#from further mistakes/misunderstandings

[buck-star]

Cowboys preference| B.B

>> Little did you know that the break up with the cowboys son would lead you toward the cowboy himself who always had a liking in you. <<

Pairing: Cowboy!Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader

Wordcount: 4.186 Words

Warnings: Minors DNI, 18+, ex-boyfriend’s dad, possessiveness, age gap, smut [fingering (fem!rec), semi public sex], bit angst, lots of fluff

Authors Note: Dividers made by me.

Masterlist | Bucky Barnes Masterlist

Bucky’s smirk falters the moment he hears the door cracking open and two voices. He isn’t surprised to hear two different ones — he’s surprised that the one isn’t the person he assumed would come over today. His eyes narrow as the girl laughs — she isn’t supposed to laugh and giggle around his son like that. She isn’t even supposed to be at their house.

“Brock?” Bucky asks, growling as he sees the girl standing next to his son. She is snuggling into his side, holding Brock's arm.

Bucky’s ocean blue eyes roam over her, then toward his son. Both of them have swollen lips and messy hair. He doesn’t even want to know in which corner they made out to look like that, but he knows what else his son's little bitch means.

“Where’s she?” Bucky says in a calm voice. His heart is thrumming against his ribcage, and he needs to use all his willpower to not pin his son by his throat against the wall. Or to pick up that girl next to him to throw her out of the house. “Where’s my Y/N?”

Brock flinches when your name slips past his dad's lips. The girl next to him pulls at his arm — uncomfortable around Bucky and especially to have him staring at them with such an intense expression.

“S-she… we broke up,” Brock mumbles. His eyes dart to the girl next to him, and he lets slightly go of her hand. She looks offended, taking a step to the side while she looks between Brock and his dad. “W-we had some differences and decided to break up.”

“Ya had some differences, or do ya have a different?" Bucky raises an eyebrow. He knows exactly what’s going on, but he wants his son to say it; he wants him to say it in front of the girl he just took home. “A different little toy for ya games? I told ya that my babydoll is special, and if ya ever dare to treat her badly, I will take care of my babydoll, and you can fuck off here.”

Brock's eyes widen, and he shakes his head. “N-no. It’s not like that! Y-you know I- she…” He stutters, his eyes widening as he takes a step to the side, further away from the girl. “It’s all… It’s just a big, really big misunderstanding. I made a mistake; I-i don’t think..."

The moment you took the first step into their house, Bucky was head over heels in love with you. You’re the most precious and sweetest girl he has ever met. He knows about Brock's liking to play with girls, but he made sure that Brock would be better with you — which he definitely isn’t. Bucky’s blood boils, and his heart rate increases while he inhales deeply.

“A mistake? It’s a mistake to treat ya girl like that? She fuckin’ loved ya and ya threw her — ya relationship away — for a girl that wets your fuckin’ cock?” Bucky asks, his voice dangerously low.

Brock backs away; he knows that his dad is protective about you. Your soul is so precious, so soft, and he only wants to protect it from being broken. He doesn’t want your soul to get hurt; he doesn’t want you to get hurt. And his own kid hurt like no one ever should do it.

“Did she see ya kissing her?” Brock's eyes widened at his dad’s question. You didn’t just see them kissing; you saw much more than that. And it wasn’t the first time — you kept it for yourself; another time you talked to him, and he told you he wouldn’t cheat on you again. And here he is — standing in front of his dad, having to explain that the girl next to him — who isn’t you — is the one he cheated on you with.

The look on Brock's face told him everything he had to know. Without another word, he pushes his son to the side and stomps through the floor toward the door. Bucky slams the door shut behind him; with a smooth movement, he takes on his cowboy boots and takes his hat from the door handle.

At some point he started to place his hat at the door handle. He places it firmly on his head, huffing. He can’t believe his son — an immature little boy who doesn’t even know how to take care of such an amazing and sweet girl that you are.

Bucky knows where you are; he knows you better than everyone. Whenever you’re feeling stressed or sad, you’re sitting in the barn on his farm with your favorite horse in the box. You named him, and Bucky can’t help but love the horse just as much as you — maybe it’s because of you, but maybe it’s also because you named him. You named it.

“Babydoll?” Bucky calls you when he enters the barn. The familiar smell of the hay immediately comes to his nostrils, but there is that scent of something so sweet — something he remembers so well. “Babydoll, I know ya’re here. It’s smelling like ya sweet perfume, smelling just like ya sweetness, babydoll.”

You wipe the tears immediately away as you hear Bucky’s voice and his footsteps coming closer to where you are. You should have known that he knows where you are and that he will look for you when Brock comes home alone or maybe even with the girl that just sucked him off.

How stupid you were. Thinking that he would change for you, that he would stop cheating on you. You thought that when Bucky can be such an amazing person, his son could be too, but you were wrong. Brock is the opposite of his dad. And even though things weren't as perfect anymore and your feelings for Brock faded away, you tried to make it work — but Brock didn't, and one-sided just doesn’t work.

“Babydoll, don’t ignore me. Come on, know ya’re in the box with him,” Bucky chuckles as he stops in front of the box and looks into it. He’s seeing you sitting in the corner of the box in the hay. Your eyes are red and puffy, and a low groan escapes his throat.

Bucky hates to see you like that, knowing that his son did this to you. He can’t help the clenching of his heart when he sees you pressed into the corner, your legs close to your chest and your arms wrapped around you. No one dares to hurt his babydoll, no one without consequences.

“Hi, babydoll,” he says softly, walking closer before he lets himself fall into the hay next to you. There is still some distance, but he can smell your sweetness even better now. “Ya know, he’s a dick. He doesn’t deserve ya if he doesn’t know how to treat ya right. Ya’re such a pretty girl, with a beautiful soul.”

You smile softly, turning your head to look at Bucky. His eyes are focused on the horse in front of him, which eats and doesn’t bother to have two guests in his box. You have the urge to grasp his hat and put it on your head; you always do it.

The first time you did it, your ex-boyfriend looked really shocked, while Bucky smirked at you. He loves to see you with his hat; it’s so intimidating and cute. When you asked him why they were staring at you like that, he explained it, and your reaction was the most funny but most adorable thing he has ever seen.

“Ya know, if ya wear a cowboys hat, it means ya his,” Bucky explains with a huge grin on his plump lips. Your eyes widened, and you thought about taking the hat off again, but it felt just so perfect that you didn’t want to take it off. “So, when ya wearin’ my hat, it means ya mine.”

Brock huffed, rolling his eyes about the glistening that sparkled in your orbs. He couldn’t understand the bond you and his dad had; you couldn’t either. At least for a while you couldn’t.

Around Bucky, everything feels just perfect; you feel safe and protected, even loved. You first thought it’s just a typical “girls your age like someone who’s nice and willing to protect them,” but at some point there wasn’t anyone else in your mind when you were alone.

Brock turned more and more into an idiot, and you found comfort in his dad. When Brock started to cheat and you found out your world broke into pieces, Bucky was there. He didn’t know why you were crying when you were suddenly standing in the door; you just said family problems, and he offered you comfort.

Little did you know that Bucky felt loved and happy by giving you comfort. You just sat there, watched the most cheesy movies, baked, or you just were in the stable.

“Ya lookin’ at my hat; do ya want to wear it, babydoll?” His voice interrupts your thoughts, and you feel your cheeks heating up. You should know now that this man notices when you stare at him.

Bucky doesn’t need an answer; he shuffles closer to you and takes his hat to place it on your head. His smile grows as he runs his rough fingers down your cheeks to your chin. He turns your face toward him, his ocean blue eyes staring intensely into yours to see any sign of discomfort.

When he doesn’t see anything but the softness and affection he has with his touch, he keeps his fingers where they are. “He already did it before, didn’t he? He cheated on ya and ya knew it. Did ya see him cheating?”

You swallow thickly as the memories of Brock with the other girl come back to your mind. The way he kneeled in front of you the first time you found out he cheated, his expression pleading that you forgive him for cheating because he didn’t even know why he did it. And you accepted his apology to find out he did it again — he cheated on you so often, you don’t even know how often he cheated with some girls on you.

“H-he…” You trail off, trying to find some more comfort in Bucky’s soft touch. His thumb moves toward your cheek, and he caresses it softly while his fingers wrap around the back of your neck. “He cheated on me really often. I thought he would stop after I found out, but he said he would. But he didn't, and today I saw him getting his… you know, sucked by her.”

Bucky smirks softly when you avoid using the word “cock” or “dick” in front of him. He nods, knowing what you mean. "That's why ya were here so often?”

You nod, then you shake your head. You earn a confused, slightly amused look from Bucky. You run your tongue over your bottom lip, wetting it slightly before you clear your throat to speak again. Bucky’s eyes follow every little movement, his eyes darting from your lips to your eyes, and he chuckles.

“Not just because of that. First yes, kinda. But then there was another reason,” you say softly, leaning more into Bucky’s gentle touch. “But then... with the time I-i lost feelings for Brock after I noticed that he’s still cheating on me. But you… you’re my safe place; when I’m around you, I can be just myself without judgment.”

Bucky grins at you, scooting closer until your legs touch slightly. His softness sends shivers through your body, and you look away with heated cheeks. Those words mean so much more to him than you can imagine. He has dreamed to hear them out of your pretty mouth; he has wished to hear them one day. As much as he’s mad at Brock for pushing you away and fucking another girl, he loves that at least he himself is more for you than just your ex-boyfriend's dad.

“Ya know, ya got my attention the moment ya stepped into our house. But when ya just took my hat, my heart started to beat for ya — it was always a taboo thing since you were with my son. But I got an eye on ya the whole time, babydoll.” Bucky confesses, smirking at you. He can't help himself anymore — he wants to tell you everything he feels for you. He wants to be honest with you, and maybe... Maybe the two of you will have a chance as a couple.

You giggle, then you inhale deeply. You feel guilty, not because you don't feel like Bucky but because of the words you're going to say next. At the same time, you're happy that you can finally say it out loud.

“I stayed with Brock because I thought we could fix it. I thought it at the start, but then it changed. The truth is, I stayed with him because it was the only way to be close to you. I'm just your son's little girlfriend, so you know,” you mumble, looking down at your fingers.

Bucky moves next to you slightly, his face suddenly in front of you, and you notice that he moves to kneel in front of you. His fingers find their way underneath your chin, and he lifts it up. “Ya were never just my son's little girlfriend. Ya were always my babydoll, and ya will be exactly that forever. I love ya more than ya know.”

He opens his arms for you, waiting until you crawl into them. His warm embrace lets you relax immediately. You sigh softly, leaning your back against his broad chest, enjoying the feeling of his fingers trailing up and down your sides. Bucky lowers his head to your neck, his lips just inches away from your sensitive skin, and you shiver in his arms.

“There ya go; do ya trust me? Do ya trust me and let me make ya feel good?” He asks, his voice way lower than before, and you nod, hypnotized by his presence. Bucky chuckles, his warm breath all over the side of your neck and causing goosebumps. Bucky's hands trail lower to your thighs, rubbing and squeezing them carefully. “If ya want me to stop you say it, do ya understand?”

You nod again, earning a harsher squeeze of your thigh. Bucky loves the effect he has on you, but for the moment he needs a proper answer to make sure you understand him. “Y-Yes, I understood, but please...”

Bucky chuckles, his lips finally touching your neck, and you lean even more into him. His soft lips brush over your skin, and you can't help the small whimpers leaving your lips. He slides his metal hand underneath your shirt, caressing the soft skin of your tummy, while he strokes your thigh with his fleshy hand.

“But please, what? Use ya pretty mouth and tell me what ya need." Buck groans into your ear, his fingers sliding further up to your covered cunt. His thick cock is pressing hard against your back, and you can’t help but squirm in his embrace.

“Need you… Bucky, I need you, please,” you whine, throwing your head against his shoulder, looking deep into his blue eyes.

Bucky grins, his lips trailing over your neck, leaving soft kisses all over your skin. You whimper, fingers digging into his thick thighs on both of your sides. He brings his big hands further up your thighs, kneading your soft skin, making you gasp when his rough hands get closer to your pussy.

“That’s what ya need? A man who can take care of ya, don’t ya?” He asks, sucking blue and purple marks into the sensitive skin of your neck. Bucky brings his metal hand to cup your cunt through the pants, massaging you through the fabric.

A soft moan slips past your lips, and Bucky didn’t know he could become more obsessed with you. But after the sweet sound you just made, he can’t help himself but falls even more in love with you.

With his other hands, he opens your pants, his hand sliding into them and underneath your cotton panties. Bucky groans into your neck, kissing along your pulse point. You whimper softly; his fingers are not really cold, but they aren’t as warm as your covered skin either. You shiver under his touch once again. Bucky guides his thick fingers through your folds, humming when he feels the wetness against his rough fingertips.

“Already so wet for me, babydoll.” His voice is low, rougher than usual, and you can’t help the moan that slips past his lips. This man is just too hot for his own good, finger-fucking you in the hay while everyone could walk in and could hear and see the two of you. “Fuck, love ya so much, my precious girl.”

Bucky pushes one of his digits into you, moaning when your tightness sucks him deeper into your warmth. Whines and moans fall from your parted lips, turning Bucky on beyond belief.

You throw your head back; your eyes widen slightly when he starts thrusting into you, immediately hitting your sweet spot. “Fucking shit!”

“No one's ever fucked ya probably?” He asks, earning a shake of your head. He chuckles, increasing his speed slightly while he hits the spot over and over again. “And I’m just fuckin’ ya with my finger. But don’t worry, got ya now, babydoll.”

You nod, whining when he pushes a second digit into you. The stretch is almost more than you ever felt. Brock wasn’t too bad either, but Bucky’s fingers are just so thick — muscular and perfect. Bucky chuckles against your neck, kissing your skin and sucking even more marks into your neck, making sure they are visible.

Pumping his fingers in and out of you makes you see stars already, but when he starts scissoring his fingers and curling them upwards to hit your sweet spot, you feel the look in your stomach tightening.

Your mouth drops open, saliva runs down your chin, and you don’t even try to hold back your moans. Your hips move in the same rhythms as Bucky’s fingers, bringing you closer to your orgasm.

“Mhm-B-Bucky…” you mumble, arching your back. The pleasure he causes with just his fingers is so much better than you have ever experienced before. He grunts, letting you know that he listens to you. “Please, d-do— s-stop.”

Your words don’t even make sense anymore, but you don’t care. Bucky laughs behind you; his free hand placed itself around your throat, pulling you further back until he could look into your face. “Ya want me to stop?”

Before you can answer him, he stops the movements of his fingers, earning a whine. You move your hips, trying to get some friction, but it doesn’t feel as good as before. His fingers don't curl; they don’t hit the spot that makes you see stars.

You lean your head back, causing the hat to almost fall down, but Bucky holds it on top of your head with his shoulder. “Don’t want the hat to fall off ya head, huh. Shows who ya belong to, babydoll. Mine, all mine, aren’t ya, babydoll?”

“Y-yes… y-yours… please— fu-fuck, Bucky,” you moan while you try to form a proper sentence with his fingers still deep inside of you. Bucky grunts once again, his digits moving and pressing against the spongy spot inside of you. You almost scream as pleasure shoots through your body, making it impossible to concentrate on something else but his fingers.

Bucky laughs, kissing your cheek before he moves his fingers again. He just wanted to hear you say that you’re his and that you belong to him. His cock is painfully hard, pressing against his pants, but he doesn’t care; he wants to see you fall apart on his fingers before he thinks about his problem.

“Yeah, come on, babydoll. Come all over my fingers. Can feel that ya close,” he mumbles, bringing his thumb to your clit. He runs his thumb through your folds before circling your clit.

Without another thought or word, you moan his name loudly, your fingers digging into his thick thighs as you come all over his fingers. Your body is shaking, but Bucky doesn’t stop his movements; he thrusts his fingers in a steady but slower rhythm into you, making sure that you can ride your orgasm out.

Your pussy is hugging him tightly; the imagination of how good his cock would fill you comes to his mind, and he groans, thrusting against you from behind.

“Do ya feel that? Fuckin’ hard for ya, babydoll,” he mumbles. Bucky smirks when he sees the soft smile on your lips. You look fucked out, but the smile makes his heart flatter. “Fucked ya so good, can’t even form proper words? It’s okay, I’m gonna take care of ya.”

You nod, breathing still heavy, and sweat is covering your forehead. Saliva is still dripping down your chin, and Bucky tilts your head so he can lick away your spit. A groan leaves his plump lips as he swallows. His tongue darts out once more, licking away more of your saliva.

“Tastin’ good. Now lemme taste ya sweet pussy…” he mumbles more to himself as he removes his fingers from your cunt. A soft pout forms on your lips, and Bucky can’t help but chuckle at your sweet expression. “Jus’ being fucked by me and already wantin’ more? Such a good girl, my good girl.”

Bucky brings both of his thick fingers to his lips, pushing them between his lips as a low, pornographic moan leaves his lips. “Fuckin’ shit, could eat ya out all day.”

“What—“ an almost high-pitched voice comes from the entrance, and Bucky turns around, looking at his son. You’re still sitting between his thighs, your head resting against his shoulder and your hat on your head. Bucky still has his fingers in his mouth, sucking on them while he stares at Brock.

His son's face heats up, an expression between disgust and anger on his face while he looks from Bucky at you and back at his father. It’s not hard to find out what the two of you just did, especially not since Brock heard some of your talks and then moans.

“Did you just— fuck, take your fingers out of your mouth. You just fucked my girlfriend!” Brock growls at his dad. He rolls his eyes, annoyed, and waits for Bucky to do as he’s told.

Bucky slowly pulls his fingers with a plop out of his mouth, stroking one of your sides with one hand while he glares at Brock. Bucky didn’t pull his fingers out of his mouth because his son said so; he did it to smirk at him before speaking.

“Ya girlfriend? My babydoll isn’t ya girlfriend. Ya pushed her away and fucked around. Ya think I will let anyone touch my girl who isn’t me?” Bucky asks in a dangerously calm tone. “I don’t even let ya touch her unless she wants ya to. But do we want to ask her?”

You shake your head, not wanting Brock to touch you. “I’m yours, Bucky, all yours, cowboy,” you giggle and look at him. Bucky’s attention is all in you when you speak, his ocean blue eyes glistening with love and affection when he leans down to press a kiss to your forehead, then down over your nose until he pecks your lips softly.

“Don’t ya worry, ya get lots of kisses. And then I can make ya feel good all night,” Bucky smirks at you, then he turns his face toward his son again. “‘Cause ya planned to be with ya girlfriend anyway, right?”

Brock looks down, nodding. Bucky smirks, shaking his head — he never thought his son would be that stupid to push you away, but he’s happy he did. Because Bucky loves you, he really does, and you will show you in every way possible. He doesn’t care what Brock says about Bucky’s loving you. As long as he has you, as long as you’re happy and get everything he can give you, he will never care about anyone else but you.

“My babydoll, I love ya,” he mumbles and gets up, lifting you after Brock walked back to his car to meet his girlfriend like he had planned to do anyway before he caught the two of you.

“I love you too, my cowboy,” you giggle. You can’t help the way you carve your lips, so you lean your head closer toward his and press your lips against Bucky’s plump ones. He groans, massaging your ass and deepening the kiss, letting your tongue dance with one another's. His babydoll with his hat, you made him crazy the first time he saw you, when you first wore his head, and now you belong to the cowboy, and you couldn’t be happier. Not when you have the sweetest and most caring man you can ask for, your Bucky, your cowboy.

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Taglist: @pono-pura-vida @sergeantbarnessdoll @rogersbarber @kimmie113080

[hgfictionwriter]

Self Control: Part Two - Trying

Jessie Fleming x Reader

Summary: The baby fever is real. Jessie and you can’t keep your hands off each other as you work to start your family.

Warnings: Smut. G!P Jessie. Sexting. Edging. G!P (girl penis) sex. Preg and breeding kinks.

A/N: G!P Jessie/Control series. The series won’t be purely smut, I’m envisioning lots of romance and fluff. But, if the moment seems right, so be it lol.

“I keep seeing babies everywhere. Istg.”

“Yeah? Well I keep seeing places we can fuck to make sure we have a baby.”

“I’m sorry. That was really inappropriate 😣. It seemed like a good response in the moment. What I legitimately have been thinking about is how effin beautiful you’ll be when you start to show.”

“Baby lol. It’s fine. I’m not bothered.”

“And yeah? Can’t wait to see me swell with your baby? I can’t wait either. I’m picturing your hands all over me as I start to grow round, carrying your baby.”

Jessie felt that familiar sensation between her legs and immediately closed her phone, replanting her feet on the ground and shifting uncomfortably as she felt herself starting to grow hard at the thought of you. She did her best to casually readjust her shorts and clasped her hands together, resting them over her burgeoning hard-on and tried to think of something entirely unsexy.

This was new territory for Jessie. Normally she wouldn’t be worried about such things, control was rarely an issue, but now? Everything was turning her on. Janine talked about shopping earlier - something that would typically do absolutely nothing for Jessie, but this time all she could think about was fucking you in the changing room and cumming as deep inside of you as possible.

She honed in on a nearby conversation some teammates were having about gameplay tactics. Perfect - that would do the trick.

Staving off further arousal, Jessie picked up her phone again.

“Okay. You need to stop. I’m getting…excited. And that’s not cool at the moment.”

“You started this!”

“Not my fault you get turned on by me so easily 😘”

“Ugh. It’s the worst lol. You’re so lucky. You can get turned on and no one would be the wiser. Me? Yeah, the team would have a field day.”

“Well everyone’s gonna know what we’ve been up to when we tell them I’m pregnant.”

“You’re such a tease.”

They didn’t actually know yet if you were pregnant or not. It’d only been a week since that morning when you finally let her cum inside of you. But you’d both been feral since. Every conversation was like this.

And if it wasn’t like this, it was both of you ooing and awwing at anything even remotely baby related. You were talking about names, schools, lessons and sports, family dynamics, everything. You were both looking at baby clothes, debating what features your baby would inherit from her, from you, imagining cute moments and milestones, the list went on.

The baby fever was real.

The day this all started, Jessie’d grown more and more anxious as the day went on. She was desperately worried that she’d forced you into something you didn’t actually want, that she’d taken advantage in the heat of the moment and that you’d changed your mind. It was a huge commitment and a huge change that you’d acted on on a whim.

Her thoughts had been rattling around in her head and - you knew her so well - you’d inquired when she was quieter than usual. Jessie’d blurted out her concerns, barely taking a breath and her voice even trembling as she offered to get you Plan B if you wanted it and swore to wear a condom next time.

You’d given her a puzzled look, looking upset even. She remembered distinctly how you questioned if she didn’t want to start a family together. If it was her who thought she’d made a mistake, because it certainly wasn’t you. You’d take Plan B if she wanted you to, but as far as you were concerned and wanted, you were trying for a baby.

That brief misunderstanding was quickly resolved - to the point of you two fucking on the couch. Things got so heated Jessie ended up fucking you onto the floor before cumming deep inside of you once more.

That night, instead of Jessie going to the pharmacy to get you Plan B, she got you prenatal vitamins instead.

Since then, you two couldn’t keep your hands off of each other. You’d always been hot for one another, but this was a whole new level.

So here Jessie sat, leg bobbing up and down as she struggled to stay focused on matters at hand and trying desperately to distract herself from thinking of going home to you and making sure that 9 months from now you’d be bringing a little baby Fleming, or [y/last name], home together.

Her phone buzzed.

“Maybe so 😉. Hey, we still have dinner with Sam and Kelli tonight, right?”

Jessie nearly groaned. Not that she didn’t enjoy spending time with them, but, well, it delayed her plans.

“Right. I love them, but, that’s going to be torture.”

“Why is that?”

Jessie smirked. You knew exactly why.

“You’re really trying to mess with me.”

“You’re just too much fun.”

——————

Jessie held the car door as you stepped into the back of Sam’s car. Jessie got in after you as you scooted over and Kelli climbed into the front.

Dinner was great - the fact that it was late into the night now was a testament to the good food and conversation. Jessie spent a solid portion of the evening likely staring at you adoringly - she loved how easily you got along with her teammates and you really were her favourite person.

At the same time, dinner was entirely too long. Jessie’d contended with stray touches from you on her thigh, her waist, arms, etc. all night long. And it was taking significant effort to remain engaged in conversation and to not let herself get too handsy with you.

As Sam drove you both home, Jessie’s phone buzzed.

“It’s been so hard keeping my hands off of you tonight.”

“I’m not entirely sure you kept your hands off of me lol. Not that I’m complaining.”

“Shut up lol. I can’t help it if you looked so sexy. Seeing you sitting there all I could think about was sinking myself down onto your cock and riding you.”

Jessie’s eyes immediately snapped up off her screen to focus elsewhere as she silently exhaled through her mouth. Her eyes darted around before braving a look your direction and seeing the teasing smirk on your face.

Jessie exhaled once more as she brought up her phone again.

“You’re such a jerk.”

“The only thing I want to jerk is you.”

“Omg. You’re such a dork and yet you’re still turning me on.”

“That’s because you’re a dork, too, dear lol.”

“Seriously though, I want my legs wrapped around you while you fuck me deep and hard. Like you’ve been thinking about me all day.”

Jessie’s cheeks puffed out as she worked to remain composed. Despite her effort, she felt herself starting to stiffen at the thought of your tight, slick tunnel gripping her. She shot you a helpless stare.

She watched as you shifted your eyes towards Sam and Kelli up front; she followed your gaze. They were animatedly talking with one another, Jessie wasn’t entirely sure about what and she didn’t get a chance to decipher it before she felt your hand sneak across her leg and cup her slowly stiffening cock through her pants.

Jessie jolted in her seat, her eyes immediately scanning between their two friends to see if they noticed. Thankfully they were blissfully unaware. She shot you a look somewhere between a warning and pleading.

You bit your bottom lip as your hand slowly caressed Jessie through her pants. Jessie couldn’t stop her head from falling back slightly as she felt herself growing into your waiting and attentive hand. She grit her teeth and straightened her posture, inadvertently pushing herself further into your hand, the friction causing her cock to twitch.

“-what do you think, Jess?”

“Huh?” Jessie asked, her eyes widening and your hand immediately retracting. She shot a glance to Sam in the rearview mirror. “Sorry what?”

“Snow storm or monsoon?”

Jessie shifted in her seat again, nearly wincing at how her cock strained against her pants. She blinked repeatedly and swallowed as she tried to compose a response.

“Snow. Canadian. I’ve had enough rain,” she managed.

Kelli slapped playfully at Sam’s arm.

“Told you,” she said before the two continued talking.

Jessie was working to steady her breath when her phone buzzed again.

“I wish you could feel how absolutely wet I am for you. I think I’ve soaked through my panties.”

Jessie puffed out her cheeks with a silent exhale of exasperation as she palmed her thighs and shifted uncomfortably once more. If she wasn’t fully hard before, she was now. She looked up at the roof of the car in a vain attempt to settle down before she shot you a mild glare.

Finally, the car slowed and pulled over in front of your building.

The girls all exchanged their goodbyes. You thankfully exuding charm and warmth that Jessie lacked in the moment as her mind raced to plan an exit that would conceal her raging hard on as best as possible. Thank god it was dark out, but still. If she got out of this car and Kelli or Sam clocked her tented pants she’d never, ever hear the end of it.

She shot you a glare despite herself as you tossed your sweater at her. She bundled it up and held it against her as she climbed out.

“You’re welcome,” you said teasingly as the girls drove off and you two walked inside. Jessie shot you another look when you snickered at how she was walking.

“You’re mean,” Jessie pouted as she continued to complain about how uncomfortable this felt.

The moment they got into the elevator, Jessie pinned you against the wall and crashed into your lips with a heated kiss. Your hand immediately cupped Jessie’s bulge, massaging it. Jessie’s eyes screwed shut as a strong wave of arousal rushed through her. Goosebumps raised across her skin as your breath was suddenly hot in her ear.

“When you sink your cock into me a minute from now I doubt you’ll think I’m so mean.”

Jessie’s cock twitched under your hand, pulling a grin and a soft chuckle out of you.

“Jesus Christ. What are you doing to me?” Jessie asked as she ground her aching cock against your hand.

The elevator dinged and you both exited towards your apartment. You retrieved your keys and, according to Jessie, took your sweet time opening the door.

“You’re doing this on purpose,” Jessie growled under her breath, her arms wrapped around your middle as she kissed the back of your neck.

“What do you mean?” You asked impishly as you rolled your hips back into her much like you had the morning that started this all.

The moment the door swung open, Jessie ushered you inside, carelessly dropping your sweater and purse aside as she hoisted you into her arms and pressing your back into the wall as she kissed you hard.

A wanting gasp escaped you followed by another as soon as Jessie rocked her hips into you. She let out a low moan at the fleeting relief the friction provided.

Jessie only managed a couple more wanton thrusts before she lowered you and began tearing your clothes off.

“Get rid of these,” she ordered as she peeled each item off with urgency.

“You too,” you panted as you unzipped her pants and shoved them down her legs while she quickly raised her hands over her head removing her shirt and sports bra. You moaned hungrily as she tossed them aside, her hair now unruly, her lean but muscular physique on full display as stood there in just her tented boxers.

“God, you couldn’t be more gorgeous,” you told her as you took a step back, bracing yourself against the wall and devouring her with your eyes. “I couldn’t be more proud to have you as the mother of our child. I’m so lucky.”

“I’m the lucky one,” Jessie exhaled as she took off her boxers, her aching cock finally free of its confines and standing at full attention for you. She rushed toward you, closing the space between you, you wrapping you legs around her trim waist immediately as she lifted you.

Your kiss broke off as both of your jaws fell slack as she entered you. Her senses went wild as the tip stretched your entrance and slid in, her length immediately surrounded by your hot, fluttering heat.

“Oh fuck,” she breathed as her forehead rolled against yours in ecstasy. She subconsciously stretched out her jaw a couple of times as she adjusted to the sensations. “Fuck, you’re dripping wet, baby.”

“I wasn’t kidding earlier,” you said breathlessly, your fingers digging into her strong shoulders, you mouth still agape in the wake of her filling you so exquisitely.

Jessie’s fingers dug into the flesh of your ass as she began to pump in and out of you, slowly withdrawing before surging upwards and to the hilt. Measured, for now.

“God, I can’t describe how amazing you feel. I’m addicted,” she told you as she worked to control her breathing “Everything reminds me of you. I just want to make you feel as good as you make me feel.”

“I love you, Jess,” you nearly whined as she filled you again and again, sending waves of pleasure through you.

Jessie’s thrusts started to pick up, hips jerking up into you with gradually increasing urgency.

“Gonna make you a mommy,” she panted into your neck as she rut into you. “You’re going to be such a good mom. I already know. Can’t wait to see you heavy with my baby. Can’t wait to show you off,” she went on, voice shuddering with each thrust.

Your moans grew wild and when you rocked against Jessie to meet her thrusts, she grunted, hips slapping against you in a couple more punctuated thrusts before she maneuvered you both to the floor. She was careful as she set you down and remained buried deep inside of you the entire time.

“Oh fuck, Jess,” you whispered. “You fuck me so good. I love spreading my legs for you.”

Jessie flexed over top of you, pushing herself as deep as she could with each thrust as she brought her hand to your clit and rubbed your throbbing clit.

“God, I’m gonna cum already,” Jessie panted.

You moaned deeply as you kissed her. “Me too. I’ve been waiting for this all day. Make me yours - cum inside me.”

Jessie grunted as she felt that familiar tension rising and starting to radiate out. The pleasure was so great it was nearly painful.

She blinked hard several times as she focused on staving off her orgasm until she felt you tense up beneath her, a cry falling from your lips.

No amount of focus or determination could’ve held her climax at bay with the way you were mewling beneath her and how your pussy pulsed even tighter around her cock.

“Here it comes,” she panted, stray tendrils of sweaty hair falling from her face as she dug her feet into the floor to bury herself deep inside of you as she came.

Jessie surprised herself as she nearly yelled as she exploded inside of you, her entire body tensing up as rope after rope of her seed filled you.

It was many moments later before anyone spoke.

“Who needs a bed when we just fuck on the floor all the time now?” You laughed.

“I’m so sorry. I just couldn’t help myself. I promise I’ll take you to bed next time,” Jessie said as she finally wiped the sweat from her brow and went to shift off of you. A quiet grin crossed her face as you clutched her waist and held her in place with a pointed look.

“It’s okay, Jess,” you chuckled after assuring that she wouldn’t pull out. “You might as well have your way with me now because when I’m big as a house we’ll have to be a bit more mindful.”

“Oh God,” Jessie groaned as a renewed wave of tension went through her. She felt blood starting to flow back to her length already. “Careful, baby. You were complaining about how you’ve barely been able to sit down - you’re not going to get any reprieve tonight if you keep that talk up.”

You kissed her through a cheeky grin.

“Complaining is a strong word. I consider myself lucky you have the stamina you do.”

A/N: Part Three is available here.

[orikiys]

✿ ✿ 〞arguements with skz

✰ pairings :  ot8!skz x gn!reader

✰ genre : angst

✰ warnings :  heavy angst, mentions of toxic behavior in some, misunderstandings, failing to communicate

✰ word count :   2.7k + words

part 2

౨₊ৎ chan

"why are you so angry about all this?"

“you’re seriously asking me that?” his brows raised in disbelief as he spoke.

this what you two had been dealing with lately. unnecessary fights and constant bickering over anything. even today, a weekend, which chan called his ‘golden day’ , you two were yelling across the room.

“yes i am. and i’ll keep asking till you stop acting petty,” you looked him dead in the eye now. your faces were edging closer and closer to his, a defiant glare sparkling in your eyes. chan glared back, but he looked away as quickly, not being able to look at you when you two were fighting. he was used to the warm and admiring gazes, but not these sharp and angry stares. it made his stomach churn with the thought, what if you both got tired of fighting one day?

“if you’re not going to open your mouth no one will be sleeping tonight,” your voice snaps him back to reality, he silently stares at the floor with his head hung low.

“you know i hate him, don't you? i’ve told this story to you like a thousand times already and yet you still talked to him! do you think that’s fair?” he raised his voice and immediately regretted it. but there was no taking it back now. words can only be taken back in laptops or phones, not in real life.

“i just talked to him for barely even two minutes, chan! you’re being ridiculous at this point. do you think this is fair?” you cock your eyebrow at him, not hesitating to raise your voice as well since he walked down that path first.

“it doesn’t matter how long you talked, the point is you talked even after knowing our rough past. it’s almost like you don’t care about me or my feelings anymore! you’ve changed. you’ve become. . . selfish,” ouch. that had to hurt. and chan noticed the way your eyes instantly dulled. he licked his lower lip anxiously and watched as your frown deepened.

there were no further words uttered from your side which made him realise just how far he went, “babe. . . i- sorry,” the words were stuck in his throat and he could practically feel the tears building in his eyes as you took a shaky breath. he took a step closer and raised his hand to touch your face, but you avoided that and walked away.

maybe it was selfish indeed. or maybe not, he wished to not answer that as he sat on the couch and dragged a hand across his face filled with guilt. and as he stared at the hallway where you walked out, he could only hope to turn back the time and undo his mistake. but for now, he needed to wait. or fight for you.

౨₊ৎ minho

minho let out a frustrated groan when he felt the couch dip beside him. he threw a mere glance, before opening his laptop and typing something. it was unusual of him to act this frustrated and even when you tried to talk to him he glared in your way.

“i understand you’re having a bad day but it doesn’t mean that you can act however you want,” you muttered and scooted away from him before crossing your arms over your chest.

“then simply don’t understand,” he muttered nonchalantly and leaned closer to the laptop screen as he typed. this infuriated you even more.

“can you at least pretend to care? i’m not a statue sitting beside you!” his gaze shifted to you and he pressed his lips into a straight line.

“of course i will! should i even leave my job and tell my boss that my partner wanted to argue with me while i work?” sarcasm dropped all over his tone and it made you nauseous. you couldn’t believe your ears thay minho, lee minho was acting this way. he rolled his eyes and muttered a ‘thought so’ , upon seeing you go quiet and diverted his gaze back to the laptop in front of him.

“why do you have to make everything so difficult? why can’t you just talk like normal people do?” your gaze hardened and he could feel it. rolling his eyes, he switched his gaze back to you and saw you, a new you. your jaw was clenched harshly it was almost as if you were a ticking time bomb, just finding the right time and you could explode.

but minho was no less. the last thing he wanted was to submit his work after his deadline. and time was ticking as always. it doesn’t wait for him.

“the world doesn’t revolve around you! you need to know that. i have submissions to make and i can’t afford to lose my job when i’m this close to getting promoted,” with a final look he picked up his laptop and marched into your shared room. you poked your inner cheek with a tongue and wiped a lone tear that dripped on your cheek. this was going to be one hell of a night. and what hurt you even more is that he didn't even try.

౨₊ৎ changbin

changbin just unlocked the door to your shared apartment and quietly took off his shoes before slipping in the flip-flops. his heart dropped out it’s chest when he saw the date and time. it was two minutes past three. and he wasn’t surprised when the lights flicked on and there you stood, with an exhausted expression and wearing formals.

“shit. . . babe i’m so sorry-“

“you’re sorry?” your scoff definitely took him back. he stared at you nervously and felt his palms get clammy.

“if you’re sorry then you wouldn’t have forgotten our second anniversary! if you’re sorry then you wouldn’t have forgotten our booking! and if you’re really sorry then you would’ve at least called!” you yelled loudly and he could feel himself grow annoyed even though he was at fault.

“babe, i’ve had a tiring day and a bad headache. could you please not shout?” his soft tone took you by surprise but there was disappointment all over your face as he simply began to walk away.

“that’s it then? you’re just walking away like that? like a coward running away from his problems?” your throat felt dry when his head turned and his eyes met yours. his brows were furrowed in anger and he took a step towards you.

“me? a coward? if working my ass off means i’m a coward then maybe i am one. but i’m not running away from my problems. i’m simply solving them at the right times,” he muttered and gave you a tight smile.

“right time, huh? then why can’t you appear at the right times during our dates?” you replied, weakly. you were tired too. tired of his excuses, his empty promises, his apologies. they felt like nothing anymore. he had let you down too many times.

he opened his mouth to say something but closed it back again realising it could worsen the situation. with a soft sigh, he pressed his lips to your head and muttered a sorry before walking away.

maybe, the right time required you both to sit down and talk calmly.

hyunjin

“baby,” you hummed in response, making him continue, “i have a tour coming up so i’ll be gone for two months.”

the words slipped his mouth so easily as if he almost didn’t care. he came back home a week ago. out of which, he spent more than half of his time occupied at the company.

“you just came back!” the exasperation was visible in your tone and hyunjin bit his lip, feeling guilty. he cupped your face and said, “i’ll call you everyday, i promise.”

with a glare you shrugged his hands off and sat straighter to get your point clear, “if i wanted a boyfriend who can only call me why didn’t i just go for long distance?”

hyunjin’s expression changed. he ran a hand through his hair harshly, “i thought you knew what you were getting to when you started dating me.”

“yes i did! i still do. but that doesn’t change the fact that you have the upper hand in your life. which means you should be able to make some time for me?” it felt pathetic, to beg for his time. to sit there at home waiting for him. always. like the desperate being you were. and you began to even pity yourself.

“how long do i have to wait for you hyun? just how long?” and as the tears finally slipped through, hyunjin pulled you in a tight hug. he let you hit him. he let you curse him. and in the end he didn’t let you walk and slip away. but maybe, trying harder would be better. the thing that stung the most was time. time that he didn't have for you. time that he promised he would give, but never did. maybe it was time to take some right decisions for both of you.

౨₊ৎ han

you had been trying to get your boyfriend to talk to you for about 15 minutes now. it was a chore. it was exhausting. but you knew something was wrong and you weren't going to let him suffer alone.

“what’s your problem?” he snapped. annoyance written bold on his forehead as he stared at you, waiting for an answer.

“you’re too unusually quiet today,” you muttered under your breath but he managed to hear it.

it was one of those days where the two of you didn’t hold back.

“oh so now you decide whether i talk or not?” you sighed noticing him still look annoyed.

“don’t put words in my mouth jisung,” your eyes warned him, and he snapped himself out of it before covering his face with his hands.

“can you just go away for now?” he whispered and looked at you. he looked so . . . tired.

“is that a request or a warning?” your joke had no smiles, neither out of you nor him. he expectantly looked at you making you bitterly nod to yourself.

“always has to be me,” and even though it reached his ears he gave no expression, seemingly feel his head throb with thinking too much. he slammed his hands on the desk it made him feel better, maybe not much. but it did not fill the gap in his chest. and it hurt him to reach this point.

౨₊ৎ felix

“lix, i don’t think i can do this anymore,” you muttered and looked away knowing that one look at his face would have you running back in his arms. you had become that weak for him. that weak that you couldn’t resist him or his lies.

“what do you mean baby?” he looked so confused that you almost felt guilty, but then you remembered that he was just being innocent. as if he didn’t lie to you a hundred times. as if he didn’t cause you pain and misery almost everyday.

“i’m tired of you, lix. i’m also tired of us. how long are you going to make me suffer?” your tone caught him by surprise. he stared at you baffled, trying to find words to make you stop speaking like that anymore but he chose to remain quiet when he saw that look of sadness take up on your expression.

“i know we fight a lot babe but i swear i love you,” he held your hands in his hands and pressed a tender kiss while looking at you.

there it was. those words he uttered again, just like always. he would hurt you and then later on he would sweet talk you. and you had grown extremely tired of it.

shrugging his hands off you took a step back, “that’s it felix! if you try to manipulate me once more i’m breaking up with you!”

his brows furrowed in confusion. he didn’t know what you were playing at, but he wasn’t going to back off after being told those words.

“manipulate? i’m simply trying to remain calm! but looks like all my efforts are going in vain,” hurt spread all across his face as he said it. maybe you overthinking it, or maybe not. but one thing was clear, you both hurt each other in ways you didn’t know.

“you always do this! make promises you can’t keep and then talk me out of it,” and even though you stood firm with your decision, you weren’t a fool to not notice the way his shoulders slumped down, and his mouth turn downwards forming a frown.

“what more do i have to do to make you believe that i a sincere about this, about us?” he let out an exasperated sigh after pointing between the two of you.

“just be honest and love me,” and as you uttered those words, your eyes met his and you could see the way it reflected deep sorrow and perhaps guilt? you couldn’t name it.

with a dejected nod, he grabbed his wallet, bag and phone before rushing out of the house.

“i’ll be staying over at chan’s,” he muttered giving you one final look, as if telling you to stop him. but you didn’t, you just nodded and looked away.

he felt all his hopes shatter down upon that one thing, all the things he dreamt of for future could be seen crumbling down and all he could do was let out a shaky breath with his hand trembling all the while as he drove away.

౨₊ৎ seungmin

“where were you?” he practically shouted, startling you.

“i told you i was out with some friends,” you replied, trying to be the calm one.

“some friends? or a special friend?” his tone felt poisonous. it felt unfamiliar on his tongue to speak in this way but he tried not to look too fazed.

“what is that supposed to mean?” you replied pointedly, totally forgetting about remaining calm and stared at him.

“you know exactly what i mean,” his voice lowered down for a second and so did the anger in his gaze, but he held contact wanting you to know it was serious.

“i’ve called you like a million times and i was worried sick because you didn’t tell me where you went!”

“i can take care of myself, seungmin.”

“sure you can, but i don’t trust the other men,” he sighed and his eyes finally softened.

“good night,” he mumbled and walked away, leaving you standing all alone. things were getting better for worse? or for better?

౨₊ৎ jeongin

“stop shouting,’’ he said. It almost made you scoff when he was the one who started it.

“babe it wasn’t funny you know that?’’ you muttered, dejected but he just looked away not having any words to speak.

“i understand they are your friends but you can’t just go and tell them about my problems like that!’’ jeongin let out a deep sigh and looked at you.

“i thought maybe they could help in a way. they’re like my family.’’

“still. you could’ve at least asked me before telling them, you’re basically feeding off every bit of my secrets and i’m even scared to tell you anything now,’’ now that sounded ridiculous to him. you could trust him, and he wanted you to know that.

“you’re clearly overreacting. i just told them why you were feeling off,’’ he ran a hand through his hair growing frustrated that you both didn’t understand each other.

“you gave them the entire speech jeongin. don’t you dare lie to my face!’’ that was the high point. the two of you looked at each other with an abnormally furious gaze. and it made you realise just how long would it take for this to end?

“i’m not lying! Why don’t you understand me? i was just trying to make you feel better!’’

“if you wanted to make me feel better then you could’ve talked to me! and not them!’’

a minute of silence was all that was heard before you took your cue to speak, “am i dating you or am i dating them?’’ the tears came as quickly as they fell. you had grabbed your coat and bag, heading for the door. you didn't think anything else could hurt you. but you were wrong.

what hurt the most was that he didn't stop you.

[joelsrose]

Guns and Roses: Chapter 8

here she iss eeeek insert monkey hiding emoji im scaredddd of yallll haha side note - i lowkey picture Caleb as Adam Brody from Nobody wants this but imagine him as you wish

previous chapters

The air thickened, suffocating and heavy, as Tommy’s words sank deep, each one like a leaden weight dropping into the quiet depths of your mind.

Joel was gone.

The world seemed to tilt, a hollow ache unfurling within your chest, spreading with a pang that left you breathless. Just yesterday, he had been here, a solid, reassuring presence beside you. How was it possible that he had simply… vanished?

His warmth clung to you, hauntingly vivid—the scent of his worn flannel lingering in the air like a ghost. You could still feel the subtle intimacy of that final night together, the easy quiet that had stretched between you beneath a sky scattered with stars. His shoulder had pressed against yours in quiet solidarity, his steady breaths breaking the silence, grounding you in a way you hadn’t fully appreciated until now.

Every detail replayed, sharpened by his absence, each memory carving a deeper hollow within you. He had spoken softly, apologizing, explaining, baring a part of himself he rarely showed, and you had made a promise—a desperate promise that he wouldn’t lose you.

And now, with that promise hanging in the still, empty air, you felt like you could hardly breathe.

Late last night, he’d lain beside you, his hand warm and grounding on your arm, each gentle stroke of his fingers slow and tender, as if he was memorizing the shape of you. Those soft, lingering touches left you breathless, daring you to imagine a world where this could last—where he might finally be yours.

Now, that memory felt fragile, like something barely grasped from the edges of a fading dream, slipping further away the more desperately you tried to hold onto it. The warmth, the tenderness, the quiet promise nestled in his touch—it was all dissolving into something hazy and unreachable, leaving only the ache of his absence behind.

Questions surged, one after another, relentless and raw.

Why now? Why after all the moments that tethered you to him? Had you misstepped, said something to push him away, or was it something left unspoken?

Or, perhaps, had this always been inevitable, a slow unraveling that you’d been too afraid to see?

Your voice wavered, a faint tremor betraying the fragile hope you clung to—a hope that, somehow, this was all just a mistake.

A simple misunderstanding.

Maybe Tommy had it wrong. Maybe Joel was only out gathering supplies or down at the market, grabbing something for dinner, about to walk back through the door with that familiar, unhurried stride. Any moment now, you told yourself, as if willing him into existence.

“What do you mean, he’s gone?” The question slipped from your lips, barely more than a whisper, hanging thick in the quiet air. The weight of it lingered, pressing into the silence, as though waiting—just as you were—for an answer that might make everything right again.

Tommy’s face tightened, worry etching lines deep into his brow, his gaze heavy with a fear he was barely holding back.

“He left early this morning,” Tommy murmured, his voice low and thick with a heaviness he couldn’t quite hide. “Just before dawn. The folks at the gate saw him with Ellie, said it looked like they were headed out on a quick supply run.”

He paused, swallowing as his eyes drifted past you, as though searching for some unseen answer. “But… they haven’t come back. Hours have gone by, and their places are empty—Ellie’s room, Joel’s…” His words trailed off, and his gaze shifted, a shadow of dread flickering across his face. “I don’t see any of his things downstairs. Not a trace.”

Each word settled into the silence between you, the weight of what he wasn’t saying sinking in, thick and foreboding.

Your heart seemed to stop, caught in a painful, suspended beat, as though time itself had faltered. The familiar sight of Joel’s worn work boots by the door, his rifle resting against the wall, his jacket—a constant, comforting fixture draped in your doorway—was gone. The absence felt like a wound, a piece of him violently torn from the space you’d shared, leaving nothing but a hollow, unsettling silence in its place.

Tommy paced the room, his shoulders rigid, his eyes locked on the floor as if searching for some hidden answer in the worn planks. “Did he… did he say anything to you? Act… different?” His voice broke, the words laced with a frantic desperation he couldn’t quite mask, each syllable threaded with a rising panic he fought to keep at bay.

“No… no, he didn’t say anything,” you stammered, the words barely escaping as panic coiled tighter around your throat.

Tommy’s gaze softened, but there was something raw in his eyes, a disbelief that seemed to waver, shaking the resolve he was so desperately clinging to. “Joel… he doesn’t just disappear like that. Not him.” His voice cracked, the tension in his tone betraying the fear he tried to bury beneath his words. “We’ve already got people out looking, but…”

“What if… what if something happened to them?” The question slipped out, trembling, every syllable weighted with the dark possibility you’d been trying to keep at bay.

“Hey.” Tommy stepped closer, his hand settling firmly on your shoulder, a solid, grounding presence amid the chaos spiraling through your mind. “We don’t know that,” he said, his voice calm but charged with urgency. “They’re tough—you know they are. But we need to move, and we need to move fast.”

A surge of determination flooded through you, sweeping away the fear that had nearly anchored you in place. You took a steadying breath, nodding to Tommy, and followed him out of the room, each step quick and resolute despite the dull ache pulsing through your leg. The discomfort faded into the background, pushed aside by the urgency driving you forward—there was no space for weakness, not now.

As you stepped outside, the sun had already dipped low, casting a fierce, amber glow over the horizon. The world was bathed in a fading warmth, a fleeting light slipping into shadow as dusk descended, cloaking everything in quiet anticipation.

No matter where they were, no matter how far you’d have to go, you would find them—no matter the cost, no matter the sacrifice. Joel had been your anchor in the storm, the steady, unbreakable presence who had saved you more times than you could count. He’d been there, unwavering, his voice guiding you through the darkest nights, his strength carrying your burdens when you could no longer bear them alone.

Now, it was your turn to be relentless. You owed him that much.

•••

You and Tommy rode through the wilderness on horseback, moving silently under the cover of night. The rhythmic hoofbeats thudded against the ground, muffled by a thick layer of fallen leaves, the only sound breaking the oppressive quiet. The moon hung high above, casting silver shadows over the trees, but offered little warmth, and even less comfort. There was no calling out, no shouting their names; a single echo could draw attention from raiders—or worse, infected lurking in the woods, hidden in the inky dark.

The hours dragged on, each minute blurring into the next, stretching into an eternity as you scoured the trail. Your flashlight cut through the dark, casting narrow beams over twisted branches, scattered leaves, the faint outlines of abandoned cabins and crumbling fences—yet there was nothing.

No trace of Joel or Ellie. You searched desperately for any sign: footprints, a drop of blood, anything to tell you they’d passed this way.

The air bit into your skin, each gust of wind stinging your cheeks, but you barely registered the cold. It felt distant, insignificant against the gnawing dread growing steadily in your chest. With every step, the silence pressed heavier, yet you refused to slow, driven by a single thought—finding them, whatever it took.

Tommy rode slightly ahead, his gaze darting to the shadows that moved along with the trees. He would glance back at you now and then, his expression a mix of determination and worry, as if he shared the same stubborn resolve but feared what he might find—or not find—in the end.

Each mile you covered without a trace of them chipped away at your hope, your initial conviction giving way to an aching uncertainty. You felt your heart race with each bend in the trail, hoping, praying that around this corner, or maybe the next, you’d see them, that familiar, solid figure of Joel watching over Ellie as he always did. But every turn led only to more shadows, the dark swallowing each ounce of hope you tried to cling to.

The cold seeped deeper into your bones as the hours passed, a slow, creeping chill that even the steady, jostling movement of the horse couldn’t shake. Your grip on the reins tightened, knuckles white, muscles tense as you fought to keep moving, refusing to let your exhaustion show.

But as the night wore on and your flashlight flickered in and out, casting faint shadows along the trail, a heavy realization settled over you.

You were running out of time.

•••

You found yourself back at Tommy and Maria’s house, the quiet weight of the late hour pressing down on everything. Maria stayed close, her hand a gentle but firm presence on your shoulder as she guided you to sit, her movements tender. “Just take a moment, sweetheart,” she murmured, pressing a warm mug of tea into your trembling hands. Her voice was low, soft as a lullaby, each word laced with quiet reassurance. But the comfort felt thin, hollow—a shadow of solace in the absence of the one thing you truly needed.

A surge of frustration flared within you, hot and suffocating, threatening to consume the fragile composure you clung to. Tears burned at the corners of your eyes, blurring the dim room as the questions swirled, relentless and unforgiving.

Why did he leave? Was he hurt? Dead?

The uncertainty gnawed at you, twisting deeper with every silent second, each tick of the clock amplifying the aching void he’d left behind.

“I just… I don’t understand why they’d leave like that,” you whispered, your voice trembling, barely more than a fractured breath.

Tommy stood in the hallway, pacing once more, his footsteps a muted rhythm against the walls, each step laced with his own silent worry.

Maria settled beside you, her hand resting warmly on your shoulder, an anchor in the swirling tide of your worry. “I know, honey,” she murmured, her voice soft, filled with a compassion that felt both comforting and achingly bittersweet.

Her gaze held yours for a moment, then she offered a small, reassuring smile. “Why don’t you stay here tonight? Just for a bit, hm? Give yourself a chance to breathe.”

You managed a nod, unable to find words past the tightness lodged in your throat.

Deep down, you knew Maria was right—you needed rest, a sliver of calm to steady yourself. But as you lifted the mug to your lips, the warmth did little to soften the hollow ache gnawing inside you. The tea, the gentle comfort, none of it could fill the void left by his absence.

All you wanted—all you needed—was Joel.

•••

You tried to eat, but each bite felt like swallowing shards of glass, the anxiety coiled tight around your throat, refusing to loosen. Staying at Tommy and Maria’s only magnified the loneliness; every quiet, familiar corner of their home served as a relentless reminder of Joel’s absence.

The routine you’d fallen into with him—those stolen glances over morning coffee, the quiet, easy conversations under starlit skies, the warmth of his presence near you—now felt like memories from another life.

It had been a week now. A week of riding along rugged trails, combing through barren fields and dense forests, silently calling out into the dark, praying for even a flicker of his shadow.

Hours spent on horseback, searching until your legs burned, and nights of restless tossing and turning in a bed that felt all the more empty and cold.

Every night, you and Tommy would return empty-handed, the weight of defeat pressing down on both of you as you rode back in silence. And every night, Maria would be there, a cup of tea in hand, her eyes soft with worry, her presence unwavering. She’d sit beside you, her hand resting gently on your shoulder, a steadying presence as she tried to lend you some of her quiet strength.

“Sweetie,” she’d murmur, her voice a soothing balm against the raw ache in your chest, “I’m sure he’s fine. Joel’s the toughest person I know. He’ll come back any day now.” The words would change, the phrasing slightly different each time, but the message stayed the same—that he was fine, that he’d come back.

But it wasn’t enough.

But you shook your head, anguish spilling from your heart and filling the space between you. “You don’t know that, Maria.” The words came out sharper than you intended, tinged with a desperation you couldn’t hold back, fear and sorrow woven into every syllable.

As the first tear slipped down your cheek, the floodgates opened, and you felt the weight of it all—the fear, the unanswered questions, the hollow ache of his absence—crash down on you.

The world felt like it was closing in, darkness pressing against the last flicker of faith within you. But even as you trembled, heart aching with an unspoken plea, you refused to let go of that hope, dim but unyielding.

You couldn’t lose him—not now, not after everything.

•••

Six months.

Six months had crawled by—a slow, painful stretch marked by the fading of summer’s warmth and the creeping chill of winter. The once-vibrant air, alive with the sweet scent of blooming flowers and laughter echoing through Jackson’s streets, had turned crisp and silent, as if holding its breath.

The landscape shifted, the lush greens giving way to brittle browns and steely grays, trees stripped bare, their branches stark against the somber sky. Snow draped the ground, muffling the sounds of daily life.

Christmas was approaching, but the usual festive spirit was dampened to you, swallowed up by the bleakness of winter. Jackson itself had changed; the streets that once pulsed with the warmth of camaraderie now felt strangely deserted, the weight of the cold driving everyone indoors.

Flickering lights in windows were the only hints of life in the wintry gloom, a reminder that, even in this frozen quiet, people clung to routine. Each day, the sun rose half-heartedly, casting a pale, listless glow that barely seeped through the thick, oppressive clouds.

Since Joel and Ellie had left, you’d been staying with Maria and Tommy. It was an unspoken agreement, a shared understanding that you all needed each other to get through this. Returning to your own place felt unbearable. You’d stop by now and then, just to keep things in order, but the emptiness inside those walls weighed too heavily on you.

Every corner of your home seemed haunted by memories of him—the kitchen where he’d quietly worked, assembling dinners with a surprising tenderness, the living room where he’d settled close beside you, his quiet presence filling the space.

And your bed, where traces of his warmth lingered like an imprint on your heart. The silence in those rooms was razor-sharp, each echo of him too raw, too overwhelming to face alone.

From your window, the world seemed a reflection of your own heart: numb, blanketed in a persistent, aching silence. You watched as Christmas lights went up in Jackson, their soft twinkling swallowed by the heavy, endless gray, like distant stars in an unyielding void.

You’d been drifting in a numb haze, the days blurring together into a colorless stretch of time. A heavy fog wrapped around your thoughts, dulling every sensation until nothing felt real. Each morning bled into the next, weeks passing without distinction as you moved through life on autopilot.

You ate, you slept, you helped Maria with whatever needed doing. You went on patrol nearly every other day, half for distraction, half—though you didn’t admit it to yourself —in the quiet, desperate hope of catching some trace of them. But nothing held meaning. Each task was empty, a hollow ritual performed on borrowed time.

Memories drifted through your mind, stolen glances and shared laughter slipping away like fragile snowflakes, melting before you could hold onto them. The quiet conversations, his voice low and steady, the way his eyes would soften just for you—each memory surfaced only to fade, leaving behind an ache that settled deep in your bones, a constant, unyielding reminder of everything you’d lost.

Every time the gate creaked open, your heart leapt to your throat, a brief, painful surge of hope that maybe—just maybe—it was him. You’d rush to the window, breath caught, anticipation tightening in your chest.

But each time, the flicker of hope shattered, leaving you with the heavy, familiar ache of disappointment. The emptiness that settled in your stomach felt like a lead weight, dragging you back into a despair that felt inescapable.

Joel was everywhere and nowhere, haunting the edges of Jackson like a lingering shadow, an echo reverberating through a hollow space. Each corner of this town held pieces of him, fragments woven into the fabric of your days, reminders of a bond now stretched across an impossible distance.

You saw him in the stables, the scent of hay and leather stirring memories of his quiet strength, his gentle hands calming restless horses. In the dining hall, a glimpse of an empty chair tugged painfully at you, bringing back the rough warmth of his laughter, the way his gaze would linger on you just a moment too long when he thought no one else was watching.

Walking past the workshop, the faint hum of tools conjured memories of him bent over his work, sleeves rolled up, the intensity in his eyes softened only by the rare, almost shy smiles he’d save just for you. Even in the simple rhythm of Jackson’s streets, you felt his presence—a figure rounding the corner, a low voice in the distance, each one a cruel mirage, dissolving the moment you got too close.

He was everywhere and nowhere, an ache that settled deep in your bones, a ghost that followed you, unshakable, as though he was still here, just out of reach. Every memory sharpened the yearning, the quiet desperation to have him back beside you, to feel his hand graze yours, to see him in flesh and blood rather than in the flickering fragments that now consumed you.

As snow drifted gently outside, blanketing the world in a pristine layer of white, you allowed yourself a moment to slip back into memories. Outside, the world lay silent and frozen, but in your heart, a faint warmth lingered, a stubborn ember that refused to be extinguished.

Even in the heart of winter, a flicker of hope persisted, like a quiet promise that spring would come again.

•••

Maria’s figure had transformed, her belly now round with the weight of new life as she neared her last trimester. You could see the way Tommy clung to the anticipation of his child’s arrival as if it were a lifeline, his focus locked on the future as a shield against the shadows that had crept into your lives since Joel and Ellie’s departure.

The excitement of a new beginning felt bittersweet, casting a harsh light on the hollow space left by Joel’s absence. You saw Tommy’s attempts to mask his worry in forced laughter, the strain showing in his eyes, his gaze clouded with an unshakable concern that he carried silently, like an invisible scar.

Months ago, you’d both stopped mentioning Joel, a silent understanding forming between you and Tommy. Hope had become a delicate thing, slipping through your fingers like sand. Instead of grappling with the gnawing possibility of Joel’s fate, you filled the empty spaces with small talk, with musings over nursery colors and baby names, each word a distraction, a balm against the ache of what might be true.

With your leg fully healed, you spent your days at Maria's side, helping her with tasks that had grown too challenging in her final trimester. The rhythm of daily chores brought a small comfort, a steadying anchor in a sea of uncertainty, as you focused on caring for someone else.

Yet, beneath the surface, an unease shadowed your every action, a quiet tension in the space between you and Maria. You both fell into an unspoken game of play-pretend, smiles and small laughter filling the silences, as though you could craft a reality where Joel’s absence didn’t weigh so heavily.

But you both knew, deep down, that everything had changed. Life had shifted in a way that couldn’t be undone. Each meal prepared, every chore tended to, reminded you of the hollow truth: Joel could be gone. He might never come back. And the thought was like a wound that never fully healed, a grief that echoed in the quiet moments—a phantom ache for someone who felt as much a part of you as your own heartbeat, but who remained painfully out of reach.

Helping Maria set up the nursery, sorting through baby clothes and arranging tiny blankets, you often found your gaze drifting to the window, half-expecting to see him coming up the path, his familiar stride cutting through the cold. But the streets remained empty, the winter air heavy with silence.

In those moments, the world felt impossibly vast and indifferent, a stark reminder of all you had lost and all that might never return.

•••

It was 2 a.m. when you were jolted awake by a scream that tore through the stillness of the night. Your heart pounded as you leapt out of bed, rushing down the hall toward Maria’s room, adrenaline surging through your veins. Tommy was there by her side, wide-eyed and tense, his body coiled with worry.

“It’s happening!” Maria gasped, her voice raw with both pain and urgency. Her face was pale, eyes wide with a mixture of fear and determination as she gripped the edge of the bed, her breaths coming in sharp, shallow bursts.

“Oh, God. Okay!” you stammered, fighting to steady yourself against the wave of panic surging up, clawing at your composure. “I’ll—I’ll get the doctor!” The words tumbled out, breathless and unsteady, as you turned, urgency propelling you forward even as fear tightened around your chest.

You sprinted down the stairs and out into the freezing night, mind racing with everything you’d read and rehearsed. The signs of labor had seemed so straightforward in theory—contractions building gradually, giving everyone time to prepare.

But this was nothing like you’d imagined. It was sudden and overwhelming, every moment infused with urgency and the weight of what was to come.

The doctor—the same woman who had once treated your leg—lived just a few houses down. You sprinted through the silent streets of Jackson, the night air sharp and biting against your skin. Maria’s panicked cries echoed in your mind, propelling you forward, blocking out the cold and exhaustion.

Within twenty minutes, you returned, breathless, leading the doctor into Maria’s room. The doctor moved with calm efficiency, her gaze sharp as she took in the scene. “How are you doing, Maria?” she asked, her voice steady and grounded, a quiet force amid the chaos.

Maria gritted her teeth, clutching the bed as another contraction wracked her body, her face twisted in pain. “I think my contractions are getting stronger,” she managed between labored breaths, her fingers gripping the sheets until her knuckles whitened.

The doctor nodded, stepping closer. “Alright, let’s get you comfortable, and I’ll check your progress,” she said, her voice soft yet unwavering. She spoke with the practiced calm of someone who’d seen it all, grounding the tension in the room with her presence.

You took a step back, your heart pounding as you watched the scene unfold, an electric mixture of anxiety and awe buzzing in your veins. Maria was about to bring a new life into the world, and you were here to witness it, to support her through this momentous night.

•••

The hours bled together in a haze of low murmurs, Maria’s labored breaths, and the doctor’s steady, calming instructions as he guided her through each wave of pain.

You stayed close by Maria’s side, whispering words of encouragement, while Tommy held her hand tightly, both of them drawing strength from each other in those final, agonizing moments. The doctor’s usual brisk demeanor softened, her voice now warm and steady as she guided Maria through each push, her confidence a steady beacon in the room.

And then, with a final, guttural cry that seemed to echo from the depths of her soul, Maria summoned the last of her strength. The room fell silent as the doctor lifted a tiny, wriggling baby into the air, and in that instant, time seemed to stand still. A swell of warmth flooded your chest, catching in your throat as you took in the sight.

The baby was beautiful—a perfect blend of Maria and Tommy. She let out a small, tremulous cry, a sound so pure it filled the room with an unmistakable sense of life, breaking the stillness with its sweetness and bringing tears to your eyes.

“Congratulations!” the doctor announced, her voice thick with emotion. “It’s a girl!”

Maria sank back against the pillows, her face flushed with exhaustion but glowing with joy, tears slipping down her cheeks as she gazed down at her daughter for the first time. Tommy was at her side in an instant, his eyes filled with wonder and love as he looked at his family, a raw, unfiltered happiness radiating from him.

As you stepped back to give them space, a soft smile tugged at your lips. The room was filled with an overwhelming sense of love and hope, a quiet magic blooming amidst the chaos of the world outside. This was a moment you knew you’d carry with you always—a reminder that even in the darkest times, life had a way of breaking through.

You stayed with them, entranced by the tiny miracle before you. The baby’s delicate features, her tiny hands wrapped around Maria’s fingers, seemed almost too precious for this world.

“She’s beautiful,” you whispered, your voice thick with emotion, eyes fixed on the little girl nestled securely in her mother’s arms.

Maria looked up, her eyes gleaming with warmth and affection as she held her daughter close. “Do you want to hold her, Auntie?” she asked, her voice gentle, the title wrapping around your heart like an embrace.

Your breath caught, and you nodded, managing a quiet, “Yes, please.”

Maria carefully passed her daughter into your arms, and you marveled at the weight of her, so light yet so full of promise. The soft fabric of the blanket brushed against your skin as you cradled her close, an overwhelming wave of love sweeping over you.

“Hey there, little one,” you murmured, your voice barely a whisper as you looked down into her wide, curious eyes. “Welcome to the world.”

Your heart ached in ways you couldn’t quite define—a bittersweet mixture of joy and longing as you cradled the baby close. She was warm, her tiny breaths soft and steady against your chest, and you wished with every fiber of your being that Joel could be here, standing beside you, sharing in this tender moment.

You pictured his face softening, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he nudged you gently. “Well, would you look at that—you’re Auntie now,” he’d murmur, his voice soft and warm. The thought sent a tender ache through your chest, filling you with a longing for a moment that felt so close, yet achingly out of reach.

You looked up at Maria and Tommy, their faces bathed in the soft glow of love and pride as they watched you holding their daughter. For them, this was a fresh start, a new beginning to bring light into the shadows that had long lingered.

As you glanced back down at the little girl in your arms, a gentle realization settled over you—despite the ache in your heart, despite the empty space Joel had left, you were grateful to be here, to be part of this beautiful chapter in their lives.

•••

The makeshift Christmas market in Jackson was alive with the vibrant energy of the season, the air filled with laughter and the gentle hum of holiday cheer. People moved between stalls, exchanging goods and warm greetings, their voices blending with the soft music drifting from a nearby record player.

The winter sun hung low, casting a golden hue over the scene, while the crisp air carried the scents of woodsmoke, pine, and the sweet spices of freshly baked treats.

Stalls were draped in strings of scavenged twinkling lights, each one a small beacon against the stark backdrop of winter, and for a brief moment, it felt as though the world outside had faded away, leaving only this small oasis of warmth and celebration.

That’s when you first saw him.

He was new to Jackson, having arrived only a few weeks before with a small group of survivors. His arrival had been the talk of the town, a blend of excitement and wariness threading through the community.

You’d caught snippets of conversation about them—stories of their long, treacherous journey, of how Tommy and some others had found them during a routine patrol and brought them to the safety of Jackson.

As you stood by a stall cluttered with recipe cards, your mind drifted, fingers skimming over options—cherry tart, pecan pie, a rich stew. You were lost in thought, weighing the choices for Christmas dinner with Maria, Tommy, and the new baby.

The gentle hum of the crowd faded into a quiet murmur as you sifted through the recipes, each one conjuring an image of their cozy home filled with laughter, the warmth of the fire casting a golden glow over familiar faces, the simple comfort of a shared meal.

Then, without warning, you felt a presence beside you.

“Tough decision,” a voice remarked, his voice warm and casual, drawing you out of your thoughts. Startled, you looked up, meeting his gaze.

He stood tall, broad-shouldered, with an easy confidence that immediately set him apart in the bustling crowd. Dark curly hair framed his face, tousled while his clothes—faded denim, a well-worn jumper, and scuffed boots—carried the unmistakable signs of long days on the road.

“Oh��sorry?” you replied, a little thrown by his sudden appearance.

“The recipe cards,” he explained, a faint smile pulling at his lips. “Seems like a big decision.”

You laughed softly, feeling a bit self-conscious as you kept your gaze fixed on the table. “Oh, right. Yeah, well… I’m a terrible cook, so I’m not sure these will do me much good,” you murmured, a small, nervous smile tugging at your lips.

He chuckled, a deep, easy sound that wrapped around you. “Believe me, you’re not alone. Once, I managed to go a whole week without dinner because I accidentally set my kitchen on fire trying to make spaghetti.”

You couldn’t help but laugh, the mental image pulling a grin from you as you looked up at him. “A whole week? That’s impressive, in a way.”

He shrugged, his grin widening. “What can I say? Survival skills might be high, but cooking…not so much.” He shrugged, a glint of humor in his eyes. “I figure if it’s not completely inedible, it’s a win.”

There was something refreshingly genuine in his easygoing manner, a warmth that made you feel instantly at ease. For a moment, the chaos of the world outside faded, leaving only the twinkling lights, the soft hum of holiday cheer, and a stranger who felt oddly familiar.

A smile crept onto your face, the sheer absurdity of it all tugging laughter from somewhere deep within. It bubbled up, unexpected and warm, filling you with a lightness you hadn’t felt in what seemed like ages.

For the first time in months, the weight of your memories loosened its hold, if only for a moment, allowing you to breathe freely. You hadn’t laughed like this in so long—it was as if a piece of yourself had finally broken through the clouds.

“I’m Caleb,” he said, offering his hand with an easy smile that radiated genuine warmth.

You took his hand, feeling the steady strength in his grip as you introduced yourself. There was something in his gaze—an openness, a sincerity—that sent a quiet warmth through your chest.

He looked at you not with the guarded wariness so common in Jackson, but with the unmistakable ease of someone who was simply, honestly, glad to meet you.

For that brief moment, as your hands met, a quiet spark flickered between you—a connection so subtle it was almost unspoken, a warmth that lingered just beneath the surface, delicate yet undeniable.

But with that glimmer of warmth came a piercing pang of guilt—a hollow ache for Joel that twisted deep in your chest. Memories of him surfaced unbidden, vivid and relentless. The feeling of his hand on yours, rough and reassuring, the quiet strength in his touch—it all washed over you, an aching reminder of what was missing.

You shook your head slightly, as if somehow, with that small motion, you could dispel the thoughts, push them back into the shadows. But they lingered, stubborn and insistent, weaving themselves into every quiet corner of your mind.

“I should probably head out,” you said, your voice steady, though memories tugged at you, filling you with a sudden urge to escape. You forced a polite smile, masking the quiet turmoil churning beneath the surface. “It was nice meeting you, Caleb.”

The words felt hollow, yet you held them there.

“Same here,” he replied, his smile warm and sincere. There was something in his gaze, a friendliness that reached beyond mere courtesy.

You turned to leave, offering a quick wave as you walked away, Caleb’s smile lingering in your mind.

•••

Over the next few months, Caleb became an unexpected constant in your life, seamlessly weaving himself into the rhythm of your new reality. His presence was a quiet comfort—a steady, familiar face that always seemed to show up when you needed it most, as though he had an instinct for the moments when silence weighed a little too heavily.

He and Tommy had quickly struck up a friendship, their bond forming over early morning patrols and long days in the fields. They’d joke about the little things—who had the better aim, who could lift more, trading stories of life before and after Jackson.

Caleb had this easygoing charm that drew Tommy in, a quiet humor that paired perfectly with Tommy’s unguarded nature. Soon enough, they were inseparable, working together to repair fences or sharing a drink at day’s end, laughter echoing into the quiet streets.

For you, it was comforting, even endearing, to watch them fall into step with each other. You soon found Caleb everywhere—At the clinic, he’d be there often, volunteering to sort supplies or assist with whatever needed doing.

Sometimes you’d catch glimpses of him at the library during storytime, surrounded by children, his voice rising and falling with animated enthusiasm as he brought storybook characters to life. His laughter, bright and infectious, filled the quiet spaces, drawing smiles from even the sternest faces.

And at the stables, he’d be coaxing a skittish horse with gentle patience, exchanging quiet smiles with the ranch hands as he worked, his presence a calming influence on both people and animals alike. He was kind, always there with a helping hand or a lighthearted joke, his warmth settling into your life like a gentle balm.

As weeks turned to months, you found yourself looking forward to these moments. In his presence, you felt an unexpected ease, a sense of reprieve from the lingering sorrow tied to memories of Joel.

Soon, he became a regular presence at your table, joining you, Tommy, and Maria for dinners that filled the house with shared stories, the warmth of food, and laughter echoing through the walls.

One evening, you watched as Caleb gently cradled Tommy and Maria’s baby in his arms for the first time. His expression softened, wonder and tenderness in his eyes as he gazed down at her tiny face. “I’ve always wanted kids,” he admitted quietly, his voice filled with a sincerity that struck a chord within you. He held her with a tenderness that was unmistakable, every little sound she made bringing a soft smile to his lips.

Yet, even within the warmth of these moments, a bittersweet ache would surface—soft but unrelenting, a reminder of Joel that lingered in your heart. You’d imagine him with the baby, envisioning how he’d hold her with surprising gentleness, his rough hands steady and protective, softened by a past that had once made him a father. You could almost see him cradling her close, the hard edges of his face easing, his expression slipping into a rare tenderness, a quiet gentleness breaking through the weathered lines he so often wore.

The thought would catch you off guard, slipping into your mind like a familiar melody, stirring memories you’d tried to bury. No matter how much warmth surrounded you, a part of you still felt that quiet pull toward the one person who remained just out of reach.

•••

One evening, you found yourself beside Maria in the warm glow of the fire, its flickering light casting gentle shadows across the room. The crackling flames filled the quiet, and Maria cradled her baby, the soft coos and gurgles creating a soothing backdrop. You held a drink in your hand, but your gaze was fixed on the hypnotic dance of the flames, lost in thought.

Maria’s gentle voice broke through your thoughts. “You okay, sweetie?” she asked, her tone soft, though a hint of concern threaded through her words. You turned to her, pausing, the weight of everything settling a little heavier in that moment.

She asked you this question often, and every time, you’d give her the same small, unconvincing smile.

You’d lie, and she’d accept it, knowing but never pushing, letting you hold your pain close.

But today was different.

Today, you couldn’t bring yourself to smile or hide behind hollow reassurances. Today, the ache felt too raw, too close to the surface, and you found yourself unable to pretend.

“No,” you murmured, barely audible over the fire. “Maria, I miss him.”

Maria’s face softened, her eyes reflecting an understanding that only deepened the ache in your chest.

“I know you do,” she said quietly. She hesistared before continuing “But, honey, life’s gonna move on. You deserve happiness—even if it feels complicated right now.” Her words hung in the air, gentle but firm, a reminder that Caleb’s presence, his growing affection, hadn’t gone unnoticed by her.

Her words settled heavily within you, undeniable yet daunting. “But I don’t think I’m ready to let him go,” you admitted, voice tight with conflict. “I don’t know how to move forward without.. without feeling like I’m leaving him behind.”

Maria leaned in, her gaze steady and reassuring. “You don’t have to rush. But don’t let fear hold you back from living. Joel wouldn’t want that for you. You deserve to be happy—even if it feels impossible right now.”

Her words struck a chord, resonating with a truth you hadn’t let yourself fully face. But the thought of moving on, of letting go of the hope you clung to, tightened in your chest like a vice. “What if I take that step and… regret it?” you whispered, a tremor of uncertainty in your voice.

Maria’s hand drifted to her baby’s head, her fingers brushing over the soft hair as if grounding herself in the love and life she held. “Life’s too short to live by ‘what ifs,’” she said gently, her voice filled with conviction.

“Taking a step forward doesn’t mean forgetting him. It just means you’re choosing to live, even with the pain. You’re allowed to find happiness again.”

•••

The night they left

You had fallen fast asleep beside him, blissfully unaware of Joel's watchful gaze. As he lay there, his mind was tangled with thoughts of the evening—the way you’d looked up at the stars, your face softly illuminated, a quiet glow in your eyes as you’d whispered promises meant just for him.

He’d finally lowered his guard, letting slip the long-buried apology along with a hint of the feelings he’d guarded so fiercely. In return, you had placed your hand in his, a quiet promise that you wouldn’t leave. The warmth of your touch anchored him, grounding him in a way he hadn’t realized he needed, filling the empty spaces he’d carried within him for years.

In that moment, lying beside you, Joel felt something he hadn’t in a long time—relief. The years of guilt, the weight of holding his feelings in check, all eased in the comfort of your presence. For the first time, he allowed himself to feel at peace, letting go, if only for a night, of the burdens he’d carried alone for so long.

Slowly, he reached over, brushing a stray strand of hair from your face, his fingertips lingering as he gently traced circles at your temple, as if etching this moment into his memory. He wanted to tell you how much you meant to him, how your quiet promise had started to ease the weight in his chest. He ached to close the distance, to press his lips softly against yours—but he held back, waiting for the right moment, fighting the pull that had never felt stronger than tonight.

And he let himself smile, knowing you wanted it too. You stirred something deep within him, a feeling nestled low in his stomach, reminding him just how far out of his depth he was.

But then he froze, hearing movement downstairs. A sharp knock at the door cut through the silence, urgent and relentless.

He squinted at the dim-lit clock, barely making out the time—4 a.m.

Jesus Christ, had he really been awake this long? And who the hell would be knocking at this hour?

With a sigh, he slipped out of bed, glancing back at you once more, his heart twisting at the thought of leaving you, even for a moment. He moved quietly, careful not to wake you, and made his way downstairs, each knock echoing louder as he approached.

As he opened the door, he found Ellie standing there, pale and shaken, her backpack slung over her shoulder, eyes wide with a fear he’d rarely seen in her.

“Ellie?” he whispered, dread pooling in his stomach. “What’s wrong?”

“They know,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “They know about me, Joel. They know I could be the cure. And they’re coming. They know I’m here in Jackson.”

Joel’s blood turned to ice. He glanced back at the staircase he’d descended just minutes ago, the image of you peacefully asleep etched sharply in his mind. Then he looked at Ellie, his mind racing.

Joel’s jaw tightened, memories of Sarah flashing painfully through his mind, the ache of that loss still raw, still haunting, even after all these years. Protecting Ellie felt was a second chance—something he couldn’t afford to lose.

He looked back toward the stairs, a silent vow etched in his mind—he’d return to you and explain everything once Ellie was safe, no matter what it took.

“Then we leave—now.”

•••

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[vivalabunbun]

As You Are, I Am Too

Summary: If we compare people to magnets, opposites attract and sames repel, so why are two stoic faces paired as soulmates?

Word Count: 15.4k (why are you surprised at this point, get some snacks)

Tags: Alhaitham x Fem! Reader, Smut(r18+), NFSW, MDNI, Modern AU, Soulmate AU, Mutual Pinning, Fluff, Slow Burn, Slow fic, Perfectionist! Reader, angst, arranged pairing, TW: Toxic family, unhappy childhood trauma, child of strained marriage trauma, TW: Themes of self-loathing, themes of infidelity(misunderstanding), toxic work environment, slight workplace harassment, pushy boss, slightly yandere! Alhaitham?, Soft! Alhaitham, second chance romance?, slightly bratty! reader, Dom! Alhaitham, Degradation, Heavy adult themes, attempts at comedy

Author Note: This is experimental, I want to explore if two same sides of a magnet can still attract. I want to explore the fumbles and mistakes of love.

Side Note: Here is a continuation

Do you believe in soulmates?

It’s nothing to be ashamed of if you do. Because who doesn’t want to believe in it? The concept of an ‘other half’, a missing piece that completes you. Someone who loves you and only you unconditionally.

Who doesn’t want to experience that? 

To be loved, to be accepted, and to feel whole are all natural human desires. So it’s no surprise society, regardless of the century, culture, or demographic all obsessed over finding that other half.

To find a hand that fits perfectly within the gaps of one’s own. 

The greatest minds in all of Tevyat came together, analyzing each pattern, quantifying each data point, and testing each hypothesis until their magnum opus was created: The Akasha System.

Taking the work out of fate’s hands and into a large database. 

What criteria did this wonderful system use to piece together two halves of a whole? Who knows, it’s a black box. However, the machine was quite smart, quite quick, and quite accurate.

So much so, there was no reason not to use it. 

Humans, no matter how much some might deny it, despise being lonely. They fear it so much they’d rather hold a hand which strangles theirs with an equally crushing grip.

That’s why people rush toward their soulmates the moment the Akasha finds them, they fear being alone. 

But do you believe in soulmates?

“No.” Alhaitham puts down his drink.

“But you still used the Akasha??” Kaveh juts a finger in the direction of an ashen-haired man.

“And?” Disinterested eyes glance at the time displayed on a clock in the rowdy bar.

“And?! What do you mean and? You just said you don’t believe in soulmates!” The slam of Kaveh’s palms on the table made a bit of beer lap over the edge of his cup.

“I don’t believe in soulmates, but I’m not ignorant to the benefits of marriage.” 

“Huh?” 

“It’s convenient.” The blunt statement rolling off Alhaitham’s tongue as he motions for the tab.

“Ugh, you know what, forget it.” Kaveh chases his heavy sigh with a hearty swig of his cup.

“Well then, I’ll call it a night.” He’s stayed out long enough.

Placing a handful of mora on the table to cover his tab, Alhaitham bids goodnight to his two workplace acquaintances and former college roommate.

He swiftly strides towards the creaky tavern door, swinging it open as he steps into the warm Summer evening. Tomorrow is another workday, better to get an adequate amount of rest.

“Still the same even after a full year with her, huh,” Kaveh sighs dryly.

“Did you really think he’d change after marriage, Kaveh?” Cyno finally chipped in from the sidelines. 

“I should’ve known, someone as egotistical as Alhaitham practically married himself.” 

“Now, now, his wife is nowhere as egotistical as him,” Tighnari says over the rim of his glass. 

Cyno and Kaveh paused for a moment, sharing a glance as they considered Tighnari’s observation. With a shrug, they concluded: you weren’t nearly as egotistical as Alhaitham.

Still, the great mystery remains. 

“How is he the first to marry?” The blond bachelor slumps further on the tavern stool. 

“Life is full of wonders.” The ebony-haired bachelor gave a few comforting pats.

———————————————————————————

Unlocking the solid oak front door, Alhaitham steps into the serenity of a quiet house. Good, his ears were slightly buzzing from the boisterous conversation in a crowded bar.

Taking a few more steps into the entranceway, the man shuts the door behind his body.

The dull gossip over a few rounds of drinks made their influence known to him, he just wants to go to bed. Thus he takes a few more steps toward his bedroom.

“Place your shoes into the closet, I just mopped the floors.” A level voice called out from the living room. 

Alhaitham’s movement halts, quickly glancing down at the Oxford shoes still on his feet, taking note of the spotless floorboards.

Wordlessly, Alhaitham unties the laces allowing him to kick them off with ease, placing them onto the shoe rack just behind a closet door. 

It’s a habit that slips his mind every now and then despite a year of marriage; Surprisingly unsurprising when you take into consideration his busy mind.

However, times were different now, he’s no longer a kid, free to be lost in thought. He’s now a homeowner of a spacious house, a space he shares with you, and you liked things clean. 

Not a speck of dust lingered on surfaces, no plates left in the sink, and books pristinely placed on organized shelves. Qualifications that he deemed exceptional for a life partner.

Now with slipper-clad steps, Alhaitham makes his way through the house, peering into the living room to spot your curled figure reading on a sofa. The warm glow of a floor lamp illuminated the soft curves of your cheek. 

“Is something the matter?” You didn’t look up from the page as you addressed him. 

“No, just heading to bed.” 

“Okay, goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

The start and finish of tonight’s conversation, after all, you valued a quiet house as much as he did. His colleague’s words weren’t without merit, even Alhaitham isn’t stubborn enough to deny the obvious.

Hobbies identical to each other, books upon books lined up along numerous shelves, preferring to stay within the walls of this house unless dragged out by friends. 

Your indecipherable gaze and stiff lips rival his own stone face. Perhaps that’s why the Akasha paired the two of you together. Two beings with stoic faces only another stoic would bear for a life partner, like two sides of the same coin. 

Alhaitham stops unbuttoning his shirt behind his shut bedroom door, reanalyzing the previous statement. Actually, that isn’t a very good analogy.

It'd be more accurate to compare you and him to a double-sided mirror that reflected only one view. 

“I don’t believe in soulmates.”

The man sitting across from the cafe table, introduced as Alhaitham, bluntly states, interrupting your sip of coffee, warm beverage just barely touching your lips. 

Placing your cup back down on the coffee shop table, your gaze observed the stranger who just met you moments ago - a  meeting in a small cafe arranged by Sumeru’s Ministry of Human Relations, the government body tasked with delivering the Akasha’s verdict. 

After a few breaths, you decided to humor his abrupt statement with a response. Staring straight into his teal-orange eyes, you say,  “What a coincidence, neither do I.”

————————

So then why did two nonbelievers follow the verdict handed to them? It’s simple really.

Two salaries combined can buy a sizable house. Two pairs of hands get chores done faster. Two signatures on a certificate save tax money. Life is simpler with a partner to bear some of the burden. 

Young professionals and fresh graduates aren’t known for their financial independence; a boy eager to move out of a cheap flat and away from an infuriating roommate, a girl trying to escape a noisy environment.

The circumstances had aligned. 

And that’s how it’s been for two years now, a nice quiet house. Although, you’d be lying if you weren’t thankful that the Akasha paired you with someone as handsome as Alhaitham. Silver hair, broad frame, and beryl eyes with a hint of ochre -  maybe he’s an apology gift from some fickle god.

He’s a well-rounded and capable man; perceptive enough to know not to cross boundaries drawn in the air, apt enough to not disrupt the serenity, and able to take care of himself.

Although, he could learn to launder better. 

Your lips tug down as your eyes scan over the deep wrinkles crimping the fabric of a freshly washed button-down. It looks too rumpled to look professional, even on him. A sigh falls from your lips.

The presence of slow steps make your head turn in their direction, connecting with Alhaitham’s neutral eyes, quirked gray eyebrow questioning your purpose. 

Two bodies, two rooms, and two beds.

The only time you or he crossed into the private haven of one another was when the floors needed to be mopped or shelves dusted. Owning a house means owning up to tedious chores and dividing up responsibilities spares one’s sanity from the tediousness. 

It’s best to point out the critiques now to spare your own clothes from the same fate. Picking it off the back of his chair, you show him the shameful state of the garment. 

“Leaving your clothes in the dryer for too long will create stubborn wrinkles.” You advise. 

Teal eyes glance at the shirt in your hands before they flick towards the closet rack, your own gaze follows, noting the numerous other shirts in a similar state. Another heavy sigh escapes you, it's obvious Alhaitham attempted to do laundry yesterday.

Wordlessly, you begin gathering each wrinkled garment. 

“I’ll rewash them and hang them outside, it’s the best way to smooth them out. Heat isn’t recommended for your fabrics.” You swiftly walk past him with your arms full. 

“Thank you, I’ll clean the floors then.” He takes hold of the mop against the wall.

This seamless switching of responsibilities is done with less than two sentences, the efficiency of which is only possible between two people such as yourselves. 

Button-downs are much more fickle than a casual t-shirt, using the wrong detergent or leaving it unattended for too long will cause unsightly wrinkles.

Alhaitham’s laundering skills have improved in the last two years… perhaps the singing of the dryer still slips past his preoccupied mind. 

The two of you are working professionals. Crucial insight you’ve learned from your parents: A nicely ironed shirt, neatly brushed hair, and elegantly tied ties are all it takes to make others believe in the white lie of a put-together life. 

Alhaitham was raised by his grandmother, a detail you recall from a passing conversation some time ago. It shows.

The amateur attempts at chores, the books strewn about a desk absent-mindedly, and the afternoon naps spent on a couch underneath a sunlit window are secrets only seen behind closed doors - all telltale signs of being well-loved.

‘How nice it must be.’ You thought, clipping his freshly washed button-downs to the clothesline, allowing the Sunday morning rays to shine down upon them.

A stone-faced man was once a beloved grandson. Maybe his juvenile attempts at chores were too endearing for an elderly lady to correct. 

Hidden from everyone but the audience of swaying fabric and a curious star, a bittersweet smile tugs at stiff lips. 

The clinking of forks against porcelain plates accompanies the evening news. Your eyes starring indifferently towards the TV just around the corner from the dinner table; looks like tonight's topic was the annual metrics of the Akasha.

With each passing year, these metrics only climb higher and higher, a machine learning to calculate better and better. 

“What’s your theory behind the Akasha?” you blurt out the question without looking away from the screen. 

A pair of utensils halted their movements as Alhaitham glances at the evening news. He takes a moment to wipe the corners of his mouth before humoring you.

Technically, the two of you have yet to fill your daily conversation quota. Might as well do it over dinner. 

“It’s all mathematics, the Akasha system. Pairing individuals based on collected data. Demographic, interests, and dispositions, are all factors in a pairing,” he explains in his baritone voice. 

“Mmm, then again it's all just a black box, we can’t be certain unless they choose to reveal it.” You ponder aloud. 

“Correct. Those factors are all key when it comes to compatibility. The Akasha simply uses probability. However, there’s the element of human variability.”

“Meaning it can’t always be right.” You know this, live it even.  “Is that why you don’t believe in the concept of soulmates?” Pivoting to an adjacent question, you return your attention back to the man across the table. 

“Yes, it’s an unrealistic belief.” Alhaitham sips on his wine.

“Such a brilliant conclusion, what an astute mind you have.” Honeyed-voice mimicking awe over a glass of water.

Narrowed teal eyes honed in as his glass returned to its place on the lacquered surface, unamused by your quip. 

“How about you? What theory brought you to hold the same brilliant conclusion?” 

“Do you know phenylethylamine? PEA?” Glancing up from your glass.

From his idle gaze and unmoving lips, you take his silence as a “no”. 

“It’s a stimulant that causes your heart to beat abnormally, released when you’re around a special someone. It causes what people describe as the ‘rush’ or ‘fever’ of love.” 

He says nothing, waiting for you to continue.

“But then your brain gets used to it, and the abnormality in your chest corrects itself.” You take a sip before continuing, “Nothing last forever, so why do people think love is an exception? That only one person ever will cause their hearts to flutter till the end of time?” 

A dry giggle follows the clink of your water cup against the wood. 

“How insightful.” Alhaitham takes another sip of wine to chase his sarcasm.

Maybe it was the amusing quip or how tonight’s butter chicken turned out to be exceptionally delicious, but a subtle smile curls at the edges of your lips. With today’s conversational quota fulfilled you focus your full attention back to the awaiting dinner. 

You remain ignorant to the gaze of teal eyes, oblivious to how it fixates on the faint smile complimenting the soft curves of your cheeks and plush lips. 

“...” 

The front door shuts and locks behind you, your shoes are halfway into the closet before a familiar scent beckons you towards the living room.

Quickly getting into your slippers, you trek through the entranceway and round the corner. The vivid hues of pale blues and gentle violets with pops of bright yellow catch your eyes, confirming your speculations: it’s a bouquet. 

The bundle of flowers were placed into a long-forgotten vase. Turning away from the blooms, you face the man currently thumbing through a book on the couch -the only other person with access to this quiet haven.

Turning back to observe the blooms, you note each species of flower. The Sumerian Rose, Kalpalata Lotus, and…Padisarah.

You observe how the pollen of the Padisarahs dusts the radius of the surface around the vase. It’s a fickle flower after all.

A fickle and potent-smelling flower. 

A scowl twists your face despite your best efforts, the sickly-sweet fragrance of the capricious blooms assaults your senses. 

“Please open a window.” your hand comes up to shield your nose. 

“Is something the matter?” 

“The smell is giving me a headache.” 

A headache forms from within the deepest depths of your mind, the same visceral reaction to the heavy perfumes that plagued your childhood walls. Your mother believed the saccharine scent could cover up her infidelity if she sprayed enough.

Compared to that artificial perfume, fresh Padisarahs were much tamer, but still enough to make a bitter taste appear at the back of your tongue. 

“I see.” Alhaitham sets his book down, getting up to allow the Autumn breeze in. 

Swiftly, you trudge away from the vase and its potent blooms and down the hall, eager to find an untainted corner of the house. It’d be best to sleep the headache off. 

In the morning when you round the corner back into the living room, you notice the vacant vase and table wiped clean of any speck of yellow pollen. Passing through into the kitchen, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafts in the air.

As you pour yourself a cup, you take note of how the trash has already been taken out, a fresh trash bag lining the bin. 

Good, flowers were a hassle to keep around the house.

———————————————————————————

“Chocolates?” You study the box of sweets left out on the kitchen table. 

“I picked them up while getting ingredients for dinner,” Alhaitham answers, busy chopping carrots. 

“You can have some.” 

You return your gaze  back to the intricately designed package in seasonal Winter colors. It’s not often that you indulge in such elegant treats, you couldn’t refuse such an offer. 

Delicately picking up a piece, the glossy dark chocolate shine looks inviting, you can see the quality in these sweets. Placing the small chunk onto your tongue, savoring the rich flavor. Not too sweet and not too bitter. 

Using your tongue to maneuver it towards your teeth you bite into its center, only for your tastebuds to be assaulted by a foul flavor. The distinct and sharp tang of alcohol and the revolting aftertaste of bourbon spoils the sweetness. 

Refusing to allow the detestable flavor to remain on your tongue, you briskly swipe up a few napkins, spitting the foul sweet out. You frown at the stubborn tang of bourbon which threatens to ruin your appetite for dinner. 

“You can have the rest.” You throw out the crumpled napkin. 

“Are they of poor quality?” The tapping of the knife paused. 

“They’re just not to my taste.” 

“In that case, I hope tonight's dinner is.” Alhaitham resumes his task. 

Taking a glass out from the cupboard, you fill the cup with fresh water before gulping it down, washing the foul tang of alcohol from your tongue, and even fouler memories of the stench of sour wine and crushed cans.

Wiping the escaped droplets off with the back of your hand, you go for a second glass. Hopefully, you can cleanse your palate. 

———————————————————————————

“Do you have plans tonight?” Alhaitham’s words make you stop in the middle of the hallway. 

You have a book ready in hand for a night of reading on the sofa under the soft glow of the floor lamp. You know his eyes can see that,  gaze questioning his intentions. 

“I was given two tickets to a movie, would you like to accompany me?” He holds out the slips of paper. 

As your eyes pass over the printed font, you recognized the title, a name picked up within the chatter of coworkers at the office. It’s An adaptation of a famous light novel from Inazuma, and the reviews seem positive. 

“Sure.”

You could get out of the house a little more. 

…

It seems like everyone wants to see a movie tonight, the theater lobby is filled with bustling crowds, families with excited kids, and couples holding hands.

And then there’s you and Alhaitham. Standing side by side, his hands carrying two carbonated drinks, your hands holding an overpriced bag of popcorn, walking toward the room printed on the tickets. 

“C5…C6, looks like we got good spots.” You settled into the plush seats, careful not to spill the bag. 

Alhaitham hums in response, placing your drink in the cupholder. More and more people filed into the screening room, waves of ‘excuse me’s and ‘sorry’s rolling through the space until all the seats were finally filled. The lights begin to dim as the opening logo booms through the sound system. 

The cinematography was beautiful, the musical scores accompanying the plot pleasing to the ears, and the popcorn perfectly seasoned.

It’s been a while since you’ve last gone to a movie theater, maybe you should go more often. As you brought a few more pieces of popcorn to your lips, your eyes travel toward Alhaitham.

His arms crossed as the light of the silver screen reflects onto his skin, noticing your stare, his teal gaze connects with yours. 

Moving the striped bag closer to his frame, you offer him some popcorn, he paid for the refreshments. It'd be a shame if he didn’t get to enjoy them too.

His large hand reachs over and takes a handful, your curiosity wanting to see his reaction to the snack. However, a piercing shrill snaps your attention away. 

Just a few rows away, a woman stood up from her seat, throwing a bag of popcorn at the man sitting beside her. Screaming words you couldn’t quite make out as they merges with the onscreen dialogue and equally furious shouts of the now popcorn-covered man.

Their thunderous voices were only amplified by the acoustics of the theater. 

They’re both standing now, still hurling insults and grievances one after another. There’s a ringing in your ears, their faceless silhouettes in the dim theater replaying a scene you’ve seen many times before. It’s as if they’ve finally developed a conscious, now aware of the stares and glares thrown their way.

Oh, look they’re leaving now, still fighting the whole way out of the screening room. 

With the disturbance now cleared, a low wave of murmuring swept through the audience before dying out. The dialogue and soundtrack were audible again, the atmosphere reverting to how it was.

You didn’t feel like snacking on the popcorn anymore. Gaze focus on the fluffy puffs for the rest of the movie. 

“Did you enjoy the film?” An indifferent voice resounds from your right side. 

Walking out as the credit rolled in the background, following the flow of traffic toward the exit. You were walking by Alhaitham’s side, but your mind was elsewhere, a subtle frown etched on your lips. 

“It was fine, just crowded and loud.” Your voice was just as flat. 

“Oh.”

Tossing the unfinished bag of popcorn way into the nearest trash can, the two of you continue on the silent journey home.

Perhaps, it’s best if you just stayed curled up with a book. 

“Eh? It’s been three years and you’ve never gotten your wife flowers? I knew you were cold-hearted, but not to this extent. Here, a quick bouquet of some fresh flowers I picked.” 

“You should gift her some sweets, maybe then you two can talk a choco-lot… Did you get the joke?”

“Are you serious?! Almost four years and you never took her on a date?? You’re hopeless! Take these tickets and take her to the movies. By the way, you’ll have to pay for them.”

Alhaitham wasn’t sure what made his colleagues so invested in his marriage, maybe a projection of their own lack of one. To his colleagues, you were just as much of an enigma as the ashen-haired man.

Any passing comment, no matter how vague or curt, would bring forth an onslaught of unsolicited advice. And it was for that very reason within the walls of your home these details shall stay. 

Alhaitham isn’t sure which was more irksome, the uninformed guidance of bachelors, or the fact he was the one who actually tested each suggestion. Regardless, at least these trials were fruitful in the sense he can gauge your dislikes now. 

You despise flowers for their fickle messes and scent. You’re revolted by overpriced chocolates. You detested rowdy theaters and subpar films. 

Four now going on to five years, and these were his results. Frankly, he didn’t have to subject you to such experiments for these results, because they aligned with his own preferences.

A waste of time, disturbing your peace for the sake of his own curiosity. 

A heavy sigh falls from his lips as he sets the bucket of water down, one hand holding a mop as the other turns the knob of your bedroom.

It’s a Sunday, meaning the floors needed to be mopped. Your door's hinges sing as they swing open only to be abruptly silenced as Alhaitham stood motionless under the door frame. 

Oh. He should’ve knocked.

You were in the midst of getting dressed in front of your floor-length mirror, glimpses of smooth skin peeking out from under baggy fabric. Before he could stop, teal eyes followed the dark fabric reaching just down to the middle of your thighs and draping low on one shoulder. Your fingers were in the middle of buttoning the clearly oversized shirt as you turned back to focus on him. 

Blank gaze traveling up your soft lips set in a neutral position and meeting your deadpan stare, Alhaitham’s conscience restarts.

Today was Sunday, which meant it was laundry day yesterday, and it was the ashen-haired man’s turn to wash and dry the clothes. Somehow, his button-down got mixed in with your blouses, leading to your unamused reaction. 

“I’ll be more mindful next time, did my shirt dull any of your whites?” Forcing his eyes to avert, a late attempt at respecting your privacy. 

“It’s fine, fortunately, the dye didn’t bleed out during the wash.” You turned away as your hand pulls the draping fabric up your shoulder. 

“Just place the shirt over the chair in my room, I’ll take care of it later.”

“Okay.” 

Once more your door sings as he shuts it on the way back into the hall, deciding to clean the floors of his room first and allowing you to change into your rightful clothes. It was early noon and a weekend, meaning there was no reason for Alhaitham to brush out his sleep-tousled hair. Hopefully, messy gray locks were enough to conceal burning ears. 

———————————————————————————

“The Evolution of Everything.” His eyes scan over the title held out in front of him. 

A newly published scientific journal filled with freshly collected data, the book's spine still in mint condition. Alhaitham takes note of the identical copy held in your hand. 

“You seemed interested in this genre, so I picked up a copy for you.” You motion for him to take it. 

There wasn’t a rule etched in stone that forbade the sharing of books within these quiet walls. The books on your shelves have been more interesting than his as of late. A pattern of folded corners inflecting more and more pages of the books lining your bookshelves, evidence of a certain man’s meddling.

 The warning glare every time you smoothed out a creased page directed his way didn’t seem to be enough to stop the unconscious habit of his hands.

It looks like you’re trying out a new solution, getting him his own copy to prevent the infection from engulfing each and every corner of your bookshelves. 

“Thank you, I’ll read it soon.” He accepts the peace offering. 

With that, you made your way back to the sofa. Flipping open your own copy, fingers gently making sure to not crumple the delicate pages or crease the pristine spine. Alhaitham compares it to the book currently held in his own hands.

An older book, while not falling apart or tattered, it’s obvious the man has thumbed through its pages. A well-loved book as his grandmother would’ve described it. 

Alhaitham needs to stop this practice he never corrected in childhood. 

———————————————————————————

“Alhaitham.” You greet him at the entranceway. 

Said man is currently placing his outside shoes away into the closet, returning from an uneventful day at his office. You usually got home before him, but this was the first time you’ve waited for him at the front door. He notes that you seem to be holding something behind your back. 

“Here.” Bring your arms out from your back, the distinct crinkling of plastic was heard.

Teal eyes study the gift basket filled with bath products, body wash, shampoo, conditioner, and lotion all nicely packaged with a satin ribbon. 

“It’s to thank you for helping me with errands lately,” you explain. 

Recently, you’ve been asking him to accompany you to the cluttered streets lined with stalls and haggling merchants. With his towering frame and larger hands, he could carry heavier bags and part a path through the pushy crowds easier. You were using your resources to maximize efficiency. 

“There’s no need to trouble yourself with this, I’m just doing my part. But thank you.” He takes the basket from your hands, eyes remaining collected. 

Just as the basket leaves your hands, the distinct chime of your phone goes off as ‘Bahram’ flashes across the screen. The name of your boss. 

“Excuse me, I have to take this call. Dinner will be ready in half an hour.” Turning away, you walk toward the kitchen. 

The he hums in response, slipping into his inside shoes. With brisk steps, he covers the distance from the front door to his room, closing then leaning against the solid oak.

Sharply inhaling as one hand balancing the basket of toiletries and the other holding his head. 

You’ve always prefer to maintain the serenity of the house. Resolving strife with proactive actions or brief comments. Not once in these past five years did you ever nag him, you’re too pragmatic for that. At times it’s a curse more than a blessing, evidenced by the gift basket staring back at him mockingly. 

Although Alhaitham was messy at times, he knows the importance of hygiene. Teeth brushed twice a day, a shower taken every day before dinner, and deodorant applied daily.

However, the temperatures this Summer were at record highs, even for Sumeru. The packed market streets pushing the two of you closer than usual, perhaps he’s no match for the heat this time. 

Washing his hair twice and his body thrice, Alhaitham finishes his prolonged shower by gurgling some mouthwash for good measure. Walking into the kitchen in a fresh set of clothes and his hair still damp. The table set with potato boat and some steak. Impassive eyes met inscrutable eyes as you motion for him to take a seat.

Your nose remained relaxed, meaning you were probably satisfied with his efforts. 

Alhaitham makes a silent reminder to research some cologne after he finishes washing the dishes. One that isn’t overbearing nor too weak to linger. 

How embarrassing it is, five years in and the stoic prodigy known as Alhaitham is still testing the bounds of his wife’s patience. Selfish experiments and habits he can’t seem to correct conflicting with your wishes for a clean, serene, and quiet home. 

The entire reason why you bothered signing your name next to a stone-faced man who said ‘I don’t believe in soulmates’ before asking ‘How are you?’.

  

Flowers, chocolates, and movie tickets.

You weren’t oblivious to the sentiment behind these arbitrary actions. In a way, it was expected. A husband wants to get closer to his wife, it’s simple chemistry.

The human mind craves connection, oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin released at the sight of gifted blooms, crafted sweets, and from simply sitting within each other's presence.

A chemical cocktail the mind gets drunk on. 

Alhaitham isn’t immune to it and neither are you. Even if you were able to stiffen your lips, steady your gaze, and hide those flushed cheeks. Nothing you did could quell the abnormality in your chest, was Alhaitham having the same issue?

There comes the first hurdle, the unknown which hung in the air formed over years of peaceful silence. The thought of two stoic faces peering into each other’s eyes as two monotonous voices stated the obvious would make any romantic keel over and die.

It’d be too embarrassing, especially when it’s already been awkward. 

Headache caused by sickly sweet blossoms, spitting out pricey sweets, and dulled reaction to a critically acclaimed film. None of this was Alhaitham’s fault, how can you blame someone for something they don’t know?

He never asked, you never told.

No one knew what happened within that noisy house with empty bottle-covered floors of two ‘soulmates’ who refused to release their crushing grips. All except the three unfortunate souls trapped within its Padisarah-scented walls. 

Still, his keen eyes didn’t miss those details, reassessing his actions before ultimately channeling more of his energy into chores around the house instead of frivolous gifts. What a proactive husband. 

A sting of guilt felt as you recall his sincere attempts at trying to cross an icy bridge. What should you say? ‘Thank you, you tried.’ Sounded far too condescending, it could even lead to a huffy fight. Something you’ve been good at avoiding these past five years. 

Marriage is filled with compromises, meeting each other halfway along the road of life, side by side. So you tried this time.

Curiosity guiding you as it did a naive hero towards the brilliance of a red star. 

———————————————————————————

Your first attempt was inspired by an article that popped up on your phone’s feed, something about wearing your partner’s shirt to make them flush, nonsense known as the ‘boyfriend shirt’.

You still gave it a try. Swiping up one of your husband’s black button-downs one Saturday night, only building up the confidence to put it on the next morning. 

Your original plan was to just casually wear it around the house as you got the Sunday morning chores done, but that got thrown out when Alhaitham suddenly opened your door when one-third of the buttons were still undone.

A moment of tense silence followed, impressively you managed to maintain a cool facade. Grasping the opportunity to leave this stale silence with an expertly crafted response. 

———————————————————————————

In the end, he just wanted his shirt back. So for your next attempt, you toned it down, no longer taking advice from nonsensical articles. 

Recently, Alhaitham has taken more of an interest in your bookshelf. More of the once pristine edges of your books folder here and there. If it was anyone else, you’d make them buy you a new copy immediately, but for now, you simply smoothed out the paper.

If he wants to read the theories and studies that muse you, why don’t you read them together?

However, two bodies pressed together on a sofa trying to read the small print along pages at the same time is simply uncomfortable. Plus, Alhaitham reads much faster than you. 

To ensure a pleasant reading experience for both of you, two copies were the best solution. 

He read it after you. 

———————————————————————————

Your next attempts used thinly veiled excuses to get Alhaitham to accompany you to the bustling markets of Sumeru City. In a way, trying to make up for that lackluster movie experience.

Only for it to soon turn into using Alhaitham to carry arm fulls of bags as he shielded you from the push and pull of the busy crowd. 

Perhaps you should stick to gift-giving, to spare your husband from working like a Sumpter Beast in this weather.

But besides books, what should you give him? He’s just like you, if he sees something he wants, he’d just buy it with his own money. 

On the way home from work, you caught sight of a shop, one which displayed handmade soaps and fancy lotions. Huh, Alhaitham often takes your lotions, maybe you should get him his own. A bell ringing overhead announces your entrance into the cozy store. 

“Welcome!” A bright voice chirped as a shop assistant with vibrant red hair and an equally vibrant smile bounded toward you. 

“I’m Nilou, how may I help you today?”

“I’m just looking for some lotion.” You politely responded, trying to ignore the faint fragrance of Pardisarahs. 

“We’ve got plenty of hand-made ones, for you or for someone else?”

“For my husband.”

“Oh? What does he like?”

You paused for a moment, lips pressed together in contemplation before deciding. 

“Something fresh and not overbearing, nothing made from Pardisarahs.” If he liked using your lotions, then he must have the same scent preferences. 

“We just got this new lotion that fits the criteria! Oh! But it pairs very well with this body wash… actually this shampoo and conditioner set is also a good fit. Oh! What if we bundle them?”

What was supposed to be a simple lotion turned into you leaving the small shop with an entire gift basket. A sigh leaves your lips, looks like you’re not as immune to sales tactics as you originally thought. 

That night you handed the ribbon-wrapped basket to Alhaitham. Even if he isn’t interested in expensive handcrafted soaps, he’ll still use them out of necessity, they were a gift after all.

However, it doesn’t seem you had to worry about that. He used up the fancy soaps and lotions. 

The opulent scent lingering on his skin and towel-dried hair, looks like your gift made you discover a new side of your husband.

He enjoys really long showers, evidenced by your rising water bills. 

Still, the vast expanse of uncertainty didn’t shrink, not even one bit. Just like the distance between an outstretched hand toward the sun. 

Books, lotions, and walks through a market, looks like it was all for naught. 

The mutual agreement to not lock eyes, these cold halls, these awkward dinners filled with nothing but the clattering of silverware and plates. Where have you seen these patterns before?

Oh, you’ve seen these in your childhood home. 

Ah, was this a curse passed on to you? What an awful wedding gift from uninvited parents to a courthouse office. 

Clutching the straps of your bag tighter, your legs quicken their pace, wanting to get out of the crowded streets filled with the mumbles and pushes of people freshly off the clock.

With each stranger knocking into your shoulder another drop is added to a bottle. White knuckles gripping on your straps as a pressure rises within the bottle’s glass body, threatening to shatter it.

You can’t let this continue, the mounting pressure will sooner or later detonate into a hideous mess. Best to avoid that scenarios. Eyes catching sight of a small reprieve from the crowd, you direct yourself there.

 The small store front provides you with some shelter for your lungs to breathe. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. The pressure subsides just a bit. There’s still room in there, you can suppress a little more, you can endure a little longer. 

Eyelids fluttering open, you recognized the name of the shop. It’s the fancy soap shop, one with the vivacious sales assistant.

Peering through the glass you searched for that brilliant shade of crimson. And you found it, right next to glimmering silver hair. It’s like your body forgot how to breathe. 

From the rumbling of the late evening rush, all you could do was read their lips from behind a thick glass door.

Petite pink lips giggling behind clasped hands as Nilou looks up at Alhaitham, tilting her head to the side as if she asked him a question. His lips remained stiff, but teal gaze reflected crimson as they softened. Something you never witnessed within the quiet walls of your home. 

Looks like you found the cause of the rising water bills, perhaps Alhaitham likes the smell of Padisarahs. 

Your bottle couldn’t contain the ocean anymore. 

It wasn’t an Earth-shattering catastrophic event, no tidal waves crashing down, no flood flood devastating everything in its path. Only a defeated ‘pop’ and its pathetic echo as your bottle finally overflowed.

Bitter sea-foam fizzled out as it made an unseen mess. 

Listlessly, you rejoined the rolling crowd, letting the eb and flow of its movement carry you all the way to the front door of a false haven. Systematically inserting the key, placing your shoes into the closet, and shutting your room door behind your back. Staring at the clean floor with its intricate wood grain. 

However, your mind weren’t processing any of it, busy with its calculations.

When did his fever start? That one Autumn night with a chaste bouquet. What day is it now? The cusp of Summer. How long has it been? In a few months, it’ll be three years.

A lecture from an inescapable past resurfaces.

————————

“Hey, kiddo.” 

Slurred words made you stop in your tracks, small hands tightening their grip on your backpack straps.

You weren’t quiet enough, the careful steps of your feet were rendered useless when it came to the creaky wooden floors of this house. Your lungs burned for air, but you didn’t want to breathe in the stench which permeated this air. 

The aroma of cheap perfume, sour wine, and cheap beer. The source of this foul smell? The freshly awakened man laying on the couch just a few inches away: a man known as your father.

Still trying to reserve your stored supply of oxygen, all you offered the drunkard was a firm hum. Not that he’d care, judging from the crushed cans and empty bottles littering the path, he’s probably too far gone. 

“Did you know love is a chemical? Something called ‘phenylethylamine’?” A hiccup interrupts his sentence, but he continues, much to your dismay. 

“Haha, it makes your heart beat faster and your cheeks flush because it’s considered an amphetamine, one of the most powerful drugs.” His stumbling hand blindly reached for another can, knocking over empty shells until it found one with just a bit of liquor. 

“Too bad the high can only last three years.”

Your disinterested gaze trailed off down the empty hall, legs itching to break away from the lecture you’ve heard numerous times before. Lungs begging to inhale the untainted air of your room, the only sanctuary this hollow home held.

Just a few minutes was all you needed, then you’ll start mopping these foul floors. 

A clink of aluminum hitting the wooden boards draws your attention back to your father who had finished moisturizing his throat with another swig of beer. 

“Stay away from that drug, kiddo” A sloppy grin stretched across his face as he stared up at a blank ceiling. 

The sight made your arms bristle, seeing a smile on your father’s face was uncanny. Something you’ve never seen at the dinner table, just silent scowls and disgruntled glares constantly exchanged over a subpar meal. 

Wanting him to finish this one-sided conversation, you gave another firm hum, every now and then glazing back toward the hall. 

“Or you’ll end up like this old man.” He wraps the conversation up with a bitter laugh, one which resonated off the blank walls. 

————————

Maybe you should’ve heeded your father’s words. A brilliant scholar to the public but a pathetic drunk when within the confines of a cluttered, noisy house is still a brilliant scholar. 

This was your punishment for straying away from your beliefs. You reached your hand out towards the fire despite knowing it’d  hurt, and you fell in love. Now look at where you are. 

How utterly laughable, you, the ever-bright Ms. Perfect, who’s broken love down to its base form of chemical compounds, fell victim to the addiction that was love.

So blindsided by it.

The fog of love is slowly running its course through him. Once the trees abandon their vibrant greens for shriveled browns in the Autumn, his fever will be over. There’s no such thing as an endless Summer.

How did you not see this coming? Covering your eyes with ignorant hands, blatantly ignoring the signs right in front of your nose.

No more flowers, no more chocolates, and no more movies. 

Turning back around, you took note of a figure in a floor length mirror. Indifferent gaze identical to how your husband looks at you.

Two sides of the same mirror, what’s what you and him are. What’s the use of that? Shiny surfaces point off in opposite directions, yet only ever reflecting one view. What’s the point of having two sides then?

You don’t intrigue him, you can’t show him his blind spots, and you can’t reflect to him a view he’s never seen. Same perceptions, same hobbies, same expressionless faces, how stale it must be. 

It’s much more interesting to have a wife who’ll smile at receiving flowers, a wife whose eyes light up at chocolate, and a wife who’d blabber on about a movie as Alhaitham listens intently. The beating of his heart is starting with someone new.

Emerging out of your thoughts, you stare directly at the person in your mirror.

Dull eyes stared right back, light dimmed from years of staring at a bright star grasping at its warm rays in substitution of a cold house, only for your fingers to slip pass right through.

Idiotic girl, you can’t touch the sun, not even Icarus did. 

An unlovable child grew into an unlovable adult. Add that to your footnote, so you’ll never forget this lesson again. The fool in the mirror finally looks away. 

It didn’t matter if Icarus smiled or laughed as he tumbled from the sky. Silly girl, did you forget what happens in the end of that tale? He drowned alone. 

Drowning isn’t like what the movies show. The thrashing of limbs against cold waves, the garbled screams under the water, all accompanied by the ominous soundtrack crafted by a sound master. It’s all dramatized for the silver screen. 

Muscles pushing through the cold exhaustion, mouth agape but prioritizing large and fast gulps of oxygen over cries for help, followed by the melodic lull of water lapping over eardrums until the head disappears under its surface. Never to breach it again. 

It’s possible for a person to drown in a pool full of people. Just like how it was possible for you to feel alone despite having your husband just across the lacquered expanse of the dinner table. Forks and knives clacking porcelain plates.

It’s a silent death. 

For once you’re grateful to attend a nugatory dinner hosted by your company. Venue filled with superficial smiles and handshakes all over food served on sliver platters. Even if the heels are killing you, you’d rather not wallow in a quiet house.

A heavy sigh leaves your lips, catching someone’s attention. 

“What a heavy sigh, here have some wine to ease the burden.” A glass filled with fragrant wine was held out in front of you. 

Your eyes travel up the hand which offers the vile beverage to you, sights landing on the face of your boss, Bahram. Pushy as always, always testing the limits of your loyalty to a nice pension and dental insurance.

As always you politely push the glass away, uttering a firm “no thank you.”

“Oh c’mom Ms. Perfect, you look like you could use a drink.” He pushes the glass closer. 

 Stares from all around the formal dinner table hone in, the weight heavy on your shoulders. Stakeholders and coworkers turn away from their shallow conversations to watch the brewing spectacle just across the table.

That’s right, you have to be professional, where was your crafted mask? Make use of all those years observing the masters of deception you knew as your parents. 

So you accept the vile glass.

Before the aroma could register on your palate, you emptied the whole glass. Not a single drip escaped past your lips. It took all your strength to no scowl at the sweetly bitter and alcoholic flavor. 

“Oh? Ms. Perfect is drinking tonight?” Some nameless coworker mused. 

Ah, the name lightly tossed around at the office with oblivious chuckles and ignorant smiles. You despise being called that, but not as much as you despise being told ‘you’re just like your father’ and ‘you’re acting like your mother’.

Better to be Ms. Perfect, so disgruntled ‘soulmates’ can’t compare you to their flawed counterpart.

“Do you like this wine? Have some more.” Eagerly, your boss fills the glass once more. 

Staring at the beckoning liquid swirling in the glimmering cup, as the weight of those stares force your hands to accept it once more. 

Maybe you should’ve just stayed home. 

“I should really be trying to sell you our products but… I think you’ll find a better gift at another store. Here, I’ll write the address down for you! They have the best jewels, I’m sure you’ll find something for your wife there!” Hastily the shop assistant scribbles on a notepad before pushing the slip into his palm. 

“Just don’t tell my manager.” Clasping her hands in front of her mouth, signaling to him to keep a secret. 

Alhaitham simply nods, examining the address in his hands. He hasn’t tried jewelry yet, but a ring would look nice on your hand. Maybe you’d think so too.

“You really love her, don’t you mister?” Nilou notes how attentively his hands smooth over the address. 

Pausing for a moment, Alhaitham envisions the softness of your cheeks shifting as that tender smile spreads across your lips. Yours eyes reflecting the light off the polished and cut gem as he slips it onto your bare finger. 

“I do.” Unable to stop the softening of his gaze. 

———————————————————————————

A ring still left in its miserable black box, stowed away in the depths of a drawer. A sigh slips out of him just like how he let another opportunity to place the jewel on your finger pass. You’re attending a company dinner tonight, a rare occasion requiring you to dress up.

The dress draped over your figure and curves just right and highlighted the contours of your body. He wanted to tell you this earlier as you were leaving, too bad he was occupied with swallowing ‘stay home’. 

There’s an annoying itch in the deepest depths of his mind. Covetous hands crawled up his spine, they tried to convince his own fingers to grasp around your wrist and pull you back into the house.

Alhaitham shakes that itch away, refocusing his attention onto your bookshelf in front of him.

You have a life and responsibilities outside these walls, he can’t overstep the boundary to block you from your individuality. Running a finger along the tops of the neatly lined books, searching for something to redirect his impulses.

Momentum halting when his finger sunk into pages when he expected the firm edge of a spine. The force crumpling the paper, immediately he pulls it into his hands, smoothing out the folded edges. Title catching his attention. 

The Lifespan of Love, the only book where the spine wasn’t facing out. Flipping it to the back, Alhaitham scans the blurb, noting the portrait of the scholar who authored it.

A familiar face, a professor who’s lectures he barely attended. A distinguished researcher and mentor in the eyes of his old university.

The sight of his face made Alhaitham recall a scene he once witnessed. 

————————

The halls of the Psychology department were desolate, as they always were. A much-appreciated reprieve from crowded foyers as a quiet student walks to his next exam in the department next door. 

Just as his hand reached up to activate his headphones, two voices caught his attention, the high shrills of a woman and the raspy shouts of a man leaking out from an office door left ajar.

It has nothing to do with him, Alhaitham know this, but he still had 30 minutes to kill before the exam.

Teal eyes peer through the gap between the oak doorframe.

A man the student recongizes, but the scowl and flush of rage twisted his face into an unrecongizable mess. The professor juts his finger towards the woman as foul names left his mouth, the same mouth which lectured the brightest minds of Sumeru. 

The woman screams back equally loathsome words, tears leaving mascara trails down her red cheeks. Suddenly, she grabs a lamp off his desk and hurls it to the floor. 

For a brief moment, the scholar pauses as his eyes scanned over the broken debris scattered along the floor. Then his fist slammed into the solid oak of his desk, thud so forceful the office ratted with the poor furniture.

His shouts resume, volume escalating by the minute. 

Alhaitham backs away from the door, turning on his noise-canceling headphones. He’s satisfied his curiosity enough, walking off to his exam. 

————————

A peculiar sight behind the superficial mask of a respected professor with his jolly grin and light hearted jokes with students. Inspecting the name printed just underneath the portrait, a furrow forms between his brow as he scrutinizes the spelling closer.

The professor’s last name was spelled the same way as yours. 

Oh. So this is the source you were citing back then. Numbers and figures published by a notable name backing your rebuttal to the societal notion of a soulmate. Inquisiveness rearing its impatient nose, inciting his hands to choose this book as his subject tonight.

You never told him, so he never asked. This was a chance to peer into a view sealed behind your closed lips.  

To study, dissect, and analyze the resources which congergated together to form the you of today. Alhaitham isn’t going to deny such an opportunity.

Teal eyes glance at the ticking hands of a clock, he’s got a good few hours of reading before you return.

The distinct rumble of an engine leaking in through the living room window interrupts his peace, the slam of car doors causing Alhaitham to promptly fold over the corner of the page he has yet to finish.

The dinner must have ended.

Getting up from a cushy couch, Alhaitham makes his way toward the entranceway.

His keen ears picking up the unmistakable hearty chuckle of a man, Alhaitham stills for a brief second before continuing to the door. 

Before the chime of the doorbell had the chance to sound throughout the home, Alhaitham already pried open the front door.

Teal gaze darkening as they examine the display on the front steps. 

Your arm around the shoulder of another man while his arm was snaked around your waist, pressing your body against his as he supports you up the steps.

The sound of the hinges directs the man’s attention to the homeowner currently staring at him, oblivious to the way Alhaitham’s grip threatens to crush a metal handle behind solid oak. 

“Oh! You must be Ms. Perfect’s husband. I’m Bahram.” The man greeted.

Alhaitham already knows him. He’s seen that name flash up enough times across your phone. He’s seen you pick up no matter the hour and step out into an empty room.

A new habit of yours which started some months earlier.

“Haha! She drank a bit too much tonight.” The jovial man continues, his hand still resting on your hip.

Drank? You drank? You don’t so much as glance at Alhaitham’s wine cabinet at home, yet you drank with this man? The begins of scowl start to set into Alhaitham’s face. 

“I’ll bring her inside for ya.” Bahram takes a step forward only to be blocked by a towering frame topped with ashen hair. 

“I’ll take it from here.” Alhaitham barely bit back a pointed tone, forcibly smoothing it over to make his voice pass as neutral. 

Prying that hand off your hip and your arm from Bahram’s neck, Alhaitham’s strong hold supports your slumping figure against his own body.

Pulling you across the threshold of the front door, finally putting some distance between you and that damn boss of yours. 

“Have a goodnight.” Venomous lie rolling off Alhaitham’s tongue as he firmly shuts the oak door, not bothering with any more pleasantries. 

It didn’t take much effort to carry you into the living room. Setting you down on the sofa then kneeling down with dexterous fingers, Alhaitham freed your feet from the chokehold of those heels.

You make a mental note to throw them out tomorrow morning. 

“Thank you,” you breathed out, relieved to finally be home. 

Your husband doesn’t respond as he walk away to place your shoes into the closet. The lingering taste of wine churns your stomach, you needed some water to wash it out.

Carefully, you amble into the kitchen, grabbing a glass and filling it with fresh water. Praying it can finally rid you of that foul flavor. 

After three glasses of wine, your stakeholders and coworkers finally turned their attention elsewhere. You’ve entertained them enough.

Granting you the freedom to push away anymore glasses your boss offered, only getting him to stop after you agreed to his offer of driving you home.

What a troublesome night, your mood sourer than it has been for the past few months. 

As you fill up your glass again your ears catch the pattering of Alhaitham’s steps as he trails into the kitchen, stopping only a few paces away watching you glup down your second glass. 

“Did you enjoy yourself tonight?” His husky voice resounds from behind you as his finger taps against the marble countertop. 

“No.” You fill rinse out the cup, the stubborn grip of wine not releasing your tastebuds just yet. 

“Oh? It sure looks like you did.” 

Your body stiffens as your turn the faucet off, glancing over your shoulder with eyes narrowing. 

“What do you mean by that?” Your tone a bit more sharp than you’d like it to be. 

“I’m certain you know exactly what I mean.” Alhaitham stops his tapping as he lays his palm flat on the table, teal eyes boring straight into you. 

“Well, well looks like your assumption is wrong.” 

“I doubt it, stop mincing your words and just say you enjoyed a few drinks with your boss.” 

Your body turns around fully, glaring stare connecting with his teal one. Ticking of a clock sounding throughout the quiet kitchen.

So that’s why he’s behaving like this, partners with wandering eyes tend to project their hypocritical insecurities onto the other after all. 

“Then why don’t you say you’ve been enjoying your visits to Nilou?” Something more venomous than sour wine drips off your words. 

“How is she related to this conversation?” His eyes narrowing at you, unlike the same teal irises that reflected the scarlet of her hair. 

“You know exactly what I mean.” You spat his own words back at him, maneuvering around him as you make your way back to your room. 

At this point you weren’t sure what was the cause of the headache threatening to form.

The wine? This deafening silence? Or the thought of Padisarahs?

You don’t care, you want to go to bed. The thuds of his steps weren’t far behind yours as you trek through the halls.

“Our conversation hasn’t concluded.” His deep voice ringing in your ears. 

“Yes it has.” Your room was just in sight.

“No it hasn’t.” His hand encloses around your wrist.

There you were, halfway through the doorframe of your room with the pull of his hand preventing you from getting the rest you want.

There’s no longer any space left in a shattered bottle, just a rippling ocean getting rougher and rougher with each deep breath. 

“Can’t you be honest?” His ironic, paradoxical words causes the tide to crush against each other. 

“Can’t you be honest? Do you think I wouldn’t notice your showers right as you come back from ‘work’? You’ve been driving the water bill up with your cover-up efforts.” Glaring right into those damn beryl eyes, frown breaking your stiff lips. 

“Cover-up? What a bold accusation coming from the same person who awaits a call everynight.” He mirrors your scowl. 

“Maybe its because work offers better company than this stifling house.” 

Alhaitham grip tightens on your wrist as his lips press into a firm line, indecipherable stare weighing down upon your frame. His broad shoulders rise as he takes a deep breath. 

“Strip,” he commands.

“Have you gone mad?” You snap back, unable to budge in his hold. 

“Yes, furious even.” 

It didn’t take much effort for him to make his way into your room, pulling you in as well. You could barely keep up with it all, glaring at him but it didn’t affect him one bit.

The movement causes your dress to shift. Glancing down you realize a strap of your dress slipped off, leaving one side of your breast dangerously exposed. 

With swift strides, he arrives at the edge of your bed. It’s rare for you to dawn such attire, applying a lovely shade of crimson to those plush lips, and tying your hair up so nicely. Did you get all dressed up for Bahram? Why couldn’t it be for his viewing only? 

Tsk, noisy nonsense is cluttering his mind, those the claws of a green-eyes monster digging into his last shred of restraint. Seizing his rationality in its ugly, greedy hands tighter and tighter the longer your soft thighs pressed against his tense body.

Crashing into those crimson lips of yours, one hand positioning your face to allow his tongue to catch yours by surprise. Letting the two muscles dance together as his other hand explored the expanse of your body, pulling up the silky fabric to grant his palm the pleasure of gracing your soft thighs. 

‘Oh, so this is what he wants,’ you thought as your lips moved against his.

‘Fine, might as well experience what he’s been doing behind your back.’ The fingers of your free hand tangling themselves into his hair, tugging at ashen locks with disregard. 

Unfortunately, the pesky need for oxygen made Alhaitham release your lips. Chest panting as his darkened gaze observed the state of your lips. Crimson smeared over the corner of your glossy lips. You put so much effort into painting them, making sure they were nicely defined. 

However, it felt so cathartic to know that he’s the one who messed them up, no one at the party saw them like this. Only him. 

“I’ll ask you one last time, strip now.” Not letting go of your face. 

“Go to hell,” you spat out. 

And the last chain broke, dignity and self-control reduced to nothing more than ash as his hunger commanded him. Go to hell you say?

“Then I’ll take you with me,” he sneers through clenched teeth, pushing you into the mattress face down. One hand restraining those disobedient hands of yours behind your back.

Before protest could leave your lips a rip resounds through the hot air.  Alhaitham knows he should be delicate with it. That he should carefully pull the zipper down your back, letting the fabric naturally drape off your frame.

 However, a man who starved for six years now knows nothing about patience. 

You feel the silky fabric slip off, leaving you in nothing but your panties. Teal eyes honing in on the darkened patch on the thin fabric, a dry chuckle leaving his lips.

“Wet just from this? Or were you wet during dinner too?” He pulls the fickle fabric off. 

You wiggle in his hold, face flushed with frustrated embarrassment at your current predicament. However, in terms of strength you’ll always lose to Alhaitham. A violent flinch jolts your body as he runs a finger runs along your glistening slit. 

“What a lewd thing, has he seen this slutty hole of yours?” Alhaitham watches the way your cunt quivers with each stroke of his digit. 

“Do really you think I’d sleep with my boss?” Your voice slightly muffled by the sheets as you turn your face to the side. 

“I need to confirm it.”

With two fingers, he spreads your soft pussy lips apart, keen eyes observing the trail of slick starting to drip down from between them. He sees the muscles of your entrance clenching around nothing, he glides a digit in, feeling your slick walls clamp around it. Clear essence drooling out. He hums in satisfaction before sliding his finger out, you bite into the sheet to silence any sounds. 

“Enjoying this?” He muses, fingers spreading your cunt again. 

You don’t respond, but the glare you’re sending his way makes his lip curl into a smirk. For once he could read the emotions behind your stoic eyes, he wants to see more.

Trailing his fingers up your slit until they bump into a hard nub making your body twitch. Softly pinching your clit between two fingers, he slowly rolls the senesitve bundle of nerves as you bite harder to stop your moans. 

Cunt slick but unstretched, clit throbbing but not swollen, only your essence coating his fingers. Looks Bahram hasn’t gotten the chance to taste you yet.

Calming the thrashing of a green-eyed beast just slightly. However, this wasn’t enough. Alhaitham feels the parchedness of his throat as his eyes scan over your glistening slit.  

Alhaitham once believed that the touches exchanged when his fingers brush against yours while passing plates, when you pull a blanket up his napping frame, or when your bodies briefly pressed against each other as he helps you hang the laundry out was enough to satisfy him. That he could sustain off just borrowing your lotions. 

Such a false assumption, a foolish one even. As the heat radiating off your body melts away another restraint he imposed on himself. Alhaitham realizes just how much he’s been starving himself. 

Thumb rubbing firm circles into your clit, the pleasure making your legs close together, trying to shut him out but the grip of his hand stops your attempt. 

“Tsk, stay still.” His strength pinning your legs apart, showing you just how ‘feeble’ he was. 

In retaliation, he pushes your legs further apart. Exposing more of yourself to him, it was embarrassing enough to almost make your lust-hazed mind care.

Thick fingers gathered up drops of slick leaking out from your dripping cunt as your lewd hole unable to contain its greed. Allowing him more access, feeding into his greed further.

Two fingers tracing the rim of your entrance before it slowly pushes through. Instantly, your gummy walls clamped down on his fingers, making him hiss through clenched teeth.

“If you’re grasping my fingers this much, how will you take something larger?” His breath ghosting over your cunt. 

Your toes curled in the air as a kiss was pressed against your throbbing clit, almost enough to let a gasp escape you. Biting back a drawn out moan as his tongue traced your leaking slit, starting with your sensitive numb then traveling up to lap at the essence escaping your stretched hole with the smooth muscle then back to flick at your clit.

You never realized just how pent up your body was until whines and moans just fell from your lips like water. Turning your head away, pressing your face into the mattress in hopes it’d catch those sinful sounds. 

“Tsk.” Alhaitham escalated the pace of his fingers. 

A sharp slap against your puffy clit, shooting white-hot pleasure up your core. With a gasp you pulled away from the sheets, unable to stop the moan which tumbled out. Hastily, you tried to muffle your voice again, only for a warning squeeze on your still pinned wrist stopping you.

You’ve enjoyed your silence, he’s been deprived of those sultry moans, so for tonight let him enjoy them to the fullest extent. 

Your back arched, hips bucking in the air. Your little pussy finally rewarded his hard work with a rush of slick soaked the sheets and his face further. Swiftly removing his fingers again with a disgraceful squelch, only for his tongue to dip into the cavern they left. He slurped and lapped up every drop of your nectar, quenching a thirst he never knew he had. 

Overstimulated clit trying to flinch away from each nerve-frying lick while your weeping walls beckoned his tongue to go deeper. The tightness in his pants was painful now, engorged tip rubbing against the fabric and soaking it in precum.

With his unyielding hold, his half-lidded eyes, and his unrelenting tongue lapping up all of your essence while bullying your poor nub, you were powerless. Unable to hide from his hungry gaze, nails digging into his unflinching hand, and chest heaving with the mounting pleasure in your core.

Scowl long replaced by a loose expression, the pleasure ripping through every fiber of your being. Shooting up from your curled toes to the eyes seeing only the back of your head, the edge growing closer and closer-

Alhaitham pulls away, your slick dripping down his chin glistening in the moonlight illuminating the room. Cruelly pulling back from the edge before you could taste true euphoria. No, he doesn’t think you deserve it yet. Flipping your body effortless on your back, wrists now pinned above your head.

His teal eyes drank the sight of your breast bouncing with each pant, puffy cunt clenching desperately, and the glimmering tearful eyes rivaling the stars themselves. A sight so sinful the devil is writhing in envy. 

“What the fuck?!” You thrashed in his hold again, mourning the lost of the orgasm your body was denied. 

“With this attitude, you should be grateful for what you got. I’m tired of waiting.” Alhaitham sneers next to your ear, chest pressed against yours before his warmth pulls away. 

Tugging his pants and boxers down his thighs with a hand still coated in your nectar, trailing kisses and red splotches in the valley of your breast as his precum and your slick mixed with each stroke of his shaft. The wet sounds even reached your ears.

Making the mistake of looking down, your eyes widened as they comprehended his length and girth. Your restless pussy twitching but your legs closing as to preserve the last of your ego. Something thick pressed against your dripping pussy making your hole quiver and legs freeze as his tip threatens breach your entrance.

“Trying to be coy now? When you were moaning like a whore mere minutes ago.” Smug teal eyes peering down at you. 

Another frown breaks onto your face at his pointed words. Your tongue is just as sharp, best to remind him of that fact.

“What a practiced line, you say the same things to her as well?” A mocking smile curling your lip as a scowl tugs down at his.

Too self-satisfied with your small victory to notice his large hand gripping onto your hips, aligning himself with you. With a sinful squelch, Alhaitham snaps his cock fully in. Your lips thrown open with a gasp as your back arches off the mattress.

“I. Never. Had. An. Affair. So, instead of spewing out anymore nonsense, why don’t you just moan instead?” Puncuating each word with thrust of his hips, feeling the vibration of each syllable in his chest pinned against yours. 

Jagged words ready at the tip of your tongue, yet you couldn’t form a single sentence. With a broken moan your back slowly descended back onto the sheets.

Tearing a hiss from his clenched teeth and a breathless moan from you, gummy walls contracting down tighter and tighter with each girthy inch pushed as his balls slap against the slick down your ass. Nothing could’ve prepared him for this. Alhaitham stays there, tip pressed against the deepest part of you, a furrow between his brows.

Alhaitham knows he should be gentle. He knows he should allow your walls to grow accustomed to his girth by slowly rolling his hips against yours. 

However, you just won’t stay still. Mewling and whining against his frame, nails clawing at his hand as your legs fluttered in the air. Each movement makes your pussy slurp around his stiff cock, lapping at the girth as if trying to pull him deeper than he already was. 

Tempting his hunger like a lunatic testing a starved beast, it’ll only be so long before the hunger bends the iron bars containing it and devours you. 

“AH!” A sharp slap of his hips rips a moan from your lips. 

Alhaitham pulls you off his cock until the tip threatens to slip out, then thrusts it all back in one fluid motion. Instinctively your teeth clamps down on your disobedient lips, desperately trying to bite back those lewd noises. The slurping of your greed welcoming him over and over was embarrassing enough. 

What a selfish move, trying to deprive him once more of your pretty moans. Provoking that ugly appetite within the pits of his stomach again. If you won’t behave, Alhaitham decides to fuck the stubborness out of you. 

Each thrust of his hips into yours rocking the sturdy bed, bullying your poor sensitive pussy still recovering from a ruined orgasm. Hands and hips held within bruising grips. The pitched gasps every time he railed into a certain spot didn’t escape his keen ears, his hips now angled to bully that spot with each thrust.

How helpless you were to the devastating rush of dopamine, endorphins, and oxytocin. Unable to ground yourself on anything, your last wisps of sanity swept away by the waves of pleasure. 

A groan reverberates deep in Alhaitham’s chest, the sudden convulsions of your slick walls trying to milk him. It was almost impossible to move with the way your pussy just kept clamping down.

Unfortunately, his hips couldn’t seem to care, operating solely on selfish desire.

Fortunately, a fresh wave of arousal aided in his rhythm, relentless slams bouncing your body and bed. 

Strength long leaving your arms Alhaitham releases his hold on them in favor of supporting your limp hips, a breathy chuckle leaving his lips as lust-hazed eyes honed in on the frothy white ring forming on his shaft.

All your lips could do was babble out nothings as the headboard continued to beat the poor wall. Cunt thanking his cock with a contraction every time his tip knocks against your weakness. 

The sweet moans caressing his ears, the filthy slaps echoing through the room, and your walls pulling him deeper and deeper, Alhaitham was at his limit.

There was nothing separating you two, he had enough sense left to know that. Reeling in the reins of his greed, he pulls back, fingers digging deeper into your plush skin. Well, he tried to pull back, but your locked ankles behind his back foiled this plan. 

He felt so hefty in you, heavy balls slapping against your ass as his girth and length tore apart your sensibility. Something deep inside your cunt pleaded to be fed, to be filled, pushing your limp legs to lock ankles.

He feels a bit too far for your liking, blindly your hands groped at his body. Finally, reaching his face, cupping it roughly, you crash his lips down onto yours. Tasting yourself on his tongue still, but you couldn’t care less.

As your tongues tangled together, Alhaitham reached his limit. Pressing his thick tip as deep as it’d go, thick ropes of cum start to coat your walls with each twitch of his cock. His shaky moans swallowed up by your kiss.

The slurping of your pussy milking his still throbbing cock only prolonged his hunger. 

Dropping his head into the space between your neck and shoulder, he relishes in what he’s been depriving himself of. Feeling the faint shiver of your neck against his face.

Something was fogging up his mind, Autumn breeze doing nothing to quell the heat burning him.

–

“Ah! Mmmh! A-ah Ah!” 

The first rays of dawn breaking through the navy sky, the light so flushed by the scene it witnessed, it’s pink hue illuminated skin into the room heavy with lust and the slap of wet skin. 

“N-no more… too m-Ah!-much-ch.” Intoxicated brain sputtering out broken sentences. 

 It really was too much, you’ve cum too much to bother remembering, from the creamy drops dripping onto the soaked sheets, he’s also cummed too much.

Pussy overflowing and spasming with each thrust pushing more milky seed out.

Cock rubbing its red tip rawer with each quiver of your gooey walls. 

Six years of starvation will make any man forget gluttony is a sin.

“Too much? No More?” A husky pant between each word as Alhaitham continues with his punishing rhythm. 

“If that’s the case… then why is your pussy refusing to let me go?” His chest pressed against your back, caging you further as his breath tickles your ear. 

Unable to form a sentence anymore, your head pathetically shook side to side, stubbornly denying the obvious. Looks like he hasn’t fucked out of you yet, better change that. Large fingers digging further down on bruised hips, as the pistoning of his thrusts escalated.

Bed frame pushed to its limits.

Each smack of his hips against your limp body further drowning your pride out in a flood of dopamine. It’s mounting again, that familiar pressure building up in your core, making your toes curl in painful arches.

There’s a sudden flick at your swollen clit, walls flinching as his fingers encircles around the abused nub. 

“Who’s making you feel this way?” His husky voice too close to your ear.

Groundless pride preventing you from unsealing you lips, refusing to feed into his ego anymore than your wanton moans already did. 

“Who are you showing this shameful face to?” There’s an edge to his voice again, why must you be so stubborn?

Once more you refused to answer. Making Alhaitham’s jaw clench and his fingers roll your clit harsher, making your bruised hips thrash.  

“Who’s shape is engrained into this lewd body?” Voice dangerously low as he pushes his thick tip deeper against your beaten and painted walls, fingers never stopping their torment on your little nub. 

The edge was getting closer, you knew you’ll fall off it soon, you’ll dive head first into the euphoric sea of dopamine, endorphins, and oxytocin and drown.

“Ah-ah Al-mmh!” You try to collect your breath.

Alhaitham quickens his fingers on your clit, feeling your greedy cunt clamp down on him again, walls suckling his twitching tip as his balls tighten. He’s close, but he needs you to say what he’s been waiting to hear all night. 

“Alh-ah a-a…” Your hips shaking violently in his hold now. 

Lust-glazed eyes staring straight into equally hazed teal eyes. Shaky hands slowly weaving themselves into his damp ash locks, gently pulling his ear closer to your lips, your hoarse voice just barely audible.

“A bastard.” 

Self-satisfied smirk plastered over your loose face as your tear blurred vision catches the stunned expression on his handsome face. 

The heat of his touch, the chemical stirring in your brain, and the pleasure frying your nerves made a delirious smile grace smudged lips. Your sight so hazed by lust you couldn’t see where your smile was even directed to.

Alhaitham wanted to etch the sight of your debauch face, smeared makeup and glazed eyes rolled back, into his memories forever.

Too caught off guard by your response to remind his hand to stop its movement before it was already too late. Eyes seeing the back of your head, back arching under his frame, you fell back into the all consuming waves of pleasure. 

A hard earned victory in this veiled battle of two egos. Exhaustion seeping into every fiber of your being. The pale pink of twilight dimming in your vision as the dark hands of sleep covers your eyes.

Somewhere in the middle of drifting off into a blank nothingness, you feel a hand tenderly guiding your head to rest on a soft pillow. 

Your eyelids twitch and brows furrow as the brightness of the room crept its way behind your shut eyes. Unable to retreat back into the dark embrace of sleep, you begrudgingly open your heavy lids.

Greeted by blurred shapes and fuzzy colors, you slowly blink your unfocused eyes. Gradually, the shapes and colors merge into distinguishable objects: a mug left on your bedside table with vapors rising from its rim. 

“It’s morning-after tea.” A husky voice followed by the distinct flip of paper tenses every muscle in your body. 

Alhaitham’s still here. You wish he wasn’t, you wish he’d realize last night was a mistake created from the clashing of egos, you wish the other side of your bed was empty.

So why did the tightness in your chest melt away with the mere sound of his voice?

You drag your sore body up from the sheets, shaky hands supporting the weight of numb legs and throbbing hips. Your sealed lips refusing to give him the satisfaction of any audible ques of your current state.

Sitting at the edge of your bed, back bare of anything but your hair draping over the marked skin facing him, you took the warm cup into your hands. 

A harmony of methodical sips and soft turns of pages fill the room, an open window washing away the haze of lust with an Autumn breeze. Just as the last bit of tea slides down your throat a gentle slap of a book snapping close brings an end to the heavy silence. 

“It’s unreliable,” Alhaitham announces. 

Peering over your shoulder with a quirked brow, freezing as you recognize the book clutched in his hands. Not waiting for a response, he continues. 

“Anyone with eyes can see how his biases exude through each sentence. He only studied 15 couples, not an appropriate sample size for a world filled with millions of pairs. His experiments have yet to be replicated, it seems his status is what got this nonsense published.” He sets the book down. 

“What are you trying to say?” Your eyes narrow in suspicion. 

“Your theory of phenylethylamine having a shelf life is based on nonsense.” His eyes connect with yours with that familiar indifference. 

A frown twists your face, so he still wants to argue huh. Of course, what else did you expect? You and him have long gone down the bitter circular path you’ve seen travled before.

Irritation rising in your chest, like Alhaitham had jabbed his finger into a wound you’ve yet to heal. 

“Oh, then your theory must be the intrinsic truth, huh?” Words leaving an acidic aftertaste on your tongue. 

“I never-”

“Look at you, so correct with no data to support your vague mathematical thesis.” You cut him off, anger replacing the soreness of your legs. 

Cup knocking against a bedside table as your hand casts it to the side, getting off the bed you march into your closet, pulling a random shirt on without regard of your movements wrinkling the fabric.

You just needed to leave this room, just being by his side is making your blood pressure rise. Your bed creaks as Alhaitham gets up as well, but your back was already through the door. 

Two sets of steps trekking through the halls, paces mismatched as one tries to take quicker steps to counter the broader strides of the other. Alhaitham keeps pace with your escalating march. 

“It’s a critique of his research, not you,” he voices. 

You didn’t want to hear it, sharply pivoting into your home office, but you weren’t fast enough to stop Alhaitham from following you in.

Now a husband wants to spend time with his wife, where was this before? 

“It’s an experiment conducted at the Akademiya, how is that not reliable enough? You think you can do better?” Your body whipping around with a glare directed at him, your hideous ego showing its face again. 

“Are you listening to yourself right now? Do you even believe in such a shallow analysis?” He mirrors your glare. 

“I’d rather believe in something with actual quantifiable numbers.” 

“Fine, you want quantifiable numbers? Care to calculate along with me? Or is your mind still recovering from last night?” Alhaitham folds his arms in front of his chest. 

“Go for it,” you say through gritted teeth, accepting his challenge, wanting to shush that snooty tone of his. 

“The Akasha bases its pairs off demographic, interest, and dispositions, all variables we can calculate,” he states. 

You straighten up your back, staring him in those teal eyes with your head held up high.

“Sumeru city is home to roughly 1 million people. Only 1/3 are around my age.” Alhaitham begins his trail.

“That brings that number down to about 333,333.” No delay in your response.

“Only 1 in 10 people have a personality I can tolerate, then suppose only 1 in 20 of those people can withstand mine.”

“ Rounding up that leaves about 1,667 candidates.” You tsk at his estimations, that number should be far greater than 20. 

 “Next comes shared interest, only 1 in 4 people have touched a physical book in the past year.” 

“417 left.”

Perhaps the gods didn’t think cheating you out of a childhood was enough, out of 417 people you had the misfortune of staring at his stony face. 

“Having to arrange 417 separate meetings at a small cafe would be much too burdensome for the Department of Human Relations. The scope needs to be narrowed further.” Alhaitham takes a step forward.

“Only 1 in 16 will have the patience to teach a grown man how to avoid wrinkles in his button downs.” Baritone voice losing its pointed edge. 

“26 left.”  You take a step back to preserve the space, hating how your skin craves the heat of his. 

“Only 1 in 8 of those people will allow me to borrow their books even when they know the edges of the paper will be creased when its returned.” He takes another step.

As you take another step backwards, the edge of your office desk prevents you from retreating further. The sensation of the cold wood distracting you momentarily from your calculations. 

“Then only 1 in 6 people will drape a blanket over a body that hogs an entire couch for a nap, placing a pillow under my head to ensure I don’t wake up with a sore neck.” Alhaitham doesn’t stop. 

Reaching an arm out, he firmly sets his palm on the expanse of your desk, caging you between the wood and the risk of your skin feeling the heat radiating off his body. 

“How many people are left now?” His breath ghosts the shell of your ear.

“ 0.543,” You blurted out.

A deep furrow appears between your brows, something must’ve gone wrong in your calculation, it’s impossible to have half a person. In the context of the Akasha, one person, a whole person, is matched to another.

Once more your mind ran the numbers over again, then again, and then thrice trying to recompute the figures. 

Each time the same number came back: half a person. 

“Are you mocking me with those groundless fractions? Where did you even get those statistics from?” Your pointed gaze still directed at him, did he intentionally lead you down this illogical trail? 

“Logic is neither an art nor a science but a dodge.” He peers down at you, teal gaze back to its neutral state. 

“Ha! Says the man who places logic and rationality on a pedestal, what caused such a change, Alhaitham?” You laugh dryly, not bothering to decipher the most brainless qoute you ever heard him use. 

No change in his expression as his shoulders rise with a deep inhale, exhaling slowly as he leans his face in, his finger digging his palm against lacquered wood. 

“Instead of wasting time citing subpar research, you should’ve just been honest. Then maybe I’ll give you what you want and sign those damn papers you hid away in this desk.” Voice low but steady as his gaze never leaves your frame. 

It was a strange phenomenon, the chirping of the crickets had halted as two bodies remained unmoving, not even a single grain of dust dare move. If it weren’t for the faint ticking of a hallway clock, it would’ve seemed like time had stopped.

How long has he known about the divorce papers neatly stacked away a desk drawer?

Alhaitham slowly backs his body away from yours, hand returning to his side, freeing you from the cage it created. Teal eyes carefully observes your downcast stare and stiff shoulders as guilt suffocated him.

All the emotions he bottled up, all the fervor he held back, all the desires he swallowed down. It all came tumbling out, spilling out into a murky, repulsive mess. 

“Wife.” If he had spoken any louder than a breathy whisper, that word would’ve crumbled on his tongue. 

“I love you.” Alhaitham finally allows the words which have been clinging on his tongue for years now to fall out of his mouth. 

Every inch of you froze at those three words, the weight of his stare heavy on your shoulders.

“Do you really feel nothing from those words?” Baritone voice beckoning an answer from you. 

You don’t dare lift your head, gaze downcasted and frozen. Because you know you’ll have to stare at your reflection in his eyes. 

Phenylethylamine, oxytocin, dopamine.

All these hormones and chemicals should’ve ran their course through your body. The haze should’ve faded and the abnormality of your chest should’ve corrected itself. It’s been three years at this point.

So, why is your chest aching?

The wood grain of the floor began to blur together as bitter tears compensated for the painful stinging of your irises. There it is, your brain finally short-circuits as the logic which once held up your sanity has crumbled away. 

Finally, you met his gaze, staring right at your reflection in teal irises. 

“It’s suffocating to be with you… it’s so lonely in this quiet house… it burns me like fire to touch you… yet… and y-yet see-”

“Seeing you leave will kill me, ” Alhaitham spoke the words just about to fall from the tip of your tongue.

The last piece of evidence that shattered the hypothesis he cultivated for all his life. If soulmates don’t exist, if the concept of an ‘other half’ doesn’t exist, then why is he feeling the same agony as you?

Looks like both theories were wrong in the end. Mathematics and chemistry unable to solve the enigma known as love. 

“I… I want to love… but I’m drowning… Alhaitham.” You were finally honest, you’ve been drowning all your life, thrashing hands searching for something to hold onto.

Would you be oh so kind enough to grab that pen just behind you and stab its steel nib into his chest? Alhaitham’s certain that it would hurt less than the words that left your trembling lips. 

A gentle hand cradled the back of your head as he pulls you closer. Letting those bitter tears strain his shirt and burn his skin.

No one, but the audience of a curious star and capricious gods peering down behind their blanket of clouds into this quiet house. 

Alhaitham once thought of himself as a good husband. Doing his fair share of chores and paying his half of the bills.

However, seeing your broken figure barely clinging onto his stiff frame, it’s clear that his overconfident assessment was a grave error. 

A  good husband would’ve been more attentive. A good husband would’ve noticed the tide slowly sweeping you away into the rough sea. A good, loving husband would’ve never let you sink alone in salty tears.

“Then I’ll drown with you.” His other hand grasping onto one of yours, slowly easing it away from his wrinkled shirt with soft caresses. 

Only monsters live in the deep cold sea, the only creatures able to survive the saltine waters and the pitch black nothingness. But as long as your fingers wove themselves into the gaps between his, he’ll be warm even as he sits on the sandy bottom of the murky ocean. 

Maybe that’s where the two of you belonged, two unromantic and prideful fools sitting at the bottom of the ocean.

Hand in hand so that the stupidity contained between the two of you won’t pollute anyone else. 

Gradually, those aching hiccups of yours faded into nothing more than muffled whimpers. Allowing silence to creep its way back into the gaps. The cause of this mess in the first place.

He has to remedy this, but what should he say? All those encyclopedias and journals he had thumbed through were all for naught. For Alhaitham’s mind couldn’t recall one fact from those pages.

One hand patting a slow rhythm into your back, trying to buy the man some time.

When logic and reasoning fail to explain the unexplained, folklore takes its place.

“According to legends, people used to have two pairs of hands, two pairs of feet, and two faces pointed in opposite directions.” He began.

“Back then, humans were powerful, powerful enough to threaten the gods who created them. So the gods split them in two. Cursing humans to a cruel search, desperate to be whole again.” His other hand still toying with your fingers.

You peer up at him, head still resting against his chest, feeling the soft beating of his heart. Blinking away the tears, listening to his telling of a myth. 

“That’s the origin of a soulmate.” He finishes.

A soft giggle leaves your lips, a mixture of confusion and disbelief from Alhaitham quoting a fairytale. 

“And you believe in that?” Amused gaze connecting with brilliant beryl eyes. 

“Yes…because I found you.” Alhaitham tenderly brings your hand up to his lips, pressing a kiss against your fingers as a glint catches the sunlight. 

With a foreign sensation hugging a finger, your brows furrow. Holding your hand out toward the light again. Blinking eyes finally identify the gem which coyly appeared on your ring finger.

So that’s what he was doing, your tear stained cheeks shifting up as a smile stretches your once stiff lips.

Burying your head in the chest of the most unromantically romantic idiot you’ve ever known, a radiant laugh bubbling in your chest as it resonates off quiet walls. 

But as he is, so are you: An unromantically romantic soulmate in love. 

~Fin

©️vivalabunbun DON’T PLAGIARIZE, REPOST, OR TRANSLATE ANY OF MY WORKS. 

[hatsukeii]

hiii congrats on ur 1000 followers 🌟🌟

i will like to have a cup of latte and boba pls, on side note i’m allergy free ✨✨ and so is that guy over there. the tall guy with chocolate brown hair sitting at the corner of the store, he’s name is suna rintarou. do you mind passing the drinks to him? its on me 🫶🏻🫶🏻

hey, good to see you around! your order's up!

feeling like a drink yourself? order one here!

do you like girls? / suna rintarou x reader

ingredient(s): fluff + crack!! pre-timeskip! misunderstanding trope but in a good way, reader is a bassist because it works LOL

disclaimer(s): implied fem! reader but gn pronouns, suggestive but not like extended it's just the punchline

wc: ~1.0k

drink profile: lesbian panic, lesbian misunderstandings, lesbian confusion

"Really, Suna? Of all people, that one?"

"Don't call them that, asshole."

Forgetting that Miya Osamu, at the end of the day, is still Miya Atsumu's twin brother, was the biggest mistake of Suna Rintarou's life. He should have known that the two would share gossip amongst each other, but it had slipped his mind when he absentmindedly confided in Osamu about his recent infatuation. Now, the two of them peek through the square window of the Inarizaki music room, fighting and clawing at each other for a view of the person behind the door. Suna watches, leaned against the wall on the other side of the hallway, glancing away from the twins as students and teachers alike pass by. Suna does not know who the twins are. He is not sure why they are fighting in front of the music room door. That is what he pretends to believe.

"...'Samu, are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Osamu grunts, shoving Atsumu to the side and taking his spot. He pokes his head just high enough for his eyes to float above the window frame, but low enough to stay unnoticed. When he catches a glimpse of the person in the room, his head turns toward Suna, agonisingly slow.

"Suna, I think you're in love with a lesbian."

"Fuck you mean I'm in love with a lesbian? I would've known by now if they were, I see them in every other class."

"Oh, we mean they're into GIRLS kind of lesbian. What else do you think we mean dumbass?" Atsumu chimes in, taking another glance through the window. What a sight, Suna's infatuation is a manifestation of exactly what he cannot have. They manspread on their chair, wear clear nail polish on cleanly trimmed nails, silver rings on every finger, and most importantly of all, wink and click their tongue at another girl, who turns away giggling. If only Suna could see this, he would be shattered. Atsumu chooses to keep his silence this time.

Suna Rintarou is a great pretender, at least in front of the Miya twins, who just so happen to be awfully dense. He crosses his arms, and hugs them a little tighter against his chest, hooking one leg over the other as he leans further into the wall. He doesn't mind, of course not. After all, his infatuation could be fleeting, but your queerness is forever, at least you have an actual reason to be disinterested. That is what he wants the twins to think. But for the first time in his life, Suna Rintarou is punching the air for being born with a dick. Talk about fleeting attraction, this is all but that.

"Well, ain't that unfortunate then." That comes out more dejected that Suna intended for it to, and the twins swing around to face him, pity painted across their faces.

"Awwww Suna! Are you upset? Are you sad? It's okay, everyone ends up liking someone gay once in a whi- ow!" Osamu sends a chop into Atsumu's piss blonde hair, and receives a jab in the chest in return. "Cut it out 'Samu! Stop being a bitch!"

Neither of them notice the door swing open until it hits them in the side, and nearly knocks them over. When they regain their balance, they turn to see you halfway out the door, silver-clad fingers gripping at the handle. Suna's eyes dart towards the twins, and it's reminiscent of the time they ruined his new volleyball shoes during a petty catfight. A look of disdain. Contempt, even. Atsumu eyes Osamu, who nods frantically in return. Together, they run away.

"Is everything all good? Oh, hey Suna!" You chirp, watching the twins dash through the hall and up the stairs. "What's up? You need somethi-"

"Do you like women?" Suna blurts out, before slapping a hand on his mouth. Your eyes widen in disbelief. His face reddens in disbelief.

"Sorry?"

Clearing his throat, Suna hugs his arms around his waist, wiping his hand discretely on the fabric of his shirt that lies above his waist. There has to be a way out of this, he just isn't sure of what it is yet, or so he wants to think.

"...The twins wanted to know." Good segue! Suna pats himself on the back, until he sees the look on your face. Your eyes are squinted, head tilted ever so slightly and lips frowning in confusion.

"I'm not lesbian, if that's what you're asking. I would be open to any gender though..." You eye Suna up and down, and he isn't sure if it's a good sign, until you grin and shrug your shoulders at him. "...if I weren't already finding someone in particular attractive these days."

Something crashes behind you in the music room, and your head snaps to look back. The girl from before clumsily dismantles a drum set, and drops one of the cymbals on the floor. She's trying to be helpful, and you smile, but you're responsible for pack-up today.

"Oh well, I get why they'd think that though. Bass player, so I gotta keep the nails short." You turn back to see Suna, whose hands are beginning to get clammy on his shirt, and who hopes to god you don't question the blood that rushes to his face. Unfortunately for him, you take notice anyways. Fortunately for him, though, you choose not to push on.

"Ah. Got it." His feet shuffle, and he stands up straight again, finally separating from the wall.

"Cool? Cool. Okay, I'm gonna go and deal with that. I'll catch you later for lunch, Rin?" Suna swallows, nodding quietly. He isn't sure where the nickname came from, but he thinks he'd like to get used to it.

You retreat into the room, but not without shooting a wink and a click of your tongue in his direction, and Suna swears he can die right there. But not before he tracks Osamu and Atsumu Miya down, and forces them to apologise on their knees.

barista's note:

hope you liked it!! i had this idea because i saw a prompt about an osu player but i was like mmm no im not into osu player how about BASS LOLOL but i hope this was enough of both crack and fluff for you, dear customer! on the side i need loser suna because i just know he's a SLEAZE idc

tags: @chuuya-brainrot @fiannee @catsoupki @akaakeis @hiraethwa @wyrcan @laughingfcx @bakery-anon @bailey-reeds @kongkhoi @kuroppiii

ok love u all bye bye i need my rest after english paper 1 and 2

[training4theapocalypse]

A Royal Misunderstanding (Prince Friedrich x f!Reader)

Rating: Explicit - 18+ only

Word Count: 7k

Warnings / Tags: SMUT, virgin Prince Friedrich and experienced(ish) reader, kinda switchy Prince F, unprotected sex (for the plot).

Summary: He's looking for the future Princess Consort. You're looking for a life out of the spotlight. It'd never work.

A/N: K and an E and a T and a T, E and an R and an ING. T and an O and a W, N. Kettering Town. F.C. Also thank you to my regency queens @stealsteels and @shinytalent for reading this 👑

Masterlist

There’s an unnecessary knock on the open stable door as you move to untack your mare. She needs a thorough brush after the ride you had today.

“You are the stable hand?” inquires a young man’s voice.

You whirl around, ready to deliver a sharp retort, but hesitate when you see his earnest, slightly incredulous expression. You’ve never encountered him before, you’re sure of it. His handsome face, tuft of blonde hair and wide-eyed demeanour would certainly have been memorable.

“I was told I would be meeting the stable hand here,” he continues, still uncertain. “To collect a horse.”

An accent. Foreign. He must be part of Prince Friedrich’s contingent, newly arrived from the Kingdom of Prussia this morning. And he must be exceedingly green to mistake you for a stable hand. Despite your riding breeches being muddied from your ride, any discerning footman would recognise that the fine tailoring is not typical of a servant's attire. Even one in the employ of the Crown. His own attire, however, is old-fashioned and ill-fitting - it bears all the marks of a hand-me-down from another household servant or perhaps an older family member.

You purse your lips to stifle a smile. The opportunity to toy with one of the charmingly naive lackeys from the Prussian delegation sparks your mischievous side. Besides, he’ll need to toughen up if he’s to survive in London. “Don’t they permit women to become stable hands in Prussia?”

He blinks. “No.”

“And this horse is for Prince Friedrich?”

“Yes.” He raises his eyebrows, as though it should be self-evident why he’s here. As if everyone should recognise Prince Friedrich’s footman. The man pulls his shoulder back and there’s a subtle hint of authority in his stance. You’re unsure if it’s the language barrier or his presumption, but his curt answers irk you.

“Very well, then,” you say, gently guiding your horse towards him. “This is Artemis. She’s the finest in the stable.”

“This is your finest horse?” He chuckles heartily and your mouth becomes a thin line and your nostrils flare. 

“Perhaps His Royal Highness would prefer a pony?”

He straightens, a haughty glint in his eye. “It’s covered in filth.”

“My lady is a keen rider and has already been out this morning. But if Prince Freidrich can’t handle a little dirt -”

“Of course, I can manage.”

You arch an eyebrow, his tone further irritating you. “If you say so,” you reply, handing him the reins.

As he mounts Artemis, you can’t help but decide to give him a parting gift. You give her a firm slap on her hindquarters. Artemis bolts forward, sending the young man bouncing precariously in the saddle. You watch with satisfaction as he disappears down the path, his shouts of alarm fading into the distance. 

Perhaps now he’ll think twice before assuming someone is a servant.

With a contented smile, you leave the stables, already brimming with excitement at the thought of telling your ladies-in-waiting about your encounter. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As far as you’re concerned, there isn’t enough wide open space in London. Far too many locked doors and whispered secrets. Or worse. Written down secrets. Specifically, the sort published by Lady Whistledown. You’d much rather be at home than endure another visit to the capital but when Queen Charlotte invited you to stay at her residence for the duration of the social season, you could hardly refuse. Not when Her Majesty and your late father, the Duke of Kettering, were such dear friends.

You suspect this invitation to spend the season at the palace might be the Queen’s ultimate attempt to honour your father’s memory. It was expected that you’d be desperate to find a husband after he passed. On paper, it should have been simple enough - your inheritance is decent enough to tempt a husband.

But finding a suitor hasn’t been easy. You’re not asking for much. You don’t want titles or wealth. Just a husband who’d be content to let you spend the day out riding rather than attending social engagements. Events like this one are your idea of hell on earth. Although it wasn’t as bad as yesterday when you had to present yourself to the Queen as one of the eligible misses of the season. 

As you stepped into the centre of the room, your palms turned cold and you could feel your stomach turning inside out as you waited for the Queen to give her verdict. There’s an old saying: the brighter a lady shines, the faster she may burn. And you’d rather not find yourself turned to ash at the hands of the ton. 

You exhaled an audible sigh of relief when Her Majesty remained seated and deigned to give you a small nod of approval. Neither the diamond nor the disgrace of the season and you’re glad of it - it means fewer eyes on you. But even that short burst in the relatively dim limelight made you want to flee from the room and vomit. You put yourself through your paces in the saddle this morning just to shake off the lingering feeling of dread.

You should be grateful that the Queen did not wave you away dismissively. This is your second social season after all and your value is quickly plummeting. You just need a husband who is content to stay out of the spotlight. And is resigned to the fact that you’ll probably prefer your horse’s company to theirs. 

If only you really were a stable hand instead of the late Duke of Kettering’s daughter.

As you mingle in Queen Charlotte’s banquet hall amongst other guests, waiting upon the arrival of Prince Freidrich, you feel a twinge of guilt about your encounter with his footman this morning. Perhaps after this welcome dinner, you’ll discreetly invite him to meet you in the stables as a gesture of apology.

The footman was handsome, after all, despite the blonde whiskers he must have grown in an attempt to appear more mature. You wouldn’t mind ruffling his perfectly coiffed hair before letting him bend you over the stable door.

Your companion jolts you from your daydream by squeezing your arm with her silk glove excitedly. You turn and smooth the front of your gown as Queen Charlotte and her nephew Prince Friedrich’s arrival is announced. 

The doors open and it takes every ounce of your self-control to maintain a dignified composure as Queen Charlotte walks in, arm-in-arm with Prince Friedrich’s footman.

Or the man who you thought was Prince Friedrich’s footman.

Damn.

Of course, you sent Prince Friedrich himself chasing across the palace grounds on the back of your startled mare.

While your face retains a dignified composure, you can’t do anything about the prickle of embarrassment flushing your chest. It’s only a matter of time before the Queen introduces Prince Freidrich to you and you will need to eat copious amounts of humble pie, slathered with grovelling apologies and dusted off with begging for forgiveness.

There’s no avoiding it. Even though tonight’s dinner isn’t an official event of the season - just a small dinner for the fifty or so palace guests and members of the Royal Family, Prince Friedrich is still introduced to every eligible woman in the room. Including you. 

Queen Charlotte, eventually steers him towards you. “Allow me to present my nephew, Prince Friedrich of Prussia.”

You curtsy and allow him to greet your gloved hand with a kiss but your stomach twists in anticipation, waiting for him to admonish you in front of the Queen.

“Lady Kettering, your gown - it is exquisite,” he says, in the usual formality. “And I hope your ride this morning was more pleasant than mine.”

You take a breath to compose your apology but you’re saved from the necessity.

“Yes, the Prince had a simply awful time this morning. First, his footman forgets to pack his riding wear so he has to borrow some from the Viscount of Paisley. And then a common girl posing as a stable hand gave Prince Friedrich your horse and sent him galloping across the plain.”

“I see,” you say cautiously but the corners of Prince Freidrich’s mouth twitch like he’s trying not to laugh. You ask, “And is my horse alright?”

Queen Charlotte laughs at this. “I should have known that you would be more concerned about your mount than the Prince of Prussia.”

You smile. “Forgive me, Your Majesty. It’s only that I’m confident a duplicitous stable girl was no match for His Royal Highness.”

“Your mare was returned safely,” smiles Prince Friedrich, a roguish glint in his eye.

Prince Friedrich bows and Queen Charlotte bustles him away onto the next group of eager girls. 

As you watch him greet the next group you wonder: why is the Prince of Prussia making excuses for you?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the grand dining room, you search for your place setting at the far end of the table beside the other noble families from minor houses to no avail. They’ve missed me, you think in horror as you look around at the filled seats but one of your friends nudges you and nods at the empty seat next to Prince Friedrich. 

There must be some mistake. 

But when you glance at the Prince, still standing behind his chair expectantly at the middle of the table, he catches your eye and places a hand on the empty seat. 

Barely daring to breathe, you wonder if this is his way of getting back at you for the events of this morning. Perhaps he arranged for your table setting to go missing and you’ll be publicly humiliated when you dare to assume the seat next to him would be for you. 

You walk for what feels like a very long time to the other side of the table, feeling eyes on you as every step is like your shoes are made of lead. You do your best not to clench your fists as your face grows hot in anticipation of being embarrassed in front of everyone. 

Dipping your head, you refuse to look at Prince Friedrich and instead discreetly look at the place cards as you pass. The titles become increasingly grand as you approach the centre of the table until you reach the grandest of them all.

Her Majesty, Queen Charlotte.

His Royal Highness, Prince Friedrich.

Then you see your name. Etched in gold on eggshell paper. At the place setting beside Prince Friedrich’s.

You blink, feeling relief course through you. You’ve never sat this close to the Queen before. The centre of the table was reserved for distinguished guests like, well, Prince Friedrich.

“Lady Kettering, I hope you don’t mind me stealing you away from your usual dinner companions,” says Prince Friedrich, looking at your friends staring wide-eyed at you from the other end of the table.

“It’s my pleasure, Your Highness,” you say, giving them a sharp look. As the servers remove the cloches from the banquet before you, conversation erupts around the table, giving you the chance to swallow your pride. “And I do apologise for this morning,” you add quietly. “I had mistakenly assumed you were Prince Friedrich’s footman.”

“A footman?” He grins, and tilts his head, picturing himself as a footman before adding. “I too would like to apologise. I should never have assumed a beautiful woman such as yourself was a stable hand,” he says. 

“When did you come to the realisation that I wasn’t?”

“I knew your horse’s name. When I asked who owned her, I was told it was a lady who was as wild as the horses she keeps.” Your mouth twists into a reluctant smile. “Is that true?” he asks, his green eyes twinkling with interest.

“Oh no,” you smile, sipping your freshly poured wine, aware of his eyes following your every movement. “My horses are very well-behaved.”

He laughs. It’s a pretty laugh. “Can I assume that means you are looking forward to the season beginning?” He gives you a wry smile. His eyes are alight with enthusiasm as he waits for you to share in his excitement for the beginning of the social season. But there’s something else in his gaze, something more intimate.

You must put an end to this before he gets the wrong idea and you’re made a spectacle of. Prince Friedrich will be the most sought-after man of the season and you don’t want the attention that accompanies competing for his affections - to be thrust into the spotlight and have Lady Whistledown write about you would be more attention than you could bear. 

You glance around to see if anyone is listening before lowering your voice. “Your Highness - may I speak candidly?”

“Nothing would please me more,” he says sincerely, his tone softening.

“Why did you arrange for me to sit here?”

Prince Friedrich looks taken aback. “Well… after this morning, I knew I had to find out more about you.”

You nod sadly. This is what you were afraid of but you had expected it nonetheless.

“This is my second - and hopefully last - season. You see, I’m not used to being in the public eye and I find the social season to be entirely mortifying.”

“I see…” says Prince Friedrich slowly.

“You Highness, please don’t mistake me. I’m honoured to be in your presence but -”

“Lady Kettering -” Prince Friedrich lowers his voice. “You told me you would speak candidly. Please disperse with the airs and graces.”

You push your food around on your plate. It’s risky to speak so plainly to aristocracy. Their fragile egos normally demand a guarded formality. “I am sorry but the idea of competing with other women to become the Princess Consort of Prussia is more publicity than I can handle. I need to find a husband quickly. A marriage of convenience.”

“Convenience…” He nods thoughtfully. “I understand. A marriage to me would certainly draw attention.”

He’s not offended. Thank god. “Exactly, Your Highness. Being in the public eye. The scrutiny. It would be unbearable.”

“It is a pity,” he says quietly. “Because I’m sure a mutually convenient marriage would have its benefits.”

Mutually convenient? Your own inheritance pales in comparison to the riches that Prince Friedrich is heir to. What would he gain from marrying you?

You look up from your plate to see that he’s brazenly smirking at you. 

Oh. 

It’s undeniable this time. He’s flirting with you. You feel heat creeping up your neck and you know you must look feverish when his eyes roam across your corseted chest.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Your Highness,” you say, your whisper barely audible.

“I mean that sharing a marital bed would have its… advantages.” Prince Friedrich takes a sip of his wine, seemingly pleased that he’s made you flustered. Now, you can’t have that.

You glance over his shoulder to make sure Queen Charlotte is occupied. “I don’t need a husband to reap those sorts of advantages.”

When you say that, he slops half of his wine down his front in surprise. “You - you don’t?”

You arch an eyebrow. “You don’t have other companions for that sort of thing?” You pass him your napkin so he can clean himself up, your fingers grazing his knee under the table, making him inhale a sharp intake of breath. “You’re not worried about being unable to please your new wife?”

He stares straight ahead, momentarily stunned. Like he never realised sex was something you could be bad at. After a beat, he shakes his head. “It would not be prudent if people knew I was having - ”

“You mistake me. It is not my intention to get caught.”

Prince Friedrich sighs, a sad smile playing on his lips. “If only it were that simple. I’m surrounded by people. Always.”

The two of you sit quietly, allowing the servants to replace your empty plates with dessert. You can practically hear the cogs in the Prince’s head as his brain works overtime, trying to decide how to respond to this new information. Prince Friedrich takes a polite bite of chocolate cake and sits back.

“Once again, being the Queen’s nephew complicates things,” you say, sitting forward and sliding your fork through a sizable portion. “Don’t you have an appetite after your ride this morning, Your Highness?”

“I think the news that you do not wish me to court you has disappointed me so much that I never want to eat again,” he jokes half-heartedly before returning his focus entirely to you.

“If only we really were a stable hand and a footman - waiting until all the palace guests had gone to bed to meet in the stables after dark,” you say after eating the last bite of cake on your plate. 

Prince Friedrich swallows thickly and your eyes move from his Adam's apple to the almost untouched piece of cake on his plate.

“Are you - are you still hungry, my lady?” he asks.

You lean forward and steal a scoop of whipped cream from his plate with your fork. You eat the whipped cream and he watches with bated breath as you take several seconds longer than necessary to drag the polished silver fork from between your lips.

"I'm insatiable, Your Highness."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You scratch Artemis’s head in the dark stables, wondering if you’ve made a mistake in being here. Mostly you were interested to see if the sweet, naive Prince Friedrich would turn up. But you know how noblemen are. Their egos are so easy to bruise that an adverturess could scare them off simply by existing. 

Which is why you can scarcely believe it when there’s a knock at the closed stable door. You don’t breathe for a second before remembering that only Prince Freidrich would knock before entering a stable of all places.

He opens the door and for a moment is visibly relieved to see you. You stare at each other. The only sound is the soft rustling of the horses, that is until he closes the door behind him and moves to you with an agility that surprises you, considering how unstable he was on your horse earlier.  

If he had no appetite earlier, it has certainly returned now. Prince Friedrich has a hungry look in his eyes as he pulls you close by the waist and kisses you. You squeeze your eyes shut, expecting a clash of teeth but his kiss is passionate, even skilled. Your shoulders untense as you relax into it and slide your arms around his neck, allowing him to pull your body against his. Even through the many skirts under your evening gown, you can feel that he’s hard.

His tongue enters your mouth, licking and swirling it against yours - it’s surprisingly good. And he smells good. A beautiful sandalwood cologne that can only be from the finest perfumery.

You pull back breathlessly before you can allow the inebriating scent and feel of him to rid you of your senses. “Prince Friedrich, I -”

“Please, just Freidrich.”

“Friedrich.” Even with his permission the name feels strange in your mouth. “How much romantic experience do you have?”

“I’ve read books,” he says quickly and you press your lips together to stop laughing.

“You mean romance books? Like Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron?”

“No, I mean… instructional.”

“Instructions on how to fuck?” He nods and flushes a deep shade of pink at the question and this time you can’t help but laugh. “Remind me to spend time in the palace library in Prussia if I ever visit.” You study him. “I meant more… practical experience. It’s not the type of thing you can learn from a book.”

“I have a little experience.”

“Like what? Just kissing?” He hesitates and you move your hand down between your bodies and brush his hard cock through his trousers. “Or has anyone ever touched you like this before?”

Friedrich swallows. “Before now, you mean?” You nod and he hesitates again, guessing that it’s not the answer you want to hear. “No,” he says, truthfully.

You withdraw your hand. “Maybe this is something you should save for your future wife.”

“Marry me, then,” he blurts out, his voice trembling slightly with urgency.

You groan inwardly, shaking your head. “Friedrich, I wasn’t being coy when I told you I don’t want to be wed to a Prince. Besides, the season is starting tomorrow and you’ll be introduced to a hundred wealthy, beautiful women. Each one of them would be a better match than I.”

“Impossible.”

“You don’t know that -”

“I know that nobody has ever spoken to me the way that you did tonight. Or this morning for that matter.”

You smile despite yourself. You can believe it. If you were trying to secure the Prince’s hand in marriage, you would have carried yourself with much more grace and dignity than you have thus far.

“That’s because I have the manners of a common mule and the propriety of a common whore,” your grin falters and you look at him seriously. “And both of those qualities make me thoroughly incompatible with the Prince of Prussia. Marrying you is out of the question.”

“I understand,” he says, clearly worried that you’re reconsidering lying with him. “Let me be one of your companions. Show me how to do it.”

“Will you promise not to ask for my hand in marriage when this is done?”

Your hands undo the lacing on his trousers as he hitches his breath. “Anything. Sh-show me. Please.”

You remove your gloves and toss them on the stable floor. You slide your bare hand into his underwear and feel him shudder when you grip his cock. Christ almighty. It’s bigger than what you had expected from the innocent Prince.

“Since we’re practising so that you can please your future wife,” you tell him as you jerk your hand along his length. “I’ll tell you what feels good and what doesn’t. And you must do the same.”

He exhales shakily. “This - this feels good.”

“That’s a good start,” you smirk. “And you have a nice cock, Your Highness. The Princess Consort of Prussia will be a very lucky woman indeed once I’ve shown you how to use it.”

“Oha,” he breathes. 

“So eager,” you tut playfully, your face inches from his. 

You pull him close and he moans into your mouth as you kiss him. The sound of his evident pleasure sends heat tearing through you. You make a mental note to tell your future lovers to share their vocal appreciation because the sounds Prince Friedrich is making are driving you wild. 

As you kiss him, you lead him over to the loose pile of straw and get to the floor. The straw is scratchy on your bare arms but your legs are thankfully spared by the protection of your skirts. 

“When the time comes to do this with your lady wife, you should both undress. But our clothes will remain on - mostly. This is more convenient if there’s an unexpected intruder. Plus, this hay is itchy.”

“Allow me,” says Prince Freidrich, sitting back on his knees and pulling off his jacket. For a second you wonder if he’s misunderstood what you said about undressing but then he flattens his jacket on the straw behind you for you to lie on.

If you were the swooning type, you might just have fainted then and there.

“May I?” he asks, touching the hem of your skirt at your ankle. You nod and he pushes up your skirts. You lift your hips, allowing him to remove your satin underwear. “Verdammt,” he breathes. He moves his head between your legs and you almost sit up in surprise. You don’t mind him having a better look at you if it’s his first time but this feels extremely personal.

“What are you doing?” you ask. 

He looks up at you and you pull your skirts close to your stomach. “My book - it said to kiss you here to make sure you are ready.” His face is so close to you that you can feel his hot breath against your pussy.

“Your book said to kiss me… there?” Your eyebrows knit together but you think about how his tongue felt swirling inside your mouth and a stab of ache pierces through your ribs. 

“It is not customary?” You shake your head and he frowns in confusion but doesn’t move. 

And you realise that you don’t want him to go anywhere. That the idea of him kissing you there in the skilled way he was kissing your mouth inflames you. Out of amused interest, you lift yourself up onto one elbow only to find him looking at you intently, hanging on your every word, waiting to find out what he should do. You realise that you rather like the look of him here, between your legs.

“You -” You swallow. “- You may try. If it pleases you. But I warn you, I - oh -”

Your warning dissipates into the air as Prince Friedrich leans down and glides his hot tongue deep into the seam of your pussy with absolutely no hesitation. You feel yourself relax as you let him get on with this custom he’s learned from his book. You admit, it’s not unpleasant. But you’re not sure what he’s trying to achieve. 

It sort of feels like when you touch yourself. Maybe less dextrous but it’s hotter and wetter and - and - 

Good lord.

Much to your surprise - and your delight - you feel a soft, delicious warmth spreading from your core as he kisses you where you’ve never been kissed before. You splay your fingers through his blonde hair - your other hand still clutching your dress as his velvet mouth envelops your clutch of nerves and a wave of pleasure cascades through your body.

“Oh - oh fuck,” you curse, not caring that you’re swearing in front of the Prince. He pulls back abruptly and you pant.

“My lady?” he asks. “Are you okay?”

“Yes - god, yes,” you whine, impatient for his mouth to return to you.

He looks at you with that same subtle glint of authority he gave you this morning and says, “In that case, you are not keeping up with your side of the bargain. You promised you’d tell me what feels good.” 

Prince Friedrich dips his head and resumes, going from sucking on your clit to lapping up your juices and back again as you squirm and rock against him. This time you remember to hold up your side of the bargain. You pant and tell him how good his mouth feels - how good he feels. Everything is soaked, from your skirts to his chin and nose as he lets you grind yourself against his face. 

The flat of his tongue slides across your heat and it’s heavenly. Usually, when you’re with a partner, you’re used to working hard for your release - at the exact right position and tempo to pry yourself apart. But right now you’re just lying back and taking what Prince Friedrich’s tongue offers to you. And it’s offering exactly what you need.

“Don’t stop,” you mewl. “So good. S’good. So good -”

You feel yourself unravelling, your praise and words of affirmation turning into an incoherent babble as your orgasm breaches the surface. You must be making some semblance of sense because he listens - he keeps going and it’s all too much and not enough at once as your walls squeeze around nothing while Prince Friedrich continues his delicious assault on your bundle of nerves. 

Damn. You do your very best not to cry out and draw attention to the stables as Prince Friedrich gets closer and closer to making you cum on his tongue. But it’s nigh impossible as you feel the heat rise from your stomach and pull back like the tide. 

And then there’s the drop you’d been waiting for. 

“Oh - god,” you moan, drawing out the last syllable so that it drips as slowly as treacle. Ecstasy courses through your body as your release washes over you, making your thighs tremble on either side of the Prince’s head. Your chest heaves and you gently tug on his hair, away from your oversensitive cunt. “That’s - that’s good. It’s good. It’s enough,” you gasp before collapsing your head back onto his jacket.

Prince Friedrich gives you a few more slow, gentle licks and murmurs, “So feucht.” before drawing a finger over your twitching, soaking wet entrance, admiring his own handiwork. You don’t know what his words mean and you don’t have the cognizance to ask as you stare up at the wooden beams and try to regain your senses. 

After what feels like a lifetime of bliss, you’re happy for your view of the stable roof to be interrupted when Prince Friedrich moves up your body to kiss you and you taste the unfamiliar taste of your arousal on his lips. You kiss him back, slipping your tongue into his mouth and nipping at his bottom lip. God, this was supposed to be you teaching him a few things - not the other way around. When you anonymise this encounter and retell it to your friends later they will certainly be hearing about this.

“Good?” he asks when he pulls back and you nod, before swallowing air.

“I have half a mind to sell my estate and move to Prussia after the social season is over if that is what they do there,” you say breathlessly. 

He smirks. “I have told you that it could be arranged. Come home with me and we won’t have to be discreet. We could do this every day.”

You pout playfully and push a loose curl from his forehead. “But I like the stables,” you joke even though your back is aching and a palace bed sounds much more appealing. 

“Well, we have stables in Prussia. You could bring Artemis.”

Artemis. 

He remembered her name. 

Your face softens as you picture her as a royal steed, wearing a white feathered plume like she’s the diamond of the season. 

But then the fleeting daydream disappears when you tell yourself that it’s a fantasy you can’t allow either of you to indulge in. As much as Queen Charlotte favours you, you know it would be seen as unacceptable for the Prince to marry someone from such a minor house.

And besides, you remind yourself that you don’t need a royal husband. You have your own home. You have your own horses. You have your own friends. You have everything you’ve ever wanted. But then, why does the thought of him making his social season debut at the ball tomorrow make your heart ache?

“There’s something else I’d like to ride, presently,” you say, in an attempt to rid the thought from your mind as you gently push on his shoulders until he lies on his back. 

You straddle the Prince and unfasten his trousers so you can pull his cock out. The sight of him, hard and ready for you and the way he twitches involuntarily in your palm makes your heart pound as hard and steady as horses hooves galloping.

You wriggle forward until you feel the smooth underside of his cock sliding under your messily slick folds, still wet from the orgasm the Prince had bestowed upon you with his mouth. A flicker of dark enjoyment ignites in you when you see a line between his brows as he knits them together and watches as you lift your skirts so he can watch you sliding back and forward along the length of his cock.

“Do you enjoy watching me do this, Your Highness?” you ask as you grind against him.

“I would enjoy watching you do anything,” he says, pushing your gown out of the way to take hold of your hips. “Du bist schön.”

You pause. “Do what?” 

“Nothing. Please. Don’t stop.” He presses his thumbs into your hipbones, urging you to create friction against him again. 

“You don’t want to fuck me?”

“Isn’t - isn’t that what we’re doing?” stutters Prince Friedrich. 

“Oh, my sweet Prince.” You bring your hand to his jaw as you lift yourself so you can position the head of his cock between your soaking folds with your other hand. “We’re only just getting started.”

You lock eyes with him and watch his face contort in pleasure as you slowly sink down, inch by glorious fucking inch. “Oh gott,” he whines. Your German is poor but you’re pretty confident you know what that means. 

“Let me know when you’re going to spill - I don’t want to carry your bastard,” you murmur, still cupping his face. “Do you understand?”

“Ja,” he says through gritted teeth. “I understand.”

You’re not sure he really does but that primal part of your brain that wants to fuck him now and worry about the consequences later tells you to shove your hips down against the resistance. You force the rest of his thick cock into you and inhale through your teeth, feeling the delicious way he stretches and fills you. His hands clamp down hard on your hips, his thumbs pressing fresh bruises into your hipbones. 

They don’t make them like this in Kettering. Or London for that matter. Equal parts sweet and naive yet firm and decisive. He doesn’t know what he wants yet but he still wants it. Desperately. 

As if proving your point, you lean forward to feel the beautiful way he drags out of you and he seizes the opportunity to bury his face into your cleavage, your corseted dress making it exceptionally easy for him. 

He moans open-mouthed against your chest, his tongue sloppily trying to find your nipple. You move your hips back and down and wildfire bursts in your lower belly when his cock nudges against that sweet spot you’ve been longing for. 

It’s not enough for him - he wants more. He lifts his hips and the tip of his cock drives against your G-spot.

“Oh - fuck. Freidrich. That feels good.”

“So it is okay for me to move too?” he asks.

“Please,” you murmur, closing your eyes and feeling him slide back into you at that perfect angle. 

You don’t need to tell him twice.

He rolls his hips upwards to meet yours as you ride him. You can hear how fucking wet you are.  Everything is slick and hot and drenched as you roll your hips up and down on top of him and he fucks himself into you.

“So schön,” he grunts and the foreign words sound guttural to your ears. 

“I hope that means ‘good’,” you tease, leaning forward to breathe hot air onto his neck.

“Pretty,” he murmurs in your ear. “So pretty.”

“Oh,” is all you can manage as his hips pick up pace. Fuck - you like him being under you like this. Even here, in the stables where someone might come looking if they notice that Prince Friedrich is missing from his chambers. 

The sound of your stretched, wet cunt fills the stables so obscenely that it peppers shame into your consciousness. But he hears it too. He jerks up so fiercely that his balls slap against you. You suck air in through your teeth at the sharp sting and he looks concerned but you reassure him. “It’s - oh fuck - keep going. Right there.”

You go from slamming yourself down on him to your whole body stiffening, letting him drive up into you as your hot orgasm approaches, creeping over you in pulsing waves. Your walls grip him, tightening and convulsing as -

“I should - tja - remove myself from inside you -” he stops thrusting up into you and you almost wail with disappointment.

“No - fuck - keep going.” What are you saying? You rock your hips and bounce on him, every nerve inside you applauding your decision to ignore your conscience as you manage to hang onto the precipice. “Don’t stop.”

“I’m going to -”

“Fuck it,” you heave, your walls squeezing impossibly tighter as you fuck yourself on him. “Cum in me. I don’t care.” What the fuck are you saying?!

“Really?”

“Yeah,” you breathe. 

It’ll be fine. 

You’ve had an accident or two and have been lucky so far.

You may as well have told the Prince that Christmas had come early. The sight of your flushed face, dishevelled hair and the way your tits are threatening to spill out of your dress with every bounce of your hips drives him wild. 

Frankly, you’re the most deliciously intoxicating thing he’s ever experienced. He just doesn’t have the necessary vocabulary to tell you this in English.

By this point, “Oh gott,” is the only thing he says that you can understand. You hardly hear the rest as he babbles away in German - you can barely hear anything over the pulse of blood pounding in your ears as Friedrich picks up his pace again. Your body locks down around him so tightly you wonder if you might break him. 

“Just like that - fuck, there,” you whimper. He takes the instruction well, driving his cock deep into you - exactly where you need it. The coil of heat in your core tightens impossibly tighter as he chokes words you don’t understand into your ear as he pulls you close to his chest

Maybe one day he’ll teach you what those words mean and you’ll find out that he was telling you what a good girl you are for taking his cock like this.

“Fuck - I’m - that’s it,” you sob, your chest heaving against his fine silk shirt and your fingers entwined in his soft blonde hair. You squeeze around him like a vice. “Friedrich, I -”

“Do it,” he groans. You hadn’t expected him to say that. And certainly not with the commanding tone he chooses. “Let me feel it.”

The coil inside you snaps. A blaze of white-hot fire bursts through you like stitches being ripped. You seize and cry out as your release whips through you with such force that you think you might go cross-eyed. You bury your face into his neck, smelling the rich sandalwood scent splashed on his skin, mixed with his sweat. 

Freidrich keeps his tight hold of your hips, fucking into you even as you shake and tremble. 

“Ich komme,” breathes the Prince. “Ich komme, ich komme.” It only takes a few more rough, slapping thrusts until you don’t have to guess what that means. You feel him finishing inside you, thick ropes of his spend painting your insides. 

You lie here like this for a few moments, collapsed onto his chest and feeling his seed leaking out of you. You feel dizzy as his chest rises and falls underneath you and his fingers tenderly trace lines up and down your back. He closes his eyes, feeling the satin of your gown as his fingertips dance across it.

You could easily fall asleep like this.

Instead, you hoist yourself off him and lie flat on your back as if unattaching yourself from him will place a barrier between you. Put a halt to the immense surge of affection you feel for him in this moment. But he doesn’t let you get far. Prince Friedrich rolls onto his side and cups your face, his thumb tracing your cheekbone and skirting across your lips before he leans down to kiss you. You close your eyes, letting the kiss dissolve into a wet, lazy haze.

He pulls back and looks down into your eyes. “I promised I would not ask for your hand when this was over. So I have nothing else to say.”

“At least now you are prepared for the social season beginning tomorrow.”

“I don’t care about the season. I want to leave. Tonight. To take you with me.”

“I don’t have the wealth or the beauty for that to be allowed to happen,” you say. “The Queen would never find us to be a suitable match. Never mind Lady Whistledown having a field day.”

“You have more than enough of both for me.”

“For you, Friedrich. But not enough for Prince Friedrich. Not enough for The Crown,” you say, your heart breaking as you do. This was a bad idea, after all. You adjust your gown and get to your feet, pretending to ignore Prince Friedrich’s attempts to help you up.

“And what about my - my seed? What if you’re with child?”

You laugh mirthlessly. “We’d have to be exceptionally unlucky for that to happen on our first try. Put it far from your mind. Go and meet with the diamond of the season tomorrow and all of the ladies queuing up to become the Princess Consort of Prussia. They will make you much happier than I ever could.”

You walk towards the stable door but he takes your hand and gives you your discarded gloves. “Please don’t go.”

“I’m sorry, Friedrich.” You can’t. You can hear the gossip already. A thousand people whispering behind your back about how you’re not good enough for the Prince. It would be like that every day for the rest of your life in the spotlight if you did marry him. You tear your eyes away from him and open the stable door. 

“Will I ever see you again?” he asks after you.

You pause and turn around. “Perhaps.” You smile at him sadly. “Who knows? If I am with child, maybe you’ll have no choice but to whisk me away back to Prussia and marry me, never to be seen in London ever again. And everyone will wonder why.”

You turn back before he can see your face crumble, leaving the stable door open behind you as Prince Friedrich watches you leave into the night. Your mare whinnies, nudging him gently over her stable door.

Prince Friedrich gives in to her pestering and scratches her neck, much to her enjoyment. Before dawn, he will write a letter. To make sure a stall is prepared for Artemis in the palace stables in Prussia.

Just in case.

[moralesluvr]

𝐑𝐎𝐒𝐄 𝐆𝐎𝐋𝐃 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓

୧ ‧₊˚ arguing with your boyfriend, miles, was always your least favorite thing. but when he accidentally raises his voice at you, accusing you of something you’re not, he'll do anything to make it up to you. so, he decides to come to your work. pairings & aus. earth42!miles morales x fem!black!reader warnings. angst | established relationship | fluff at the end | arguing | slight toxicity | arguing | reader owns a cafe author's note. changed the aesthetic of my posts!

"MAMI, PLEASE, IAN MEAN IT LIKE THAT."

The way your glossy eyes roll to the back of your head only further induce your oncoming headache, but you don’t care. Something about your boyfriend elevating his tone at you made you crumble, brown irises boring into his own as he pleaded for you to listen.

You hear him breathe softly, and then he picks at the calloused skin of his thumb as his mouth contorts into an almost-pout. It’s apologetic, you think— by the way his eyebrows are furrowed and his face somberly melts into a softer expression, contrasted to his normal stoic one. But his look isn’t enough. You want something verbal, something pleading, something so desperate for your forgiveness that it’ll be inevitable for your answer to be ‘Yes, Miles, you didn’t do anything wrong and I would love for us to be back to normal.’

But that’s not what you were getting.

Instead, he had yelled at you, and not just a normal yell, one that he would normally let out if you were pestering him or were about to run into an unknown danger. No— this yell was authentic and real, raw, on purpose. And his lips still couldn’t find themselves to say that he were sorry.

The argument wasn’t even your fault, and Miles had told you so, therefore it was verified that you weren’t in the wrong and that it was just some huge misunderstanding. Your phone had been left unlocked on the kitchen counter, and Miles being Miles, he picked the device up and snapped a couple of stupid pictures when he saw a notification pop up.

malachi: Yo u still wit yo man? I was thinking we go get sum to eat. Lmk!

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the message wasn’t from another girl, it was from a man. So he angrily swiped the device up and waltzed up to you, waving the florescent screen back in forth in your face, accusing you of cheating.

“YN, what the fuck? Why you tryna go out with this nigga, huh? He hittin’ it or sum’? Shoulda known you had me buyin’ them lil’ dresses for other reasons.”

Your shoulders dropped at him, tears clouding your unfocused vision as Miles’ words circulated in your head, swarming your conscience with emotions that you were unable to decipher yourself.

“Mami—“

“Don’t call me that.” You seethed, “It’s not what you called me when you was accusin’ me of lyin’ and cheatin’, right?”

“Ay, Dios Mío.” Miles mumbled, his footsteps filling your ears as he drew closer to you. He wanted to reach out to you, to pull you close and kiss your cheeks, but he just stood idly in front of you as he watched you cry.

It was almost like he was stuck. Guilt, maybe?

But either way, the effort was still vacant. His actions weren’t just mundane, he was shaking your phone at you angrily, spit flying and hands snapping as he tried to grab ahold of the messy situation. And what he realized what he had done, his mouth ran dry, eyes fluttering closed as he cursed underneath his breath.

What he didn’t know was that you were speaking to your friend’s boyfriend, and when he said ‘we’— he meant the four of you, Miles included. He was trying to set up a double date at a restaurant and wanted to confirm if you were with Miles to insure that you guys were on.

A stupid mistake.

A mistake so ignorant that it drove you to raise your hand at him, withdrawing it before slapping him on the cheek, hard. The sting that blossomed throughout your hand spoke of triumph, that he truly got what deserved, and your lips nearly curled into a smile when you heard him wince in pain.

You didn’t want him hurt, you just wanted him to understand what happens when you assume stupid shit. He turned around slowly to look at you, left hand massaging the flesh of his cheek as he gave you apologetic eyes.

It all feels like an emotional whiplash now.

“Get out.”

You finally spoke, lips trembling and hands balling at your sides so tight you were sure your fingers would snap.

“Baby, please, can we just talk about this?”

“Get the fuck out, Miles!” You shouted at him, body forcefully colliding with his as your hands met his shoulders, pushing him into the woodwork of your front door. He opens it without hesitation, fingers curling around the doorknob shakily as he walked through the doorway.

You hold the door and shove him, your boyfriend stumbling down the porch steps as you cock your head to the side,

“And don’t come back.”

With that, you slam the door.

It’s been three days since you’ve seen your boyfriend.

Which is extremely out of the ordinary.

He’s texted you numerous times, your phone nearly exploding from how often it rang with new texts or phone calls. You didn’t answer, you couldn’t, Miles’ words still prodding at your heart strings as you tried to go on about your morning.

Your bright pink polo slides it’s way over your head, thick curls bouncing against your shoulders as you smoothed out a tiny wrinkle at the collar, eyes picking apart your outfit in the mirror.

A flick of your wrist tells you that you’re nearly late for work, so you swipe up your phone and purse and make your way outside, strutting to your car as you drove to your shop.

You opened your own pink themed, healthy cafe a couple months before you and Miles started dating. It was a real hotspot— business booming more than ever in the hot, humid summer of Brooklyn. People mostly ordered juice or açaí bowls, which you didn’t mind because it was your personal favorite on the menu and you recommended it to anyone who waltzed into your shop.

Pulling up, you stepped out of your vehicle and opened the door, greeting your employees with a flutter of your fingers and a superficial smile painted on your face. You were broken on the inside and it was a fact that even you couldn’t deny, and no amount of concealer and fake grins could conceal that.

“Everything OK, girl?” One of your employees chirped at you over the loud sound of a blender. And you just shrugged at her, faux smile still possessive over your lips, persuasion eventually casting her spell on your favorite girls as you covered your sadness up with ‘I’m just tired.’

Opening was running smoothly, and you were calming working register when you heard the sweet bells above your front door chime.

“Welcome i-“

Your sentence fades, dying off as you see your boyfriend walk through the door, walking up to the counter that you were standing behind.

“Can I get a matcha and that toast with the…what is that…the green shit on it?”

You grit your teeth at him, “Miles, what the hell are you doing here?”

He didn’t say anything, he just grabbed your hands and squeezed them, “Baby, I know you don’t really wanna see me here, but I need to say sum’, and it’s that I’m sorry. Ian mean what I said, I was dumb, jumpin’ to conclusions and shit. That’s not okay. You my girl and there’s no reason why I was treatin’ you like that. I’m…mami, I’m sorry.”

Miles stares at you, waiting for your rebuttal to his formal apology. No matter how much you wanted to be mad at him in this moment and hold out, you couldn’t by the way his eyes flickered at you, licking his lips as he shot you an apologetic smile.

“Miles….” You started, “What you said really hurt me, I can’t lie to you. But…despite all of that, I forgive you. And y’know, I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have put my hands on you or nun’ like that. I was just…angry.”

“Understand.” Miles told you, kissing your hand as he gave you a cheeky grin, “I love you, pretty girl.”

“I love you too, asshole.” You giggled as your boyfriend leaned over the counter to deliver a kiss to your cheek, a couple of your coworkers giggling behind the counters, but you didn’t care. You were just ecstatic that you had made up, a laugh tumbling from your throat.

“Y’know, Miles…” You started, earning a hum from your lover.

“I just want you to know, although you be actin’ hard…you’re actually soft as shit.”

tags!: @queenesther996 // @wydney // @rinnyisnothere // @brieryann // @starhrtz // @daisydark // @randomhoex // @solanawrld // @whore4hobie // @tanakaslastbraincell // @simp4miguell // @nyrovi3 // @aziulsworld // @enchantingfoxsparkles // @mancerseedu // @cafehyunji // @personofyou // @mcdvsr // @calliarlerte // @pr0wlerpunk // @tzuyuzzs // @clearskiiiess // @vienreina // @pixqlsin // @stvrgrl // @zerosinterweb // @mookiebut // @urmotherswhor3 // @cumbermovels // @asmobeuses // @yanghees // @popeheywardssecretgf // @mxspiderman2099 // @scryarchives // @rksses // @mmst4rz // @ilyless // @milesmolasses // @laylasbunbunny // @all444miles // @thecoloredpages // @bl00dsuccker // @adoremvney // @anikaluv // @qtdenks // @art-598

[alyrasturnz]

Your hcs are my everything! Pls write matt hcs after a super heated fight

 ‎ ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎IN THE WAKE OF TEMPESTS

❐ summary » in the aftermath of a tempestuous clash, matt found himself standing on the precipice of a profound realization. the gravity of what he was jeopardizing struck him with the force of a thousand regrets. with a heart heavy with remorse and determination, he embarked on a relentless quest to mend the rift, employing every ounce of his being to restore your wounded spirit and rekindle the fragile flame of your connection.

❐ pairings » bf!matt x fem!reader

❐ warnings » none i think

❐ a/n && w/c » i wasnt supposed to just post hcs today but im way too sick for this shit bro • 576

during the argument

bf!matt who feels his heart racing, words spilling out faster than he can control, each one sharper than the last.

bf!matt who sees the hurt in your eyes but can't seem to stop himself, frustration clouding his judgment.

bf!matt who raises his voice, the room filled with the echoes of anger and misunderstanding.

bf!matt who feels a pang of regret with every harsh word, knowing deep down he's only pushing you further away.

bf!matt who clenches his fists, not in anger at you, but at his own inability to communicate his feelings clearly.

bf!matt who watches as the distance between you grows, the emotional chasm widening with each passing second.

bf!matt who wants to reach out and hold you, but his pride keeps him rooted in place, unable to bridge the gap.

bf!matt who feels the weight of his words hanging in the air, heavy and irreversible, as the argument reaches its peak.

bf!matt who feels the sting of his own tears welling up, but refuses to let them fall, not wanting to show his vulnerability.

bf!matt who notices the way your hands tremble, and it breaks his heart even more, knowing he's the cause.

bf!matt who tries to remember the love that brought you two together, but it's drowned out by the heat of the moment.

bf!matt who feels the room grow colder, the warmth of your connection slipping through his fingers like sand.

bf!matt who hears the silence that follows each outburst, louder and more deafening than the shouting.

bf!matt who catches a glimpse of a photo of you two in happier times, and it feels like a punch to the gut, a reminder of what he's risking.

bf!matt who wants to apologize, to take it all back, but the words are stuck in his throat, choked by pride and fear.

bf!matt who finally sees the tears in your eyes, and it feels like a dagger to his heart, realizing the depth of the hurt he's caused.

»--•--«

the aftermath

bf!matt who paces back and forth, replaying the argument in his mind, trying to find the right words to make it right.

bf!matt who knows he messed up, and the weight of his words feels like an anchor pulling him down.

bf!matt who can't stand the silence between you two and wishes he could rewind time to take back the hurtful things he said.

bf!matt whosends you a heartfelt text, pouring out his feelings, hoping you'll understand and forgive him.

bf!matt who shows up at your door with your favorite flowers, a silent apology in his eyes.

bf!matt who wraps you in a tight hug, whispering how much he loves you and how sorry he is for everything.

bf!matt who promises to communicate better, to listen more, and to never let a fight come between you two again.

bf!matt who spends the night holding you close, cherishing every moment and vowing to make things right.

bf!matt who thinks about the little things he can do to make you smile again, like leaving sweet notes or making your favorite breakfast.

bf!matt who feels the sting of regret every time he sees you looking sad, and it fuels his determination to be a better partner.

bf!matt who spends time reflecting on his actions, trying to understand your perspective and learn from his mistakes.

bf!matt who cherishes the moments when you start to open up again, feeling relieved that the connection between you two is healing.

bf!matt who silently vows to never let his temper get the best of him again, knowing that your love is worth more than any argument.

tags — @imwetforyourmom @meatballzerz69 @bandanamatt @pinkishpearls @thedangerousalleyway @sturniolo0bsessed @muchloveforhacker @stinkytinkywinky @jetameivous @everleiqh @conspiracy-ash @ifwdominicfike

[bucky-barnes-diaries]

Day 8 — By The Fireplace

Pairing || TFATWS!Bucky x Female!Reader

Word Count || Around 1900

Contents & Warnings || Fluff, Smut — NSFW, 18+ Only, Minors DNI, explicit content/language, pet names, oral (female receiving), fingering, unprotected vaginal sex, multiple orgasms, mention of bodily fluids.

Disclaimer || English is not my first language so I apologise for any mistakes or misunderstandings!

Advent Calendar 2023

The weather outside was icy, crisp, and biting. The world was draped in a pristine blanket of snow as gentle flakes cascaded from above. Such a picturesque scene of a winter wonderland was not uncommon for a December evening.

Inside your and Bucky’s house, a log crackled in the fireplace, casting a warm glow that bathed your living room in a golden hue. The scent of pine from the decorated Christmas tree mingled with the sweet aroma of vanilla-scented candles, creating a cozy and intimate atmosphere.

You were nestled beside Bucky on the sofa, wrapped in a soft blanket. Bucky’s sweater radiated a warmth that matched the crackling fire, and you couldn’t help but snuggle further into him. You purred in content and sighed happily as he draped an arm across you, kissing the top of your head.

“Hmm, you’re my favorite kind of warmth, Bucky,” you mumbled as you nuzzled your face in the cotton fabric.

With his thumb and finger pinching your chin, he brought your face to his. His hooded eyes gazing into your dilated ones.

His hand found your cheek, his touch gentle yet possessive. “You’re my favorite way to stay warm, doll,” he whispered, voice a low rumble that sent shivers down your spine.

There was no denying the meanings behind his words were a need for a deeper and more passionate connection with you. A need of your own that lit your insides on fire.

Your hands wandered beneath his thick sweater, fingers tracing patterns on his warm and toned skin. Bucky closed his eyes briefly with a throaty moan, savoring the sensation.

“Are you gonna show me how I keep you warm, baby,” you purred seductively. Bucky held a firm grip on your waist as he met your gaze again, his pupils blown out and desire swimming in the depths of his blues.

Bucky cursed silently as he leaned in, capturing your lips in a hungry kiss. He groaned against your mouth, his tongue delicately swiping your lower lip, pleading to explore more. You complied, him and you sliding against each other, exploring the depths of one another.

You pressed your body against his, your clothed breasts pressing against his chest. Bucky groaned as he hoisted you on his lap, kneading your ass in his palms. You moaned while grinding your hips against him, feeling his hardening cock against your clit, even with all your clothing. You kissed him with vigor while your hands roamed over his shoulders and chest.

As the kiss deepened further, Bucky’s hands ventured beneath your sweater. His flesh and machine hand grasped your waist firmly. He pulled you closer, hips flexing upwards to meet your movements, and you shivered above him in response.

“Fuck, I want you, doll. Need your naked body below me as I fuck you till you sing those sweet sounds I love,” he whispered against your lips, voice rough with need.

You moaned softly at his expression of desire, your own burning hot within. You found it hard to speak your needs as his hands slid up your sides beneath the thick sweater, caressing your skin and sending shivers down your spine. But Bucky was an expert in caring for your body and mind, so you let him take control.

He hummed as his lips trailed down your neck, teeth grazing the sensitive skin, making you shiver even more. Your hands moved to his hair, tangling your fingers in the strands and holding him close as he kissed and nibbled your neck. Your heart raced, breath coming faster, and Bucky knew you were as desperate for him as he was for you.

“This needs to come off, doll,” he whispered against your ear, voice low and husky as he tugged on your sweater.

Quickly obeying, you slipped the sweater over your head, revealing your lacy bra. Bucky let out a groan, his hands moving to the clasp of it, freeing your breasts from their confinement.

“Fuck, they’re perfect. You’re perfect,” Bucky groaned as he lowered his head, lips finding your nipple, tongue flicking across it before sucking gently. His hand toyed and played with the other, pulling and pinching lightly. You gasped and pulled his hair, urging him on, and he obliged by sucking harder, his tongue flicking the peaked bud while his thumb and finger teased the other.

“Fuck, fuck, I’ll come if you keep doing that,” you hissed, clit throbbing in need at the stimulation your breasts were receiving. “Please, Bucky.”

“Fuck, you drive me wild, doll,” he groaned as he picked you up with your legs wrapped around his waist for leverage, laying you down on the faux fur in front of the fireplace. The soft and thick fabric a juxtaposition to Bucky’s solid and powerful body hovering over you.

Your chest heaved as Bucky quickly discarded his sweater, his chiseled and perfect physique highlighted by the glow of the crackling fire.

His hand slid down your stomach before tugging at your sweatpants. You lifted your hips to aid in the removal of them. His fingers trailed over your bare thighs before slipping between them. You gasped as his fingers found your damp panties, his thumb rubbing against your covered clit, sending waves of pleasure through your body.

Bucky moaned into your breast as he continued to suck and tease your nipple, his cock straining his sweats. He released your nipple before taking both of your breasts in his hands, squeezing them, his thumbs brushing across your peaks, making you moan loudly with need.

“I need you, Bucky. I need your tongue or cock inside me while you touch me all over,” you whimpered. Your hands moved to the waistband of his sweatpants, pushing them down his legs along with his underwear, letting his hard cock spring free.

Bucky moaned your name as your soft hand wrapped around his cock, stroking slowly, teasing his slit with your thumb and smearing his leaking precum around his tip. Bucky groaned as you put more pressure, loving how you touched and made him feel.

“Need this cock inside me, fucking me and making me feel good,” you mewled against his parted lips, eyes heavy-lidded with desire.

“Beg for me, doll,” he said hoarsely.

“Please… I want you,” you whispered.

He smiled wickedly, lowering his head, kissing your stomach, hips, and thighs until he nestled comfortably between your lush and spread legs, his mouth mere inches from your covered pussy, making you moan and trash against the fur at his teasing.

“I’ll give you my cock, doll. But I need to taste you first,” he groaned, the vibration of his rumbled voice hitting your clit, making you arch your back and moan with need.

He discarded your panties in a swift movement, pushing your thighs further apart before feasting on your pussy.

He ran his tongue up your slit, flicking your clit, moaning against you, and then pushed his tongue inside your hole, thrusting in and out, your juices coating his tongue. The taste of you drove him wild as he ate you out with determination.

“You taste incredible, doll,” he groaned against your clit, the vibration sending delicious tingles down your spine.

Your legs wrapped around his head, fingers combing in his hair and tightening, pulling him closer to your core. He sucked your swollen clit, his tongue flicking over it, having your back arch and nails digging into his scalp.

“Oh, fuck. I’m gonna come. Don’t stop sucking my clit, baby,” you begged with desperate need as you practically rode his face, moving your hips as his lips stayed glued to your pussy.

He slid two fingers inside you, fucking you with them. The combination of his lips around your clit and thick fingers in your wet pussy had you gasping and drawing quick breaths.

“Come for me,” he growled, his voice harsh. You cried out as your orgasm ripped through you, your body shaking and your toes curling. Your walls throbbed against his fingers as he continued to fuck you through the bliss while his lips never lost connection with your engorged clit.

Bucky took a moment to admire your post-orgasm glow. With the way the light of the fire danced across you and the light sheen of sweat on your skin, he was enthralled by your beauty. His cock throbbed with need, balls tightening, precum leaking from the tip.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered breathlessly against your parted lips.

“Fuck me, please,” you whimpered, tangling your fingers in his hair.

He positioned himself at your quivering entrance, his tip teasing your drenched folds before thrusting forward, burying himself balls deep inside your tight walls with a heavy grunt. His cock filled you to perfection, making you cry out, and your legs wrapped around him, pulling him deeper inside.

“God, you’re so tight,” Bucky groaned with a shiver down his spine.

He started to move, his hips thrusting against yours, cock sliding in and out of your wet cunt, his balls slapping against your ass with each heavy thrust. Your hips moved in rhythm with his, your sensitive pussy clenching around his cock, moans and whimpers mingling with his grunts and groans.

“Don’t stop, baby,” you cried as you held onto him. Legs locked around his waist, hands tangling in his hair, nails scraping the back of his neck.

Laid down on the faux fur, he fucked you to perfection in front of the fireplace—warm and intimate. The logs crackled along as you built your earth-shattering bliss together.

He leaned down, his lips meeting yours, kissing you roughly and messy, tongues gliding against each other as he fucked you to oblivion.

You felt your orgasm approaching, your body tensing in preparation for a toe-curling release. “I’m gonna come,” you cried as your cunt clenched around his cock, body shuddering and legs trembling. Your eyes rolled, and toes curled at the heavenly bliss.

Bucky cursed as your orgasm hit, his face burying in your neck, biting softly on your flesh. With the way your cunt milked his cock and you begging for his cum, he couldn’t hold off any longer. His cock swelled, balls tightened, and with a harsh groan, his orgasm ripped through him, body shaking as he came, cum shooting deep inside your pussy, spurting and filling you up as you milked every last drop out of him.

“God, baby. You take my cock so well,” he murmured breathlessly, kissing you passionately, his cock still buried inside as you stayed kissing for a few moments until he finally slid out of your quivering and oversensitive pussy. Bucky’s cock twitched with each heartbeat, longing for you wrapped around him again.

He rolled onto his side, pulling you close to him, arm wrapping around your frame. You snuggled into him, your body still trembling from your orgasm, your mind reeling with the intensity of your lovemaking.

“Hmm, you sure know how to keep a girl warm and content, Bucky,” you purred, kissing his chest. Bucky hummed as he kissed your hair, expressing the same passion.

You closed your eyes, enjoying your shared post-orgasm bliss and the atmosphere of the fireplace. You felt safe and cherished in your bubble of intimacy, with Bucky’s strong arms holding you tight and his heart beating only for you.

Bucky pinched your chin, bringing your lips to his to share a heartfelt kiss. “I love you,” you uttered, smiling. “And I love you.” He kissed you gently once more before singing your body alive again with electric touches and passionate kisses, taking and loving you once more by the fireplace.

Feedback through a comment is highly appreciated! Or let me know through an anonymous ask if that feels more comfortable. As well as a reblog to share my work with other people!

I don’t do taglists so please follow @bucky-barnes-diaries-library and turn on notifications to never miss out on my writing!

[patricia-taxxon]

I want to address what’s being said about me regarding my behavior as a teenager, because some of it is true. However, more of it is greatly distorted, and some of it is false. I won’t be reproducing the video that was made about me, the creator has acknowledged the misinformation present in it & has unlisted it, willingly ceding ground for me to give my own testimony. Some of it will require me to admit to things I am still ashamed of, some of it will require me to revisit a traumatic time in my life that I have mostly blocked out. The short version is that I believe I was being groomed at the same time and in the same place as many of the people who came out against me, and my ultimate goal is to find solidarity with those people and begin the healing process. 

When I was 18, and just beginning to accrue an audience, I created a discord server. For a lot of external reasons, mainly spending my entire life up until this point being shuttled around different special ed schools, this ended up being the first real social circle I ever had. It represented the first positive attention I ever received from strangers. It’s a time where I made a lot of mistakes, it’s a time where I was gravely vulnerable. In all honesty, I was too young to manage a community of any kind, I was hot off the back of being desensitized in my adolescence by unrestricted access to early 2010s internet. I knew well enough to create special NSFW rooms, and was advised later to create further division by requiring users to self-apply for a special NSFW role to access those rooms This extra layer meant that the rooms wouldn’t even show up for people who didn’t have the role, which led to some believing they didn’t exist. 

However, I did not intuitively understand the “meaning” of sexual content, I didn’t understand the baggage that came with it. I used cropped fetish porn as emotes and indiscriminately showed the source to anyone who asked, sometimes outside of the NSFW rooms, because I found niche fetishes to be amusing, and since it was “funny” and not “sexy” it didn’t have to mean anything. The worst consequence of this happened when I was first formulating the ideas for my video about youtuber Rags, and I discovered that his youtube avatar was cropped from a NSFW image he had commissioned of his feral dog fursona. I sent this image to just about anyone who seemed interested, and this included a then 13 year old. I’m going to apologize just like I did when this first came out, but I will not be pressured as I was then into assuming predatory intent in myself. I’m not making excuses when I say that I had been a legal adult for under a year and thought of it as just an interaction between two teenagers, a kind of interaction I had with many of my friends (and some adults) before I turned 18. It was a misunderstanding, *and* I hurt you, and I’m deeply deeply sorry. 

There were some moderators besides myself, two were teenagers around my age, early adopters of the server who I felt I’d become friends with. One was a woman in her late twenties, who I won’t name simply because I’m not in the business of offloading my misery onto other people, but she knows who she is. She contacted me with a shower of attention & adoration, she left positive reviews for my albums when she noticed I was upset at their critical reception, she oversaw me as I posted my nudes in that server and later on my main twitter account. She encouraged this behavior in myself and others and participated in it too.

I want to make this clear, the bulk of the allegations against me boil down to punishing me for failing to surmise I was being exploited by the first social group I ever had. I jerked off in voice chats. I remember the day I started, I was surrounded by people older than me who were encouraging me to post my first nude pic in the self-nsfw channel, and I had to get hard for them first. I then considered this normal and did it often. At one point a 15 year old entered the room while I was doing it, and I went quiet until she left. I reconvened with this 15 year old recently, and she told me she only remembers being promptly told to leave. The claim that I “regularly jerked off in voice chat with minors” as if it were an orchestrated and habitual activity is an outright falsehood.  

I remember posting my nudes on twitter in a fevered haze of dissociation and dysphoria after being goaded by other users in my discord server. I remember doing it again and again, so that it could maybe eventually feel normal. I was 18, going on 19. I had twenty to thirty thousand subscribers, I was hot off the heels of being given 150 bucks for making thirty minutes of music for a much bigger youtuber. There are others who were in that server who were similarly exploited, and I am not here to contradict those testimonies, but I was uniquely denied the ability to understand what had happened to me as grooming, because I was technically of age and I had the very beginnings of a youtube audience. However, 20k subs didn’t give me more power than someone over ten years my senior. 

I was groomed, and just as I was beginning to understand what happened to me, the shame threatening to overtake me completely, I was slapped with the supposed news that I was the sole perpetrator of the entire situation that traumatized me so, that what I thought of as my first friend group all remembered me as a loathsome creep. The apology I wrote in abject panic was dissected and used as a cudgel against me in police-interrogation fashion, so I became afraid to say anything. A year and a half later, I made a post saying that I had been “groomed by a portion of my audience” and this immediately provoked a youtube video callout. I feel as if I have been beaten into silence and complicity, unable to form thoughts of my own regarding my experience. I am terrified, right now, writing this story that I firmly believe no one on earth will buy, because I have come to routinely doubt my own testimony.

Some accusations being made of me are so foreign that I have trouble piecing together what it could be referring to. I commissioned a NSFW size difference piece from dramamine, one where my lover is 11 feet tall, and I was pre transition at the time so I wanted a flat chest to help me feel feminine in my current body. It was wrongly tagged as “cub” (furry child porn) on E621, which I vocally protested at the time. This is the only thing I could point to as evidence for the claim that I commissioned cub porn of myself. I do not know how to convey the feeling of being flooded by accusations that require me to ponder what it could even be referring to, or to see my accuser insist that she’s receiving dozens of new horrible scoops on me without being able to see exactly what it is or what happened. I’m open to apologizing personally to anyone I ended up hurting in my adolescence who reaches out to me, I was a victim of grooming let off into a public space with a few thousand followers after all, but I’m not apologizing on behalf of people who might have heard something bad about me.

I am going to restate, my accuser has *of her own volition* unlisted the offending video & understands the misinformation she spread, there is nothing to gain from seeking her out and letting her know your opinion on the situation. I waited until this agreement was reached to make any statement at all for this exact reason. 

I am staying offline for about a day after posting this, I am under a lot of pressure, I am very tired.

[deathworlders-of-e24]

Liz, Biotechnician

Part 2

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Liz was sitting in the lab, staring at a computer screen, and had been for 2 hours. She’d been asked for a consult by an associate of hers back on Earth who’d written a paper on Xenobiology, namely the life cycles of a very long lived aquatic species in the Gamma Seas.

Like immortal space whales, she thought sluggishly. While an intensely interesting topic to her, the paper itself was painfully dull. She’d only gone through half of it, but not once did it talk about their multicolored scales or the high frequency songs they sung to one another in the deep oceans. It’s was like she’d been editing textbooks all morning.

The only upside was she’d been soaking her feet in a portable spa under the table the whole time. If she was going to be trapped at her desk for hours on end, she was at least going to pamper herself while she did it. She took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. The whole room smelled of lavender now. It was nice.

Across the room the door opened, and in came the Sprygan.

“Hey stranger, haven’t seen you all day,” Liz said, without taking her eyes away from the screen.

“Is that what you have decided to call me?”

“Huh?” Liz looked up now, confused.

“Stranger. It’s not a name I’m familiar with.” The Sprygan stood there, and Liz was once again reminded of how small her lab partner was. Even when she was sitting down, the Sprygan only came up to her chest with their canopy.

“Oh, no, I’m sorry, it’s just… like it’s a way to greet people, on Earth, I guess,” Liz didn’t want to start rambling again. The Sprygan just stood there, watching her. She assumed it was watching her, at least, they didn’t have a face. Supposedly the ones that went off world had a device implanted to turn thought into sound waves so they could communicate with other species, so having no mouth didn’t stop them, and had receptors in their branches to ‘see’ around them, like ganglia sending signals to the brain.

“Oh. Hello then, Human Liz. I didn’t realize your kind also drew in nutrients from your extremities.”

Liz was confused further for a moment before she realized they meant her tiny spa.

“Oh no, we don’t, that’s just to relax my joints. We eat things with this hole in our faces,” she pointed to her mouth and opened wide to show off her teeth. The Sprygan seemed to flinch away for a moment before settling.

“I understand. My mistake.”

They shuffled off to their aluminum pot in the corner, and clicked on the photo bar hanging from one of their branches.

Liz you probably just freaked them out all over again. Can a tree stress eat?

Liz took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

Screw it, just say it.

“I think I made a mistake too,” she started, taking her feet out of the tub and turning her chair to face the pot. “I have not once meant to make you uncomfortable, but that seems to be all I’ve done since I walked in this lab. I’d really like to apologize for any…misunderstandings I’ve caused.”

The Sprygan didn’t move or say anything for a few painfully long seconds.

“I do not believe there have been misunderstandings. You have been very informative on how…meat[?] species behave.”

Liz tapped her translator, hoping to hear the alternative phrasing before she laughed out her nerves.

[Direct Translation of Sprygan word {meat}; non Sprygan; hunter; predator; creature that consumes proteins]

Liz laughed a little anyway, more like a nervous chuckle.

“Well then, okay, I’m glad you don’t hate me. I was really hoping we could be friends, since we’ll be here for a year together.”

The Sprygan reached a vine out and pressed a panel in the wall, popping a screen on.

“What is friends?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Liz had decided to take a break from both the space whale paper and her new ‘friend’, after she’d explained what that was. The Sprygan had concluded that ‘yes, that would be satisfactory.’

She couldn’t tell if it was a difference in brain chemistry or that they were just both inept at social niceties, but Liz was exhausted. How was she supposed to explain mammalian pack bonding to what was basically a bonsai tree from another planet? She wasn’t exactly the home coming queen back in the Academy, and if she was being honest, aside from her sister the only people who even called her were work colleagues asking for assistance on their work.

She needed sugar. Chocolate. Something to keep her brain awake while she trudged through the rest of the shift. She wondered if she explained the phrase ‘pulling teeth’ would the Sprygan understand her.

Liz walked down the hall from the lab, to the junction where the stairs and grav-lifts connected the floors and stopped in front of the Vending Machine. She still couldn’t believe these things could just make her a chocolate bar. They were all the rage on Earth. Just 10 years prior they’d been invented, able to restructure molecules into something else. They’d need materials of course, not unlike 3D-printers, but a box that could turn a spool of goop into anything from pizza to baseball cards was okay by her. She’d heard they were working to make improvements, turn energy into matter through synthesis, but that had to be a ways off. Still, a girl could dream.

The machine dinged and dropped out a few candy bars. Liz took them and started back to the lab. The door hissed open, and she saw the Sprygan at her station, looking at her screen.

“What are you doing?” She asked through a mouthful of chocolate.

“You were looking at a scientific thesis on the life cycles of the Lamorcan whale, I corrected a few mistakes…what is that? What do you have?”

If Liz was ever unsure of where the Sprygan’s attention was, right now it was laser focused on her. Several vines extended in her direction, circling around her face like snakes.

“Whoa, what the hell you doing hon?” Liz took a quick step back, slapping away a vine, which jerked back to the main body. The others stayed out.

“I can smell[?] something you have. You’re eating[?] something.”

She didn’t have time to get alt translations, because right then the Sprygan’s canopy started shaking almost violently.

“I know what that substance is! I didn’t know it grew on other worlds!”

It was the most energetic Liz had ever seen her lab partner. She’d laugh if it wasn’t freaking her out.

You mean… the chocolate?”

“If that’s what you call it, yes. Can I have some?”

“Will you retract the tentacles?”

The vines pulled back a little, enough for some breathing room at least. Liz broke off a chunk of chocolate and held her hand out. The Sprygan’s vine ‘hand’ reached out and plucked it from her palm before retracting back into their canopy. Their leaves shook again, this time for longer, and there was a slight hum in the air.

“So I guess you like it? I’m honestly asking, can you even…taste things?”

“Not like you can, but different nutrients give off different sensations. The glucose in this is extraordinary, and whatever else is in this chocolate as you call it is divine.”

“Cool, another sugar junkie,” Liz chuckled. She didn’t even have time to explain what that meant, she just kept breaking off pieces of candy bar and giving them to the Sprygan.

The chocolate buffet went on for a while, with an explanation somewhere in the middle about how something similar to cocoa beans grow on Spryga. Apparently they were an extremely sought after delicacy in the Sprygan colonies.

“So seriously, nobody has names on your world?” Liz asked after they’d gone through enough chocolate bars to make Willy Wonka scared.

“Only the colonies. I was part of the [error error].”

They made a physical sound by shaking their branches, with creaks and pops and leaves shaking.

“Yeah I don’t think I can pronounce that, hon,” Liz said. The two of them were sitting side by side on the work table in the middle of the room, her legs swinging above the floor, the Sprygan just standing on the counter. Upon closer inspection, their ‘limbs’ were just vines and roots wrapped together to form the shape of legs and feet.

“So how do your people talk to one another if you don’t have names? Do they just say ‘hey you’ or something?”

“We communicate through tactile contact with our roots or branches. I was confused in the last cycle when you held your hand out to me, I thought humans did the same thing.”

“Oh, no, sorry about that.” Liz threw another chocolate chunk in her mouth and dropped one through the leaves on their ‘head’.

“You need a nickname.”

“What is that?” They were shaking as they ‘ate’ the chocolate. Liz swore they were a little bigger than they were that morning. She vaguely remembered something about earth plants needing glucose to grow, so maybe space plants just did it faster?

“It’s like a special name your friends call you, I guess. Like my name is Elizabeth, but I like it when people I like call me Liz.”

The two of them had gone through literal poundage of chocolate by this point. Liz started to wonder if Sprygans could get sick off the stuff. She herself was feeling a stomachs ache coming on, when an idea popped into her head.

“Coco. I’ll call you Coco. That okay with you?” Liz hopped off the table, her still bare feet plopping onto the cool metallic floor. She faced the Sprygan and held out her hand again.

“Hello, again. My name is Elizabeth Collins, and I’m a biotechnician here on the Noah. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

The Sprygan reached out with a vine and wrapped it around her hand.

“I’m a Sprygan from the [error error] colony. My friend named me Coco. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Okay then, glad we sorted that out. Now, you wanna help a girl out with this space whale paper? I think we can get through it faster with two of us.”

“I’ve already started, there were several mistakes in the first 4 pages I’ve corrected…”

Liz smiled. She’d made a friend. Maybe life on board the Noah would be better than she initially thought.

So long as there was chocolate on board.

[foxaftershocks]

Green Eyed Monster (Lars Pinfield x f!Reader)

Synopsis: A couple of misunderstandings leads to some riled feelings

Words: 4.6

There's a whole lot of jealousy in this fic so be ready for that

You sighed, rubbing at the space between your eyebrows. The math wasn’t working out for you and if you couldn’t get it to, your new proton weapon was never going to work. You’d been going over the numbers for so long they’d begun to swim in your vision when you looked up. Standing, you hoisted your laptop into your arms, carrying it with you.

“Hey, Lars, can I get you to look at something?”

You looked up, expecting him to be alone at his desk, extracting paranormals from the latests junk that had been brought in. What you didn’t expect was for there to be one of the interns standing beside him, head bent towards him. They both looked up towards you. The intern flushed, stepping back from Lars while he looked confused at the interruption.

“Oh, sorry. I can come back later if you’re busy,” you said, not sure what you’d walked in on, but you felt your fingertips go numb.

“May as well do it now if you’re here,” he said, “you’ve already interrupted.”

You placed the laptop down and explained your problem to him, hoping a fresh set of eyes would see what you were missing. You were too aware of the intern, her eyes focused on the two of you. Normally, the world fell away when it was just the two of you, but the interloper was making it impossible to forget there were others.

“Your numbers here are wrong,” he said, tapping at the screen with one of his long fingers, “you should have used the equation from over here at this point and then continued from there.”

“Of course,” you groaned, “is it possible to lose braincells from drinking copious amounts of coffee? Because I think I have.”

“Simple mistake,” he said, giving you a lopsided smile.

“Thanks, Lars. I’ll finish this off and then get the prototype to Lucky,” you said.

You picked up the laptop and stepped back, watching the intern take you spot. You paused a moment, watching the way her eyes focused on him so intently. It was like being kicked in the chest. You turned, taking your math with you, refusing to look at them anymore. Her giggle made your fingers clench around the laptop.

You did your best to ignore the image of the two of them, heads bent together, her giggle still echoing in your ears. You avoided returning to his bench lest you see them together, not liking the feeling you got from it. It made you itchy on the inside, right in the places you couldn’t reach with your fingers.

Instead, you focused on the work. On getting the calculations correct and the prototype built. Letting the hours slip by until you looked up, blinking, from the finished weapon only to find the sky outside the windows dark, the moon shining down on the New York City streets. Hunger gnawed at you and your eyes itched, blinking rapidly to see the world around you instead of focusing on small details.

“Oh, shit, sorry, I thought I was the only one left here.”

You looked up, still blinking to bring the world back into focus. Standing a few feet away, a tall man, dark hair swept back from his face, was looking at you with what you knew were dark eyes. Full lips pulled up into a half smile, stubble marring the tanned skin beneath.

“It’s alright, Pete. I didn’t even realise how late it got. How late is it?” you asked, realising you had no idea what time it was.

“It’s 1am,” he laughed, “what’s that you’re working on?”

“A proton pistol. Charge it up and it’s ready to go without the heavy hardware,” you replied, “or at least I hope it is. Lucky can test it tomorrow. Or today, rather.”

He chuckled, sauntering closer. One of his hands was buried in his jeans pocket and that half smile was pulling up further. You looked up, catching his eye before you ducked your head. It was no secret Pete was considered hot amongst the women in the lab. Having his attention focused solely on you was a touch overwhelming.

“I’m sure it’ll be great,” he said, fingers stroking over the metal casing, “you do good work.”

“Oh, thanks.” Your cheeks heated from the compliment.

“We don’t have to wait until Lucky gets back in the morning. We could test it out now if you want,” he said, “aren’t you curious?”

“I’ve never shot one of these before,” you said, hating to admit your comfort zone was behind the action, supplying the weapons, not firing them.

“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you’re okay.”

You considered him for a moment before nodding your head.

“Okay.”

You followed him to one of your testing areas, the pistol heavy in your hand. It felt almost foreign despite being made by you. Pete’s hand landed on your shoulder, turning you towards your target.

“You okay to aim?” he asked.

You lifted the gun, pointing towards the other end of the room. It shook in your grip. His arms curled around you, holding the pistol steady for you. You turned your head, finding his face so close to yours.

“Go on,” he prompted, voice soft, “pull the trigger.”

You turned back, taking a deep breath before you curled your finger, pressing down on the trigger. A long stream of red light burst out, the recoil pushing you back into the sturdy body of Pete behind you. Sparks flew from the target and you felt pride welling in your chest.

Laughter fell from your lips and you let your finger go. Turning, you flung your arms around him, laughing at your success. You could feel the vibrations of his own chuckles, his arms tight around your waist. The scent of electricity was still heavy in the air but his cologne was heady and you felt your heart give a small flutter.

“Good job,” he whispered in your ear.

You pulled back, looking up into his face. You could feel the stretch of your lips into a wide grin. You were so caught up in the moment you didn’t notice the shadowy figure standing outside your glass enclosure. Nor did you notice when they turned away, slipping back into the darkness.

“It works,” you crowed.

“Of course it does,” he said, “I never doubted you for a moment.”

“You’re the only one,” you laughed, “I should go put this on charge and then get some sleep.”

He escorted you back to your bench, his hand warm where it rested on the small of your back. Plugging the gun in to charge, you felt the wave of tiredness slam into you.

“Are you going to be okay to get home?” Pete asked, watching you sluggishly pack up your stuff.

“Sure sure,” you waved off, “it’s the city that never sleeps. There’ll be a taxi out there.”

He walked with you, his hand steadying you before hailing a taxi for you. Handing you into the car, he gave you a small smile and wink, wishing you a good night. You gave the driver your address, relaxing back into the seat as you felt your eyes grow heavy.

Collapsing into bed the moment you got home, you fell asleep with a smile on your face. Your invention had worked. You were doing good work.

The next morning, you could feel the late night still weighing you down as you walked into the lab. You could feel a buzz in your veins, excitement lifting you up and letting you float to your bench.

“There’s the girl of the hour.”

A cup of coffee was placed down in front of you. You followed the arm up to the increasingly familiar half smiling face of Pete looking down at you.

“How are you so perky?” you asked, stifling a yawn.

“I’m on my third one of these. Thought you might need one after last night,” he said, nudging the cup closer to you.

You took it up, sighing when the caffeine hit your tongue. Looking up, you offered him a smile.

“Thanks. I really do need this.”

“Anything for the star of the day,” he said, leaning against the bench beside you, “when you’re done that, want to get back in there and test out the limits of this thing?”

“I think I might leave that up to Lucky. No one should shoot tired,” you replied.

Getting out of your comfort zone once when it was just one other person was one thing, doing it in the middle of the day with everyone else around was a whole other thing. It would be better for everyone if you let Lucky do her thing and shoot to her heart’s content.

“Safety first, I like it,” he said, flashing you another wink.

You snorted, looking back down into your coffee mug. It would be so easy to let yourself develop a crush on him. With the way he was flirting with you, it wouldn’t be hard.

When you looked back up, your eyes landed on something over his shoulder. A tall, lanky figure, blonde hair and thick framed glasses was turned in your direction. Those blue eyes felt laser focused on you and your heart tripped over itself. You’d managed to completely forget about his interaction with the intern with everything you’d been doing with Pete.

“Oi, Pinfield, you heard about this one’s success?” Pete called over when he noticed your attention drifting.

Lars approached, hands shoved deep in his pockets. His nose had scrunched up and when his eyes landed on you it took your breath away. You looked up at him, not sure what to say.

“So you got your equations working then?” he asked.

“Yeah,” you replied, “thanks for your help on that.”

“The whole gun works,” Pete said, “isn’t she phenomenal?”

“I don’t know about that.” You ducked your head again, cheeks heating, heart thumping loud in your ears.

A warm hand enclosed over your shoulder. You looked up into the face of Pete, finding him dipping his head towards you with that half smile. His eyes were sparkling and you found yourself wondering why it couldn’t have been Lars to reach out.

“You are,” he said, so sincere it almost hurt, “you need to believe in yourself more, doll.”

You blinked. The nickname had rolled off his tongue so easily it was staggering.

“Right well, I’ve got work to be getting on with unlike some people.”

Turning your gaze up to Lars, you found his glower enough to reel back. You tugged out from under Pete’s hand, turning back to the bench. Chastised like a teenager was not how you wanted to feel, especially from him. You hadn’t thought you’d done anything wrong. His footsteps receded, leaving you alone with Pete.

“Keep up the good work, doll,” he said, slipping away to do his own work.

You sighed, rubbing at your temple. Downing the rest of the coffee, you picked up the gun, checking the level of charge. Full. Good news for your work.

Passing the gun off to Lucky with the promise of some fun, you wandered back through the lab, trying to come up with your next idea. Lars was alone at the extractor, focused on the screen as he tapped away at the machine. You paused for a moment, just watching him when you knew he wasn’t aware of your presence. Only his eyes darted up, finding you staring.

“Hey, need some help? I’m waiting for Lucky to tell me how broken the pistol is,” you said, approaching him with hesitance.

“Not helping Pete?” he asked.

“Does he need help?” you asked.

“You’d know better than me,” he replied, looking back to his screen.

You waited for a moment but it seemed he wasn’t going to answer you.

“So?” you prompted.

“So?” he repeated.

“Do you need help? Or is someone already filling that role?” you asked.

He looked up at you again, those blue eyes assessing you harder than you were used to with him. The last 24 hours had really made you rethink your relationship with him, that maybe you’d misunderstood something. You’d thought he maybe… But that was in the past now.

“If you need something to do I suppose having someone to take notes would be useful,” he eventually replied.

You perched on the stool beside him, watching sure hands type as he prepared for the next extraction. You felt heat in your veins, those long fingers so dextrous your thoughts betrayed you. You coughed, looking away, down at the empty page waiting for the ink from your pen to mar the pristine surface.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Uh huh,” you replied, still not looking at him.

It was too easy falling back into the rhythm of working with Lars. Months of back and forth between the two of you was comfortable, familiar, and the work created the kind of buffer you needed if you weren’t going to get carried away. Perhaps it was sitting shoulder to shoulder with him, or perhaps it was the flow of the work, but you found yourself relaxing again, almost leaning in to him.

And maybe, just maybe, he was leaning back.

“There you are.”

You hadn’t realised how much time had passed until you looked up, blinking into the light as Pete sauntered over to you.

“Oh, hi,” you said, placing your pen down.

Lars froze beside you.

“You weren’t at your station. I was worried you’d skipped out after your success yesterday,” he said, coming to a stop at the corner of the bench, one hip resting against it.

“No, just working over here with Lars,” you said.

His eyes swept over to the blond man, then back to you, practically dismissing him.

“You don’t want to watch Lucky play with your baby?” he asked, leaning towards you conspiratorially.

“Not if she’s going to break it. I’d rather hear about it later when I can fix it,” you replied.

“Well, I’m about to head out to lunch. That place across the road does the best pizza in the city. Come with me,” he said.

“Oh.” You hadn’t expected that, “I dunno…”

You glanced over at Lars. He was studiously avoiding looking at you, keeping his gaze focused on the screen in front of him, but his fingers had stilled, like he was listening in to your conversation.

“Go ahead,” he said, words clipped.

“No, we’re almost done here. It’s fine,” you replied.

“Just go. I can finish up here,” he said.

“You heard the man,” Pete said, offering a hand to you, “you’re off the hook.”

You shot one last glance at Lars but he was still avoiding looking at you. You sighed, taking the proffered hand from Pete and let him pull you up.

“I just need to get my wallet,” you said, trying to tug out of his hold.

“Don’t worry about that. It’s on me,” he replied, only tightening his hold on your hand.

A snort from your left. Lars still wasn’t looking your way but his eyes had grown steely and the jab at the keyboard more erratic. You tugged your hand out of Pete’s and gently nudged his shoulder. When he looked up at you, the force of his glare was like the sun, sending you stumbling back a step.

“You could come with us,” you said.

“I don’t particularly feel like being a third wheel, thanks,” he snapped.

“Come on, doll. Leave him to his work,” Pete said, “I’m sure we can have plenty of fun without him.”

“Are you sure?” you asked Lars.

“I’ve got more than enough work to be getting on with and this distraction isn’t helping,” he snapped, “go eat.”

“Okay.”

You took one step away from him, then another before a warm hand settled on the small of your back and steered you away. You glanced back, finding Lars watching you, eyebrows drawn together and lips pursed. You wanted to unpack that expression but you were swept away before you could, out into the sunlight and the chaos of the street.

Lunch was nice. It was fine. Good even. Pete was right the pizza was amazing and while the company was lovely to look at it, your thoughts were still caught up on Lars. You’d thought you’d managed to get over whatever weirdness had been between you but the way he’d ordered you out suggested otherwise. Things were so normal when it was just the two of you. It wasn’t until…

Your eyes widened as Pete held the door open for you, ushering you back into work. You looked up at him, smile on your lips, right as your body collided with something. A very soft something. A warm something.

Strong hands caught you around the elbow, keeping you upright and when you turned your head, Lars was looking down at you, lips parted and eyes wide. His hands tightened on you for a moment before he released you, eyes darting up to the man standing over your shoulder. You didn’t want to look at him, studying Lars and the expression melting into something less than friendly.

“Thanks,” you said, soft to your own ears.

He looked down at you, expression softening for a moment. A large hand landed on your shoulder, pulling you towards another tall body. Lars’ expression shuttered and he turned away.

“Just look where you’re going next time,” he muttered.

“That guy has problems,” Pete said, staring at his retreating back, “shall we go see your baby?”

“Lucky must be done with it,” you said, “that or it’s unbreakable.”

“Is that possible?” he asked.

“Doesn’t seem likely.”

You led him back over to your workstation where your pistol and a sheet of paper greeted you. Out of charge and burnt in a few places, it looked worse for wears. You stroked the poor thing, plugging it in as you read over the assessment.

“How is she?” Pete asked.

You hadn’t even realised he was still there.

“Some tweakage is required,” you replied, thoughts already spiralling out as you tried to come up with solutions to the problems Lucky had identified.

“Want some help with that?” he asked.

“I’m sure you’ve got plenty of your own stuff to be working on,” you replied.

“It can wait.”

You finally looked up at him, his face not quite eager but not disinterested either. This man who hadn’t asked you a single question about how the pistol worked or what was required for it. You couldn’t help compare him to Lars, who wouldn’t have asked to help, but would have asked you questions about the specs and purpose. Heads bent together as you worked in tandem, almost not needing words to communicate.

“I prefer working on my own,” you replied, hoping to avoid hurting his feelings.

“You work with Pinfield all the time,” he said.

“That’s… different. We collaborate. The projects come from both of us,” you replied, trying to explain why it was so different. Why would could work with Lars with such ease.

“You were helping him today,” he said, voice growing quiet.

“Like I said. It’s different with him,” you said with a small shrug, “sorry. I just… I’d rather just work on this one my own.”

“Alright, doll,” he said, taking a step back from your station, “if you change your mind you know where to find me.”

Only you never did change your mind. You sat there, fiddling around with the wiring inside your pistol, making adjustments based on the notes Lucky had made. Time slipped away, darkness beginning to creep in once again. To be swept up in your work until the rest of the world faded away was a privilege. One you’d travelled far to have.

“You’re guard dog not here, then?”

That voice would be familiar to you no matter how swept up you were. Lars was standing a few feet away, looking at you in the dark. The lab had grown quiet, only the ghosts left for company. A small smile pulled up the corners of your mouth. Many a night had gotten away from you with Lars in the lab, working shoulder to shoulder on something new and exciting.

“Not unless you’re filling the position,” you replied.

“I doubt he’d be happy about that,” he said, drawing closer.

“And he would be who exactly?” You thought you might know the answer but you wanted to hear him say it.

“I get it. Pete’s a handsome guy.” He shrugged nonchalantly, “I’ve heard he’s funny too.”

“He is,” you agreed.

“I didn’t know you and he were…” He trailed off as if unable to find the words.

“He and I are… what?” you asked.

You knew you weren’t making this easy on him but you wanted to hear it. Needed to hear it. You were tired of second guessing yourself with him.

“I didn’t know you were so close,” he eventually managed to say.

“Does it bother you?” you asked.

“Why would it?” he replied, eyes darting away from you.

“Why don’t you tell me? It seems to bother you.”

You stood up. Blue eyes darted back up to you, widening when you took a step towards him. A hand came up, stopping you before you could get closer.

“Lars, what’s your problem with him?” you asked, pushing harder.

The hand in the air fell, fingers clenching into a fist. Something harsh flashed over his face and a hard breath flared his nostrils. You waited, patient, wanting him to use his words.

“You can do better,” he finally said.

“Can I?” you asked.

“Of course you can,” he snapped.

“Like who?”

He took a step closer, his expression turning fierce. You weren’t used to it on him, such fierceness. It made your heart pound and you butterflies burst in your stomach. You back up into the bench, pressing into your spine as he advanced on you. His chin lowered as he looked down on you, face in shadows.

“Like me.”

His hands landed either side of you on the bench. The warmth from his skin washed over you, body close but not close enough. Your breath had escaped you. Head swimming, you didn’t know what to do with your hands, desperate to reach out and touch him but not sure what would happen if you did.

“You think you’d be better for me?” you asked.

“Leagues better,” he replied.

You reached out, a hand landing on his chest, right over his heart. You could feel it beating hard against your palm. A soft noise came from pink lips and when you looked up, his face had changed, as if you were touring him with your touch. It sent a thrill through you.

“Are you jealous?” you whispered.

You thought he might deflect or deny it. Scoff at your suggestion. Instead he drew a little closer.

“Yes.”

“Really?” you asked, fingers clenching as you grasped his shirt in your grip, holding him there so he couldn’t leave.

“Next time you test your weapons, I want to be the one with you. I want to be the one here late at night with you. I want to be the one taking you out to lunch. I want to be the one touching you,” he all but growled.

“So touch me,” you said.

His hands shifted from the workbench to your waist, holding on tight. Your other hand came up, playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. He hissed when you gave a small tug, pressing closer.

“Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do this?” he asked you with a groan.

His head fell forward, resting against yours. Breath ghosted over your lips and you shivered, wanting to taste him. Your own fingers tightened on him, practically dragging him closer.

“What about Connie?” you asked, hating to bring it up but needed to know.

“Who?” He sounded genuinely confused.

“The intern. She was helping you yesterday,” you said, “you looked… close.”

He drew back just far enough to be able to see you properly. You could feel your cheeks heat as he looked at you, eyes wandering over your face.

“You were jealous too,” he said, not a question for you to answer, but a declaration.

“I was,” you confirmed, “I’m meant to be your lab partner. Not her.”

“Why would you be jealous of her?” he asked, sounding confused.

“She obviously has a crush on you, Lars,” you said, “blushing around you and sitting close to you and giggling around you.”

“You do all those things,” he said.

“Exactly,” you said.

“Oh.”

He blinked and you found the wonder breaking over his face adorable. You pulled him closer until he was bent towards you again.

“For someone so smart sometimes you can be so dense,” you said.

You didn’t wait for a response, pressing your lips to his. The hands still resting on your waist slid around to the small of your back, hauling you against his body. Your fingers delved into his hair. His tongue ran along your lower lip and you sighed into the kiss. The edge of the workbench pushed into you as he pressed you back against it, kissing you like he was drowning in you.

You wanted to stay wrapped up in his arms. Heat was travelling through you and all you wanted to do was sink into it. His tongue brushed against yours and you made a small noise, almost a whimper, muffled against his lips. A low groan rumbled through his chest and he pressed closer, kissing you deeper until your knees had turned to jelly.

You shuddered against him, wanting every part of him. For so long you’d felt a yearning for him, watching him as he worked, listening to him talk in soft tones to you, heads bent together like you were co-conspirators. It was all so much, so many months of wanting this.

His hands moved to your hips, gripping hard, and you wondered if you’d find bruises later. There was a part of you that hoped you would. You liked the thought of having his mark on your body. It was like he was claiming you as his.

“I guess that’s a no to wanting to grab some dinner.”

You pulled back from Lars, looking over his shoulder. Pete was watching the two of you, a hand in his pocket, slumped shoulders and look of frustration on his face.

“I’m good,” you called over to him.

“If you’re sure,” he said.

“You can fuck off now,” Lars said.

The look of frustration turned to anger before he turned away. Lars didn’t bother giving him a chance to leave properly before his lips were back on you, finding a space on your neck to press kisses to your skin. Your head tilted back, giving him more room as electricity ran through your veins, a soft sigh coming through parted lips.

“Lars,” you said, fingers tightening in his hair.

He mumbled something against your skin. You tugged on his hair to get his attention. Blue eyes looked up at you, smouldering and you could just melt.

“We can’t do this here. It’s work. We’re at work,” you said.

He blinked then drew back but the way he was looking at you only made your thighs press together. He nodded, stepping back. You caught his hand, threading your fingers together, not wanting to let him go at all.

“Take me home,” you requested.

He brought you closer, a chaste kiss placed on your lips. You whimpered when he drew away, too far into it for embarrassment to cloud your feelings.

“Let’s go,” he said.

You didn’t need to be told twice.

[howlsofbloodhounds]

you know I think itd be very very interesting to explore killer’s disconnect from other monsters as well and skeletons monsters specifically. like their customs, culture, traditions, even their means of nonverbal communication and body language.

like. its a big part of his character that he doesnt know what he is. human, monster. both. neither. something else entirely.

he doesnt know. imagine all the conflicts that can arise because its killer responsibility to take care of and look after cross, horror, and murder but he doesnt comprehend or factor in or even consider their means of nonverbal communication or skeleton specific body language cues and traditions just yet.

imagine all the misunderstandings and mistakes and the angst because they all likely dont know that killer doesnt understand because they all do and killer will never ever tell them directly. its like these guys are speaking a language he forgot how to understand or speak.

imagine killers body instinctively giving cues or signals he isnt aware of or doesnt understand but the others do so they react or behave and accordingly and killers confusion about it. or imagine his body having been trained out of those specific instinctive responses and now other skeletons are hurt or offended or confused or feel threatened.

id imagine this all pushes killer further towards nightmare too. because nightmare also isnt a monster despite having the body of one. hed probably also subject the other skeles to an intense observation and borderline stalking period.

[boiohboii]

Our wedding menu (Lando Norris x reader)

When your friend leaves you to entertain yourself you decide to try something really new.

or

in which you wanted to have fun and a really handsome, curly haired british boy is your victim.

N.B: just a silly little drabble inspired by this video, hope you guys like it! WARNINGS: not proof read, spelling mistakes maybe? Also, don't do that in public, this is just for fun really. Let me know what you guys think!

masterlist

When people are bored they watch a movie, read a book or maybe go outside and look around. But you weren't feeling like doing any of those things, your friend has left you to go on a date and honestly you can't blame her, the guy was extremely handsome and so so polite, which is why you are currently sitting in a cafe doing what you do best- people watching.

There was an old couple sharing their lunch and smiling (they are what anyone dreams of, in Monaco with each other after however many years of marriages), there was an employee on the phone behind the counter probably arguing with someone by the movements in her hands and the chewing of her own lips, and there was a group of guys (fuck off, why are they so handsome) who you are pretty sure are famous- if the guys, girls and old rich people coming up every few minutes asking for photos and autographs weren't enough of a sign the billboards you've seen scattered around Monaco in your short visit of 4 out of these 9 guys (that's a big ass friend group) were confirmation of them being models at least (which adds up to these looks).

Now you weren't much of a jokester in front of strange people, especially not a group of 9 handsome guys, but hey life is all about trying new things which is why you decided it'd be fun to try and see what their reactions would be.

Standing up you rushed out of the cafe, was it a good idea? No. Did you have enough social energy to pull this off? No. Do you have enough confidence to talk to one handsome dude who is in the middle of his handsome friends? Also no. But none of that stopped you from going to the burger truck a few blocks down asking for 2 double cheeseburgers and 2 chocolate frosties. After taking your receipt you stood in line, waiting for your order.

"I love their variety so much! Everything is available"

"Yes! I am so happy that they have no meat options"

Oh shit. What if he's vegan!

Leaving your place in the line you went back to the cashier and ordered the most appealing name from their non meat menu.

After finally having your food in hand you went back the same way stopping in front of a flower shop, what flowers should you get? would he even accept the flowers? What if he's allergic to flowers?

Opening up Google you searched for the flowers that don't cause allergies, seeing roses on top of the list you decided to get a small bouquet of 4 roses before placing it carefully in your bag (in another zipper away from the food).

Entering the cafe for the 2nd time today you took a look around, extremely happy that the barista kept her word and made sure that all of the tables are taken and the only chair empty is besides the curly haired boy laughing at something his friends have said.

"Hi, I'm sorry to interupt but can I sit here?"

You asked as you looked around the table, upon seeing all of them looking at each other you explained further "it's just that there's no other chairs available, as soon as there is one I'll be gone, promise"

"Oh yes, of course, you can stay as long as you want"

The guy with green? or is it blue? eyes replied, while everyone else gestured for you to take a seat.

"Thank you," as you placed your bag you asked the one question that would decide if you should move on with whatever it was you were going to do "oh, sorry, do you have a girlfriend? I don't want to overstep or make any misunderstandings" you asked the victim of your plan, upon shaking his head you took a seat.

Sitting down you decided to start your plan, fishing the necklace out of the small zipper you turned to the boy sitting beside you holding the necklace between both of you

"Can you please do this for me? I can't reach"

All chatter around the table stopped, you can feel 9 pairs of eyes on you as you gave the boy a small, apologetic smile.

"Oh, uhh- yeah of course," ohhh, he's british, damn you might actually fall in love "let me just figure out how it works."

As he clasped the necklace together you thanked him, moving onto your next step which consisted of you bending down to get your mirror and your lipstick out of the bag, staying in your position you moved the bag a bit to the right before adjusting yourself a bit so that what you're doing would be noticed. Not bringing your mirror onto the table but still visible enough for the 9 guys to see you applying a new layer of lipstick, you can hear them questioning what you are doing and it just made you want to get up and run back to your hotel room.

You already started, no going back now.

Being satisfied with how the lipstick looked you placed it back in the bag before sitting properly, smiling at the blue eyed guy in front of you.

Waiting a bit so that the guy besides you isn't speaking to someone before you move onto the main plan.

Upon seeing him get his phone out you decided to go ahead, it's now or never

"We had a date, no?" you whispered to him as to not get the attention of his friends, at least not this soon.

The man blinked at you before looking around him, wanting to make sure you are talking to him "I'm sorry?"

Before he could even question you any further he saw roses within his eyesight

"These are for you," you pushed the bouquet into his frozen hands "hope it smells as good as you"

Red started covering his face, looking around at his friends, who quietened down as soon as they saw the red roses, searching for an explanation.

When you kept looking at him with that smile he let out a small thanks before smelling the flowers.

Okay, nice, so far so good, why is he so flustered oh my god, he's the cutest.

"Oh, I also bought burgers"

"I'm sorry, what is this about?"

"I also bought drinks, one is oreo and one is hershey, well it was supposed to be hershey kisses but they ran out so let me just," leaning over to him, you kissed his cheek "there you go, now you can take the hershey one"

The other 8 boys howled in laughter at the wide eyed, red faced boy staring at the drink in front of him on the table. He bite his lips, trying to prevent a smile from breaking out onto his face.

You decided to get your phone out and wait a bit before you moved on further with the plan, the group going back to their conversations while the brit besides you kept taking glances at you, thinking you wouldn't notice, but you did and you also noticed that he is not touching his burger, only drinking the frosty.

Dipping your hand into your bag you got out the other burger "that's a non meat burger, bought it just in case."

"Oh," he took the food from your hands, nodding his head in thanks "you didn't have to."

Giving him a full smile you went back to your phone, waiting for him to eat a bit of his sandwhich so you could make the next move. The way he gets flustered and shy makes you want to ask him out on an actual date, he is so fucking pretty.

"Do you like it?"

Nodding, he smiled at you as he gave you a thumbs up as he can't answer while chewing.

"I'm really glad, I was thinking about adding it to our wedding menu," the dark haired man sitting on the other side of the british boy choked onto his drink, looking at their group of friends wanting to make sure that he heard correctly "not as a main dish, more like a snack really."

The boy besides you shrugged, thinking about how a burger truck would look in a wedding.

"Mate, you better not forget my invite if you're gonna have burgers at your wedding."

[bookshelfdreams]

There were two great posts about Izzy yesterday, and I would like to expand on and add my 2 ct to the things said in them a little. One, by @celluloidbroomcloset (with additions by several others), about how Izzy immediately falls back into old patterns of manipulative behaviour after his supposed redemption in 02x07, only this time with Stede as the focus of said behaviours instead of Ed. The other, by @batsarebetterthanpeople, about how Izzy's behaviour in 02x06 and onward is more akin to the development a homophobe coming around to a queer loved one, than an arc of queer self-discovery.

Izzy's story isn't about himself. I think this is the first, fundamental mistake people make when engaging with it. He's not a protagonist; he doesn't exist in the story for his own sake. So when ofmd asks "How to reform a toxic person? What does it look like and is it even possible?", the starting point isn't one of empathy with Izzy.

It's one of empathy with Ed. ofmd is asking these questions not because it wants to understand Izzy better. What it wants to explore is the possibility of Ed having the relationship with Izzy Ed wants. Whether Izzy can be brought around to understanding Ed's wants and needs, whether he can understand the hurt he caused him.

This is a fundamentally different approach to how these stories are usually told. Usually, we start out with the unspoken assumption that the toxic person is well-intentioned, good at heart, and whatever pain they caused our protagonist is more akin to a misunderstanding than deliberate harm. Yes, they may have have caused hurt, but if you just see things from their perspective, you'll understand that they only had your best interest in mind, and that will enable you to forgive them.

Obviously this can't not veer off into victim blaming. "The abuser had a good reason for what they did, and therefore, it's your own fault. Or at the very least not theirs."

ofmd fundamentally rejects this. It is very careful to never let the bullies and abusers have a valid point. Abusers are abusive because they get something out of it. To truly reform an abuser, they would have to be willing to build a life for themselves that is a lot less comfortable. Where they have to consider other's feelings, communicate and compromise, meet other people on equal footing, instead of putting themselves in a position of authority. It means letting go of patterns of behaviour that they have so far been quite successful with*.

And Izzy - tries. He is interesting because part of him clearly wants to leave the toxicity behind. He gets to see what positive relationships, human connection, being part of a community look like; he's offered an outstretched hand, and, after biting it a few times, tentatively starts to take it.

But he can't quite get there. The temptation to fall back into what he knows is too strong. celluloidbroomcloset's post linked above talks mainly about 02x07, so I'm not gonna repeat all that, but I'm going to add two little scenes from 02x06 that further cement this. In the beginning of the episode, Izzy finds Ed as he's standing on deck, watching the sea, and the conversation that plays out is a clear mirror to, almost repeat of the Frankfurter clouds scene from 01x04. Ed tries to share an observation with Izzy in an attempt to reach out to him ("Something's wrong. Feels like a storm's coming but I can't see it."), which Izzy, of course, immediately dismisses ("Or maybe you're just a mopey twat and there is no fucking storm").

The second scene is, when Izzy is the only one discouraging Ed from following Stede to his cabin after he kills Ned Lowe. Discouraging support, discouraging connection and emotional honesty; Izzy will continue to try to isolate Stede.

Now, I do not think this, or the things happening in 02x07, are put in there deliberately to show that Izzy has ulterior motives. Rather, they are an illustration of how deep these maladaptive patterns of behaviour go. Izzy isn't able to fully admit to himself the extend of the harm he caused and this is what prevents him from truly changing his behaviour - even when he has just experienced the benefits of a loving, supportive community!

All of this is the explanation to the answer the show gives to our starting question: Is it possible for Ed to have the relationship with Izzy that Ed wants? And the answer is: No. Just because growth is possible, doesn't mean it is enough. Doesn't mean anyone's entitled to forgiveness. Sometimes, the only compassionate thing to do, is to take yourself permanently out of the other person's life.

But Izzy did learn, and he did grow. It's just that the purpose of said growth wasn't to heal him; it was to enable him to understand the hurt he caused to Ed. That doesn't have to mean people like Izzy can never be reformed, it just means that this isn't a story about the reformation of a toxic person. It's the story of leaving this toxicity behind.

And this is why Izzy's heartfelt apology followed by his immediate death is a positive ending. It represents the conviction that no relationship is so broken it can't be mended, but also the assurance that no relationship is so important it can't be ended.

Ed gets to hear the things he needs to hear most - I am sorry, I was wrong, you didn't deserve this - and then Izzy disappears from his life, and with him, all the toxicity he represents.

They can part on good terms, but part they must. So Ed can go into the rest of his life, unburdened.

*read Lundy Bancroft's "Why does he do that", seriously. The whole thing is on archive.org.