrne. You could convince him you’d meant what you said, maybe tell him about the jobs you’d already applied for elsewhere and the lodgings you were thinking of trying to get. You could wrap it all in a neat little package and actually say goodbye. Totally logical.

Your fingers curled around the door handle, and you knew, meeting the blue intensity of his gaze, that logic didn’t have anything to do with this.  

[theliterarybeldam]

Need a cold shower 😩

Ok but imagine Dympna fucking you real good, like with your legs thrown over his shoulders so he’s hitting that spot *just* right so your eyes keep fluttering closed but he grabs your chin so you’re looking right at him and he commands you to keep your eyes locked on his or else he’ll stop 🤤🤤 I gotta take a cold shower now

this is so fucking hot.. i might just.. write... a... drabble...

Dympna groaned as he looked down at you. He loved the way you looked, folded in half with your legs up on his shoulders. His thrusts were unrelenting, making your cunt tighten around him. You tossed your head to the side and closed your eyes.

"Don't," Dympna's head came up, grabbing your jaw tightly, "Fucking look at me." You brought your gaze back to his icy blue one. His hand gripped your jaw tighter, his thrusts becoming more brutal. The head of his cock was beating on that spot inside of you, making your abdomen tighten.

"D.. Dympna!" You kept you eyes locked with his as he continued. Your toes began to curl as your legs stiffened. Your orgasm washed over you like a wave, making your body start to rock against him.

Dympna's lips curled into a devilish grin as he kept fucking you. His eyes staying with your own. He let out a groan, "I'm gonna cum for ya." You nodded fervently as you waited for him to reach his own climax.

After a few more thrusts he quickly pulled out and folded your legs against your chest. He rested his cock on top of your clit and cunt, coming on you. A little bit shot up on to your stomach as you opened your legs a tiny bit.

"Fuck, look so good covered in me." Dympna moaned while watching his cum drip down you, covering more and more of your cunt.

@siempre-bucky @waspswidows

i got a little goodie for you guys

[velvet-paradox]

Traveler (Part One)

Fandom: Calm With Horses/ The Shadow of Violence Pairing: Dympna Devers x Female reader Summary: your career as a photographer leads you to Ireland and an unsuspecting meeting with a well known family in town. Length: Long Warnings: eventual NSFW 18+ ONLY, tobacco use, alcohol consumption, strong language, explicit content, though they know your name you’re commonly referred to as Yankee or Yank. Tagging: @synnersaint @druigbarnes01 @littleplutoisaplanet @brookisbi @yoursopretty15 @marauderswhoree @azurewitch @autumnrose929 @badbitsh13 @123crossiant123 @mrsmooneyshouse @milklungsblog @sniwstrom @pjnkhoe @dreadwolfxoxo @mrsilovevillains @unbetiteltlife @xkaoruu @purebillskarsgardtrash @barryswifey @mrsniallhoran505 @heylolitahey13 @emilie1993 @enchantingeggslimepeanut @oh-yeah-i-exist @greekktragedyy @celtic-orgin @alivnysstuff @itsthestutterforme @shityoudidntaskfor @tompetersebbuckyhazleo @chainsawvigilante @mothdruid @purebillskarsgardtrash @amberrubens

ENJOY!!!

Apparently there wasn't much to do around here in Glenbeigh then gossip as this was now the third time you'd heard of the Devers family. The topic of conversation was held between two older men with thick accents you could just make out in between solid syllables a few covered booths down.

"Those Devers are trouble all trouble, the lot of 'em."

"Don' I know it! You hear what that daft Dympna did the other night, right?"

"Christ now what?"

"We're having some drinks some laughs, kids playin' pool an' all that with the big man no 'arm no foul, next thing I know is that little shite smashes a bottle against this kids head! really starts layin' into 'em too, thought he shot his bolt! Starts kicking him, then an' ol' Arm comes round and had to pull 'em off the boy to make him stop. He's in over his head."

"Jeez. That kid is a menace. What would his father, rest his soul, say?"

You didn't mean to eavesdrop but their voices were deep and carried across the whole restaurant. You finished your fries, making it a point not to get too friendly to those kinds of people. Breaking bottles on people's head was not on your itinerary. 

You'd come here to the west side of Ireland a few days ago, the cascading sights and landscape  and not to mention the ancient rock sites that intrigued you the most had brought you from your home in the states to Ireland for your profession. You were determined to get an award winning photograph this year, you came in third for Top 10 of the year. 

You're hobby as a child has blossomed into a full fledged career and it brought you here. So far you'd taken a few beautiful stills of roaming wild sheep along the two line road, you pulled over immediately in your rental giddy as the day as is long to see the fluffy little things. Just out there, in the wild living their best lives in the countryside.

You'd been all over the globe, India, the African Coast, Columbia all of it beautiful snapping an array of stills and portraits along the way filling up your professional portfolio and some for your own fun. Ever your mother's daughter some back home liked to remind you as if you could forget, while she dives into oil pastels and watercolors you took up the lens always observing what would seem mundane or ordinary, you two had an eye for that sort of thing.

Those candid shots were hung up in your place back home. You picked up your camera left your tip on the table and chimed through the doors, the fresh air and mist from the nearby hills filled you with promise.

"You ain't from around 'ere." A man stated, though the typical camera in hand would've given you away in any country. You looked up to see where he was, leaning against his side of matte red two door car, parked right behind your rental. He had a nice build from what you could see, in a leather jacket and deep colored jeans. He smoked a cigarette.

"That obvious huh?" You smiled and walked up to him.

The man had darker hair underneath the blonde highlights up top with the back and sides shaved, he smirked and held up two fingers and wrinkled his nose. His eyes were the palest blue you'd come across so far and one held a little tattoo at the corner of it. "Just a little. You any good, Yankee?" He pointed his cigarette at your camera.

"Good enough."

"Take my picture then. Go on, let's see." The man straightened up, fisted the front of his jacket and posed like a real natural, cigarette dangling like James Dean with his chin up. You told him so and he grinned with the cigarette between his teeth.

You laughed and adjusted your camera, stepping back onto the curb. You snapped a few candid's. He pushed off from the car when you turned it around so he could see the screen.

"Not bad not bad. What are you doin' here anyways? business or pleasure?" He flicked the rest of his cigarette to the ground, stomping it out a few times with the heel of his boot.

"Both," you shrugged. "That old saying is true, if you love what you do it's not really work."

"I hear ya'."

"What about you?"

"Business." He pointed to building next door, unsuspecting and simple. You might have to snap a few shots before you went back to your hotel.

"I won't keep you then, I'll be around for a bit if you want a print of your pictures." You started to walk to your car and you could feel him watching you do so.

"Aye hold on there Yankee! I didn't catch yer name. How am I supposed to find ya'?" He held his hands out at his sides just a burly man stepped out from the building, he looked at you and then to the smirking man with a frown.

"Y/N and you?"

He grinned and took a playful bow. "Dympna. Guess I'll be seein' you around, Yank."

You smiled and got into your car, the bigger man walked around to the passenger side as you looked through the side view mirror. You could see them talking in the car when you signaled and went back to your hotel room for the night.

....

You had asked more than a few locals for some shooting locations, their favorite rock sites or some places they thought you should see. You made another entry into your pocket notebook, tucking it into your back pocket. One young man shouted out a few bar names, one of which was a dive and the other pretty hoppin' club as he said, his words not yours. You wrote those down too.

Leaves and branches crunched under your boots as you found a nice hiking trail one of the women in town had suggested, it was beautiful and almost out of a fairy tale as the more trees you passed you began to notice a whimsical pattern.

'Fairy Crossing' signs were abundant, little stones made up little piles along with mushroom rings. You took pictures of those and of the little painted birdhouses you saw attached to the trunks of large trees. The lookout from that spot would look great in your hallway you thought as you took a few more, turning your head to get the right shot.

You froze along the path, a deer had bounced into your frame, it blinked and looked away but not before you caught it scampering off. When you looked at the faun it was just on the end of being blurry, another one for back home you thought as you went over some of the pictures.

You put your things away and took a shower, the dirt and grim from your trip into the woods clung to your clothes and shoes and with the added mist in the air here it hung around your face and hair as well. With nothing to do you pulled out your notebook looking at the names of places yet to be visited. The suggested bars jumped out at you, not one over the other as you bit your lips you made your decsion and checked the distance on your phone, neither one was too far from each other or you, you felt safe enough for walking distance enjoying the nightlife as much as you could.

You could hear the music before you saw the club, bassy and it reminded you of home. You smiled and made your way in, that young kid was right you thought as the place was packed though you could still hear each other talk if you wanted a conversation. The red and pink lights that danced along the darker walls was pretty and created a nice ambience that you appreciated and thought of the way it would look on camera. A set of pool tables was in the far back, made known by the laughter and clacking of pool balls, there was a decent dance floor too. You smiled and made your way through a group of shit talking friends, side stepping out of the way to the bar top. 

It only took a few minutes for the bartender to notice his newest patron. A young guy with a shaved head slid down to you, leaning over to hear your drink request. You smiled and opened your mouth just as you heard a raucous shout from the game room side of the club.

You turned your head to see Dympna there with his arms out wide, a dimpled smile on his hard face. "Yankee!" he laughed and shook his head to the beat dancing his way with some pretty fancy footwork over to you, he looked different out of his thick leather jacket. He worn an opened black and white striped button down with a bleach white tank underneath again with the dark jeans and boots. Though the jewelry was nice a touch. "How do, Yankee girly? what are the odds huh? whatcha' doin' out past yer bedtime?"

"Hey! just wanted to check the place out."

"Whatcha' think so far? you get a drink yet?" He asked and you shook your head again about to open your mouth but instead the Irishman to your side, he casually flung his arm around your shoulder which you didn't mind as he seemed friendly enough from your little encounter the other day. "Well we gotta' fix that then don't we?" he smiled at you then slapped the bar top, "Hey big fella' get me a coupla' beers and two shots will ya'?" The bald man nodded. 

You took out some money to pay but he stopped you. 

"Uh uh, you're with us tonight. Money's no good here," you furrowed your brow but slipped your wallet back in your pocket, maybe this was his bar for all you knew, or knew the owner or had some sort of pull around town. Dympna gave your shoulder a squeeze, shaking you playfully. "So what do you do back home then, are you a dancer, an arcade kinda' girl or you fancy pool?" 

"I'm a jack of all trades, but games mostly. If you had some Ski-ball I'd be down for that! but it sounds like you've got a good game going back there."

"Oh sure you wanna' come play or watch or both? 'm having a good night, nice to have me new friend pal around with my old ones for a bit, yeah?" "Sure, if that's alright?"

"Is that alright she says," Dympna chuckled and moved you closer to the bar, handing you the shot the tender just gave out. "You're a funny one, of course it's alright! stick with me and you're bound t' have a good time. You'll see. Bottoms up now, you." 

He was clearly having a good time, cheersing you before slamming it back in unison. He snagged your beer bottle from the top, taking his own and headed towards the billiard room, dancing his way through the threshold.

"Look alive boys!" Dympna announced your arrival as if they knew who you were, you smiled anyway. "Caught me a live one. Boys, this is Y/N the photographer I tol' you all about, right? she's gonna' have a game or two with us."

"You gave him a complex sweetheart, shouldn't have done all that'!" one called out to you.

"What do you mean?"

"Ya' said I could be a model," Dympna set his beer down on the side of the chipped table, tossing his head back like they do in some magazines. "Called me handsome."

"I said you looked like James Dean, that's different."

"Ah! don't go backin' down on yer words now missy, I heard ya' wit' my own two ears, I did. That fella' was handsome and so am I!"

The group laughed and threw peanuts at him while you moved around the dim room.

"So you're the Yank then huh?" The big man you'd seen coming from that simple building asked. 

"Cat's out of the bag."

He smiled sheepishly and out stretch a hand that dwarfed yours at least twice over, calloused and a little busted up you shook it. "Names Douglas, Armstrong. You can call me Arm though, ev'ryone else does."

"So you're a boxer."

His eyebrows met and he jerked his head. "How'd you know tha'?"

You laughed and took a swig of your drink and pointed with the neck of the bottle, "Your ears. My cousin used to box. Almost made pro."

He grabbed one on instinct then nodded. "I used to, 'm retired now, so."

"Too bad, bet you were a real threat."

Arm blushed and little took a drink of his own, he shrugged but you knew by the looks of his cauliflower ears that was most definitely the case. You'd have to ask your new friend about it.

Speaking of-

"Yo Y/N, you up for a game or what?"

"You sure you wanna' get embarrassed in front of your friends?" You challenged and his buddies laughed, poking fun at their friend.

"Ho ho! got a mouth on you girly, we'll see how the Yanks play then." He smiled and swigged his beer.

"You're alright, you. I like ya' already!" One by the name of Needles chimed in and pulled up a stool closer to the table while Dympna readied the set on the worn billiard table. "Gotta' see this, me."

Dympna extended his hand to you after you chalked up your cue across the table, leaning on his own stick. "Ladies first."

You got solids, clacking the balls together as they spread out. You played a few rounds, banter laden as you moved about the table, the low hanging light made his light blue eyes brighter if that was somehow possible. He smiled as he watched you, clicking his teeth as you chose your ball trying to make you second guess yourself. You shot one just shy of the pocket.

"Ah see now that's the American in ya', yer not doin' it the Irish way that's yer problem, now."

"The Irish way? oh please." You guffed and waited for his next move.

"Honestly girly come on gimmie' a chance and I'll show ya'." Dympna wiggled his eyebrows, smiling at you when you laughed out loud.

"Alright," you stood up while his buddies whooped and whistled. "Show me the Irish way then tough guy."

Dympna nodded and shimmied his way to your side of the table. The shots and beers were talking for you, taking his guidance though you had a feeling he just wanted to get closer to you. He puffed out his chest before moving your hips against the hardest part of the table, angling you a certain way as he felt confident in your stance, you laughed when you felt his chest press into your side that you were apparently holding the stick all wrong and that was another problem. He chuckled in your ear as he showed you how to shoot your shot even though you were clearly a worthy opponent. You turned your head as he caged you in, his hand over yours with his chest now on your back. 

His face was incredible close and if you two were alone you might've let him kiss you, but you weren't. You had to give to Dympna, he was confident in a way you hadn't seen for a long time, all he did was smile and smell fantastic, he pointed with his chin for you look at the table as he took to the shot. The rolled right in.

Lucky shot.

You dried your hands in the bathroom, splashing a bit of cold water on your face. Two rounds with that smooth talker and his friends had you feeling good and warm, you listened as laughed as they told jokes and stories. You were glad you came out.

That is until you left the bathroom, drying your hands the rest of the way on the sides of your pants when you were met with two tall dark haired women, one had her arms crossed.

"You ought to be careful there girly, you don't know who you playin' wit'."

You stopped and looked at the cross armed woman, her friend nodded with a feigned expression. "What do you mean?"

"We'll spare ya' the details sweetheart, you ain't bein' a local and all. Them lads you're wit', their not the soft and gentle type, no. You cross one you cross 'em all, fuck around and find out you'll be on the wrong end of Arm."

You swallowed hard and recalled his beat up knuckles, he said he was retired but those were fresh. 

"Arm wasn't like that before, not before he got mixed up with those Devers."

There was that name again! you decided to finally ask.

"Devers?"

"Oh yeah," the cross armed woman took down her hands and turned you to face the billiard room, you could see Dympna in the archway holding his side as he bent backwards in hysterics. "Your little pool buddy, he's a Devers. Not as bad as his uncles but he's on the rise, I'd be careful around them boys if I were you or steer clear of that whole lot all together. Bad news follows the Devers."

"She's right. Keep your eyes open around 'em, they'll skin you alive if you let 'em. Be careful girly, hate to see a tourist get lost in all that mess."

"Keep your wits about you is all, yeah? know the company yer keepin'."

They sent you on your way but you felt fuzzy, from the booze or the bubble of information you couldn't be sure. These were members of the family you'd been hearing about all damn week. You fraternizing with the resident rebels. You'd heard a number of things about them in that short time and here you were joking and laughing and drinking with them, you even wanted to kiss one not that long ago. Blood pounded in your ears as you made it back to the room, you weren't sure if you would, what if you did cross one on accident or offend one of them... you decided to play it cool and instead of return to your hotel you went back to the game room.

"Thought you fell in, was gonna' send a search party." Arm joked and you laughed, hopefully with some humor in it as you joined the fray.

"Just getting some air, think I might head out on you guys though. Still a little jet legged."

Arm nodded and waved Dympna over with a heavy hand, he splayed his other one on your shoulder. You bit your lip at the now known fact that he'd done some damage recently.

"What's up big fella'?"

"Yankee wants to go home, she's tired. Better make sure she gets home safe, right?"

"Already?" he looked at you and pouted but rolled his neck and called it a night to his friends, they waved at you and you waved back. "Alright missy, let's get you home safe now."

The air outside was a pleasant reprieve, it hadn't settled on you until you were out in the night that you were sweating, the cool air hitting your hot skin like a bucket of water. You waited for Dympna as he shrugged on his jacket at the door, lighting a cigarette he gave a thumbs up to the bouncer and found you by the curb. He dumped his arm over your shoulder as you walked in the direction of your hotel.

"So did ya' have fun tonight?"

"I did." You didn't know if you should bring up what those girls had mentioned just yet but it weighed as heavily on your as his arm did. You wondered if he put in work of the Arm kind too. "I'm glad I came out."

"Me too! we lot bounce aroun' a bit, house parties or the bars ya' know? just like a good time is all. Glad to hear you had fun though. Didn't I tell ya' you'd have a good time hangin' with me, right?"

You nodded as you walked and he smoked. He wanted to make sure got to your room safe and in one piece, he'd made a joke about boogeymen and you briefly thought maybe he was one of them. He seemed to know everyone in this town saluting the doorman and the blonde woman at the front desk as you went into the little lobby, you took the elevator up. 

You could feel him looking at you but whenever you'd look back he'd look away, always with a smirk like a kid getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar. 

Playful. 

He didn't seem like the big bad wolf those girls had painted him out to be, confident sure, strong and charismatic but that didn't necessarily mean he was a bad man though, right? Maybe they were upset he'd broken their hearts and scolded you to stay away from him.

You stopped outside your room, keycard in hand and heat snaked its way up your spine.

"Are ya' gonna' invite me in?"

You swallowed at looked at him, his pouty lips held a small smile.

"Do you want to?"

"That's not what I asked is it? I asked if you wan' me to, not the o'her way around." Dympna leaned against the wall next to you.

"Sure."

You probably let the devil in, invited the vampire that would lure you to our fate but you didn't feel uncomfortable with him in fact it was the opposite and that's what scared you the most. You felt safe with him.

Followed you in as you went around and turned the lights, illuminating your hard tack case that held your equipment, different chargers and chords littered the floor as well as your still open laptop on the plush bed. He walked around the spacious room with it's tawny drawn curtains and high ceilings. 

He kept his hands in his pockets. "You wanna show me some of your work?" 

"Oh!" you nearly fell over while taking off your shoes by the door, you lost a sock along the way but you would worry about that later. "Yeah sure." 

You unplugged the device and logged in, pulling up a few folders. He sat next to you on the edge of your unmade bed with a bounce, his jacket creaking when it touched yours. You handed it to him. He scrolled through snapshots of cities and towns, a few villages and portraits of people you shot around the world. Places he had only half heard of in books and some he had no idea about let alone how to pronounce their names. He claimed it with was the placement of his tongue as his excuse but you laughed it off, it was probably the booze you thought.

"Have you traveled anywhere?" You asked as he pulled up a familiar landscape to the man.

Dympna shook his head. "Who me? oh no no, never left Ireland. I don' think I could live anywhere else. I've got me family, friends, mountains and a beach," he shrugged and scrolled through a few more pointing out that he enjoyed your work, when he came across the handful of stills of himself pressed up against his car the diner he pointed at himself joking that that was your best work. "What about you then? You got mountains where you're from?"

You shook your head. "The States have plenty of them, desert's, canyons, the coast! Where I'm from we have an abundance of lakes and trees. It's the best in the fall though," you gushed closing your eyes you could picture the radiant foliage. "Lipstick red, sunset orange, banana peel yellows all mixed together at once. I love watching them change."

Dympna smiled at your fondness giving you your workspace back. "Sounds lovely. I think I'd like to see that someday."

"You should! I think you'd like it. Of course you'll need a passport and accommodations-"

"You mean I can't stay with you?" He bumped into your shoulder twice with a laugh, ever the jokester you were coming to realize along with his cheeky sense of humor. You laughed to yourself that he was too charismatic for his own good which would often lead to trouble and according to those women tonight that's what he and his family was.

"Sure if you want, I've got room." That was definitely the booze talking, your face felt warm again as you blinked at set down the computer behind you on the bed. "Good to know." 

You felt him looking at you, out of the corner of your eye you could just make him out without feeling too dizzy. You turned to him but he quickly stood and bit his lip as if he had something to say, he opened his mouth and closed it a few times before spinning on his heel. "I think we should exchange numbers you know, jus' in case you feel like checkin' out some spots. I'll take you."

"You'd be my chauffer? what a gentlemen." You took your phone out of your back pocket.

"O' course I am! what do you take me for some kinda' heathen," he did the same and you swapped phones, you thought of punching in your name but decided on his nickname for you. You passed it back, "There now we're square. I had fun tonight but... it's gettin' late," you hadn't realized the hour was pushing near three in the morning until you looked at your lock screen. "You give me a call yeah? we'll do somethin' fun."

You nodded and followed him to the door, "Sure. Let me know."

"Will do." Dympna stepped out into the hallway and pretended to tip an imaginary hat. You thought you felt dizzy before but when he chucked you lightly under the chin and bid you good night, you felt like you were completely spiraling.

This was bad fucking news.

[slut4dympna]

you ask you shall receive….

https://discord.gg/BJ8tKPvH

asking to keep it 18+ pls since i did advertise it as a thirst gc lol and im not really comfortable w minors joining. other than that feel free to come chat abt barry & his characters !! big shoutout to @neveisai for helping me bc i have no clue what im doing with discord </3

[mothdruid]

behave. 

pairing: Dympna Devers x Female!Reader

summary: A job had gone wrong earlier, putting Dympna in a bad mood. Later when the two of you go out to the club, you flirt with another person. Dympna gets jealous and pulls you into the bathroom for a rough romp. 

wc: 1.5k

warnings: 18+, smut, minors dni, cream pure, fingering, vaginal sex, rough sex

a/n: this is my first time writing a full fic for Dympna! gonna tag @waspswidows​ and @siempre-bucky​ cause they helped me a lot with this

The thrum of the music coursed through your body, feeling it deep in your chest. You leaned against the bar while a man spoke to you. Showers of compliments came from the man, but it was all a show. You didn’t really care about what he thought, there was only one thing on your mind. You looked back across the bar, locking eyes with the one you wanted the attention of. 

Dympna. 

The man had been ignoring you all night, too caught up in trying to forget about a job gone wrong earlier. The lights of the club added a red hue to his blonde hair, but his blue eyes stayed the same. He was watching you, making sure you didn’t do anything too out of hand. But that was what you wanted. 

“Ya hear me?” The other man asked. 

“Yea, sorry. I just got caught up in my thoughts.” 

“Thoughts? How about we go somewhere, maybe I can clear them for you?”

You smiled fakely and tossed your head back, rolling it to the side to catch Dympna’s stare one last time. You winked at him before turning back to the man. Carefully running your hand down his arm.

“I’d like that.” You heard a little bit of noise behind you, signaling you were getting just what you wanted. The man’s attention pulled away from you as you heard Dympna stroll up. Dympna’s hand grabbed your wrist, pulling your hand away from the man’s arm. 

“Te’ fuck you doin’?”

Dympna was fuming when he had finally reached you. “Getting your fuckin’ attention.” You bit back at him. Dympna smiled wickedly when he heard your words. He cocked his head to the side as he watched you a bit longer. He started pulling you away from the bar, the both of you forgetting about the other man at the bar. You could feel excitement flowing through your veins as Dympna’s grip didn’t let up. 

Dympna pushed through the door to the bathroom. Your back collided with the wall of the bathroom as soon as the door was closed. “This what ya wanted?” Dympna pressed you hard into the wall, his forearm pressing into your collarbones and shoulders. All you could do was flash a smile, wanting to provoke him more. 

It wasn’t often when Dympna was like this, but you couldn’t help but love when he got like this. The seriousness in his facial features, the way he would manhandle you. It made your cunt quiver. You went to squeeze your thighs together but Dympna shoved his thigh between them. “I’m not gonna be nice.”

The words were a threat, telling you to behave for him. His hands moved up to your face, holding you in place. You looked into his blue eyes, craving for him to crash your lips together. One of his hands moved to the side of your neck. “You gonna behave now?” You nodded as he smashed his lips into yours. 

Teeth clashed as he pressed himself against you, the feeling of his hardening cock becoming more apparent. His lips felt like fire against yours, hot and suffocating. The hand at the back of your neck tightened, making you push into the kiss even more. His tongue forced its way into your mouth, dominating the inside of your mouth quickly.

The hand on your face moved down to your hip, pulling you impossibly close. Both of your hips fell into a rhythm, rolling and moving in harmony. The thrum of the music was more distant as the two of you continued. His hand moved from your neck to your chest, groping at your breasts. The thought of being caught flashed pushed to the front of your mind. 

“D… the door..” Dympna smiled against your neck as he listened to you. 

“Little change of attitude huh?” Dympna glanced over at the door while he pressed his thigh up into your core. 

“No, I jus-” Dympna cut you off with his lips. The hand on your hip snaked around to the small of your back. He pulled back from you and pushed you towards one of the stalls. You stumbled into the stall as Dympna pulled the door shut, locking it before turning around. 

“There, better?” 

You pulled Dympna into you, whining once his lips connected with your again. He pushed you against the wall in the stall, thigh reconnecting with your core. Dympna’s hands connected with your hips, rocking them against his thigh as his lips battled with yours. The two of you stayed like that for a moment, his thigh and your hips rocking while your tongues swirled. You pulled back from Dympna, gripping the front of his button down.

“Dympna, I need more.” You whined. 

“More?” Dympna snaked a hand to the front of your pants, rubbing hard against your core. His hand stopped to unbutton your pants, snaking down the front of your pants right after. His fingers moved between your folds, finding your clit immediately. Dympna let out a snicker as he noticed how wet you were. He brought his hand up to your face, resting on your cheek. 

“Look at me.” 

You brought your gaze to Dympna’s, moaning while he rubbed circles on your clit. Your orgasm was approaching and that’s why Dympna wanted you to look at him. Dympna had a thing for watching your face while you came. It was one of his favorite things about you, the way your face contorted while he was giving you so much pleasure. 

His breath was hot on your face as he watched you. The door to the bathroom opened, making you pause, whipping your head to the stall door. Dympna smiled and kept up with his circles on your clit. Your hands moved to the wrist connected to the hand in your pants. Your eyes stared into his own as you silently begged for him to let up. “What? Don’t wanna be caught?”

You leaned against him as your orgasm rippled through you, your hips shaking in his hand. Dympna groaned as he watched you fall apart on his fingers. The both of you heard the bathroom door open again. Dympna nipped at the nape of your neck while he pulled his hand from your pants. “Turn around, I have ta’ fuck ya now.” 

Dympna’s hands grabbed your hips and flipped you around, your front being pushed against the wall. Dympna put a hand on the wall near your face, the other gripping your hip. He rubbed his crotch into your ass, watching as your back arched and pushed back into him. “Fuck, you’re so fuckin’ dirty tonight.”

“All for you D. Only for you Dympna.”

“It’s Mr. Devers.”

Dympna leaned forward and nipped at your neck. He grabbed the waistband of your pants and panties, pushing them down around your knees. The sound of Dympna’s belt being undone filled the air. Dympna pulled his cock out, slapping it lightly against your ass a little bit. “Please Mr. Devers.” 

“Don’ worry, I got ya’ babe.” Dympna lined up with you and pressed inside of you. You moaned at the feeling of him stretching you open. He bottomed out inside of you, stilling while his hand came up to your shoulder. “You’re so fuckin’ warm.” Dympna pulled out slowly before pressing back into you. You arched your back as the head of his cock ran over the sensitive spot inside of you. 

“Fuck, right there.” You moaned as his hips snapped forward, a brutal pace being set. His breath was hot on the shell of your ear, his moans and groans filling your brain. You arch your back and lean back into Dympna, his hand tightening on your shoulder. He looked down to watch your plump ass bounce against his groin. His other hand kneaded at your ass while the hand on your shoulder shifted to your neck. 

His grip on your neck tightened as he pulled you back, making your back arch harder. “So fuckin’ filthy for me.” His thrusts became more and more messy as the both of your orgasms approached. Fire lit across your skin as your orgams took over. Your cunt clenched around Dympna’s cock, your muscles holding him like a vice grip. Dympna moaned and thrusted into you one last time before spilling his cum inside of you. He rolled his head against your shoulder, arms wrapping around your midsection and pulling your back into his chest. 

“Don’t do that again.” He whispered while kissing your shoulder. Dympna pulled out of you, the both of you moaning at the loss of contact. Dympna tucked himself back in his pants then quickly grabbed some toilet paper, holding it to your entrance while his cum slowly leaked out of you. Once almost all of it was on the toilet paper he tossed it in the toilet, flushing it down. You pulled your pants up and pressed a kiss to the cross tattoo near his eye. 

“Let’s get goin’.” Dympna smiled as he unlocked the stall door ushering you out to the club. Instead of returning to the bar the two of you left, heading off to his car. The rest of the night you two stayed in the back of his car by the seaside.

[siempre-bucky]

Thank you for the tag my darling 🥺(imma need that bandmate!yelena fic asap👀👀)I only have 2 in the works rn!

1. Afterglow (Boxer!Barry Keoghan x Reader)

2. Balcony (Dympna Devers x Reader)

No pressure tags♡ @redheadspark @omgeternal

WIP ASK GAME !

thank you for the tag lovey @greenorangevioletgrass <3

feel free to ask me for more information on any of the wips below!

rules — list all your wip titles; meaning even the ones that are vague or nonsensical. tag as many people as there are wips

love me by the light - bruce wayne x reader (sequel to love me by the night)

tiebreaker - bruce wayne x reader x tasm!peter parker

mystery girl - recordstoreowner!selina kyle x reader

her interlude - bandmate!yelena belova x reader

dark solace - arthur curry x reader

locked inside your heartshaped box - yandere!bruce wayne x reader

whisper to me - bruce wayne x reader (childhood friends marriage of convenience)

i have many more but these are the ones stuck in my head at the moment lmao. the titles are definitely subject to change because i’m indecisive!

no pressure tags: @tom-whore-dleston, @aphrogeneias, @holyvictim, @wint3r-h3art, @cityofstqrs, @barnesafterglow, @withahappyrefrain, @siempre-bucky, @waspswidows, @clints-lucky-arrow !

[causticcauses]

Only Stop at Exits pt. 4

Part Four -> One, Two, Three

Pairing: Dympna Devers x (gender neutral) Reader

Summary: You wanted out of your rough life employed to the Devers family. Building a life with Dympna just wasn't possible when it meant dragging yourself through shit to be with him. When things came to a head, the only question was what you would have to leave behind.

Fic Warnings: Angst, mention of past death, drug use/reference, drug dealing, abuse reference, swearing.

Part 4 Warnings: Explicit smut, fingering, oral (m receiving), dirty talk, mild D/s undertones.

A/N: Woo, we made it! Thanks to the folks who stuck around, and I hope the wait was worth it! This was a bit of a killer to write, but I think it turned out alright. That said, would love, love to know what you thought. I might make little one-shots with this pairing if people had a good enough time! 

And is that enough?

Was it enough? Was agreeing to try to leave this town that was crushing him into something small and shattered enough?

He looked at you, and his expression was already closed, still. Ready to accept a rejection. You wouldn’t be surprised if there was an acerbic joke behind his lips, burning through his tongue and set to be spit out. Yet... he was so gentle, even now, as he cradled your face, waiting for an answer. And he’d asked. He’d made up his mind to try to step outside of what he was. And as he took that step, he’d asked you to be there.

Could you demand anything more than that?

Things... fell away, then. Like walls folding, leaving just you and him. No enclosed spaces, as if even the car didn't exist. You and him, unconstrained. You couldn’t ask for more than that.      

You settled your hands on the outside of his own, lightly pulled them away from your cheeks without letting him go. As he curled his fingers around your hands in mute appeal, you nodded. Nodded again before finding your voice. "Yeah," you whispered. "Yeah, that's – it's enough, Dympna."

You'd only been peripherally aware of how rigid his expression was, and that awareness came to the front as the tightness eased, the hardness of his jaw relaxing, and he started breathing again.

He drew your hands to his mouth, brushed his lips against your knuckles and paused there, head bowed over your fingers, eyes closed. "Fuck," muttered Dympna, and it could have been a prayer. Nothing more or less than that. Then his eyes were open again, their blue depths as raw as winter rain when they swept over you. “Thank you. Just – thanks. I don’t...”

In a surge of convulsive energy, he pressed his mouth against your hands again before he let go. With a suddenness that made your breath jolt, he caught you by the back of the neck, drew you to him. Your lips met – collided – and it was rusty need that made you pant. Dympna groaned against your mouth, a broken sound, and his palm slipped back to your thigh, grinding into you like he needed the grounding. The sweet, grainy taste of beer flooded your senses when he split your lips with his tongue and you shut your eyes against the sheer, overwhelming relief of finally touching him again.

His grip was sure, confident, and he slid his hand from the back of your neck to your jaw, tilting your chin up. You submitted, eagerly baring your throat, and his lips found your pulse. His teeth, too, a scrape of feather-light pain that had you gasping in encouragement. Dympna responded to the sound, leaned forward to suck harder on your neck, and he –

Hissed, the willow-thin noise of discomfort quickly stifled against your skin. But you pulled back, just a little, from the pleasant ache of his mouth on you. “What is it?” you demanded. “Are you–”

Two and two came together, and your eyes fell back to his side. This time, when you reached over to snag his shirt, Dympna didn’t stop you. Silver fabric bunched under your grasp, and pulling it up revealed a familiar pale canvas, scattered with freckles. A gorgeous picture of smooth muscles, well-defined abs, a happy trail dipping down to disappear beneath his pants.  

One hand automatically found the lone freckle on his hip, just peeking above his jeans, and it was sort of an in joke to thumb the spot like you were trying to wipe it away. His lips quirked up at the move, and the familiarity sank into your muscles, comforting in how automatic it was. But your mind wasn’t really on that, your gaze instead focused on the square gauze taped to his side. White, not stained with any blood coming through. June probably did know what she was doing when she said it wasn’t major.

Nonetheless, the worry in your gut was a visceral thing. “How much does it hurt?” you asked, tearing your eyes away from the white patch, only to fall back to contemplating it.

“Not hardly,” replied Dympna. “It’s just the angle I’m at, caught it a bit.”

He leaned back towards you, and you avoided him, only somewhat playfully. “You sure you’re in a shape to be doing anything?”

It was hard not to laugh at the outraged disgust that crossed his face. “What am I, an old man?” He caught your hand, still resting on his hip, and slid it down to press against his crotch. Even through the jeans, you could feel how hard his dick was, just from the shift. “Only shape I’m in now, darlin’,” he said thickly, “is to be doin’ you.”

This time you did laugh, even as heat coiled in your stomach and then lower. You let his shirt drop and in the same moment stroked against the outline of his cock, eliciting another hiss, this one a lot less pained. He arched half off the car seat, grinding himself into your palm, and you met the need on his face with your tongue in your cheek. “I dunno, D. Seems like you need some recovery time.”

“Had fuckin’ weeks of that already,” was his sharp retort.

In response you cocked your head. “You telling me you haven’t had a go of it in weeks? Maybe you are getting old.”

This game was another familiar one, and the man across from you took it up easily. His breath flooded out, and he let go of you, shoving open the car door. Dympna’s voice all but seethed when he replied. “Get outta the car. We’re gonna find out.”

Before you could reply, he'd swung himself from the car. A loud bang announced him rapping the top of the vehicle, and he ordered, "C'mon now, darlin'. Out."

It felt like stepping off a ship that'd been recently through a storm. Walking onto dry land, yeah, solid and firm, but you'd adjusted yourself to stride a different way and now you were staggering on ground that should have been stable. You wanted what he was offering – God, you wanted it, your body tingling with need – but the past few weeks were fresher in your mind, and you hesitated.

He ducked to look through the window, equal parts impatient and goading. "Keep in here too much longer, and I'm gonna think you're the old one. Or were weeks of playin' hard to get not long enough for ya?"

He was such an asshole. You were smiling as you thought it, your emotions jostled from their arrested state by the easy prods of his biting humour.

"Just waiting to see if you passed out when you stood. Blood loss, y'know?" you replied, and then you shouldered open the door and clambered out of the car.

Of course, Dympna didn't come to you. He waited, slouched against the vehicle so hard he was all but hanging off it. When you got to him, though, his hands were hungry, clutching your waist and pulling you closer. This kiss was – different. Less frantic, more deliberate. An exploration. A rediscovery. Your lips prickled with the heat of him, with remembering just how good he felt pressed against you.

With a breathy sigh, you broke the kiss, ducked your head to press your face against his collarbone. An inhale brought in his scent, beer and weed mixed cloyingly with his citrus and cedar cologne. The smell grounded you, set your feet firm, as if maybe the world really was as steady as it felt with his arms wrapped around you.

Showing a surprising amount of restraint, Dympna let you remain there for several seconds before shifting, gently easing you away. He began to walk, pulling you along with one arm still hooked around your waist. "C'mon now," he said, glancing at you sidelong. “If I pass out before we fuck around, I’m gonna be pissed.” His grip tightened at the words, and his smile was all snark and desire, a knife that cut through the just-barely lingering sense of awkwardness. Not awkwardness. Trepidation, maybe, for the future that was far from solved.

Dympna didn’t seem to want to deal with it. He’d decided to kill tomorrow for the sake of today. Refused to look at it. That didn't surprise you. Dympna wasn't one to let the future spoil the moment. You were, but with his demanding presence taking up space next to you, you could let it go for a time. Tomorrow was such a long way away, and today was in the palms of his hands, the twist of his lips, the burning between you.

A low creak rattled out when Dympna shoved aside the metal that served as the train's door, and the dark interior of the car beckoned.

His gesture just short of haughty, Dympna flicked his hand out. "After you."

You quipped, "Age before beauty," and he snorted. Without argument he stepped in before you, though despite the joke you were close on his heels.

The train car was the same as ever. You couldn't even tell if he'd been in it since your argument. An old mattress, complete with couch cushions and blankets, formed something of a bed, crammed into the far corner. He'd rigged up a couple lights, hanging from nails driven into the flaky metal walls, and after a second of fiddling Dympna turned them on, throwing everything into a patchy glow. The graffiti was the same, and the rust, and the little art designs you’d thrown up here and there, trying to make the place a little less ugly.

The light sharpened his face when he turned back to you. Or maybe that was something else entirely.

Against expectations, he didn't head for the makeshift bed, but rather sprawled on one of the few seats available on the train, a rickety thing that you still insisted was better than sitting on the floor all the time. His legs spread wide, one arm slung over the back of the seat, Dympna considered you with his head cocked. "You ready to pay what you owe me?" he asked, and his voice was all gravel, rubbing you exactly the right way. 

Which didn't mean you wanted to give in right away. "Don't remember owing you anything," you said, tilting your head in deliberate mockery. 

Dympna didn't smile, but you hadn't expected him to. Instead, he leaned forward a little. "Forgetting a debt don't mean it's paid, darlin'. You know that true." 

"Maybe," you admitted. "But maybe you need to get me remembering. What is it I owe you?" 

It was no surprise that he picked up the hint. Dympna took his time taking his shirt off. First, a leisurely stretch of his arms in the air, and then he caught his shirt at the back and pulled it over his head. The unhurried motion let you admire his biceps, thick with the sinew he'd put on in the last year or so, and you could feel your stomach tightening in response, throat dry with appreciation.

When his head came clear of the shirt, his blond bangs were mussed, sticking out all over the place. He took his time with that, too, running his fingers through them even as he tossed the shirt to the side.

More posturing, and you'd be a liar if you said you didn't enjoy it.

Even when you'd first moved here and were bussing tables at the local diner, he'd caught your eye when he and the girls came in for a late, hungover meal. And damn but the years had made you fonder. The slender hips, his broad chest, the sinewy muscles of his shoulders, the tattoos that played across his skin. Even in the low light, the man lounging in front of you felt vital with potential. And in his eyes, in the way they drifted over your form, there was the promise of pleasure, too. Keen, provoking pleasure.

Gesturing at his side, at the bandage that was the only thing marring the expanse of his freckled skin, he lifted an eyebrow. Slow and sardonic. "This bringin' up any memories?"

You stepped between his spread legs, settled your hands at his waist before dragging your fingers up his sides, over each rib, feeling every little shift Dympna made under the touch. He was warm and solid under you, and when you got to the bandage you paused, just let your hands enjoy the sensation of his flushed presence. Long enough to having him stirring more, with a restlessness that soon grew to impatience.

A moment before he said something – you could feel his lungs expand under your hands with an exasperated breath – you stated idly, "I remember, a little. Something about you getting stabbed for a dumb reason, wasn't it?"

"I wouldn't call starin' at a sight like you dumb," Dympna disagreed, just a small bite to the words.

The snicker you couldn't contain was probably a bad – or good – idea, and he stiffened.  "If it gets you shanked? I think there's a time and a place, D."

"You've gotten real mouthy since you been gone," Dympna observed, his lips a laconic slash, and you blinked.

"You think so? What are you gonna do about it?"

God, you loved this. Even loved how much you'd forgotten you loved it, like you'd been afraid of remembering just what you were going to lose. This gave you so much joy, this – pushing at him, getting him riled up, watching the fervent contemplation slide across his face as he sucked his lower lip and schemed how to meet your challenge.

After a pensive pause: "On your knees, darlin'."

It was your turn to hesitate, wondering if you wanted to push more, but then his fingers were wrapped around your wrists, his cool eyes flashing a warning. "That'd be now."

The look caught your breath warm and jagged in your lungs, and it was the compulsion of his dark voice that had you folding to your knees between Dympna's legs. The floor of the train car wasn't comfortable – and if you hadn't been sassy, he'd probably have let you grab a cushion from the bed – but the view more than made up for that.

Too firmly to resist, Dympna pulled your hands from where they were still resting on his sides, set them in your lap. "No touching, darlin'," he warned, mouth quirked in an infuriatingly cocky expression. Not a horribly painful punishment for your backtalk, as far as that went.

Except it kinda was.  

Already restless, the order made you more so, and you had to press your palms flat on your thighs to quell the need to reach out again. Dympna's smile became wider as he watched you squirm, and he cupped your cheek, thumb tracing your lips.

He murmured, "Let's put this to better use, yeah?" and waited for you to nod before separating your lips with his finger.  

You didn't need to be told what to do, just sucked on his thumb, swept your tongue around it, and he hummed; not quite a moan, but the hoarse sound spilled through you in little tremors of satisfaction.

The knowledge of the noise he would be making, soon enough, just strengthened the tense waves rippling through your core.

Withdrawing his finger but leaving it lingering on your mouth, Dympna kept up the pressure on your bottom lip as he gazed at you, his own mouth a little open, breath coming faster now. With his other hand, he started scrabbling at his jeans to unbutton them. Automatically – and impatiently – you made to help him, but his loud scoff had you freezing in place before guiltily returning your hands to your lap.

"Darlin', y'really have been gone for too fuckin' long," the man muttered, and it was meant to be a rebuke, but it sounded more like a confession.

Soon enough – but not soon enough at all – he unzipped his pants, yanked them a little down with a roughness that showed you weren’t the only one eager to start.

Dympna pulled out his cock, stroked himself carelessly. Your eyes fell to the sight of his dick, already stiffening under his deft grasp, and an ache that had nothing to do with pain and everything to do with hunger built at the back of your jaw. Again, his fingers swept over himself, and he watched you watch several more loose strokes before exhaling.

"Ya want it bad?" he asked, more of a taunt than a question, but you answered with a jerky nod anyways because you did. The taste of him on your tongue, the strain of taking him, his hand guiding you, the sounds he would make. All of it, you wanted all of it so badly.

You had been here a hundred times before, but in this moment, right now, the want was ripping through your stomach, zipping across your nerves, prickles of lightning under your skin. And it was new. Here was the stretch you'd longed for, the freedom from cramped despair, the heat of the only man you loved burning away what didn't matter.

"Is that all?" His quiet voice plunged through your skin, thick and rousing. "Doesn't seem like you want it that much."

Holding out was possible. You could make some smartass comment in return. But collapsing into his control, letting him dominate the minutes and the moments as they simmered between you, it was too much to resist after all the uncertainty of the past weeks.

You whispered around his thumb on your lip, through a throat tight with heat. "I want it."

His scalding blue gaze was hidden for a moment as he closed his eyes, head falling back. Enjoying the sound of your voice as his fingers stroked his cock. "A little more, darlin'. Convince me."

A familiar mix of eagerness, desperation, the sharp edge of challenge. "Please, Dympna," you whimpered, louder now. "I want you so bad. To make you feel good. Please let me, please, I–” Voice washed out in the need. I want, I want, I want.    

His eyes slid open as your words faded, focusing on your pleading face, and suddenly he groaned. "Ah, Christ, you're so much. Y'know that? Just too fuckin' much. C'mere." His hand accompanied his words, sliding from your lip to the back of your head and guiding you towards him. Without hesitation you leaned forward and the salt-slick taste of his leaking cock met your tongue. Your shuddering breath spilled over Dympna, making him tense.

On another night you’d take your sweet time. Kiss the soft sweep of his thighs, his stomach, his hips, leave little marks with your teeth and your lips. You would lick little strips along his cock, have him trembling and moaning and cursing your slow pace. Today, though, the urgency had claws sunk into your skin, and you’d long forgotten the meaning of restraint. He fit in your mouth, barely, a thrilling twinge to take him so deep already, and you greedily swiped your tongue along the bottom of his dick. Dympna’s hand, still wrapped around his cock, meant you couldn’t go much further so you sucked on his head and relished the taut groan that rose in response.

There was a music to his mumbling, a slow and steady stream of lewd language with only one person at its center.

“So fuckin’ good, just for me. Just for me, huh, darlin’? You take it so good, so good, just a slut for me, just for–” When Dympna’s words stuttered, his hips lifted off the seat and he let go of himself and bucked further into your mouth. You took it easily, breathing through your nose. The broken sound of his panting filled your ears and you hummed around his length, making him moan.

The hand that had previously been guiding you was now curled in your hair, and the light prickle of pain as Dympna tugged at your scalp sent a pleasant skittering down your spine. Responding to the touch, you bobbed further down his cock, cheeks hollow as you sucked him off. Your hands rose to grab him, seeking the steady feeling of his hips before you hesitated, remembering the rule.

“Go on,” Dympna rasped, and he was watching you take his cock with dazed attention, eyes flickering closed with each move you made, only to snap open again like he couldn’t bear to miss a moment. It was the only benediction you needed, and your fingers settled against the stark comfort of his hipbones, the warmth combined with every other sensation provoking a stifled whine from your lips. His other hand skimmed across your jaw before settling at the junction of your neck and shoulder. Almost a caress. “Good. That’s right, darlin’, that– Just like that, yeah? With your fuckin’ dirty mouth, you’re–”

Another break in his voice, and he actually cried out this time as you took him deeper, his fingers stiffening, digging into you now. The sound was an overload, flooding your core, spilling out, and you were getting wet yourself, could feel it between your thighs.

A few more steady bobs, drawing out more groans, and then you tightened your grip on his waist, a signal that he reacted to immediately. His hand at the back of your head urged you harder towards him, and his cock hit the back of your throat. Your eyes flooded with tears, but you took it, just like he liked – just like you liked – and swallowed on the urge to gag.

Even that, your throat tightening around him, tore out another symphony of sounds, and his groans mixed with the wet noise of him fucking into your mouth, with your own grunts. It built, a thick layer of heat and sound and sensation, until you were shaking with the pleasure of getting him so, so undone.

In a cracked voice, he moaned, “Fuck, darlin’, fuck, I’m–” You didn’t tap his skin, the signal to get off, and so a few more thrusts later he came down your throat. You swallowed it all, the taste of him slick and heavy as it coated your tongue. So too, you took every errant thrust as he lost control and jacked into your mouth with abandon, eyes now closed, blond hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, ecstasy twisting his handsome features into wild release.

Your blood was singing. All because of you, because of you, you could do this to him, wreck him in the best way possible, you could do that for him and because of him and it was all you wanted–

His breath so hoarse it was ragged, Dympna relaxed his hold on your hair, and you pulled off him with a wet pop, throat sore, lips tingling. A long line of cum and saliva stretched from your swollen lips to his cock, broken when he swept his thumb over your mouth, admiring the mess there. “Beautiful,” Dympna commented, dragging out the syllables, and you all but glowed under the simple word.

With the proof of his pleasure still staining your lips, the truth of his admiration saturated your self, set everything off in deep shades of security. He bent closer and you rose up on your knees and kissed him hard, letting him have a taste of his own cum. His breath rushed out and he broke away, to roughly kiss a path along your jaw and then higher. “Love,” murmured Dympna, mouth hot against your ear, “that was just about too good.”

Your own voice rasping, throat raw in the best way possible, you replied, “Couldn’t leave a debt unpaid, right?”

“Mmhm.” A lengthy pause, basking in each other’s presence, and then Dympna’s hands were hooking under your elbows, urging you up as he rose to his feet. Your knees gave a belated warning that they were a little abused, and as they half gave out, you stumbled into him. He caught you effortlessly, a grin on his face.

“Looks like I’m not the old one.���

Pressed against his chest, catching your balance, you sniffed. “You kneel on this shit,” your foot made a hollow clang when you stamped on the floor, “and tell me you don’t feel a little sore getting up.” Wasn’t likely to happen; Dympna didn’t go down on you very often, and when he did, it wasn’t on his knees. It was fine because you preferred it that way. Although... “A cushion woulda been nice.”

He was still grinning, and not particularly repentant said, “Sorry, darlin’, sorry. I’ll make it up to ya.”

“Yeah? How?” The demand slipped from you with sharp anticipation, eyes alight as you watched him consider the question.

“Well, to start...” The bed was behind you, and he started to back you up slowly, step by step, hands loosely draped on your shoulders to keep you from falling. You followed the pressure until the mattress was knocking into the back of your legs. With his usual impertinence, Dympna plucked at the fabric of your shirt. “Hardly gonna be needing this, huh?” There was no need to respond to the redundant question; he was already easing the shirt up, his fingers hot and quick as they shoved the material higher. You were eager yourself, happy to lift your arms and let him rip the stifling cloth away.

Dympna didn’t stop there, either, hands dipping lower, stripping the rest of the clothing from your body. You stepped out of it, kicked it away, stood naked and somehow still so comfortable under the admiring scrutiny of his crystal-clear eyes.  

Sometimes it got cold as a freezer in the train car, but tonight, totally bared, the air felt good against your flushed skin. What felt even better was his mouth, sucking on your collarbone, hard, hard enough to draw a little moan from you. He halted at the sound, nosed against your neck and inhaled deeply. “Ah, love,” he began, broke off. After a moment, face still buried in the crook of your neck, Dympna mumbled, “Missed you. Missed you so fuckin’ much.”

Another ache, this one far from the physical craving of the rest of your body. Dympna wasn’t a sappy man. For him to say it in words, it meant – he meant it. Meant it too much to keep inside, meant it so much it had to spill out of him in those words, branded into your skin. “Yeah,” you said softly. “Yeah. Me too.”

When Dympna pulled back, his gaze wasn’t, for once, searching. It looked like he’d found exactly what he’d been hunting for.

You kissed again, messy and passionate, your hands tangling in his hair. His hands ran along your sides, the fingertips of one hand finding your chest, the other hand hooking your waist to pull you closer. Warmth blossomed under his deft touch, and the hollow hunger grew as Dympna pinched your nipple, only relenting the squeeze when you exhaled shakily against his lips. Then his fingertips turned idle, rolling the sensitive nub between thumb and forefinger even as he nipped at your lip. An exchange of sharp sensation, and all of it had you curling to the tips of your toes, pushing against him with a wordless, throaty moan for more.

“You like that?” Back to sardonic, and you could tell Dympna was eager to get by the “moment”. He pinned you harder to his body with a hand on the small of your back, ground his groin against you even as his teeth found your throat. The rough scrape of his jeans against your bare front was another peak to crash over, another height of need to hit. His fingers once again played across the tender skin of your chest, and it made your breath catch.

You whined, squirmed in his grasp. “Come on, Dympna,” was your panting plea. “You know, you know I like it.”

“A little louder, darlin’. Didn’t quite catch you.”

Not able to glare, not with the wild arousal pulsing through your veins, you met his amused blue eyes with a look that teetered on helpless. “I like it,” you said louder but still strained. His hand dropped from your nipple and slipped to the jut of your hip, a light caress. And then he was between your thighs, fingers moving with supple ease as he stroked across your throbbing heat. You gasped, whole body going rigid.

“Just a little louder,” he murmured, not relaxing his grip, refusing to let you buck against him like you wanted to.

“Please, Dympna, please, I can’t with this teasing shit today. I really can’t.” You could barely get the sounds out, each one jarring through the delirious tension in your jaw.

“Oh?” The man pulled back, ran his tongue over his lower lip even as he smiled. “Well, why didn’t you say so?”

And suddenly you were falling. You had enough time for an embarrassing cross between a gasp and a shriek before your back hit the mattress. Dympna’s shove had been abrupt but controlled, placing you in the exact middle of the cushioned ground, and it didn’t hurt anything at all. Nothing but your ego, and that was drowning under the heated tar of your desire, anyways.      

The jolt was still firmly in your stomach, mingling with the arousal until they were inseparable, and you said, half accusing, half playful, “If I hit my head and died, you know your DNA would be all over the place.”

“Oh, aye, and what would the Gardai do with it? Useless cunts,” Dympna snorted, and then he was dropping onto the mattress next to you. Not over you, not straddling you like you’d wanted and hoped for, but propped up on an elbow, one hand leisurely touring the expanse of your body even as his eyes did the same. It was rival parts frustrating and exhilarating to feel him exploring you like this, like he wanted to remember every dip and peak of your form. All you wanted to do was forget the last few weeks.  

Before impatience could do more than bite, though, he touched you between your thighs again, fingers moving against your dripping length exactly the way you liked it. You arched your back, pressing into those knowing points of pleasure with a desperation that was almost equal to the overwhelming fire raging through your lungs.

When you cried out, his voice came, a heavy chuckle twined through his tone. “I love that sound, darlin’. Let’s see if I can’t make you do it again, huh? Look at me.”

You’d automatically thrown your head back into the mattress with the toe-curling throb of pleasure, but at his command turned back to him, meeting the intensity of his gaze. “There ya go. Good. You’re so good for me, love.” There was no escaping that expanse of blue, no hiding from his husky voice, from the way it swamped you with the need to hear it again, to hear more, to feel more, and more, and more.

In hardly any time at all, he had you twisting, tensing and sagging with each stroke, little gasps and moans escaping. Your hands scrabbled at the thin sheets on the mattress, searching for purchase that wouldn’t come amid the tides of warmth. Words plunged from your lips, barely discernable, whimpering pleas and gratitude, all of it mixed together, and he watched you fall apart at the tips of his fingers with a slight, satisfied smirk gracing the corners of his mouth. The next time a wave of heat blossomed through your core, you couldn’t help it; you jerked your eyes shut against the unbearably good surge, and his hand immediately stilled, lifted away a bit as he clicked his tongue. He left you quivering, thrusting your hips in search of the missing pressure.

“Nah, love. Eyes open. C’mon, look at me.” Another whine, but you forced them open, fell on the chiseled cut of his jaws before you managed to drag your eyes back up to his. His smile softened as you did, and he all but purred. “Mmm, just like that. Y’can’t look away, darlin’. I wanna see it. See you fuckin’ go to pieces.” Even as he spoke, Dympna started again, rejuvenating the molten sparks.

His touch tore you apart.

You came with a hoarse cry, your body seizing up, every atom of existence teetering on the edge of white oblivion for glorious seconds. Lungs constricted, muscles quivering, your core throbbing in the deep, intimate way that your own fingers couldn’t produce. Dympna’s face was a focal point in the sea of sensation as everything else wiped away, and there was just the pleasure and him and you, and it was enough, it was enough, it was so much more than enough.

Catching your breath was like inhaling flames, everything sizzling with heat and sweat. Your skin was sticky with it, your hair damp and dishevelled. The rumpled sheets were wet with your release, and so were his fingers, too, when he touched your cheek, a gentle caress. “God, you’re such a sight,” sighed Dympna, and you turned your head and kissed his palm, small favour for what he’d just given you.  

“You’re so good, D,” you whispered against his hand, and he sighed again, stroked his hand through your hair without reply. A moment later he pulled you closer to him, the contact sending stinging refrains of belated gratification through you. He held you against his chest, quiet and reflective, for several moments, and you laid in his arms, content to just – exist. He’d done that for you, again. Pushed the future to somewhere safe and far away, and now you could just breathe.  

You loved him so much.

Eventually Dympna stirred, mumbled wordlessly to himself before pressing a quick kiss to your forehead. “Don’t be goin’ away from me again, huh?” he said, and though there was a teasing note in the question, his eyes were more solemn when they met yours.

You ghosted a hand over his shoulder, traced down his spine, ended curling your fingers through one of the belt hooks of the jeans he still had on. You gave it a light tug. “Keep doing something like this,” you replied, trying to match the lighter tone, “and you won’t have to worry about nothing.” It wasn’t a lie. Not even a half truth. He was willing to try – he was trying. Maybe, if that was the case, neither of you had to worry.

Dympna rocked against you, a slow, lazy motion, and gave up the somber cast of his mouth. He was so fucking beautiful when he smirked like that. “Oh, I’m gonna keep at it so,” he promised, low and fervent. “We got all night for me to prove it, darlin’.”

Stretching in his arms, relishing in the freedom of the movement, you subsided with a suggestive grin. “We’ve got a little bit more than just all night.”

He took your meaning and smiled, piercing and fond. “Yeah, love. A little bit more than that.”                          

[causticcauses]

Only Stop at Exits pt. 3

Part Three -> One, Two, Four 

Pairing: Dympna Devers x (gender neutral) Reader

Summary: You wanted out of your rough life employed to the Devers family. Building a life with Dympna just wasn't possible when it meant dragging yourself through shit to be with him. When things came to a head, the only question was what you would have to leave behind.

Fic Warnings: Angst, mention of past death, drug use/reference, drug dealing, abuse reference, swearing.

Part 3 Warnings: N/A. 

A/N: This is perhaps a little silly now, but here’s chapter three! It has many things! Angst, communication, failed communication and one or two brilliant(?) puns. Butnosmut. *ducks thrown rotten food* I am so very sorry! Next chapter will have sexy times, and this time I know that ‘cause I’ve written half of it already. In the meantime, thanks as ever for reading, it means a lot!

The car ride was mostly silent. Dympna drummed his hands on the steering wheel, shifted a lot, scratched at his face or fiddled with the radio, but he didn’t say anything. You didn’t ask where you were headed; within a few minutes, it was obvious. The extended drive gave you time to observe the man next to you, and you took full advantage. Only in pieces, though, stolen like you were afraid of getting caught as a thief. He looked tired. Dead tired. Too pale, although that might have been the shitty lighting as you raced under streetlights. All the vibrancy and life he’d summoned for the gathering seemed to have been dropped.

Eventually, the silence peeling your nerves like a grater and the alcohol in your system not enough to soften it, you asked, “How’s Charlie?” Out of the array of topics in front of you, that one was safest. You cared about the young girl, but there was nothing more complicated than that to the question.

Or maybe there was, because Dympna grimaced, looked away out the open window like he was actually interested in the fields flashing by, barely visible in the light of the moon and at the speed he was going. “She’s a tough lass,” he said, nodding as though agreeing with himself. Like he needed the agreement. “She’ll be alright. Just got a little... Y’know.”

“She was worried for you,” was your observation, and you weren’t sure if you said it to be kind or callous.

“Yeah... Charlie’s a good kid. It’s too bad she saw–” He cut himself off, his hand coming up to trace along the cut one of Dare’s punches had opened in his cheek. High, just below his eye. A little higher, and it could have been–

Your turn to cut yourself off. Wasn’t any point in thinking that shit. You’d drive yourself mental.  

Dympna dropped his hand. “She’ll be alright.”    

That left you two in a hush that was even less comfortable than before, filled with fidgeting from both of you. The car sped along at the usual breakneck pace, and this late at night there was hardly any traffic. Occasionally the empty cans of beer scattered on the floor in the backseat clinked, but there was nothing else. Nothing to pay attention to. You kept expecting him to broach the subject, any subject – he’d said he wanted to talk to you – but aside from mumbling under his breath, totally impossible to catch if he was even saying anything at all, Dympna didn’t break the quiet.

You’d lounged in silence with him before; cozy, careless silence, with nothing to say because there was nothing that needed saying. This was not that. It rasped against your ears, and before too much longer you found yourself searching for something to end it.

Striving for indifference and failing. “You ain’t gonna be missed at the party?”

He snorted, accepting the topic with an ease that felt forced. “Course I will be. Just doesn’t matter.”

“’I’m sure some people’ll be disappointed to hear that.”

“Some people can fuck off,” Dympna replied, more venomously than you’d expected. After a moment of fraught silence, he exhaled, tugging at the back of his hair. “Doesn’t matter,” he repeated more quietly. “Lisa can run it well enough. ‘Sides, they probably think I’m off to have a little gab with me uncles... or Dare.”

That was a loaded sentence, a troubled one, and you pressed your back into the seat, trying to find enough of a stiff spine to resist asking the question hovering at the tip of your tongue. You didn’t want to get involved, it wasn’t your business anymore, it shouldn’t be your business, but...

“What was that about, anyways?”      

Dympna’s hand tightened around the wheel, and he dropped the other from playing with his hair. “Doesn’t matter, either.”

You set your teeth against the immediate dismissal, a spike of indignation hammering through your not entirely sober head. In a moment of hypocrisy that you were well aware of, given how hard you’d been avoiding him, you pointed out, “You said you needed to talk to me. Brushing off my questions is how we’re gonna do that?”  

The hard look he sent your way wasn’t exactly encouraging, but he’d been the one to fucking follow you down the street with the equivalent of a trumpet on wheels. Giving you some answers – even if you didn’t want them – was the least Dympna could do. Besides, you could tell something was eating at him. There was a reason he’d approached you tonight, when there’d been other nights you’d walked home alone before. And what else could have been the breaking point, besides the fight?

He chewed on his thumbnail for several seconds, and just when you were angrily resigning yourself to letting him stew, he broke the silence. “You tell me, yeah? What was that about?”

That was a thing about Dympna. He actually wanted to hear what people thought, what they experienced and felt. Hell, he’d even listened intently to Needles on occasion, as if the dope might give him a thought he’d never had. (And to be fair, Needles had certainly given him exactly that.) It was a little narcissistic – he always wanted to know how others saw him, like people were just convenient mirrors to stare at himself with – but there was also something oddly earnest about the question. Like he understood that he couldn’t see and pick up everything, needed others for that.

Or maybe you just wanted to feel like he needed you.

The uncertainty of that thought made you defensive, even though you were used to him getting your view before giving you facts. “How should I know? All I saw was you beat the shit outta Dare, apparently after he stabbed you, and then you up and pretended he tried but... what, missed? And then you had him chucked out.”

“And why,” Dympna drawled slowly, “do y’think I beat the shit outta him? And lied ‘bout it?”

“Fuck, I don’t...” You were too annoyed for this game today. Too restless with the knowledge that once again, somehow, he’d sucked you back in. It wasn’t–

His hand was warm when it settled on your thigh, his fingers softly digging in. Your gasp was embarrassing; the extravagant way your heart tripped over itself and just about slammed into your ribcage was more so. Dympna’s voice came, low and careful, like he was half afraid of startling you straight out of the moving car. The slur from his own inebriation was barely noticeable. “Humour me, hmm? I’ve gotta know what you...”

He didn’t finish, but his thumb was drawing circles on your leg, and even through a layer of fabric, the touch had your stomach tightening, your lungs going taut with the effort of breathing through what the contact represented. Part of you demanded you move away. A smaller part told you to break his god damn presumptuous hand, and maybe his head, too. But that wasn’t most of you. Most of you was aching, and it came to you suddenly that you’d been so fucking cramped, these last few weeks. Cramped, like a knotted muscle, and your body was screaming at you to reach out, stretch towards him, relieve the hurt.

You kept yourself from grabbing him. At this point you weren’t sure if you’d throw him off or do something stupider, like hold on tight. Instead, you tried to focus on the request, on the edgy way he’d made it. It was so much easier than thinking about the hand, heavy on your thigh, just high enough to have you thinking about–

Why did he fight Dare, beat him, then lie about the stabbing? Why?

“A show of power,” you said eventually, dissatisfied with the answer even as you spoke it, your mind torn between the problem and the other problem, curled tight in your gut. “You wanted to remind people you’ve still got it, not to mess with you. Went after the new guy ‘cause... he’s an easy target? No worries about insulting any of his friends? And admitting you got stabbed woulda undermined your show?” That didn’t work, though. That’d never been the kind of power Dympna wielded, so why the hell would he want to reinforce something he’d never really had?

Though he didn’t remove his hand, he’d stopped stroking you, and his fingers were digging in again. “Is that what you think?” Dympna asked quietly, and the unsteady tone forced your eyes over to him, to land on the tense line of his jaw, the harsh side profile of his full lips pressed together.

You didn’t reply, and he was about to continue when you reached your destination. The abandoned train car. His home away from home. He came here a lot – sometimes without you, more oft with – when he wanted to think. Dympna put the car in park, and the mild hum of the engine was steady between you. Above, the near full moon was shining, casting pale light on the browned grass of the deserted site, on the scattered trash and rusty metal. Not a beautiful sight, but a familiar one.  

He was playing with his necklace now, running the chain between his fingers, over his chin. Not quite kissing the golden cross.

When he dropped it to thud gently against his chest, the motion was tired. "Did I smash that asshole's face in to make people scared?” he asked abruptly. Almost a demand. “Did I fuck around with him, make him go at me, 'cause I knew I could beat him? Huh?"

That last part... now that sounded like something he might have done. Get someone riled up enough to try to punch his lights out. Christ, hadn't you been there a time or two, and all the while Dympna was fully aware of what he was doing? He liked egging people on, and even more so when it meant making them fuck up to his advantage. You could still remember thinking he'd been riling his friends up earlier tonight, playing both sides. Was it really that much of a stretch to think he was doing it for a reason?

But – what was all this, then? With how tentative Dympna looked now, sucking on his bottom lip, his voice so heavy with deprecation it was almost cracking. Why was he even asking?  

"...I don't know." Your reply hung in the air between you, and you felt his hand tighten on your thigh. Not quite painful, but close.

Finally he exhaled, the sound explosive, his grip loosening. Back to a caress. Dympna turned to you, took his time as his eyes lingered across your face, searching for something. With that same seeking expression, he asked, "Would y'believe me if I said no? No to all of it? Didn't mean it to get that bad, didn't fuck him up 'cause I knew it'd be good for the Devers. Would you believe that?"

Desperation had edged into his tone, and he was leaning towards you over the centre divide between the seats. You swallowed hard, all of what you knew of the man across from you swarming through your brain. All of the easy lies and manipulation, the violence, the greed, the hunger for more. This... this could be some kind of stunt. Some way to get your sympathy, make you stay or–

It wasn't. You didn't know how you knew that, but you did. Maybe it was because, this close, you could see his glacial blue eyes were shot through with red, as though he hadn't been sleeping much. Maybe it was the near frantic way he raked his gaze across your face, or his hands, one clenched into a fist, the other trembling on your leg. Maybe it was what his sisters had said. Pure moping.

Maybe it was the memories. One night, way too many drinks in, when he'd broken down and cried about Arm. Sobbed about the friend he'd lost – the friend he might as well have killed, as he saw it. The day after, so much shame and embarrassment, but also relief. Gratitude. Memories of the way he'd opened up to you after that, became... not a different person. More relaxed, less to prove. With laughter and an ambitious drive that didn't need to hurt others to be enough. At least not while he was with you.

Or maybe it was just because, despite everything, you believed Dympna wanted to be better than he was now.

For whatever reason, you exhaled. "Yeah," you replied softly. "Yeah, I could believe that."

He looked away, but not before you caught the swell of emotion flooding his face. Straightening from his slouch over the centre gap, Dympna nodded, sniffled, nodded again. He removed his hand from your thigh to brush at his eyes, his nose, impatiently, like he wanted to remove even the chance of tears spilling over. When he was done, Dympna hesitated, seemed about to renew his contact with you before he pulled back.

"That's – good. Yeah. Grand. I didn't know if ya..." With a noisy huff, Dympna jerked his shoulder. Shrugging off the fear, although you thought it lingered, in the set of his jaw, in the stiff way he held his neck.

You rubbed at the empty spot his hand left on your leg, trying to distract yourself from your urge to reach over and see if you could soothe that tension away. The amount your words obviously meant to him – it worried you. Made stress wrap around your throat. You didn’t want that responsibility, that anchor. You didn’t want to admit how much it meant to you.

"So you didn't set it up. 'Kay. What did happen?" Blunt, to try to shake up the unbearable pressure filling the small space of the car, pining you in place.

Dympna cocked his head at your brusque tone, grimaced and then spit out the window. For the first time, he actually seemed angry. "Fuckin' asshole," the man muttered. "Shoulda known he'd try something stupid like that."

"Dare?"

A grunt of agreement. "Y'know why he's called that?"

Now that he mentioned it... "Nah. He just got intro'd that way. Does he jump off cliffs? Juggle fire?" 

"Close enough. His name's Darren. Darin' Darren, right? Bet they thought it was cute in primary school." Another spit. "Says there ain't a dare he won't take. Guess no one's gone and dared him to off himself, but I've seen it true 'nuff. Not the full shilling, that one." 

"Grand. 'Cause this town really needs more crazy," you muttered, and it wasn't really a joke. Paudi and his ilk were more than enough to be getting around. 

Dympna laughed all the same.    

"Nothin' for you to be worried 'bout. You're gone soon anyways, yeah?"

And though he phrased it as a question, it was more like a spear, stabbing you straight through the chest. It punched your breath right out your lungs, and you sat there for several seconds, trying to get it back. Dympna's eyebrows were furrowed as he observed you, and you couldn't tell if he'd meant to hurt with the question, or if it'd really been as offhand as it sounded. Something told you it hadn’t been a casual mention.

Gone soon anyways. Fuck. You were. Weren't you? Fuck.

The future kept slipping through your fingers, or maybe you just kept screwing your eyes shut to avoid seeing it. You'd said you were leaving. You planned for it. Meant it.

So why the fuck were you sitting here?

"Never mind," Dympna said, uncharacteristically mild, easing you away from the panic mushrooming at the base of your throat.  "S'not the point."

You blinked, released from having to answer when there was absolutely no way you could. You took in a short, jagged inhale of air. "'Kay," was your pale response, barely a mutter. With an effort you rallied, the thought of sinking into the quagmire of your conflicted conscience not at all appealing. "So... he's crazy. Is that why you beat him so bad? Make sure he stayed down?"

“No. We were jawing at each other before. He’s been talkin’ shit a lot, last bit here. Nothing I cared about, just a pup yappin’, yeah? But then...” He was suddenly very interested in his fingers, picking at the broken skin around his knuckles.

A line appeared across your forehead as you waited for him to continue. And waited. “But then...?” you prompted, uncertain how this could possibly be more difficult to say then what he’d already said.

Restless fingers stilling, he stared at his hands for another beat before straightening. Abruptly exasperated, if his voice was anything to go by. “He started talkin’ shit about someone else. Someone with a name too good for the likes of his mouth.”

“...Oh.” Your throat went dry, a flush of embarrassment rolling across your skin. And something else, too. Tighter, heavier. A level of satisfaction, of pleasure, that jarred against the wound on Dympna’s face, in his side. You’ve never wanted him to get hurt, but it’d never occurred to you that he’d done it for you.

That fact was stark in your mind – and it alarmed you, how much you liked it. It was either cowardice or just an automatic reflex to fall back on humour, and the urge to ask, “What’d he say about Charlie?” with oblivious earnestness was strong in your mouth. You clenched your teeth against the desire, rode it out until it faded. But even as it disappeared, you were thinking about just how much damage Dympna had done. How he just didn’t... stop. All for you. The rush of pleasure didn’t dim, but your stomach was uneasy. “I’m not– you don’t need to be defending me.”

“’Course not,” he grumbled in reply. His brows drew down, and darkness had slipped into his eyes when he met your own. His eyes, and his voice. “But I wanted to. So I did.”

“So... that’s it? That why you smashed his face in? Dympna, that’s not–”

“Hey, hold your damn horses for a sec.” You sucked in a breath at his harsh tone, awash in a mix of anger, guilt, and a kind of appalled fascination. Dympna was back to staring at his hands, his mouth a thin line of tension. “Yeah, I started somethin’ with him ‘cause of it. Hit him a couple times, couple more, told him if he dared to fuckin’ so much as breathe in your direction I’d get Liam and Oisin to do somethin’ about it. Wasn’t enough of a fight to even get a crowd going.”

When he laughed, the sardonic sound was so ragged it was practically torn. “Thought that was the end of that. Except a minute or two later, next thing I know I’m hearing a bottle break, and I’m getting stabbed. So not quite the end, hey?”

“He actually did it after you’d beat him and let him off?” Relief and outrage saturated your reply, and it wasn’t quite enough to drown out the prickling friction amassed in each of your nerves. Like the pressure of thunderclouds about to break. So Dympna did have a reason to send Dare half to his grave. It was almost a good one.            

“Yeah. Like I said. Asshole.” With a baring of teeth in what wasn’t quite a smile, staring at something you couldn’t see, Dympna rolled his shoulders. “And for a second, I just opened up on him. Felt good. What he’d said about you... what he’d done to me... I got to just do it, yeah? Was all good. Better than good, really.” Seemingly without being entirely aware of it, he was flexing his hands into fists, open and closed, open and closed. “Arm was always sayin’ he punched a fella ‘cause when his fist connected, he knew exactly where he was. Maybe I didn’t quite get that, till tonight.”

A scowl crossed his face, and Dympna’s hands grew quiet. “Except then Dare threw me into that fuckin’ table and that fuckin’ lamp broke. And it – it s’like waking up, y’know? That fuckin’ lamp. No idea where we got it. Didn’t mean nothin’. Just a stupid lamp. But it’d been there my whole life. And I fuckin’ broke it.”  

Dympna hesitated, glanced at you sidelong. You’d leaned forward like you needed to catch every word, like every syllable was a shard of that lamp, and maybe you could mend it back together again if you just snagged every piece. The energy crackling through you was almost unbearable, and you just wanted to do something. “Wasn’t your fault.” You almost choked at how useless the words were... and how untrue.

His blue eyes were so caustic, sometimes. Searching. Like they could burn through your exterior to get at whatever he wanted underneath. You didn’t know what he was looking for. You didn’t even know if he found it. Eventually, his jaw tightened, and he made a frustrated sound, halfway between a grunt and a groan. “Fuck, I dunno. It’s not the fuckin’ lamp, it’s just – I started thinkin’ again, y’know? As I went at him, I mean. I knew a couple of the fellas had seen me get stabbed. Knew it’d get spread around. It’d reach my uncles, and I knew what that meant. For me. For Dare.”

“So, why lie? Trying to get them to shut up about it so your uncles wouldn’t know?”

Once again, he shook his head. “They’d hear eventually. They always do. I haven’t been able to clear the rats outta the barn. Not yet.” A thin sliver of ice trailed down your spine at his foreboding tone, and you shivered, the seething energy quietening with the cold. Dympna was looking through the window of the car like he was imagining crystal clear what he’d do to the rats when he found them out, his mouth sporting a cruel sneer, and it was another reminder of why he wasn’t – why you couldn’t be here.

Dympna must have caught your tremor, because he relaxed when he turned back to you, his sudden smile as jarring as the curled lip had been. It was forced, the edges of his cheeks tense with the effort, but his voice was more naturally unperturbed. “Ah, fuck ‘em. Doesn’t matter. I knew they’d hear. So I made it a different story. They’d hear that I lied to the skins. Took it like a man, no whinin’. Holding up the good ol’ Devers name. They’d hear I beat the ever-lovin’ shit outta that piece of garbage with me own hands, kicked him outta our house, all in front of an audience. And maybe… fuck.”

When he shook his head, it was like he was arguing with himself. Struggling to keep the words back. After a moment, Dympna all but spat them out. “Maybe it’d be enough. Maybe there wouldn’t need to be nothing more.”

He halted the flood of words with a painful inhale between his teeth, and you curled your fingers, slowly, feeling out the words and the realization that was scrabbling through your bones, little claws digging through your brain. “You didn’t want Paudi to go after Dare. You knew he’d do worse.”

The man next to you snorted. “As if I care about that asshole.” He caught you looking skeptical and glowered. “I didn’t do what I did, and Paudi’d have me at the farm, giving out about me oul fella and the family. Like I wanted that.”

There was definitely some truth in what he said. Dympna would probably eat glass to avoid having to interact with either of his uncles more than he had to, and Paudi would certainly have seized the occasion for a lecture. Maybe even a hands on lesson, knowing that creep. But still. If he really, truly didn’t care what happened to Dare, Dympna could have just had his guys beat him, bad, and then washed his hands of whatever Paudi decided to do afterwards.

You wondered if there was any sense in pointing that out. He'd probably get defensive about it. Funny how he could brazenly say he loved you to anyone who asked, but couldn't admit he wasn't a hardened killer. Easier to admit he’d hated breaking a lamp, ‘cause the lamp didn’t actually matter.

But if you just let it go... What would even be the purpose of you being here? You'd said you'd leave, and you hadn't left. If you had this minute to push at him, to force him to acknowledge a moment when he wasn't a shitty person, shouldn't you? At least make something good come out of your hypocrisy?

"I dunno if that's the only reason you had, Dympna."

As expected, his mouth twisted like he’d bit something sour. “Well, ya better get knowin’,” he retorted, shifting restlessly in his seat. “Ain’t about to be sending him flowers or nothing.”

You took a deep breath, braced yourself against his agitation. “...Maybe a get well soon card?”

His blue eyes widened, and his mouth actually fell open, just a little. It snapped shut quick enough, Dympna’s incredulity quickly replaced with anger. “Like hell!”

For a second you just stared at each other, and then you arched your eyebrow, pointedly. That did it. As the realization of how ridiculous the strength of his reaction was came over Dympna, he huffed. Huffed again, the exhale dissolving into a laugh. Quick, sharp. Sincere. “Okay, okay,” said the blond man, fussing at his bangs. A habit when he didn’t want to look at someone directly. “I take your point, yeah?”          

It was your turn to let out your breath, pleased that you could still do – well, this. Get him to back off his stupid machismo. "Whatever reason... I'm glad.” And you meant that. Knowing why Dympna had done what he did, it loosened the crammed tension in your spine, scattered the thunderclouds pressing on the horizon. It made the memory of his fists thudding into Dare’s face a little easier to accept. “Way you went at Dare, for a second I thought maybe Paudi was rubbing off on you."

"If I start thinkin' about skinning Charlie's bunny, you'll be the first to know," he replied dryly. "For now, though, pretty sure I ain't got much psychopathic tendencies brewin'."

"Good," you said with a small chuckle that didn't really express just how relieved you were. Relieved at – all of this. He was okay. He'd done a... well, it wasn't a good thing. But a better thing than it could have been. Felt like too much recently, that hadn't happened.

After that, you didn't know where to go. It didn't change anything. You were still sitting in this car, in his childhood haunt. Dympna hadn't killed the guy who stabbed him, which was – which was about all you could ask for in this situation. But that didn't make it into a good situation. You supposed wanting a stabbing to be a good thing would be asking for a lot in just about any circumstance.

That thought had your eyes flicking down, trying to see any sign of the stabbing in question. He was in the same shirt, but you were on the wrong side to catch sight of anything, even with Dympna turned slightly toward you. The urge to see surged through you. Made reckless with how much you’d relaxed in this conversation, and maybe more than a little by the alcohol still lingering, you reached out to snag the shirt up.

He caught your wrist. Of course he did. Dympna asked, “What?” and he smiled as he said it, smugly, like he was daring you to be honest.

Best defense, good offense. Ignoring his fingers, wrapped securely around your wrist, you said innocently, “Just wondering how the hell you managed to get stabbed.”

“Not hard, darlin’. Hang out with a guy that’s had enough coke to kill a polar bear, with a temper to match, poke him a bit, and it’ll happen.”  

“But I mean, Dare ain’t exactly subtle, is he? How’d you not catch on that it was headed that way, specially if you’d already tussled?” There was honest curiosity in that question. Dympna was usually so on top of everything – everyone. So primed to see where they were headed. Him missing a bull like Dare starting to stare down the good china seemed wrong.

Your attack must have been more on point than you’d planned, because he let go of you. You flexed your hand, getting used to the absence, before settling it regretfully in your lap. There was a short pause, Dympna biting at his lower lip. Gnawing at it, practically. "I got distracted. Didn't notice how much he was hangin' on to the grudge. Woulda had him thrown out if I had."

Because of how off-balance you felt, it was natural to comment, "Sloppy," in an airy tone, as if nothing had changed between you. As if you could grab some certainty by falling back on your relationship with him. You regretted it even as the words left your mouth, but it was too late to take back.

His eyes narrowed, teeth letting go of his lip as he glared, but a second later the irritation melted and abruptly Dympna snorted. "Ah, sure look." He considered, and the upward curve of his lips suggested he was thinking of a joke he hadn't shared. "Kinda cruel thing to say, darlin'."  

"True, though," you replied, relieved you apparently hadn't been too flippant and simultaneously wishing he had rebuffed your playful comment. This slope was too easy to go slipping down.

His smile widened, almost wicked now, and he continued slyly. "Well, I mean, it's cruel to say... when it was your fault."

That made you do a doubletake, your thoughts flashing back to what he’d said. How he’d been defending you. "What the hell do you mean, my fault?"

"I was distracted, I said," he answered with the maddening air of someone who knew they weren't answering the question.

Terse with impatience, you snapped, "Yeah, I got that part. What's that got to do with me?" Your heart was in your stomach, just waiting for the accusation, no matter how offhandedly he would say it.

You were staring hard at him now, and he met your gaze for a moment before his eyes flicked down. To your lips. "What d'ya think coulda got me distracted?" he murmured. A flush of heat crept up your neck and spilled across your face and your brain blanked with abrupt relief, understanding... and other things. With no reply from you, Dympna raised his eyebrow, his eyes only languidly trailing back up. "Me, I can think of a few things."

It suddenly occurred to you how stupid it was that, given the amount of times Dympna had caught you staring these last few weeks, it'd never crossed your mind that he'd probably been looking, too.

Which absolutely did not make this your fault.

"D, that sounds like a you problem." You tried to make your voice firm, ended up raspy instead.

He snickered. "Ay, true enough. Enough of a me problem to get me stabbed, sure."

How the hell were you starting to feel guilty? It wasn’t as if you’d put a neon sign on your head, or even asked the idiot to be looking your way while a fight 2.0 was brewing under his nose. "You seriously didn't notice you were pissing off a guy enough to make him stab you because you were..." You couldn't even make yourself say it.

Dympna had no such problems. "Staring at you, mhmm," he agreed shamelessly. That was always something you’d liked about him. He had no embarrassment about his affection, no stoic mask. Sure, he wasn’t particularly showy, and PDAs weren’t really his thing, but his open ownership of your relationship had always been something that pleased you. A bit less so now, especially when he went on to say, "So, way I see it, ya owe me."

"Uh, fuck that," you replied immediately, fervently. The last thing you wanted was to owe Dympna Devers more. You already owed him too damn much.

Maybe he caught the heat in your reply. At any rate, some of the amusement faded from his expression, and he was more somber when he said, "Y'know... wasn't just staring 'cause you're a ride. Although darlin', you are that." He curled the corner of his mouth, almost a grin, and you scowled at him to stop yourself from returning the smile. His lips fell shortly, anyways, into a tighter line. "Was thinkin' 'bout what you said. About... all this." A desultory gesture encompassed the car, the empty cans of beer, the derelict train car. As if that really could summarize his whole existence.

Your breath was coming a little uneven, the air dense as you tried to breathe through the surprise, the suspicion – and worse, so much worse, the hope, fluttering to life amid a sea of corrosive cynicism. You searched his expression, following the slope of his crooked nose, the full, proud expanse of his lips, the sharp ridges of his jaw. Trying to find a hint to keep that hope alive, or let it be well and truly dead. Unevenly, you said, "Yeah? So – what'd you end thinking?"

"Nothin' much good. Especially when I got to thinkin' about you gone." With his usual nonchalance, Dympna reached out, cupped your cheek. Like there was no question if he was even allowed to. And maybe there wasn't, because despite the voice yelling at you to jerk away, you leaned into the touch. He stroked his thumb along your skin, almost as though he was marvelling that he could. It left a tingling desire that you couldn’t ignore, let alone reject. A bloom of pleasure, filling up the hollowness that’s been eating you for weeks.

After a moment of caressing your cheek, Dympna continued quietly. "Thinkin' about how I can't change, how I– How it ain't in the cards for me."  

Your chest started doing something strange as those words echoed through it. Splintering, maybe, or collapsing, burying the affection in heaps of rubble. Funny that despair felt exactly like love, right now.

You made to break contact, turn aside, and he caught your chin in a gentle grip, clicking his tongue with a tsking rebuke. "Darlin'," Dympna murmured, "d’you really think I brought you all the way here to put us in rag order again?"

Tears were stinging in your eyes and your throat, and you replied roughly to cover them up. “I think you’d do a lot of shit to get what you wanted.”

To your chagrin, he hummed an agreement. “Sure I would. And here’s the thing, darlin’; I want you.” A flicker of kerosene-light sparked at the words, and it had you shuddering with the intensity of it. Leaning closer now, he held you still, delicate enough that you could break free with an effort, but not so softly that it was easy to look away. “I want you so bad,” he whispered, and your heart stuttered in its cage, fire spilling through your ribs, suffusing your veins. “Bad enough to do a lot of shit. Even try to change.”

Hope was a livewire in your chest, and you shied away from it, scared of getting shocked. “Just like that?” was your challenge, his grip steady on your chin.

“Not just like that. Been thinkin’ about it for weeks, now.” His gaze became distant, voice detached. “Truth told, been thinkin’ about it for a helluva lot longer than that.” You thought, maybe, you were seeing an echo of Arm in his eyes, fading and then gone as Dympna refocused on you. “Getting stabbed by some eejit too hopped up on coke to know a bad thing from a good one just... brought the point home.” A smirk, and you tried to scoff, but it was more a sigh, your breath spilling over his hand.

What words could you create from the game of Scrabble your brain had become? It was all syllables, a jumble of sounds and fragments, nothing concrete. His touch was burning, burning straight through your skin, turning everything to flames, and you were so scared of what would remain after.

“Hey, hey.” Dympna’s voice was soothing but insistent, calling you back to him.

You swallowed the fear, or tried to. The fire remained, like smoke in your battered lungs. Hoarsely, then, “So you’re ready to...?”

His other hand came up, and then he was cradling your face, the ring on that hand a cold strip amidst the searing heat. He looked at you with a seriousness you’d rarely seen cross the playful panes of his face. “I ain’t gonna lie to you, love. This is– it ain’t nothin’ easy. Lise, Chrissy, and Fatima, they’ve got their thing. Wouldn’t be easy, but they– I guess they could manage if we moved elsewhere, but I won’t leave them here. And Charlie’s still a kid, yeah? And me mam, too, she– She’s a tough lady, but I don’t wanna leave her alone. Not like the oul fella did. She don’t deserve that and–” He stopped, still searching your expression, and you couldn’t help how much your face had softened.

You loved Dympna for a lot of reasons. His brilliance, his charisma, the eagerness to have fun, even his drive to get what he wanted. But the way his tone lilted when he said his sisters’ names, when he talked about his mom, that...  That gentled your resistance, stilled the fear, dispelled the anger. You loved him because after all this time, despite going through so much, Dympna had kept his love for his family alive. Protected it against anything that said he shouldn’t give a damn.

Wasn’t that worth keeping?

The restless trek of his blue gaze slowed, until he just met your eyes and looked no further. “You believed me,” Dympna murmured. “That I’m not like Paudi. Not like Hector, neither. Whatever the fuck I am, I– Look. All I can do is promise to try and leave. Get my shit in order and leave, yeah? I dunno when. I can’t do this by a clock. But I’m promisin’ I’ll try. So what I’m needin’ to know is... You believed me before. D’you believe me now?”

Even softer, his voice sloping into something that wasn’t fear, but close. “And is that enough?”

@omgeternal

[causticcauses]

Only Stop at Exits pt. 3 (Teaser)

Part Three (teaser) -> One, Two

Pairing: Dympna Devers x (gender neutral) Reader

Summary: You wanted out of your rough life employed to the Devers family. Building a life with Dympna just wasn't possible when it meant dragging yourself through shit to be with him. When things came to a head, the only question was what you would have to leave behind.

Fic Warnings: Angst, mention of past death, drug use/reference, drug dealing, abuse reference, swearing.

Part 3 Warnings: N/A for teaser

A/N: Couldn’t quite finish the chapter in time - it’s at 5.5k and still going, but I should have it done tomorrow or Tuesday at the latest. Sorry for the wait, but in the meantime hope you enjoy a (very) little snippet of what’s to come!

Or maybe you just wanted to feel like he needed you.

The uncertainty of that thought made you defensive, even though you were used to him getting your view before giving you facts. “How should I know? All I saw was you beat the shit outta Dare, apparently after he stabbed you, and then you up and pretended he tried but... what, missed? And then you had him chucked out.”

“And why,” Dympna drawled slowly, “do y’think I beat the shit outta him? And lied ‘bout it?”

“Fuck, I don’t...” You were too annoyed for this game today. Too restless with the knowledge that once again, somehow, he’d sucked you back in. It wasn’t–

His hand was warm when it settled on your thigh, his fingers softly digging in. Your gasp was embarrassing; the extravagant way your heart tripped over itself and just about slammed into your ribcage was more so. Dympna’s voice came, low and careful, like he was half afraid of startling you straight out of the moving car. The slur from his own inebriation was barely noticeable. “Humour me, hmm? I’ve gotta know what you...”

He didn’t finish, but his thumb was drawing circles on your leg, and even through a layer of fabric, the touch had your stomach tightening, your lungs going taut with the effort of breathing through what the contact represented. Part of you demanded you move away. A smaller part told you to break his god damn presumptuous hand, and maybe his head, too. But that wasn’t most of you. Most of you was aching, and it came to you suddenly that you’d been so fucking cramped, these last few weeks. Cramped, like a knotted muscle, and your body was screaming at you to reach out, stretch towards him, relieve the hurt.

You kept yourself from grabbing him. At this point you weren’t sure if you’d throw him off or do something stupider, like hold on tight. Instead, you tried to focus on the request, on the edgy way he’d made it. It was so much easier than thinking about the hand, heavy on your thigh, just high enough to have you thinking about–