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ozarkthedog · 4 months ago

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𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝

summary: the world crumbled before you could experience the touch of another. Joel does his best to keep you innocent for as long as he can.

pairing: Jackson!Joel Miller x afab virgin!reader.

warnings: 18+ mdni. established, undefined relationship. PUSSY RUBBING. fluids galore. just the tip. perv!joel. unspecified age gap. fingering. dirty talk. overstimulation. male masturbation. FEELS. Joel is a conflicted old man. reader is able bodied. no Ellie. w.c. 2.9k

an: i watched a porn clip and instantly went rabid thinking about jackson!joel.

-> follow up to a glimpse of heaven but it's not necessary to read the first part.

𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭 ⋅ 𝐅𝐢𝐜 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐬 ⋅ 𝐉𝐨𝐞𝐥 𝐌𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭

Like most of Jackson, the house you share with Joel is quiet and calm when night falls. Rain softly patters against the window as you lie in bed, wide awake. Another night of fruitless sleep under your belt.

You huff irritatedly, your hand collapsing against the mattress as you bitterly kick your bedspread onto the floor. Your oversized shirt clings to your body, your skin dewy from the exertion, and you're close to crying. Your limbs are wrought and overworked after hours of touching yourself with no orgasm to show for it.

Your hand won't cut it; it isn't enough. It can't reach all those sensitive spots that make you float among the stars.

Warmth pools in your abdomen as you think of one that's the perfect size.

A hazy hue of yellow light pours under your bedroom door as it spills from the room across the hall.

Joel.

It takes a long time to get to know someone, but they tend to meld with your soul once you do in one way or another.

From the start, Joel was intimidating. He was so frayed around the edges that you were afraid he'd completely unravel in the middle of your journey. He didn't seem to care for your company as the two of you traveled across the plains to Jackson, hesitation poisoning every fiber of your being, but you kept on with the strange man since no one else was willing to trek across the states. You desperately needed a new life, a fresh start away from the Boston QZ, and Jackson sounded like the perfect spot.

Over time, Joel opened up, conversing little by little as you drove for miles across the now barren US. Usually, after you had a close call with raiders or the lone gunman, he'd go silent, the weight of protecting someone other than himself sinking further into his soul, consuming that much further.

What you never expected was for him to be your first touch.

Sweltering tension slowly grew like a wildfire. Catching each other's curious stares, lingering fingers, and salacious banter until, one night, he slid a cautious hand into your panties. He claimed your untouched sex when you confessed over a roaring fire and a bottle of whiskey that you'd never been with another. His weathered hands were gentle as he sunk his fingers into your core, watching with rabid fascination as you came for the first time, gasping from his touch.

The following day, as he drove you across the interstate with the sun slowly rising, he made sure you knew that wouldn't happen again. "I'm much too old. Don't wanna waste your time with a mean ol' grump like me."

You didn't bring it up again.

One month after settling into Jackson, picking bedrooms, and deciding who would do which chores, Joel had his first taste of you.

It wasn't supposed to happen.

You chewed your dinner slowly in the modestly sized dining room across from Joel. You were so lost in thought that he was concerned enough to ask what was wrong.

"What does it mean when a man eats you out?" you naively pondered, causing him to choke on his veggies.

Joel had never looked so red before as he took a long drink of whiskey. You instantly apologized, explaining that you overheard a group of women conversing while you tended the communal garden.

He raised a hand, curbing your frantic rambles. "S'ok. Figured you'd be learnin' things. Just didn' think I'd be the one you'd ask."

"But I trust you."

His jaw twitched at your words.

Later that night, Joel fell to his knees at the edge of your bed and tossed your legs over his broad shoulders. "Never tasted a pussy so sweet," he mumbled against your glistening folds as you ran your fingers through his graying curls. You came multiple times on his tongue, grinding his whiskered jaw while he hungrily lapped at your soaked folds like he was dying of thirst.

You didn't bring it up again.

It's warmer in Jackson now. The sun hangs longer in the sky. Snow boots and jackets are stowed away until the next freeze.

You slink from the warmth of your bed and pad sockless across the hall. Lightening flickers brightly under the starry sky. The night rain storm slowly whirls through the city, soaking everything in its path.

Joel's door is open. A soft smile tugs at your lips; it's his way of saying he's still up. He keeps it ajar while he reads before rolling onto his side and bidding goodnight to the world.

Three soft knocks alert Joel from the guitar-building manual he's currently reading. Dread clouds his mind for a moment, wondering why you'd be knocking on his door at this time of night, but he takes a deep breath and grounds himself in the softness of his bed.

"Yeah?" he calls out. His tone is rough around the edges after a long day on patrol.

You poke your head around the door with a timid smirk. He looks at you over his reading glasses before marking his spot and laying his book on the side table.

You don't say anything as you stride into his room. He notices your oversized shirt swaying at your knees before you climb into his bed and curl against his side like a cat.

He drapes an arm around your shoulder, unconsciously pulling you closer.

"'Nother bad dream?" he questions with a low rumble.

You shake your head. "Can't sleep."

You nuzzle your face into the crook of his shoulder and feel him nod, understanding the endless struggle for a night of peaceful sleep. It's improved since moving to Jackson, but the dreams never end.

Silence fills the bedroom except for the soft pitter-patter of rain against the roof. Joel leans against the headboard, sighs through his nose, and lets his thoughts drift. He's content to sit with you in his arms for as long as possible, even if that makes him selfish.

He wonders if you hope to find someone to settle down with, someone less ridged and mentally maimed, someone less him.

The thought drives a stake through his heart.

He'd be crazy to say he didn't love being around you. Your laugh and lopsided smile took the first brick out of his impenetrable fortress when you spied a deer and her calf frolicking in an open field in Kansas. From then on, it became easier for him to let his walls down.

When you came to him with those big doe eyes and urges about wanting to know what it's like to be touched and desired, he gave in each time despite his reasoning.

He would masturbate each time after getting his hands on you, also thinking about the early days when he'd catch glimpses of you changing or the time he first saw you naked while showering at the YMCA.

He's still trying to figure out what to make of you. Friends? Lovers? He certainly didn't mean to fall head over heels. Love had no place in his heart, but he'd be a fool to say he wasn't extremely fond of you.

"Can you make me feel good again?" your lithe voice broke the silence.

Joel stops breathing. Your question doused him like a cold bucket of water. He knew this would come back and haunt him.

His hand curls tight around your shoulder as he wrestles with the devil on his shoulder. "Told ya we shouldn't keep doin' this, Sweetheart," he reasons, trying not to break your heart.

"But I can't make myself feel as good as when you've done it. I've tried!" You whine, burying your face into his chest.

"S'not that I don't wanna," he admits, soothing your soft cries. "S'just, you're too precious to do that wit' someone like me."

You lift your head and brazenly brush your lips against the exposed skin of his collarbone, earning a low groan as he curls a large hand around the back of your neck. He tugs you away from his skin, your lips still forming a tight 'O', and pins you with a stern gaze.

"Joel, it hurts." Your watery eyes and trembling bottom lip are his downfall.

"Lay back, Sweetheart, and spread your legs," he orders with a husky tone.

You don't make a noise; too afraid he'll stop if you do. Your cunt beats against the gusset of your panties as you lay on your back, spreading and bending both legs at the knee, just like he taught you.

A warm breath fans down your face as he shifts down your body before kneeling between your legs and tracing teasing fingers over your covered mound. His nails lightly scratch along the worn cotton, making you suck in a frantic breath. He slips a practiced hand beneath the crotch of your panties and deftly explores your folds, gently rubbing small circles on your clit after wetting his fingers with the arousal that's pouring from your cunt.

"Oh, she's achin' real bad, huh?" he groans as your opening clenches beneath his wandering touch.

"Joel, please, I need-" You gasp, hips wantonly grinding against his hand, desperate for any type of friction.

The muscles in his jaw ache. It's only natural you'd be wanting more.

Before he thinks twice, Joel draws his cock out from his sweatpants. Your stomach cramps at the sight as it smacks against his belly; he's massive.

His cock hangs heavy between his thighs like a solid, dangerous threat. It weeps from the dusky tip, shiny liquid dripping from the crown as he squeezes his hand around the girthy base peppered with dark gray, wiry hair.

"Got somethin' that'll make you feel good, sweet girl." he grits, tapping his cock against the covered crux of your pussy. It thwaps devastatingly against your clit, forcing a gasp from your lips as mind-numbing pleasure races up your spine and leaves you staring dumbly up at him.

"S'that what you need? Need my cock to keep 'er from achin so bad'?" his cock is searing as it lies in wait atop your panty-clad mound. You swear you can feel his blood pumping steadily into his shaft.

He cautiously thrusts his hips, sliding his length along your cotton-covered mound. Your slick arousal seeps thru the material, wetting the thin cotton and creating a sensuous touch as he glides along your cunt.

He shoves your shirt up over your chest, exposing your breasts to his hungry gaze. He licks his lips, "Such'a beauty."

Your cheeks flame at his words. Having such a man say things about you makes you lightheaded.

Joel groans as your panties practically are now see-through from your combined fluids staining the cotton, "Oh, baby." You whine at his pet name. "I got ya. Keep those legs open, just like I taught ya. S'good girl."

He keeps a steady pace, sawing back and forth over your extremely soaked mound. Your puffy pussy lips stick to the soaked cotton, leaving nothing to Joel's imagination. He glides easily along your slit, your juices smoothing his path until your arching your back and chanting his name like a prayer.

Watching you orgasm under his touch is enough to drive him wild. He throws all sense of logic out the window. He's okay with being selfish again.

"Let's get these off, yeah." He hooks two fingers under the elastic and slides your panties off before his words register in your euphoric haze. "Feel even better without 'em."

He swallows hard at the sight laid out before him. The sheets splay and curve around your naked body, making you look like an ethereal being sent to test his limits.

"Gonna give 'er a kiss, Sweetheart," his deep timbre vibrates your body as he draws close and touches the bulbous tip of his cock to your exposed folds. Blood rushes to your cunt instantly, bordering on the edge of pain. You cry out from the intense contact, and arousal slips freely down your crack as he traces his cockhead up and down your soaked slit.

"How's she feel?" He anchors his head, looking down at you from under his lashes.

"S'nice," you half whisper, half moan. The wanton bliss slowly consumes you the more he rubs against your sticky folds, keeping a hand locked around his girthy base, his crown glistening with your combined arousal.

Your eyes tear open, back arching like a bow, when he cants his hips and taps his cock square in the center of your cunt.

"M'not gonna fuck you, sweet girl, wanna keep you whole," he declares, holding true to his word despite the overwhelming need to claim you.

He can't be the one to sully you. "Ain' much left'a this world that's as sweet n' pure as you."

Your core quivers as his dusky, throbbing crown glides along your glistening seam. He tentatively explores uncharted areas, brows furrowed with concentration, fighting with inner demons who want to claim, corrupt, and mold you for only his touch.

His name leaves your lips with a mess of desperate, frustrated moans, "Please, Joel."

He snaps out of his haze. He's done almost everything he can to keep you safe and protected in this new way of life. He'll be damned if he doesn't grant you anything you ask for.

"S'hurtin' somethin' fierce, huh?" He grunts, angling his hips until his cock lines up with your fluttering hole. "Bet she needs somethin' big'er than fingers to ease 'er throbbin'."

His cock catches on your opening, forcing a hiss through his clenched teeth. As tight as you are, he can't stop from pushing into your warmth. He blocks out any sense of reasoning that's shouting from the back of his mind as he slowly nudges his cock into your weeping, inviting hole.

Joel goes brain-dumb momentarily, watching in immoral awe as your core ever so slowly swallows his fat tip and breaches your quivering hole, forcing a raspy whine from your throat.

So warm, safe, and wet.

Joel's never felt anything like you. He wants to bury himself, slide his cock as deep as he can, claim every inch, endlessly fill you with his cum, and keep you only for him.

You frantically reach for him, hands clutching the air as he rubs a callous thumb over your clit while keeping a steady hold on the base of his cock.

"S'all she's gonna get," he states, returning to his senses and hissing when your cunt tightens. "S'just the tip."

A soft begging whine bubbles from your lips as you extend your arms, needing something solid to hold before latching onto his wrists.

Your hips move on their own, desperate to feel his length completely shunted in your velvet warmth, but brute hands envelop your hips and pin them to the bed.

He shakes his head, salt and pepper curls fraying across his forehead. "Don' be greedy now." He tuts, narrowing his gaze down at you.

A garbled mess of nonsense tumbles from your lips as your fingernails dig into his muscular, hairy forearms.

"I know. S'big, huh?" He lands a solemn thumb on your clit, rubbing tender circles around the tiny bud. "Stay wit' me, sweet girl. Wanna feel you come on my cock."

Your mind spins. It's all too much, and yet, not enough. Your head tosses from side to side, and you're frantic to survive, breathing hard and fast, waiting for the drop to come and, at the same time, never wanting it to come.

"Don't I deserve it? Keepin' you safe all this time." Joel muses, stroking his cock in time with his teasing thumb. His eyes never leave where he's splitting you open. He's barely penetrating you, but it's enough to know if he had, you'd be struggling to take him.

"Come on, Sweetheart. Let go f'me," he urges, his touch growing faster. Severe, tightly drawn circles tease you closer to the edge.

Your stomach flips. A heaviness settles in your throat, your heart lodging in the tight confines, your blood pumping faster and faster. A lithe whine slithers free, escaping into the dimly lit room and burrows into Joel's mind.

His jaw clenches, and a dark growl rumbles from his chest, "Thatta' girl. Make'a fuckin' mess'a me."

Your dripping hole quivers and throbs around his swollen tip as you come with a silent scream, body locking taut, trying its best to engulf his length entirely.

Joel curses, jerking his length with long, steady tugs and rubbing his weeping, cream-covered tip around your soaked folds before his spine goes straight, and he yanks his cock from your core, curling in on himself and spilling his seed all over your belly with a deep, gravelly moan.

You sag into his sheets, spent with a shiny thin layer of dew and white ropes of spend painted across your abdomen.

"Shit." Joel curses, breathing heavily as he holds himself by his hands, which press into the mattress by your head, keeping you locked beneath him.

You hold his studious gaze. His dark eyes ruminate, tinged with mood, as his gaze drills down into your very core, threatening to demolish your soul. You resign that this was nothing special. Just another night you won't talk about again.

Joel eases off of you with a grunt, his bones aching from the tension despite the brief, pleasurable relief, and tucks his cock back away into his sweatpants. He shuffles to the bathroom momentarily before returning with a damp washcloth.

He wipes the cloth over your belly and between your thighs, cleaning the combined arousal from your skin before chucking the rag into the hamper with a sigh.

"I know," you mutter, grimacing as you roll onto your side and sit up, tugging your shirt down. "I won't mention it again."

A solid, warm hand on your shoulder stops your retreat. "Stay," Joel whispers with soft, yearning eyes. "I wan' you to stay, sweet girl."

feel free to scream at me -> 💌

reblogs & comments are extremely appreciated! follow @ozzieslibrary for new fic updates!

#joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller smut #joel miller fanfic #pedro pascal

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lamentationsofalonelypotato · 2 months ago

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Chapter 14: Don't Be A Bundt Cake

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV, Soldier Boy POV

Summary: When you decided to work with Butcher and his merry band of supe hunters to take down Homelander, you never expected to be saddled with a sullen, grumpy, jerk like Soldier Boy when the job was done. The more you're around him the more you hate him, but you can't help but wonder, is he really as big a jerk as you think? Reader is a supe with plant powers. This takes place in an AU about a month after the end of The Boys Season 3, in which Butcher has let Soldier Boy continue to work with him on his team. (I'm real bad at summaries, please forgive me!)

Tropes: Enemies to Lovers (Not in this chapter), Slow Burn, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Soft Ben/ Soldier Boy, Protective Ben/Soldier Boy, Miscommunication Trope

Word Count: 13.1K

Warnings: I'm going to label this 18+ because Soldier Boy (he's a warning and everyone knows it), Swearing, Mentions of Sex, Sexual Innuendo, Talks of Death, DENIAL, Idiots in Love, Pining by the Reader (and SB, but he won't admit it) Depressing Thoughts, Mentions of sexual assault/rape (not detailed at all, really just in passing) Talks about weed, Sexist comments, Ben makes derogatory comments, Threatening Ben/Soldier Boy might be a little bit OOC.

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.

Spotify Playlist 🪴

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

A/N: I am so sorry this one took me a bit longer. The writers block was fighting me the whole way, but we are very closely nearing the end of this series and the moment the reader and Ben stop being so stinkin' stubborn.

Reader POV

You lean your forehead against the cool window, watching the world flash by in a flurry of color. The wooded forests had vanished hours ago and all that was left were the yellowed sprawling fields of corn and grain and family farms that were laid sporadically along the interstate. Each one a little world that caught the flecks of golden sunlight as the sun began to peak above the horizon.

The bus rolled smooth and steady over the weathered pavement towards it's destination and was filled with an odd assortment of people young and old. There was man with a brightly colored parrot that had been singing "It's A Small World After All" since you left NYC, a woman with a little boy playing with an iPad and who refused to turn down the volume no matter how many times his mother asked him to, a group of teenagers a few seats up that continued to pass around a flask, and due to how far back you were sitting on the bus an uncomfortable smell emanated from the bathroom each time the door was opened.

But you didn't notice any of it.

The only thing on your mind were the events that happened almost twenty hours ago. They continued to circle your mind, playing over and over again like a perverted cassette tape making you sink further into the worn cloth covered seat at the back of the bus. The images were haunting, some new and some old, but all the more still horrible to re-live.

The song "Nights In White Satin" floating into the backseat of your family's car, the flash of unnatural light you knew was never lightning, the caskets at your parent's funeral covered in flowers that were much to pretty to lay on something so morbid, Elijah's body succumbing to the poppies that ripped him apart, the proud sneer on your brother's face when he admitted to killing your parents, Darren's broken and bloodied body strewn in pieces over the street with the creature standing over him with a dripping red maw, the ruined building that housed "Please Don't Die" reduced to nothing more than rubble, and the look on Ben's face when you turned your back on him and fled the scene.

For some reason that particular image seemed to cling on to you and refused to fade. You'd never seen him look that way, almost… helpless and a little fearful. In all the time you'd known him, Ben had never looked at you that way. Sure you'd seen him proud, angry, cocky, lustful, mischievous, but never fearful. And you were sure that it wasn't an emotion that he was used to feeling, but that begged the question… why?

Why was he looking at me like that? Why wouldn't he let me go? And what was he afraid of?

The creature curled in your lap snorts something in it's sleep, turning it’s head further into the cradle of your elbow to shut out the brilliant early morning sunlight. It was now the size of a toaster and had warranted several odd looks whenever you got off to change buses, but you didn't care.

You weren't sure about anything anymore. Everything your brother confessed to you made you feel like you were living a lie and the revelation of exactly what your powers could do- take life from plants to heal yourself, create whatever the hell it was on your lap, and speak to plants… it scared you.

You thought for so long that you knew everything about your powers, that you were in control, but now you weren't sure.

You felt different, as if something had unlocked deep down that you couldn't shut up again.

You'd felt different after you killed Elijah, but this was more alive, weaving and twisting in the pit of your stomach. You felt more connected to the earth, to the world outside the bus even though you were divided by glass and metal. You could feel the energy that thrummed through the body of the creature on your lap, bending to your will, the life force of the plants it was formed from molding with you, becoming a part of you.

You felt so different than the person you had been before Darren entered the shop, so uncertain, and there was only one place you wanted to be when you felt like this… home. You couldn't wait to run up the worn front steps of your grandmother's house and into her arms. She always knew what to say in times like this.

And you desperately needed the comfort of her embrace.

The phone in your pocket buzzes again and you flip the screen to see the ridiculous selfie Annie and you had taken on Halloween last year. The one that you'd both spent dressed up as the two brothers from your favorite paranormal tv show. It wasn't the first time she'd called. Annie had called and texted you more times than you could count over the past twenty hours but you didn't answer her. You didn’t want to.

It was the first time that you didn't want to talk to her, but talking to her meant that you'd have to re-live all of it again and you were clawing at the last shred of sanity you had left to keep it together.

The overwhelming waves of emotion kept pummeling you, dragging you deeper beneath the white surf. Each one brought the memories of what happened surging over you and were followed by everything that Darren said to you. Years of taking care of Darren and doing whatever he wished were tearing at your soul, years of giving up little things in your life to make him happy, and years of taking care of a man who you thought cared about you, but hated you enough to kill your parents and try to kill you too.

It made your skin crawl. Each time your brother told you that he loved you was an even bigger lie and now that you knew the truth and saw him for what he was, it felt like you were drowning. The darkness that ebbed just on the edge was begging you to leap into the abyss, but you were resisting the best you could.

The tears had stopped falling miles ago, but you couldn't stop the memories or the emotion that formed a cold ball in the pit of your stomach.

A sigh works it's way up and you pull your legs on the seat underneath you, jostling the creature on your lap that raises it's head for a moment to blink it's black eyes at you sleepily.

It was surprisingly docile right now, especially considering that twenty hours ago it had ripped your brother to shreds. In fact it seemed to understand how upset you were and had spent the better part of the last twenty hours rubbing it's head against your arm as if trying to bring you some comfort. It was settled on your lap, the weight of it a comfort, almost like a weighted plushy that gave you something to focus on.

"It's alright buddy." You whisper, scratching him under his chin. "We're almost home."

The phone in your jacket pocket buzzes again, but when you pull it out to turn it off, you catch a glimpse of the screen, and you hesitate. Because this time it's not Annie who's calling, it’s Ben.

The picture that flashes on the screen under the contact name "Gramps" is the picture of Mr. Fredrickson from Up. It always made you smile whenever he called you and you saw the picture because Ben did often remind you of him. He was certainly just as grumpy as Mr. Fredrickson and just as out of touch, but you thought it was cute.

Your thumb hovers over the answer button and you think about talking to him.

But what would I say?

You weren't sure what to say to him, or why you wanted to speak to him so badly, why you wanted him to be sitting here on the bus with you as you went home, and why you wanted him to hold you against his chest while you allowed yourself to break, but you did. You wanted to feel his awkward shoulder pat and his awkward version of hand holding and you wanted to hear him try to tell you to "buck up" or whatever he thought that a comforting word should be.

He's really not the best at that.

You smile to yourself at the memory of how he tried to comfort you back at the hospital, but the longer you sit there and look down at the picture on the screen the worse you feel.

Maybe that scared you more than your newfound powers, how much you were realizing that you needed him, how much you depended on him when things got too much for you to bear. The memory of him appearing as soon as you needed him back at the shop, another of him grabbing Darren and throwing him into the street as soon as Darren insulted you comes in a flash, and finally followed by the memory of Ben carrying you out of Elijah's office while you curled into his chest. You couldn't remember too much from that moment, in fact you'd thought that Ben had kissed you on top of your head, but you ascribed that to the haze of pain you'd been in from your broken arm.

What you did remember was how wonderfully warm he was after you'd been trapped in that damn freezer and how nice it felt to be in his arms. Another memory of Ben sleeping on the couch at the hospital bubbles up and you feel something in your chest begin to crack open. And you try your best to tell yourself the same thing that you always do when you feel like Ben might care more about you that he was letting on.

Ben doesn't want that. He's made it perfectly clear. He doesn't want a relationship. He's only wants one night, that's why he goes out with all those women-

You hesitate, thumb still hovering over the answer button as you do, the memory of the week you'd spent at the apartment with him flickering in the back of your mind. The week where he refused to leave you alone in the apartment, where he refused to do any jobs for Butcher, where he took care of you the best way he could, when he sat with you on the couch and made you laugh with his ridiculous movies, and the week where he hadn't had one date.

Your finger itched to answer the phone, but you couldn't, because you didn't want to feel this way about Ben, not when he'd told you countless times that you kept romanticizing him, not when he told you that he didn't want a relationship, and not when you could feel yourself beginning to fall for someone you thought was the wrong man.

For just a moment you tried to pretend that it was different, that he was different, but you didn't want to. It only made it hurt more.

The phone stops ringing, but the pit in your stomach still gapes open at you and for the first time in twenty hours you feel tears begin to fall. You didn't know why you were crying about this, why the thought of not picking up Ben's phone call seemed to hurt more than everything that had happened, but something made it hurt.

The bus driver announces over the overhead that you're reaching your final destination as he takes the exit for your hometown. The familiar buildings that line the streets are sheathed in a honeyed glow from the sun, the long shadow of the bus darkening them momentarily as it rumbles down the small streets to the bus station.

When it rumbles to a stop at the bus station you wait for everyone else to get off, trying to summon the strength to stand, and swipe the back of your hand across your face to rid yourself of the remaining tears.

The bus station was about a thirty minute walk from your grandmother's house, and you still hadn't called her. You didn't know what to say, didn't know how to tell her that Darren was dead and that he was the reason why your parents were dead.

The creature crawls up your body to drape it's warm body over the back of your neck as you stand. It wasn't bothering to hide, besides the people in your hometown already thought that you were odd because you were a supe and you'd always welcomed it. You give him a scratch on top of his head and his warm tongue flicks on the bottom of your earlobe as if thanking you before it curls further into the side of your neck, seeking warmth.

The first few steps on solid ground are shaky, but you find the strength while taking in a deep cleansing breath of the outside world, letting the gentle warmth of the sun and the tickle of the autumn breeze pull at your coat. You hadn't stopped at your apartment before coming here, instead you had stumbled your way to the bus station covered in dust, flecked in blood, and demanded the first ticket back to Illinois. It was lucky that the next bus was leaving immediately, because you didn’t want to spend another second in NYC, not when all you wanted was to be home.

Plus you were worried that someone had recorded what exactly happened outside the plant shop and you didn't want to get arrested.

It was self defense anyway. Maybe Jake would represent me in court.

The thought of Jake makes you twinge. You hadn't checked to see if he was alright before you ran from the scene. Not to mention you'd destroyed the shop he'd put all his life savings into after he stopped being a lawyer.

Oh fuck, what if he sues me? He can't exactly sue Darren…

You hear someone call your name and you open your eyes.

Your grandmother is standing in front of the same baby blue pickup truck that she'd had longer than you've been alive, wearing a long multicolored skirt and a pressed white blouse tucked elegantly into it. Her silver hair is loose and long, curling over her shoulders in gentle waves. She looks the same way she looked one week ago when she left, and you've never seen anything so beautiful in your life.

You're running before you can stop yourself, crumbling into her warm embrace, with more tears streaking down your face, but she doesn't mind.

"Shh. It's alright honey." She whispers, rubbing her hand over your back, her embrace steady and surprisingly strong. "Let's go home."

Her home is the same as it's always been. A two story Victorian house painted in a happy yellow shade, with a white wrap around porch and two white rocking chairs sitting empty on the front porch. You'd spent more nights than you could count rocking silently beside her with a crochet project in your lap listening to the rain fall and soak the world outside, while the plants sang praises with every gentle bend beneath the heavy droplets.

You could barely remember the home you spent in your early years with your parents, not when you'd spent most of your childhood spending the night here and after your parents died living here permanently. There was still a large oak tree were a wooden swing swung in the slight breeze on the left side of the yard, a gardenia bush that stretched as high as the second story on the right side of the house and brushed it's soft leaves against the sunshine colored outer walls, a garden filled with both flowering plants and herbs that perked up on both sides of the front yard as you walked up the path, and a cobblestone path that Annie and you had spent hours of your shared childhood covering in chalk art.

Neither of you were good, but when the rain would fall and smudge the clean lines, you'd jump in the puddles that pooled along the walkway singing the lyrics to ABBA's "Cassandra" not quite understanding what it meant.

Standing here outside your house made you miss Annie and feel worse about not calling or texting her back, but you didn't feel like talking about what happened and you were sure that Butcher filled her in. The only thing that you wanted was to collapse in your bedroom upstairs and curl under the comforters.

Despite everything the house was a welcome sight, but at the same time it was different. You could feel the plants calling out to you, asking for you, bending towards you just to touch your shoes as you walked by. You'd never felt so connected with them before, not even when you were in your apartment or working at the shop. It was overwhelming.

And although a part of you was frightened by it, another part of you rejoiced in it. You didn't feel alone, didn't feel weak, and you knew that you never would ever again.

The creature nuzzled into the side of your neck with a sigh, soaking up the sun's healing rays as you walked up the front steps with your grandmother following behind you silently. She hadn't spoken since she picked you up at the bus station and you hadn't supplied anything in the ten minute car ride back to her house.

You didn't know where to start and you were still trying to process everything yourself.

The inside of her house was just as cozy and warm as it was the day you moved out. There were photos of your parents and you covering the walls (Darren's had been placed in the closet long ago), half-finished knitting projects sorted in different baskets on both the dining room table and the living room coffee table, spools of yarn were strewn over the couch sorted by color, and the fresh smell of gardenia wafted through the open windows on the breeze.

It was home. This was what you'd been missing the moment everything began to crash over you, but as you stood there in the familiar living room it felt like something was missing. Something tugged at the back of your mind, but you couldn't put your finger on it.

There was something or rather someone that should be here, but you didn't know what or who. And your mind supplied Annie, but you weren't sure that's who you meant.

"Let's have some tea." Your grandmother says from behind you and you feel her soft hands come down on your shoulders to steer you through the familiar creative chaos and into the large kitchen at the back of the house.

The kitchen isn't spared from the madness, it rarely was. There are boxes upon boxes of cookies in different stages of being packaged all over the counter, dirty bowls and a measuring cup stacked in the sink, and a large opened bag of chocolate chips spilling over the flour covered kitchen island.

It wasn't unusual to find the kitchen or the house in a state of chaos, your grandmother always said that a house should look lived in and that the mess was part of the fun of any major project as long as you were responsible enough to clean it up.

"Bake sale?" You ask as you sit down in the breakfast nook, uttering the first words that you'd said to another human being in twenty hours.

The next breath that you inhale was supposed to be cleansing, but you can still feel a weight pressing down on your chest, the same one that settled in the moment everything happened with Darren.

You contemplate again how you're going to tell her that Darren is dead and was the reason why your parents died.

Damn it Darren.

"Mhmm." She hums, filling the well used red kettle. "Annie's mother practically cornered me in the supermarket yesterday and begged me to make cookies. I love Annie, but her mother needs someone to pull that stick out of her ass. It's been up there for so long that I'm sure it's rotten."

The creature crawls down from your shoulders and down your arm to sniff at one of the chocolate chip cookies nearest you. It hadn't eaten since…

Darren.

You wince slightly at the thought and hope that you hadn't created something that needed and craved human flesh. The last thing you wanted to unleash on the world was Audry two especially in the wake of Homelander.

Truthfully you were waiting for the guilt at killing your brother to come, but it never had and you wondered if it ever would.

Probably not. He deserved that, he killed our parents, he tried to kill me, he tried to kill Ben.

The thought of Ben again makes a lump form in the back of your throat. You didn't know what was happening to you only that you felt guilty for leaving him like that, for yelling at him to let you go, and just vanishing on him when he probably thought that you were going back to the apartment.

He doesn't know where I am. Maybe that's why he tried to call, because he got back to the apartment and couldn't find me there and he was worried. You press your lips together. Yeah. Worried. Right.

"Honey?" Your grandmother says in a soothing voice

You look up from the box of chocolate chip cookies that you didn't remember picking up. Even the creature is looking at you with an expression that you can only explain as worry.

"Yeah?" Your voice shakes slightly.

She's leaning back against the counter, arms crossed over her chest, head tilted slightly to the side, her beautiful grayed hair pulled up in an elegant bun, but in her eyes you can see genuine concern. "Fuck." She sighs after a minute.

You blink in surprise. It was the first time that you'd ever heard her say that word in your entire life.

"I shouldn't have left." She breathes. "I told Ben to look out for you. I told him, that little bastard was bound to show up again and what did he do? He left you at that plant shop alone with no protection!"

You'd only seen her really angry a handful of times in your lifetime. Like you, your grandmother often had a gentle disposition and didn't get angry unless the situation called for it.

I mean, Darren admitted to killing our parents and then got fucking ripped apart. But how does she know about any of that? I haven't told her…

"How did you know that he left me there? Did Ben call you?" You ask putting down the box of cookies.

An odd expression crosses her face, as if she's contemplating something. "No." She hesitates again. "I saw it."

"No." Your grandmother hesitates. "I saw it."

"You saw it?" You repeat, confused.

What's going on?

"Too late of course, but I'm a little rusty. I was able to warn Ben that Darren was coming back. That's how he got there so quickly or rather-" She shrugs sheepishly. "He got there in time to make sure that Darren didn't get you to forgive him. Which you shouldn't have at all, but I know he's always had a talent for manipulating you."

"What?"

Is she saying what I think she's saying?

Instead of explaining further your grandmother walks out of the kitchen, leaving the kettle behind on the stove and you in a state of utter confusion.

Is she saying that she can see the future? Because that would mean that she's a supe and there's only one supe in history that I know of that can do that. A supe that no one has seen in over forty years.

You can hear her open the door to the closet under the stairs and the sound of her sifting through all the junk that the two of you had shoved in there over the years instead of finding the right place to put it.

When she comes back into the kitchen, she's holding a giant cardboard file box that you'd never paid attention to each time you opened the closet to find something. Your eyes shift from the box to her still not comprehending exactly what she was saying.

"I probably should have told you this a while ago, but…" She trails off and nods her head at the box before turning back to the kettle on the stove that has begun to scream. "I kept putting it off."

The box is old, worn at the edges, and theres a musty black fabric beneath a collection of yellowed photographs. You pull out the one on top to examine it.

Ben is standing there in his full Soldier Boy regalia outside of Vought tower and the woman standing next to him is Soothsayer. The outfit she wore was familiar, a black-skin tight suit with a blind fold tied over her eyes.

Soothsayer was a supe who could see the future and who was apart of Payback, a supe that had vanished a year before the mission in Nicaragua and no one knew where she went. There were rumors that she'd died and that she'd been a Russian spy, but you'd never believed them. You'd heard Butcher talk about how he tried to find her when he was trying to figure out what happened to Soldier Boy, but he never had. Said that the trail went cold.

But now you knew where she went, because she was standing directly in front of you.

She's Soothsayer? Holy fuck that's why Ben kept accusing her of cheating in the poker game because he knew that she could see the future.

"You were Soothsayer?" You gasp. "But why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you tell me?"

She continues to measure the tea leaves. "I didn't tell anyone."

"Grandpa didn't know? But he was alive when you were a supe?"

Your grandfather had never spoken about a history with supes that you remember.

"No." She turns to look at you, a hurt expression crossing over her face for a minute. "Well, I know that I said I was going to have tea, but if we're going to talk about this I'm going to need something a little bit stronger."

Your grandmother opens a cabinet under the stove an pulls out an enormous bottle of scotch. Truth be told you'd never seen her drink more than just a glass of wine, to see her like this was about as shocking as seeing a polar bear sunning itself on a Florida beach.

"Do you still want the blueberry tea or do you need something a little stronger?" She looks back over her shoulder at you as she pulls down a glass for herself.

"I think I need something stronger." You answer honestly.

Learning about everything Darren had done was one thing, but finding out that your grandmother used to be a famous supe and that she never told you about it was another thing. It was like looking at another person. You'd always loved your grandmother's gentle way, her care for her community and her family soft, but now you weren't sure you really knew who she was.

She sits down across from you and hands you a glass of the amber colored liquid. There's a heavy silence that hangs between the two of you as she tries to find a way to start. The photo of her and Ben is laying on top of what you realize is her uniform inside the box and she smiles down at the photo, just a little twitch at the corner of her lips.

"I met Ben when I was twenty three years old." She begins taking a sip from the glass. "Legend 'discovered' me. I had the injection of Compound V maybe two years before that, not when I was born, but I hadn't gotten popular. Other powers were much more flashy and by then there were so many heroes coming out of the woodwork that someone with the ability to see the future didn't seem as marketable."

There's something reflected in her blue eyes, the same eyes your father had, that you can't place. "I had just moved to New York, I had no money, and the way I was getting it was by pretending to be a fortune teller and betting on some sports events on the side. It wasn't hard to prove that I could see the future, the past was more difficult, but Legend somehow stumbled into my shop and figured out that I was a supe. And he didn't think I was too bad looking so he helped me get big."

"You pretended to be a fortune teller?"

She snorts into her glass. "Mhmm. People really will believe anything if they're desperate enough and back then there was so much turmoil going on with Russia that people were scared and wanted to feel comforted. My job provided some of that."

"But why did you walk away from it if you were such a big hero." You ask. "Everyone knew your name, you were-"

Your grandmother raises an eyebrow at you and you fall silent so she can continue. "When I got onto Payback that's when everything exploded for me, the films, the commercials, the ridiculous ads." She sighs. "That's also when I met Ben."

You take a sip from the glass in front of you, sputtering slightly. It was stronger than you were expecting. "And you two were-"

Please don't say dating, please don't say dating, please don't say…

"Friends. Just friends." Diana sits back against the back of the breakfast nook, sinking into the navy blue pillows. "But he is almost as charming now as he was then."

You cringe at the thought of Ben coming on to a younger version of your grandmother.

She taps her glass with her index finger deep in thought. "But I think that I was the only person that Ben actually talked to, the only person that he was comfortable being around."

"What do you mean?" You ask confused. "Didn't he talk to Countess and to Legend?"

Her expression hardens at the mention of Countess's name. "He didn't talk to her the way he talked to me. Ben is difficult, he always has been and I think that most of the people he meet him write him off as this asshole with a chauvinistic look on the world, but he's not. At least, not all the time. There are so many people that he's met that are never willing to take a chance on him. To trust that there is really something beneath all of that bravado."

It was what you had been thinking for the past week, that there was more to Ben than he was willing to let people see, but you were slowly realizing that Ben was letting you see those parts. In the quiet moments at your shared apartment when he sat with you while you read or made you laugh or walked you to and from work you saw another side of Ben that you never saw when he was around anyone else. The guilt rises again when you think of how you ran from him, how you turned your back and left him standing there to clean up your mess.

I shouldn’t have done that, but it was all just so overwhelming and I didn't want to talk to anyone.

"I think that Ben is the most loyal friend I ever had. No one ever seems to believe me when I say that. That we were just friends, but nothing happened between us."

"You didn't date? Or sleep together?" You ask cautiously. It was difficult to imagine Ben being friends with a woman and not having a sexual relationship with her.

Well. We're friends, but that's different.

The last thing you wanted to think about was Ben and your grandmother having sex.

I would need so much therapy after that. You sigh. Yeah, because after all the shit I've been through and found out about my life in the last twenty hours, the knowledge that Ben fucked my grandmother is what's going to push me over the edge.

"No." She shakes her head with a small smile. "About a week after I met Ben, I was running late to a movie shoot and I stepped off the crosswalk without looking. There was a car coming and I didn't see it. Ironic isn't it?" She laughs at herself. "I can see the future and I didn't see a car coming, but your grandfather did and he grabbed the back of my jacket and yanked me onto the sidewalk, saved my life. And the second my eyes locked with his I saw our future. I saw our wedding, our first house, I saw our son take his first steps and I saw how much I would love him and how much he would love me." She clears her throat for a minute, her fingers tighten on the glass, and her gaze drops to the wedding ring on her left hand. “The future is never set in stone, it’s fluid. It morphs and shapes with your decisions, but in the future I saw, I was so happy. And I didn’t want to lose that.”

Your grandfather had passed a few years ago, but you knew it weighed on her everyday. She had spent the week after he died in her room not saying anything to anyone. And sometimes she'd look out the window into the backyard with an odd expression, but you knew that meant she was thinking of him.

Growing up you'd seen how in love the two of them were, more so than your parents. Seen the flowers your grandfather always brought home just because he was thinking of her, watched him do little things around the house without being asked, saw how they never walked away angry from one another, and seen the soppy expression he'd get when he watched your grandmother move around the kitchen baking with a grace that you'd never possessed.

You reach across the table to touch her hand and she takes it gratefully.

"I didn't want to tell him that I was a supe, and at the beginning I thought I could balance it all, but then Ben started dating Countess." She takes another sip from her glass. "She hated me."

"What? Why?" You ask. The creature crawls across the table to sniff at the glass in front of you, before it snorts and falls into your lap, curling into a ball.

"Countess was a bitch." Your grandmother says mirthlessly, her expression hardening. "She wanted to possess Ben completely. Only loved how famous he was, how popular it made her, and he threw himself at her feet, in his own way, not understanding that love didn’t look that way. He’s never had a good example of it in his life. And she never understood that Ben and I were just friends. By then I had been dating your grandfather for a few months and things were getting serious. It was about a year before everything that happened in Nicaragua."

She presses her lips together as if remembering what happened to Ben there. "She was jealous, possessive, and she came to me one night. Ben was out of town for a film so she knew we wouldn’t be interrupted. She threatened to tell your grandfather who I really was and threatened to kill him.” Her jaw sets. “My powers were never really as offensive as hers were. And she said that Ben wouldn’t ever protect me over her because he loved her and would do anything to make her happy. So I left and I never looked back.”

And here I thought I couldn't hate Countess any more than I did for what she did to Ben.

“You didn’t talk to him ever again?” You wonder out loud.

She left without telling him goodbye?

“There was the occasional phone call. Sometimes Ben would ask me to see who was going to win a ball game or something so he could make a few bucks. He stopped by to say hi a few times because he was in the neighborhood. One time he brought your father a baseball glove that was way too big for a one year old.” She snorts, the memory flashing in her eyes. “I always thought Ben would be a good dad some day. But I think seeing your father was when Ben realized how much he wanted to have kids. And I think seeing the way your grandfather treated me made him start to feel conflicted about Countess. But he respected that I walked away, he saw that I was happy.”

“But what about Nicaragua?"

A dark look crosses her face followed by something that looks suspiciously like guilt. “I saw what they were going to do to him.”

“What? But why didn't you tell him what they were planning? Why didn't you-"

"I tried." She snaps, shoulders tense, but then they drop. "I called Ben, but Stan answered. By then your father was turning two, your grandfather had opened up his practice, and Stan threatened me, he knew where we were and knew everything about us. So I kept my mouth shut and I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

You could feel your heart breaking for her.

Ben was her best friend and she had to sit by and watch them do that to him. She saw what they were going to do and they were going to kill her for it, kill my family for it.

The anger that surges in your chest makes the creature in your lap stir and grow a few inches, but you tamp it down before it gets bigger than a small dog.

“Does Ben know?” You ask her to distract yourself.

You didn't want Ben to hate your grandmother for this, didn't want him to hate her for something that wasn't her fault.

She nods. “Yes. I told him everything.”

“When?”

“The moment I saw him in your hospital room. I couldn’t keep it in any longer. I wasn't expecting him to be there, but it all poured out of me. I was so surprised to see him there. I hadn't seen a future where he came back."

“Was he mad?”

I mean… he didn't seem mad when I woke up, not to mention he was upset when she left to come back to Illinois.

“Not at me.” She shakes her head. “He knew how much I wanted a normal life and how much I loved your grandfather. He doesn’t blame me for any of it.”

“Good. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

The glass in front of you is still more than half-full but you don't want to risk another sip of what you're sure is gasoline packaged to look like Scotch. Your grandmother reaches to pour herself another glass.

“I didn’t want to until you were ready.”

“And when would that be?”

Your grandmother shrugs. “Maybe on my deathbed.”

You weren't angry for her not telling you, more surprised, but now that you knew everything about her it was hard to see her the same way you had.

You snort. “And no one knew?”

“Your dad figured it out.”

“How? When?”

“The moment you made that strawberry plant grow from your high chair.” She shakes her head with a smile. “It skipped a generation. Don’t know why, but you got it all somehow.”

“I was never injected?”

“No. That was a lie your father created. He knew that your grandfather didn't know and he knew that I didn't want your grandfather to know."

“Darren thought I was.”

“I know.”

At the mention of your brother's name, you watch her expression harden and she takes another swig from the glass in front of her, not flinching as the liquid goes down her throat.

“Did you see everything that happened?” You ask in a small voice.

You still weren't 100% sure how it was her powers worked, but you figured that she was able to see some of what Darren did and what he said.

“Yes.”

“You heard everything Darren said?"

“Yes.”

You chew the inside of your cheek for a minute hoping that she didn't take it as hard as you did. “Did you know that he killed them?”

“No.” She breathes, rolling the glass between her hands for a moment. “The night they died, I got a vision a few minutes before the car ran off the road. I was the one who called the police and who told them where to look, but I never saw that it was Darren or that it was anyone causing the accident. All I saw was the three of you in the car. I should have known.” Her voice breaks.

“It’s not your fault.” You squeeze her hand.

“And it’s not yours either.” She squeezes your hand back.

The memories are beginning to float up from the recesses of your mind and your teeth clench together as you try to keep them at bay.

“I know.” You breathe. The memory of the ruined shop flashes through your head. “I didn’t know that I could do something like that.” You gently touch your healed right arm and glance at the creature that is nibbling on the edge of the cardboard box with its sharp splinter-like teeth. “I feel so different and I don’t know how to go back to the way I was.”

“I don’t think you ever will.”

"Really?"

The thought was unwelcome. You were hoping that all of this was going to blow over, but you knew it wouldn't. Your powers had changed. There was an energy that thrummed in your veins now, stretching out of the house to the plants that grew in the garden. You could feel them all if you concentrated.

She frowns. “When you told me that you were working for Butcher I was worried about you getting involved in the supe world. I didn’t want that life for you, didn’t want you to suffer the way I did-“

“Was it really that bad?"

“Not all the time, just at the end. But I think that’s why I loved your grandfather so much. Because he was different than all the supes. He was down to earth, not just normal but-“ She shrugs. “I think Compound V does something to our minds, makes them more susceptible and when you’re surrounded by people using their powers and thinking that they’re gods it’s easy to lose who you are. I was glad I left when I did."

“Great." You huff, thinking about how your powers had grown exponentially since you killed your brother. It was scaring you to think that you would reach a point where you acted like Homelander, where you saw yourself as a god and killed anyone who stood in your way.

As tired as the stereotype of you only being able to make the flowers grow, you liked doing that. You liked healing plants, tending to them, and helping them grow. For you it had never been about using your powers the way that you had to kill Elijah and your brother and had always been about spreading a little more joy and love like your grandmother did with her kindness in her community.

Your mind flashes back to the first night that Ben stayed with you in your apartment and he'd asked you why you worked for Butcher and told you that he thought you "didn't fit."

Before you hadn't. You knew that. You weren't intimidating to look at or fueled by revenge or had a bone to pick with supes. You'd joined because you thought it was the right thing to do and because you wanted to be closer with Annie. She had been so involved in the supe world and you'd felt like you were losing your best friend. When in reality being at "Please Don't Die" was the only thing that felt natural for you.

You could feel yourself changing and you weren't sure that you wanted to and you weren't sure if you were changing for the better. Deep down you still felt like you, despite everything Darren had revealed, but your powers were greater than you'd thought they could be.

“No.” She squeezes your hand pulling you out of your head. “I don’t see you losing yourself in this.”

“You’ve seen-“ Your eyes widen.

“The future yeah.” Her lips twitch up at the ends in a smile. “It is what I do.”

“That’s so weird.”

You hadn't meant to say it, but you really didn't want to know too much about your future.

Well, not all that much. Maybe just a little.

“You of all people have no right to judge what’s weird. Not with Godzilla sitting in your lap.”

"Godzilla" yawns, flashing a mouthful of his pointy teeth, before settling back down on your thighs.

You smile for the first time in twenty hours, but then it drops. “I don’t like losing control. I thought I knew who I was but now I don’t-“ The emotions were bubbling up again, chest tightening, and lungs beginning to gasp for air. “I don’t know who I am anymore or what I am or what I can do and-“

“There’s nothing wrong with not being in control.”

“But what if I hurt someone? What if I kill-“ You body shakes as you think about all the important people in your life, Annie, Hughie, Butcher, Kimiko, MM, Frenchie- and then your mind stutters on Ben.

“Your powers are growing and there’s nothing to be afraid of or ashamed of. If you’re afraid of them it won’t get easier for you. You have to embrace the fear to see the lights that line the path through it.”

"I killed Darren, I killed Elijah-"

"Not because you lost control. You did it because you were protecting yourself and protecting your friends."

"But-"

"Who is it that you're scared of hurting? Annie?" Her expression turns sympathetic. "Annie is a supe and understands what it's like to lose control. None of us are in control all the time and it's ridiculous to believe that you won't lose control at least once."

Your throat clenches tightly, because when she asked the question you didn't see Annie's face, you saw Ben's. You knew that it was probably ridiculous to worry about hurting a guy with a nuclear reactor stuffed in his chest or a guy who'd been through every torture known to man, but you were. And you weren't entirely sure if you meant hurting him with just your powers.

Tears crest and fall down your cheeks as you sit there, throat thickening. "I don't want to hurt Ben."

"He's a little more indestructible than us sweetie." She cracks a smile, but you can't smile back and you don't answer because you're unsure how to.

She sits back against the breakfast nook and sighs, examining your face and slowly realizes what you mean. "Ben is complicated. He always has been. I like to think that most of it, is his father's fault. Has he told you anything about him?"

You shake your head.

"He was a dick. Made Ben think that he was a disappointment his whole life. I don't think that Ben has had someone love him unconditionally since his mother died. And loving Countess only made it worse for him. Her love was jealous, possessive, and I don't think that he's really come to terms with what real love should look like." She lets out a breath, tapping her index finger against the glass. "I never saw him as more than a friend, but I do love him. It's not a crime to love him."

"I don't love him." You say it immediately.

"Why not?"

"What?" You sputter. "I don't know what you're-"

"Tell me why you don't love him." Your grandma says methodically, as if she's trying to talk you through it.

"Because I-" The pressure was back in the back of your throat and you couldn't quite meet her eye. "Because-" You scramble for the answer, trying your darndest to keep your heart from clenching in your chest. "I want what you and grandpa had, what Annie and Hughie have, and what my parents had. A strong relationship with someone who sees all my flaws, the little parts, and the darkness and still choses to fall in love with me anyway. I don't want just one night I want every night. I want something real and Ben has said countless times that he-"

"So you've talked about it with Ben?" She raises an eyebrow.

"Only because he kept trying to sleep with me and I told him that I didn't want to have sex with him." You reply exasperated.

"You don't?"

"Gran!"

"What? He's attractive."

"It doesn't matter. None of it does. Because Ben has said that he doesn't have relationships, that he doesn't care about feelings, or emotions." Saying the words that Ben had told you countless times made something inside begin to shrivel up and die. "And I do. And I don't want to manipulate him into being something he's not or force him into a relationship that's doomed from the beginning. Ben is Ben. He's not changing or-"

"He has." She interrupts.

"What?"

"The Ben I saw in your hospital room is not the one I knew." She says it so matter of fact that makes it hard to breathe. "And neither was the one that I saw in your apartment when I stayed with you. I mean he is in essence Ben, but-"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"He is changing. Not completely, but he's acting differently than when he was with Countess. I mean, I saw all the things he did for her. The way he was around her."

"Why does that matter?"

"Because he loved her."

The words make your heart seize in your chest. "Ben doesn't love me. He's my roommate and my friend-" It was the same thing that you kept telling yourself on repeat to beat back the other feelings that you hadn't quite identified yet. "And he's told me that he doesn't want a relationship and that I should try to meet other people."

That last part was a lie, but you honestly didn't know where she was going with this conversation or why it was getting so hard to breathe.

"Have you thought that maybe Ben doesn't want to love you because he's scared?"

"He doesn't love me and Ben isn't afraid of anything."

"He is. It might not look the same way on him as it does on everyone else, but if you pay close enough attention you can catch it." She hesitates. "And I think if you pay attention to you, you'll see what it is that you're afraid of too."

What does she mean? What the hell am I afraid of? Ben isn't afraid of anything, he's practically shouted that from the mountaintops like Julie Andrews.

"I already told you what I'm afraid of."

"I'm not talking about you hurting someone honey. There's something else that you refuse to admit to yourself because you're scared." She smiles sadly at you. "You should though, because when you embrace it, what comes after is really beautiful." There's a far off look in her eyes and you realize that she'd seen something further ahead that she wasn't letting on.

"And it's all I want for you. To be happy." Your grandmother stands from the other side of the booth "I think you need some rest. You drove all night long and I doubt you got any sleep. And I have to package all of these before Annie's mother calls down the four horsemen of the Apocalypse on me."

"Wait-"

"Please sweetie." She lays her hand down on your arm. "I think you'll feel a little better about all of this when you've had some rest." Her fingers raise to push back some of the hair that's fallen forward into your eyes. "Hmm?"

You didn't want to rest, you wanted to talk about this, but you knew better than to argue with her. Not to mention she was right, you hadn't slept.

"And when you wake up I'll make your favorite for dinner, alright?" She smiles, but there's something behind it that you can't place.

"Okay."

And this time you don't argue with her. You go up the worn staircase that you have your entire life and collapse onto your bed, wondering exactly what it was she saw your future hold, and what it is that you won't admit to yourself.

Soldier Boy POV

There was no light in the apartment save from the burning red tip of Ben's blunt and the bluish glow emanating from the tv that caught the dips and sharp edges of his face. But it was nothing more than background noise.

His hand absentmindedly stroked along Bean's back, his eyes focused on the ceiling above the couch. He hadn't moved in hours. It had been over twenty four hours since everything that happened at the plant shop, since you'd summoned a creature from the depths of the store, since Darren had thrown Ben through the plate glass windows of the bakery, and since Ben had last seen you.

He didn't understand why you hadn't let him take you back to the apartment and why it was that you had to leave. Ben hadn't liked the feeling that stabbed him in the chest when you turned your back on him and ran away. He'd felt the urge to comfort you the way he'd watched Hughie do for Annie in the car a week ago, but you hadn't let him.

Instead all he'd done is stood there and watched you run, still covered in dust, rubble, and blood. Worse was you hadn't let him check you for injuries and Ben hated the thought that you were hurt somewhere and he didn't know where you were.

You were so much more fragile than he was. He was realizing that more every day, was acutely aware of it after everything that happened with Elijah. Honestly, sitting there in the hospital with you laying there asleep with nothing that he could do, but wait for you to wake up had been agony. Not to mention that looking at the bruises around your throat, over your eye, and the bright green cast only made him feel worse. He'd never felt so helpless in his entire life and he hated it. Because Ben wasn't some helpless damsel in distress, he was a man and a man shouldn't wait on anyone or feel out of control, or at least, that's what he told himself.

Ben hears someone walk down the hallway outside the apartment and he perks up to listen, hoping that it's you finally coming home. Ben's mind stutters on the word "home." He'd lived many places in his life, apartments that felt more like way-stations, and the drafty cold mansion back in Philadelphia where he grew up, but neither felt like home. And although he hated how small your apartment was, it was the first place that Ben liked living in. He was starting to understand the word home.

But the feet keep moving past the apartment and Ben sinks into the couch cushions. Even Bean seems to be disappointed. "It's alright buddy." Ben mutters. "She'll come back."

But he wasn't sure.

Ben also wasn't used to feeling this way. It was close to the way that he felt when he went to Boston and was sitting in that damn hotel room waiting for something to happen and he still didn't understand what it meant. He didn't understand why he couldn't stand it that you weren't back yet. It made him feel like a woman waiting for her husband to get home from work when he told her that he was "running late." He'd tried to distract himself by looking at some possible prospects on Tinder, but just like the week after you'd come home from the hospital and just like the date he had in Boston, no one held any appeal.

His mind was awake and roaming around, pacing back and forth. The blunt was supposed to help, but it hadn't.

His phone chirps and Ben picks it up to look at the screen, but it's not you, it's Jake.

Jake: I know that I'm not your favorite person, but thank you for what you did.

Ben huffs and turns his phone face down on the couch once more. "What a fucking pussy."

When you left Ben had realized that Jake was still inside the building and as much as he wanted race after you, he understood that you'd be even more upset if you'd killed Jake. So Ben had tromped back through the building and found him trapped beneath some rubble. Jake was okay, just unconscious, but Ben had carried him out and put him on the sidewalk before he high tailed it out of there. The last thing that he wanted was to be caught with a shredded body outside a ruined building.

I didn't do it for him. I did it for her. Ben thinks to himself, looking down at the text message.

As much as he hated the thought of saving your future boyfriend, he didn't want to see what it did to you if you found out that you killed Jake, so he'd done it to avoid watching you cry again.

Ben didn't understand why he hated watching you cry.

Women cry. They're damn emotional all the time. He tries to reason with himself taking a puff from the blunt pinched between his thumb and forefinger. And she fucking cries way too much.

The image of you crying outside of the shop in the wake of everything that happened pricks something under his ribcage. Fuck.

Ben didn't feel remorse for what happened, well, the only thing he regretted was not getting there sooner and getting to fuck Darren up himself. When Diana had called him to tell him that Darren was coming, Ben had practically ripped the apartment door off in his haste to get back to you. He hadn’t wanted to leave you at the plant shop, but Butcher had told Ben, that he had a possible location for Darren, but it came up empty and Ben had been at Butcher's apartment chewing him out for sending him on a fucking wild goose chase.

It only made Ben more angry to allow Darren to speak to you, but he was trying to let you handle it even though he wanted to handle him. But it had brought him an unholy amount of joy to throw Darren in front of that minivan and to watch that creature tear him apart while the final whitish blue pulses of electricity jumped and crackled down the street making the streetlights shower sparks everywhere.

But Ben was more upset that Darren had been able to land a few hits on you before you killed him.

Ben remembered the giant lizard that crawled out of what was left of "Please Don't Die" and felt his lips quirk up into a smile. As much as he hated the entire situation, Ben couldn't help but feel a little surge of pride at what you'd done to your brother. He'd never seen you look so powerful standing there in the street, your eyes glowing a brilliant green, arms outstretched, and the ground trembling around you as the world begged to be unleashed.

Of course he'd been just as surprised as you were at the fact that you'd healed your broken arm. He wasn't sure if you'd noticed it yet, but you looked different too. There weren't as many lines on your face and your hair was more springy, the few silver hairs that Ben had noticed in passing were no longer there.

He wasn't sure what that meant, but there was something that felt suspiciously like hope tingling in his stomach, hope that you weren't as fragile anymore and hope that it meant you wouldn't die.

When Diana had told Ben that her husband had died, he saw the pain in her eyes when she said it, saw her relieving the memory, and for some reason as soon as she said that he was dead, the first thing Ben thought about was you. Ben hadn't considered his inability to age as much in the past, hadn't cared about outliving anyone before. Seeing Countess as an older woman had made him more aware of it. Looking at the woman who he once thought he loved, had showed him what that was like. Not that he had a problem with daring older women, Ben always thought that women really did get better with age, but it was what came next that Ben wasn't fond of.

And for some reason thinking that one day he'd wake up and see the marks of age on your face or one day he'd wake up and he wouldn't be able to annoy you or hear you yell at him made his chest tight.

Ben takes another hit of his blunt. The longer he sat there the more then unnatural feeling stirred in the pit of his stomach, thrumming through his veins, the feeling that he was trying to avoid. He thought that the joint would calm him down, but he found himself jumping at every creak and footstep in the apartment building, perking up each time and hoping that it was you coming home.

He didn't know where you were. You hadn't answered any of his texts or calls and Ben was ashamed at how many times that he had tried to call you.

Get a fucking grip. He'd thought to himself when he typed out another text message to send you, stopping himself from sending it.

But he'd been so desperate to hear from you that he'd actually gone to talk to Annie who seemed upset that she couldn't get ahold of you either. When Hughie and Annie had seen how upset Ben had been, Hughie had laid his hand on Ben's arm and told him not to worry. Ben had yelled at him that he "wasn't fucking worried and to mind his own business" and had shaken off Hughie's comforting hand before stomping out of the shared apartment.

No one else seemed to be as concerned about finding you. Butcher, MM, and Frenchie were all deeply involved in trying to figure out the cover-up for what happened outside the plant shop. By some miracle no one had caught a picture of your face, but there was little they could do about Darren's body that had been strewn across the street. Annie was having to deal with the repercussions at work, trying to handle what the news was calling a "super villain threat."

Personally, Ben thought that since they froze Homelander, the Seven looked weak and Ben believed that the superhero team that represented America shouldn't look weak. Of course before Ben had also thought that they looked like a bunch of pussies and again felt himself sink deeper into the couch when he thought about what his supposed son had become.

He shakes off the feelings he has about it and his thoughts turn back inevitably to you.

Ben wasn't used to thinking about someone as much as he thought of you, but each time he settled back into the apartment and you weren't there he was hyperaware of how quiet it was.

Maybe I should call Diana. She might know where she is.

As soon as Ben thinks that, his phone begins to ring, but Ben doesn't bother to look at who it is before he answers it.

"Hello?" Ben huffs out a breath of smoke that hangs in the air in front of his face, catching in the bluish light coming from the television.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" The voice on the other side of the line yells at him.

"Di?"

"Yes it's me. Who did you think it was? Santa Clause?" Your grandmother snarks.

"Why are you calling me and why the fuck are you so mad? What did I do?" Ben answers slightly annoyed.

As much as you got under his skin, your grandmother had been the same way. He actually thought that it was amusing that even before he figured out that she was your grandmother that he had often compared you to her in his mind. You had the same mannerisms, the same defiant and stubborn attitude that drove Ben up the wall, and you were just as beautiful as she was.

Ben was okay with admitting that he was attracted to you. To him that felt normal, it was the other feelings that he was conflicted about, the ones that he'd never felt before stirring in his chest that made him feel "too emotional" and "woman-like."

Truthfully, Ben was sure that if your grandmother had given him a shot that maybe he would have felt that way about her too. She was the only person that Ben actually trusted in the 80's, the only person that was brave enough to call him out on all his shit. You did that now. But he liked her husband also, so Ben was content with letting her go. He liked how happy that Henry, your grandfather, had made her. He knew that she wasn't happy as a supe and seeing her so happy and in love made Ben feel something that was close to happiness.

And it was seeing the way the two of them were together made Ben wonder if what he had with Countess was the same thing. Because he did have feelings about her that were different, but each time he went to visit Diana and saw your father playing on her lap he felt that there was something missing in his life.

It was the same way that he thought something was missing when you weren't in the apartment, but Ben hadn't realized that yet.

"Because I don't understand what the hell you're doing!" Diana replies and Ben honestly doesn't know why she's angry with him.

"About what?"

"My granddaughter."

Ben sits up the blunt in his fingertips forgotten. "Is she there with you?"

"Yes." Her voice softens for a moment.

Ben relaxes and leans back onto the couch, sighing in relief. "Good. That's good." Relief swelled in his chest when he thought about you staying with her, safe.

That's what she meant when she said that she wanted to go home. Home is with her grandmother. Ben stopped the next thought before he could go there.

The thought that home wasn't with him.

Ben was trying not to think about that or think about you hating him. He didn't think you did, well, didn't think you did anymore. At first it really was touch and go, but now he was almost eighty percent sure after you'd told him more than once that you weren't afraid of him and didn’t hate him that you sometimes wanted him around.

"No, not good."

"What do you mean? Is she okay?" Ben's grip on the phone tightens so hard that he's sure that he hears the screen cracking.

"No."

"What happened?" Ben's voice is a growl, the feelings of relief evaporating as soon as they had begun to bloom in his chest. He mentally calculated how long it would take him to get to you.

"Her entire life fucking fell apart and where are you? Not here!"

Oh. Ben relaxed a little bit.

"I don't need to be there." He says on an exhale of smoke.

"Yes you do!" Diana presses.

"No, I don't. She a big girl she doesn't need me there, she's-" Ben takes a puff from the joint.

“If you were any denser you’d be a Bundt cake Benjamin!” She says exasperated.

"What the fuck are you talking about doll? I am not-"

“Let me guess." She interrupts and Ben can imagine her tapping her foot. He hated when she did that. "You’re moping around smoking a blunt on the couch probably with a glass of something that you're hoping to numb whatever the hell it is you're feeling."

Ben's eyes shift to the bottle of whiskey on the coffee table that he hadn't touched in a few minutes.

“I’m not fucking moping and stop spying on me!” He snaps back at Diana.

He hated how well she knew him. She was his best friend in the 80's through all the shit, she had seen him at his worst and at his best too many times to count.

“I don’t have to use my powers to know what you’re doing. I know you Ben.”

"Sorry to disappoint you sweetheart.” Ben grits his teeth, temper flaring hot. “But if you know me as well as you fucking say you do then you then you know that this is-“

“You avoiding your feelings by acting aloof and brooding like a fucked up version of Mr. Darcy.” She interrupts.

She certainly hasn't changed.

“I am not avoiding-“

“She needs you here Ben.” Diana stamps her foot, the same way you do when Ben pisses you off, and Ben can hear it.

“She doesn’t need me! She said that she wanted to go home, that she didn’t want to be here with me! I tried to-“ Ben shouts back standing up. It was the exact thing that he'd been thinking for the past twenty four hours, that you didn’t need him and that you didn't want to be any where near him.

That last thought made an uncomfortable sensation prickle in his gut when he thought it, because all it did was remind him of how you acted when the two of you first met, when you didn't want him to live with you and tried your darndest to make him go away.

He didn’t want to and he wasn't sure why that was.

“Try harder.” Diana interrupts him again and frankly it was pissing him off.

Ben clenches his jaw. “I think that you’ve confused me with someone else baby.”

“Don’t you 'baby' me Benjamin! We both know that you’re doing what you always do when things get hard for you.”

“And what’s that?”

“You pretend not to care and shut out everyone who tries to care for you. Not to mention you drown yourself in drugs, booze, and women.”

“She doesn’t care about me!” He spits.

“She does!” Diana snaps back. “And believe it or not she needs you here and she wants you here.”

"But-"

"Ben please." It was the first time that he'd heard Diana sound softer and almost pleading since the conversation started. "Don't do this to her. She's worth more than Countess and all those other women you've fallen into bed with."

"Do you really think I don't know that?" He roars. The answer surprises himself. "Do you think I don't know that she's different?"

Wait what?

"If you know that, then why aren't you here?"

He hesitates.

Everything you said to him the night of the party comes roaring back. You looking beautiful in a dress that made his throat tight, and you telling him that you just wanted to be friends and that you understood that he wasn't the type of guy to have relationships. He didn't understand why it stung a bit when you said that, but it had.

Ben thinks about the week that the two of you spent together after Diana went home, when he tried his best to take care of you, distract you from everything that happened with his movies, and would sit with you and try to make you laugh. He'd never wanted to take care of someone before.

Not to mention he kind of liked the way you laughed. He wouldn’t admit that to anyone, but each time you did, it made him want to laugh too. That had never happened to him before. But he wanted to make you laugh to forget everything that happened with Elijah. His fist clenches when he thinks of exactly what Elijah tried to do to you and it makes him feel so mad that he feels close to spontaneously combusting. Ben might not be the best role model when it came to women, but he couldn’t imagine the type of man who would force himself on someone else.

It had made him angry when he thought that you were suggesting that he would try something when he first moved in, because he wasn't that type of man.

Ben was trying to be better for you. He wasn't admitting that, but he really was trying to be better. He didn't understand why. You'd told him countless times that you didn’t want to be with him, that you wanted to be with someone else like Jake.

Ben frowns when he thinks about the man he'd pulled from the rubble of the shop. And again thinks to himself that you should be with someone different, someone who was a supe and could understand you. Ben had seen how difficult it was for Diana when she was keeping her supe life a secret from your grandfather and he didn't want you to have to do that with someone.

"Because I'm not-" Ben begins to say, but he holds his tongue. It was too honest, too raw, too unlike him to admit this to anyone.

Because I'm not this guy. Because I'm not the one she wants. Because I'm not some knight on a white horse. Because she's everything right with the world and I'm just a fucking asshole who sleeps on her couch.

"Ben." Diana breathes and he can practically hear her pinching the bridge of her nose. "In all the years I've known you, you've never done what you did for her with anyone else. You carried her out of that warehouse, you stayed with her in the hospital even after she woke up, you took care of her when she came home, you protected her from Darren. You can't ignore all those things."

"I'm not ignoring them. She's my friend." The word sours in his mouth as he says it. "And she would have done the same thing for me." He knew it was true.

She's a good person and she wouldn't let me chase her away if any of that shit happened to me and I told her to leave me alone.

"Yes she would. Because she cares about you." Diana sighs.

"She doesn't."

"Why don't you believe me?"

"Because she's told me what she wants!" Ben shouts so loudly he can feel the room shaking. "She wants to be friends-“

"Because she doesn't think that you want a relationship you nitwit!"

"I don't." Ben spits the words before he can stop them, but as he does something tightens at the base of his throat.

"How is it that it's been forty fucking years and you're still able to dance on the grave of my last nerve?"

Ben chuckles. "I missed you too sweetheart."

She sighs into the phone again making it crackle in Ben's ear. "She needs you.” Diana repeats. “And I think you need her too.”

His temper was flaring again, the thoughts that his father pressed into him surging up before he can stop the words. “I don’t need anyone. I’m Sol-“

“If you say that you’re Soldier Boy, I’m going to reach through this phone and slap you silly.” She snaps. “And you do need her, but you’re still just too stubborn to admit it.”

“I-“

“Ben I know that everything that happened with Countess was fucked up, but my granddaughter she-“ Diana pauses before she changes the thought. “You say that you know she’s different, but right now you’re treating her the same way you treat all those other women.”

“I’m not-“

“My granddaughter has decided you’re important to her and once that’s happened it’s hard to make her let go. You saw the way she was with Darren and that guy was a manipulative asshole. Imagine what she thinks of you.”

“I-“

“Stop making excuses!”

“You didn’t even hear what I was going to say!” Ben shouts.

“And I don’t need to! Think what you want Ben but if you’d stop acting so stubborn and so ridiculously blind to what’s right in front of you. I promise that what comes next is worth the risk.”

“Don’t go all fucking mystical on me doll.”

“And don’t go all macho- no feelings asshole on me! So stop being so damn stubborn, get on a plane and get your ass here.” She retorts. “Don’t fuck this up Benjamin because if you do I’ll fuck you up.”

The line goes dead.

Ben sat there for a minute in the silence still holding the phone up to his ear, listening to what your grandmother said to him ring around in his head for a second.

No one ever spoke to him that way. In fact, Ben had never allowed anyone to speak to him the way that she did, well, not until you came along. You reminded him so much of her that it was astounding and he wasn't going to admit that maybe it's why he liked being around you so much.

Ben frowns at what Diana said, thinking about the unusual feelings that were swirling in the pit of his stomach. He felt wrong and the feelings were odd for him. He hadn't felt anything remotely like this ever in his life, not even for Countess.

And although Ben refused to be afraid of anything, the feelings he was having scared him. He didn’t understand and he wasn't sure that he wanted to. He wasn't sure that he wanted to see where this ended up. He felt like he was in too deep.

As much as he wanted to go to you like Diana ordered him to, he wasn't sure that he should. Something was holding him back, digging it's heels in and refusing to budge.

But why do I feel like-

His phone rings and he doesn't look at the caller ID when he picks up, expecting it to be Diana again, yelling at him.

"Di I-"

But it's not Diana.

"Hello Ben. It's nice to hear your voice again." The familiar voice says, sounding calm and collected.

"What the fuck do you want?" Ben snarls.

"I thought it was time the two of us had a chat.”

A/N: At this point Diana is really just trying to give both Ben and the reader the kick in the pants they need. And yes I know another cliffhanger, but you know you love it. 🤭😉 We are quickly reaching the end of this series, but that means the confession scene is coming and I am so excited about it!!

As always thank you so much for reading! Reblogs, likes, and comments are not required, but are always appreciated. I love hearing what y'all think! If you'd like to be added to the taglist for this series let me know. 😊

Taglist:

@roseblue373 @mrsjenniferwinchester @corruptedcruiser @winchesterwild78 @the-super-who-locked-wizard

@criminalyetminimal @52ndstreeet @bitchykittenconnoisseur @anna6307

@faephoria @possiblyafangirl @jqtaro @quietlybitchy @tinydancer40

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#jensen ackles #soldier boy x reader #soldier boy x you #jensen ackles soldier boy #soldier boy x female reader #soldier boy #soldier boy/ben #soldier boy fanfic #soldier boy fic #soldier boy fanfiction #the boys series #the boys fanfiction #the boys fanfic #the boys

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lipglossanon · 3 months ago

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Day 12

Kink: Somnophilia

Pairing: Vampire!Leon S. Kennedy x fem!reader

Warnings: 18+ MDNI, somnophilia, mixed POV, oral (f receiving), CNC, reader is okay with the somno but for the sake of the fic I left it all out lmao, dirty talk, unprotected sex, creampie

not proofread

Leon frets over you constantly. You being human comes with a whole host of issues that he’s not quite used to dealing with; not to mention, he’s seen people die from things as simple as a cold, so when you fall under the weather.. it tends to work him into a tizzy.

It’s why he’s got you bundled up with what feels like every blanket in the castle.

“I promise, I just need water and bed rest, Leon,” you push away the throw he’s tossed over your mound of blankets.

He frowns, white hair falling into his eyes leading him brush it back.

“I just wish for you to regain health, little love,” he sighs, pressing a cold palm to your warm forehead.

“I know,” you smile, fingers encircling his wrist to pull his hand close so you can kiss his palm. “I’m more tired than anything.”

“Sleep. I’ll be here if you need me.”

Eyes fluttering shut, you relax back into the sheets and easily drift off. You don’t usually dream, but floating in and out of darkness, you experience a dichotomy of heat and wetness that confuses and titillates you. It’s not enough to wake you though and you fall into a deeper sleep.

Leon has kept watch over you most of the night, only stepping out for a few moments to gather more water. He picks up a small ceramic basin and a cloth before sitting on the bed next to you. Easing your blankets down, he soothes you with soft nonsensical noises until you settle again.

Slipping your clothes off is fairly easy, you’re not wearing much as is with the slight fever you were running earlier. Once you’re nude, he dampens the cloth and gently runs it across your skin. You sigh in your sleep, face turning away as he glides it across your chest, nipples pebbling. His hand pauses, eyes staring down at your breasts. Fingers flexing around the cloth, he finally moves the fabric down your body, forcefully pulling his eyes away.

His cock begins to stiffen and he shifts in place, eyes dragging back up to your hard nipples.

He continues to cool your skin off with the damp cloth, but now his touch becomes more pointed. Leon presses the fabric against one hip then drags it down to your thigh, sliding it back up between your legs to swipe over your bare cunt.

Another little sigh comes from you while he parts your legs further, saliva filling his mouth as he stares at your soft pussy. He feels like a dirty old man, but it doesn’t stop him from kneeling between your spread legs, face buried in your cunt, tongue lapping at your slit.

You shift and groan and he pauses, blown out gaze watching your sleeping face until you relax back into the bed. With a low groan, he sinks his tongue into your hole, licking into your pussy eagerly. Slick slowly starts to drip out into his tongue and he uses his thumbs to spread open your pussy lips, nose bumping your clit.

His fangs press into the sensitive bud, thoughts of biting your sweet little clit so he can taste your blood and slick has him humping the bed. Eyes rolling back, he eats you out greedily, suckling your pudgy bundle of nerves before licking back into your clenching hole.

You make a keening whine that pulls him away from your cunt with a wet schlick. Sitting between your spread thighs, he watches you for any sign of wakefulness. Once he confirms you’re still sound asleep, he hurriedly undoes his slacks and pulls his aching cock out. He shuffles closer and slaps the head of his dick against your swollen clit.

“Forgive me, my sweet,” he murmurs, thumb pressing down on the tip so he can guide his cock into your fluttering walls. “Just need to be inside you.”

He whimpers to himself as he bottoms out inside your fat wet pussy. To stop himself from bruising you, he grips the sheets on either side of your hips. Pulling out slowly, he rocks his hips forward and hisses between clenched teeth.

“Always so tight,” he pants, eyes flicking between his cock splitting you open to your tits bouncing with his movement. “Always so perfect.”

Pussy clenching and pulsing around his cock even as you asleep has him closer to spilling inside you than usual. His fangs ache to pierce your skin, eyes longingly gazing at your left breast—he loves biting you close to your heart. The blood is always so much sweeter. Unless he’s drinking it from your cunt.

A punched out groan rumbles from his throat and he quickens his pace, cock pumping in and out of your pussy with deep strokes. Teeth biting into his lip, blood fills his mouth and the fleeting thought that it could be yours has his cock flexing, cum spurting from the tip as he creampies your pussy. He hunches over your body, nails shredding the bedding as he gasps and moans, rutting his cock into your cunt.

Once the last of his tremors pass, he pulls out with a low hiss. Gazing rapturously at his seed trickling from your winking hole, he thinks to himself that he’s unsure if you climaxed or not. Laying out on his stomach, he laps at his own jizz painting your cunt.

He’ll make you cum on his tongue at least twice before filling you full once more.

#kinktober #kinktober 2024 #lipglossanon kinktober 2024 #leon s kennedy smut #leon kennedy smut #leon s kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy x you #leon kennedy x reader #leon kennedy x you #vampire!leon s kennedy #vampire!leon #vampire!leon s kennedy x fem!reader #vampire!leon kennedy

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ghoulie-67-baby · 1 year ago

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Softly now - Good Omens

Summary: Your anxiety has been raging all day, one accident at home makes you snap.

Warnings: Anxiety, depression, panic attack, anxiety attack, angst, crying, blood/wound.

Pairing: Ineffable husbands x Human!reader.

Word count: 1,674.

To say today had been challenging was an understatement. Nothing particularly bad had happened. The mix of work and anxiety had me in a spiral, wanting to go home and curl up away from the world. After finishing my shift, I trudged home in the pouring rain, the sound of droplets on my hood keeping me grounded. I knew Crowley wouldn't have had any issue picking me up but it felt like a burden and my head was telling me he'd be annoyed if I asked. So I settled for the walk in the dingy weather.

Dodging puddles, I yanked my coat collar around my throat, shivering as raindrops trickled down my face, leaving tear-like streaks on my cheeks. Luckily the bag containing my laptop and books had been miracled by Aziraphale to stay waterproof and protected by any weather. Despite the calm look on my face, the bustle and noise of the streets had my eyes darting around. My heart thundered in my chest as the bookshop came into view, looking as beautiful as ever. I sped up, gasping as people barged into me in their rush.

With clenched, freezing hands, I shoved open the heavy wooden door and huffed out a sigh, slamming it behind me and locking out the world. My forehead reacted against the hardwood as I flipped the sign to 'closed'. I knew nobody would be in the shop, especially if Aziraphale had anything to do with it.

After a few minutes of unmoving silence, I wandered to the kitchen and flicked on the kettle. A good cup of tea made everything better. There was no sign of the angel or demon as I walked through our home so I settled for one cup. Moving around the familiar space, my mind zoned out and I was set on autopilot.

I jumped out of my head as the sound of shattering filled the room. Shards of delicate, precious china scattered over the floor the beautiful flower pattern ruined. Anger and irritation flooded through me as I glared at the mess. Tears gathered in my eyes as I rushed to clean it, guilt crawling up my spine.

With trembling hands, I gathered some of the shards together to throw them away whilst trying to ignore the feeling rising man my throat.

"Love, let me take that from you." I froze as the Angel's voice floated through the silence. I hadn't even noticed him arrive home. With a quick shake of my head, I walked to the bin to throw them away but flinched as a large shard sliced my palm.

"Oh Y/N, you've cut your hand now." He tutted, reprimanding my stubbornness but I couldn't look at him. Instead, I trudged to the sink, rinsing the gash with a hiss and wrapping it in a towel. A warm hand rested against my icy shoulder as I watched the blood run down the drain.

"Darling, you need to let us help you." Crowley followed not far behind the angel with a disapproving look on his slender face. I watched silently as he unwrapped the bloody towel and grabbed the first aid kit to clean it properly. By this point, Aziraphale had cleaned up the remainder of the cup and droplets of blood from the tiles.

"You should really be more careful Love," The angel stood making hot chocolate, concern painting his face. I nodded silently, biting back a sob as tears filled my eyes. My chest began to heave as the demon bandaged my palm.

Only when a tear splashed on his hand did he realise the streaks on my face and the heads of my breaths as my good hand clutched the countertop, knuckles turning white. I stared straight ahead at his jacket, frustrated with myself. I squeezed my eyes shut, begging the tears to stop but it only worsened as waves of anxiety and guilt crashed over me.

Crowley caught me by my elbows to steady me as the first sobs escaped, swaying as my senses erupted with overstimulation. With ringing ears, I tried to listen as he spoke but words seemed to bleed into each other.

The only clear sound was my wails and whimpers as I tried to breathe, the room closing on me. Embarrassment filled me as I clawed at Crowley's chest, pulling him as close as physically possible so I didn't feel like I was sinking. Slender fingers passed me to chubbier ones as the blur of beige of Aziraphale's jacket came into view.

"Softly now, Love," he whispered into my ear. My breath caught in my throat as I cried into his chest which I had all but fallen into. The hum of his voice vibrated through my body as his fingers traced patterns on my back, the other hand smoothing down my hair. I couldn't help but feel bad for cuddling him when he was warm and soft and I was cold and soaked but he didn't seem to mind.

Warmth flowed over me and I looked down to find myself in Crowley's black sweater and Aziraphale tartan pyjama pants. I hummed thanks to the angel as my sobs died down into silent tears and hiccups. I clenched my fingers into his waistcoat, knees trembling and head pounding with such ferocity that I felt nauseous.

"Now, Love, whatever managed to get you in this state?" His voice was gentle, ringing softly in my ear, the definition of angelic.

"Rough day is all." My voice was exhausted and small as I muttered against his chest.

"Did something happen, Darling?" I shook my head, taking note of the pissed-off tone in his voice. "You know I'll be the first to punish them if you need me to."

"Nothing happened, 'just been a bad day." I drew patterns on his chest. "All day I've had this niggling feeling in my chest and small things have built up and then when the cup smashed it was just the last straw." I trailed off, new tears dripping off my cheeks. "Didn't mean to break it Azira, just lost focus and-" His soft hushing cut me off as his fingers scratched gently at my scalp.

"You don't need to apologise, Love, as long as your okay." The relief that overtook my system was ridiculously strong and deep down I knew he wasn't really fussed about the cup but I needed to hear it. "It's just a cup. It is replaceable whereas you are not." I dismissed the flush on my cheeks as I pulled away from his chest, looking up at him. Sparkling blue eyes stared down at me with a soft smile as I rubbed my thumb over his cheek.

"Why don't we go and get comfortable whilst our angel finishes that drink, Darling?" I nodded, pressing a kiss to Aziraphale's cheek before taking Crowley's hand and following him to the bedroom.

Flinging his sunglasses on the bedside table, he sat on the edge of the bed. Serpent eyes looked up at me expectantly and though I tried to stop it, my bottom lip trembled. His arms stretched open for me and I fell into them with a cry of anguish.

His slender arms wrapped my legs around him so we were chest to chest, hands holding me tightly around him as I cried into his neck. My cry in the kitchen had been one Of pain, panic, anger and frustration at myself and the world. But this one was relief, pent-up emotion and overwhelming gratitude to my two celestials. I let myself into him, neither of us paying mind to my echoing wails or the tears that soaked his collar. Not even the way my cries shook both of our bodies.

Somehow, none of these things annoyed the demon who merely dismissed it for comforting me. Once I settled down, I lay boneless against him, head on his shoulder and body slouching whilst I caught my breath. I shifted my head to look up at him with puffy, tired eyes. My shaking hand rubbed his cheek, thumb grazing his cheekbone as he smiled down at me, letting his eyes flutter shut.

The shuffle of slippers at the door brought us back to reality but I didn't want to shift. Three steaming cups were placed on the nightstand before the bed dipped beside us.

"Feeling any better Darling?" The softness in the demon's voice caught me off guard for a second. I hummed out a yes, not having the energy for a better response, blinking tiredly as the world finally slowed down.

"Let's hop into bed whilst Crowley gets changed, Love." I nodded, crawling off his lap and flopping dramatically in the middle of the bed, beside a pyjama-clad angel. The fresh hot chocolate was placed in my hands once I sat up. I smiled as the heat seeped into my skin, sighing in delight as the sweet liquid ran down my throat. The two chuckled and Crowley climbed in beside me, gulping down his drink, mostly to appease Azira. The heat didn't bother him, it had no effect against hellfire.

A comfortable silence filled the room as we finished our drinks, basking in each other's company for a few moments. Rather quickly my eyes began to feel heavier. The cup was slipped from my grasp as I wiggled down under the covers, Crowley pressed reassuringly against my back.

"Hey Azira," I whispered, tapping his shoulder hesitantly. "Will you read to me?" The uncertainty dissipated immediately when he broke out in a smile and miracled a book with the flourish of his hand.

"It would be my pleasure, Love, do cuddle down and relax." The three of us got comfortable and I held Crowley's hand that draped over my waist as Aziraphale's voice floated to my ears, and the story began.

All three of us knew I wouldn't last long but he still happily read, knowing it would calm me and I might rest properly. And rightfully so, writhing minutes I had drifted off beside my two favourite beings.

#good omens #good omens x reader imagines #good omens x reader #good ineffable omens #ineffeble husbands #ineffable husbands x reader #aziracrow #crowley #aziraphale #crowley x arizaphale #aziraphale x crowley #aziraphale x reader #crowley x reader #aziraphale imagines #crowley imagines

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nouearth · 1 year ago

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once upon an eggnog.

clark kent x male reader.

summary: there's nothing better than physical touch to sober reader up after a christmas party.

wc: 1.1k. warnings: fluff, holiday!season, drunk!reader, maws!clark, worried!clark, co-worker!au, reader doesn't know clark is superman, non-descriptive mention of reader throwing up, clark has very warm hands and is a simp because he wants to make reader happy.

The groan you let out was feeble. Your shadow trailed behind your sluggish steps as you foraged through neighboring street lights, gravel and pavement, for a stake of its emanating warmth.

“Hey—“ A voice called out from behind you, the blanket of snowflakes and cold dulling the panic in the man’s voice. You rested your body against the lamppost, finding the warmth to be exemplary over your frosted cheeks, but unbearable for your insides.

You let out a deep sigh. The longer you stood under the light, sweat droplets began to frame your face, followed by an overwhelming urge to cleanse your body from the inside out.

“I don’t feel…” You slurred in your speech, holding your stomach as you craned over until you slid onto your bottom, head exposed to the light as you faced the comforting snow.

“Wait up!” He called out to you several more times in midst of his trudge, his panting audibly close.

You began grumbling incoherent sounds in response as you clumsily whipped off your coat. Your mind was frosted like the windows on the cars lined down the street as you drew in the cold air with a greed to pacify the strange feeling in your stomach.

“(M/N), keep that on!”

“What are you…?! My mom—“ The constant shifting and turning of your body, all in an attempt to strip yourself of the restrictive wool of your vest and reindeer sweater, churned the bottom of your stomach until it was mush.

Absolute.

Mush.

It was funny how the human body worked because even in your drunken state, your natural instinct to find the nearest public trash can surfed through the flood of eggnog and booze, and you immediately emptied the toxins out of your body with several strong hurls.

“Geez, I told you not to run off…” A messenger bag and a familiar coat dropped near your foot, and the man did not spare a single second to come to your aid. “And also not to drink that much...” He rubbed your back in slow and soothing circles, then in vertical swipes as you coughed out the remaining poison. The strong bass pulsating into his palm as a special way of saying ‘thank you.’

“Clark, it was just a sip—“

“You had six cups….” Clark confessed and your immediate frown was telling in whether you were an innocent bystander, or the reason why the office was running low on drinks. Rummaging through his pockets, he then offered a handful of crumbled napkins that he took from the party.

“The last two didn’t count.” You slurred again, slowly regaining your strength as you stabilized yourself over the rim of the garbage can before wiping your mouth with the napkin. “I needed a drink with my food—“

“You barely touched your plate—“ He cut himself off as soon as he caught you staring at him, the eggnog stupefying you into a dazed state in which crickets and holiday festivities replaced coherent thoughts.

“We gotta get you home. It’s freezing.” He said, and you swayed in place as if you were a palm tree basking in the summer breeze. Or maybe like a giant marshmallow floating yet sinking in the warmth of hot cocoa.

Clark tried his best to fight the smile that was creeping upon him as he tidied your outerwear for the fourth time tonight, shielding you from the dusting of cold when he layered you with your coat.

His jaw clenched while he chewed back an adoration for your nearly frost-bitten visage, stalling the fixing of your reindeer headband to be closer to you a little while longer.

Though he couldn’t tell whether the deep flush of your skin was caused by the weather or the booze, it didn’t matter in the end because the winter of your skin magnetized a bravery in Clark that stilled you in place. Warmth sprouted over your cheeks like an approaching spring, and you closed your eyes peacefully.

Clark had put his bare hands over your cheeks, cupping them like a delicate bowl of snowflakes until they melted into his skin, until all he could feel was you and your equally delicate skin.

“Better?” Hesitantly, his thumbs followed the trail of your dark circles. It was something you’d always complain about yet ironically, your evident lack of sleep ranked high on his ‘favorite things about you’ list.

“Mhm. If only your hands were a little warmer.” You sighed again, the snowing melting into your hair and skin battling Clark’s warmth.

“Hm…” Clark held your cheeks closer, deepening his palms into you, and he closed his eyes, silently channeling his energy into his affectionate hold over you.

Maybe it was the booze playing tricks on you, or perhaps it was your body shutting down for the night, but you physically felt his hands heat up, warmer than his previous offer. Nonetheless, you gave him a nod of approval, and despite drowsiness approaching, your eyes opened bright to thank him with a smile.

“I’m guessing that’s why you don’t wear gloves?”

“Uh…” Clark laughed, an anxiousness you could point out, but you couldn’t exactly trust your judgement in your current state. “I guess you could say that’s why.”

“Well,” You said before a yawn slurred your speech even more, feeling the muscles in your body losing its strength by the second. “Remind me when you’re nearby so I can use you as a…”

“As a..?” There was a slight push to his palms, a strange sudden heaviness before Clark realized you were gradually leaning forward. “(M/N)—“

Gravity pulled your eyelids down, then your body forward, a striking contrast to the graceful dance of snow that dusted the ground. “As…”

And you completely slumped into Clark’s arms. Thankfully, his reflexes were quick to catch you before you could even feel the slightest breeze.

“Let’s get you home…” He smile mirrored the gentle frame of your body as you sunk into him.

And he held you close, accompanying your deep slumber with a warmth that surrounded and protected your body like a string of Christmas lights weaved through pine needles and tree branches.

A warmth that campaigned against the icier gale, the ego of a higher altitude, during Clark’s flight to take you back home.

And a warmth that was victorious when Clark tucked you into bed, a measly makeshift of comfort and peace you thought during your stir of sleep.

Because Clark’s warmth was a newfound establishment from this night onwards.

nouearth. please do not repost, plagiarize, or translate my works. and if you like this story, please reblog and leave a like!

#clark kent x reader #clark kent x male reader #clark kent x you #clark kent fanfic #clark kent x y/n #nou.fics

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sunni-stuff · 5 months ago

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I've been thinking about pirate!Ghost for the past couple weeks. I needed to get this out now.

-🌤! Tags: Afab, Uncontrollable Horniness, nsfw, age-gap. (early to mid 20s.)

The Sea Dogs were an entire ship full of ragtag men, each with his own story and reasons for joining the crusade across countless seas. Captain John Price, the leader of this crew, was a renowned figure known for his leadership and countless achievements. He had led his crew through years of wear and tear on the unforgiving waves, making their name heard far and wide.

None were as infamous as Ghost, his trusted gunner, known for his quick dagger throws and even quicker shots. A hulking man with a standoffish demeanor and unwavering cautiousness, Ghost never fully showed his face. He wore a black bandana tied around the lower half of his face, with black paint smudged around his eyes, revealing nothing yet leaving his harsh brown orbs to pierce the soul of anyone who stared too long.

To those who did not know him, Ghost was intimidating, deadly, and most of all, someone to avoid. He was fine with this. He relished the benefits his appearance gave him, how people shrank away at the mere sight of him, even from a distance. It made sense–who in their right mind would want to be near a man who had put a bullet through so many men that he couldn't count them all on his fingers?

Ghost was ruthless.

A silent marauder who took what he wanted without a second thought, plundering from men and women alike. Wherever he walked, the bodies and blood of the lives he took at sea seemed to follow. The culprit, his calloused hands bore the weight of his trusted flintlock, a companion who would even accompany him to his very grave.

A dirty bastard indeed.

Too dirty for the likes of you.

You.

You, who he sees, enter the blacksmith's forge. You, who wore a simple white dress with a black corset tied tightly around your waist. You, who smiled so innocently to the islanders as you carried out your chores. Running errands for your father all around the quaint island, carrying a simple woven basket filled with bread and biscuits in your delicate arms.

His mouth runs dry.

Ghost can't take his eyes off you as you walk past him, saying, “hello.” to a nearby merchant. Your sweet voice renders him speechless, drowning out everything else around him. He can’t hear Price bartering anymore. He can’t hear Gaz and Soap ribbing on who can pull in the most lasses. All he can hear is the sound of his heart beating and your brief yet lovely hello. He watches the sway of your hips beneath the fabric of your dress, how your stays lifts your delectable bosom with each breath.

He wants—needs to sink his teeth in you.

Ghost is desperate to touch you, to possess you completely. He craves the feeling of his hands on your skin, his lips ravishing yours as he listens to the sweet moans in his head. He wants nothing more than to thrust himself inside you and claim you as his own, burying his thick cock deep within your weeping pussy.

You’re a real peach. All smiles and fluttering lashes. A young thing, he assumes, based on the way the people dote on you so as you pass by shops, making your way back to your father’s bakery.

He’s an older man, one weathered by storms and battles, which do nothing to deter him from his new conquest. After all, the older the berry, the sweeter the juice.

And Ghost believes himself sweet enough.

Ghost discreetly adjusts the growing bulge in his pants and conceals any weapons he may be carrying.

He couldn't afford to scare off his darling pet.

And with that, Ghost followed after you, a maiden worth more than any treasure.

🌤 I had really bad writers blocked and was unable to write for a while, but this has been floating around in my pea brain for so long, so please enjoy.

P.S. This wasn't proofread.

#call of duty #cod x reader #ghost x you #simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley #simon ghost riley x you #simon ghost x reader #simon riley x reader #call of duty smut #mayadarlings #sunniside

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moonlight-prose · 6 months ago

Note

accidentally staring a bit too long at their lips w/ fritz bestie please i am begging he has kissable lips 😩

EARTH ANGEL

a/n: because manny jacinto is finally showing up my dash constantly, i felt like i had to write something for the one and only fritz. this is courtesy of us just screaming about him. a nonstop convo about how beautiful he is. also cause top gun summer 3.0 is necessary when the weather hits 90 and you want to crawl out of your skin. this is unedited and beta read by you babes.

summary: what does it mean to belong to someone? to be stuck in their gravitational pull, to feel that cosmic connection that makes breathing difficult when they were away.

OR a dance, a song, and the aspect of forever all leads to one conclusion. falling in love with fritz was inevitable.

word count: 3.2k+

pairing: bill ‘fritz’ avalone x f!reader

warnings: so much fluff it’s scary, romance, the hopefulness of two hopeless romantics, fluff, flirty vibes from our man fritz, he's obsessed it's so cute, the good gooey feelings that make people do stupid things for love.

Celebratory cheers bounced off the walls as you did your best not to get knocked on your ass. People crowded the bar, beer in their hands and requests for more flying off their lips. And you did what you could to sink into the corner. Away from those that were already on the road to slurring their words given the demeanor of the setting. People were floating on cloud nine. Over the damn moon as the mission they stressed over suddenly became a success.

The condensation dripped onto your hand, slipping down your wrist when you took a sip. You should have wiped it away on your sundress, but the scene before you distracted every one of your senses. Rooster was three beers in, a shot of something amber beside him, as he sang at the top of his lungs. His fingers danced over the keys.

Surprising given that he was tipping over the piano, his eyes glazed and gleaming. A group of pilots you tried to make sense of practically fell beside him, their voices shouting above the others. The serenity of bliss drawn on their faces. You figured they were the ones who'd accomplished the job.

"Can I buy you a drink honey?" The drunken slur of a pilot tripping his way towards you nearly threw you off, but with a tip of your beer and a lazy smile you watched him accept defeat. His eyes already set to a redhead seated at the bar - her gaze locked on him with a hunger you only felt for one man.

"You shouldn't hide away," Phoenix called, sliding into the corner with you, two beer necks wrapped in each hand. Another round to kill the stress of the day—to remember they weren't just pilots.

You grinned. "Who says I'm hiding?"

A quirk of her eyebrow and a murmured mhm called you out faster than you anticipated. Hiding wasn't the prerogative. If you had another beer in your system, you'd be sitting by Rooster attempting to match his note for one of your own. But celebration wasn't to be had if the one you were waiting for hadn't waltzed through the door yet. His friends trailing behind him, wolf whistles traded for smirks from pretty women at the bar.

"He'll be here soon," she said, nodding towards the door. "Mav kept them longer than usual."

"Who says I'm waiting for someone?"

She laughed, a shrug thrown your way as she meandered through the mess of rowdy pilots. "Who says you're not?"

Any other pilot would have figured you wanted away from the noise, any of them wouldn't have seen how your eyes fell to the door whenever it swung open. But Phoenix...she could see the faint emotion that shone in your eyes. She saw how you laughed a bit harder in his presence, how he actually talked longer, how your hands brushed when you thought no one was looking. You were an open book, and Phoenix was rapidly turning the pages to see how this particular story came to an end.

"Phoenix—"

The call fell on deaf ears as she rejoined her boys. A seat procured for her by the pool table within seconds. They may give her shit left and right, but you caught the way respect bled from their hearts when she entered the scene. A comradery that left even you breathless.

They'd die for each other.

They nearly had.

You nearly wondered what that felt like: being so in tune with someone your whole body lit up when they entered a room. Yet the echo of the door swinging open—a cheer of a voice you recognized - yanked the breath from your lungs. Seconds passed like hours, and the hair on the back of your neck stood to attention, as you turned. Already searching the crowd for that someone—the other half of your cosmic connection.

If you had a favorite color before catching sight of his eyes, you couldn't remember it. The inclination of your favorite song was diminished the second his laughter fell upon your senses. You suddenly couldn't recall a day where you didn't breathe for him, where your life didn't hold meaning unless you shared a smile and said hello. He'd become the sun, and you found you didn't mind being dragged into his gravitational pull. As long as you could orbit around him without end.

"Penny!" Harvard yelled over the noise of Rooster doing encore number three of Great Balls of Fire. "Three beers please and thank you!"

You smiled into your beer, the bitter flavor flooding your taste buds as a third member of the dynamic duo appeared in their midst. His head turning, eyes flicking through the throng of people, as he searched rapidly. He smiled at Yale, nodded his head at a woman who rammed into him, and finally caught your gaze with a deep exhale.

And suddenly...you could breathe properly again.

He mumbled his farewells, snuck the beer off the counter, and slipped quietly towards you.

People believed he remained silent because Harvard and Yale were loud enough for him. You found he had plenty to say. As long as someone was willing to listen. If it were up to you, he'd never stop talking. Simply so you could hear the deep echo of his voice on a constant loop. Your favorite tune, ever since he caught your eye at basic training. The question of an empty chair beside you suddenly turning into so much more.

"You're still in your flight suit," you said, hoping the light airiness of your voice was enough to avoid thinking about how your skin turned hot the second he showed up.

When it came to Fritz...you became aware of yourself in a way that didn't exist. How you moved, how you spoke.

Before him you were in darkness. He simply figured out how to turn on the switch and allow light in.

"Yeah," he let out another breath, sipping at his beer. You tracked the drip of condensation that fell on his neck, your stomach twisting at the sight. "We got the ritual speech of why we didn't go. You know the one."

"Ah. The I'm sorry but you're still a great pilot speech."

He smiled and the ground vanished beneath you. "That exact one actually."

"I'm sure he...added a cherry on top of the bullshit."

Fritz choked, laughter spilling from his lips like a contagion you longed to catch. When he felt joy, you partook. When he laughed, you couldn't help yourself. He was an addiction. The reason why you even came to San Diego in the first place.

Whether he knew that was a different story altogether.

"I'm guessing you made it out early." His eyes fell to your white sundress, red flowers sprinkled along the near sheer fabric. "Nice dress," he mumbled into his drink, eyes a bit darker than before as they trailed upwards, stopping briefly at the way it was pulled into a tie above your breasts.

You'd done it into a mess of a bow, hoping the look didn't resemble too much of a present. His gaze barely came up to your eyes before falling again, transfixed by the sight. And you found you didn't mind if he unwrapped you with the same glee as a kid on his birthday. You wanted him to.

"Thanks," you replied softly, the quick echo of your heart deafening against the noise of the bar.

Rooster's name was being chanted like a prayer, his body shimmying and swaying as he began to start up another round of the same song. People were more than happy to sing along with him. Until the familiar hum of the jukebox prickled in the air, a slow song blaring from the speakers. You leaned up on your toes, eyes catching the sight of Hangman appearing from the back of it with a glare on his face. His middle finger directed towards a half drunk Rooster; who met him with a finger of his own.

"Serves Rooster right," you began, turning back to Fritz with a flutter of your skirt. "That would have been number four."

He snorted. "Only Rooster wouldn't get hit for that."

"Oh I'm pretty sure Hangman was five seconds away from it."

The Penguins crooned softly as people began to calm slightly, dispersing to tables and disappearing out the back towards the firepit. And you stood there silently with Fritz, your beer now tepid and disgusting. If you had the chance, you'd have asked him to head out to the firepit, but he turned back towards the bar. Probably for one more drink.

"Right." You pulled at the skirt of your dress.

You wanted to play it back, say something entirely different. Ask him to join you by the fire pit with another beer in his right hand and your palm in his left. But the words were stuck like molasses in the back of your throat, fighting against release. Phoenix was begrudgingly dancing with Bob, her lips refusing a smile that you knew lingered beneath the surface. And Fanboy sat beside Payback, crooning the lyrics as best they could.

The temptation to join them pulled at your chest, an echo of that yearning for comradery appearing again. Perhaps if you asked Fritz he'd say yes. You could follow their lead, enjoy the night before you went your separate ways once more.

You could pretend to be whole for one night.

And life would feel worth living.

"Hey Avalone—" You were stopped short by the sight of his hand stretched towards yours, his lips in a small smile that screamed hope. That pleaded for an answer to this unspoken question.

Like the rest of them...you replied silently. With the belief that words simply weren't enough in this situation.

Slipping your hand into his, you allowed him to lead you towards the empty spot near Phoenix and Bob. Dazed and slightly worried that the singular beer you drank was affecting you more than it should. Even as the actual reason had your hand clasped tight. You wanted to ask what effect he held over you, what intangible bond he created without your knowledge. It might give you an explanation as to why you felt this way: stuck in a dream filled haze, with only his light to guide you out.

And maybe one day Fritz would tell you he gripped you so tight for fear of him tripping. Maybe he'd finally explain why he told you so much, why his body buzzed the second you walked in a room. Maybe he'd tell you that he suspected he loved you after watching you fly a jet, but knew he loved you when you nearly toppled him over playing volleyball on the beach.

But for now...he expressed what he could without words. Afraid that if he opened his mouth, he'd say the wrong ones.

With a swift turn, he tugged you closer on unsteady feet. A full smile pulling at his lips when you grasped his shoulders for balance.

He wouldn't let you fall. Not here...not in the sky as your wingman, and certainly not out of the love you felt for him. People said this emotion was fleeting. A lost fictitious hope that merely existed with words on a page, but there was no denying how his heart grew warmer when you were near. How he knew he could speak to you for hours at a time, yet never run out of things to say.

You were it.

That indescribable thing no one could give a name to.

"I didn't take you for the dancing type," you joked, swallowing around your nerves that jumped across your skin.

He stepped closer, his arm slipping around your waist. The way your chest hitched didn't go unnoticed by him; although rather than mention it, he put you out of your misery and kept speaking.

"I'm not."

"Let me guess...it's the song?"

He shrugged, swaying you into a gentle step you could follow with ease. "Well...it's not not the song."

A quick glance over told you that the Daggers were eyeing the both of you with great interest. As if you and Fritz were the entertainment they'd been searching for all night. The turning point of a love story they'd been a part of for years. The page sat ready to be turned, the final line of the novel practically burning a hole through the back cover, yet you couldn't read what it said.

"So it's...only the song?"

"No." If it were any other night, you'd be sharing a plate of nachos at a booth somewhere in the back. He'd be three stories deep into a conversation, and you'd be falling a bit harder the longer you listened.

Tonight however, he seemed—nervous.

"No?" You wanted to pry open his thoughts, see what he believed this was—what you were to him.

"If it wasn't the song? If I asked you because of something else, what would you do?" His hand clutched yours a bit tighter, the familiar callous on the base of his wrist helped keep you grounded.

"Depends on what it is." You sucked in a breath. "Will I...I've been thinking—"

"Yes?"

Your eyes met his softened gaze, the echo of an emotion you couldn't place shone in the deep brown. And you wanted to beg him to explain it to you. To tell you everything he'd never said out loud, in the hopes they mimicked what you held near and dear to your heart every day.

"Ever since I've known you...um..." Getting it out felt as if you were attempting to delicately attempt a surgery - prying them free from your chest with a chisel. "Actually since the day we met...fuck...it's not easy to say."

He tugged you a bit closer as he turned. "I know." He smiled, eyes falling to your lips, the curve of their shape, how they formed around his name. "It's not just the song. It's you."

Breathing no longer existed as the beat of your heart went haywire. Could he feel the pulse of it on your wrist? The way it bent and twisted as if leaping from your chest. You wanted to respond, tell him all the things that went unspoken, but once he found his words...they refused to go unheard.

"It's always been you. I should have told you before tonight. Believe me—I wanted to. You have no idea how much I wanted to tell you." He let out a soft breathy laugh and you could practically taste his words on your tongue. "And I think you knew."

"Will..." Your teeth sunk into the flesh of your bottom lip, eyes falling to his as the words you longed to hear finally left them.

"I love you." The sting of tears burned your eyes, your hand clutching his shoulder harder as he kept going. "Since the first day." He laughed nervously and an image of him, you, and a house flashed through your mind. "Well actually. The day you knocked me on my ass playing volleyball is when I knew for sure."

"Yeah?" you murmured, fighting back the stream of tears.

He seemed to catch how the light illuminated them, his hand slipping from yours to cup your cheek. "Yeah. Only my girl could be that competitive."

His girl.

The story was written the day you greeted him with a smile. The ending inscribed into your futures with permanent ink, carved into the rock of your headstones. And you could see it now—the familiar dip in the road that matched his perfectly. Falling in love with Fritz was always in the cards. A play you had no choice but to make.

He was your forever the second you shared the same oxygen.

"Fritz..."

He smiled, thumb running across the apple of your cheek. "Yeah baby?"

Chills ran down your spine as heat spilled into your stomach. The polarity of the two nearly toppled you to the ground, but he held you tight. Unwilling to let you go.

The song was slowly coming to the final chorus—the noise of the bar didn't register to your ears anymore as you hung onto his every word. Desperate for him to say those three words over and over and over. Until he lost all the breath in his lungs.

"I hope you know I love you."

His lips pulled into a smile that held your attention in its grasp. What you wouldn't give to see that every morning and night. To be the sole reason why something so beautiful appeared. He smiled and you felt the gravity beneath your feet give way, your stomach bursting to life with a flurry of butterflies.

"I should have said it before this mission. Or even a year ago. But I was scared you didn't feel the same wa—"

With a soft chuckle, he dipped down slightly, catching your lips with his softly. And every thought, every explanation you could give him, died on your tongue. He was gentle with you, as if this was a new version of the dance you'd shared throughout the years. The steps, familiar yet foreign enough to trip you up. It wasn't until you sucked in a sharp breath through your nose, your hand finding its way to the hair on the base of his neck, did the hesitation fall away.

He itched to haul you to his chest and properly kiss you. But the burn of eyes prickled along his back. There was an audience, witnesses to the first step into your future, and Fritz felt himself tense slightly. If he had a choice, he'd show you how long he wanted this. How he ached for this.

He'd make up for lost time.

The song filtered to an end, a new one he couldn't place starting up. He refused to pull away.

With a sigh, you melted into his hold, a noise echoing in the back of your throat as his tongue slid along yours. The tang of his beer mixing with yours. He kissed you with the promise of more, the knowledge that tonight you'd take his hand and follow him home. You felt his hand bunch the skirt at your back, fingers digging into your waist, and you moaned softly—desperate for his skin to sear yours.

"Get a room, lovebirds!" Hangman shouted, leaning against the jukebox beer in hand. Yet he let the quarter in his hand slide through the slot, another love song clicking to life as he complained with a smile.

Fritz jolted back, his lips swollen and vibrating. He could still taste you on his tongue, still hear the echo of your moan in his head. You looked dazed, almost lovestruck. And suddenly he understood what it really meant to be hungry.

"Remind me to thank Hangman later," he mumbled against your lips, addicted to the way they curved beneath his.

"He'll take credit for this."

He shrugged. "I'm okay with that."

You locked your other arm around his neck, nose brushing his as you eyed his lips. The red stain on his cheeks had your heart skipping as many beats as it could. What you wouldn't give to have a picture of him like this. Stuck in a haze of love that you put him in.

With a stupefied grin, you felt him start to lead you through the next dance. The steps perfectly in tune with his—as it was always meant to be. "So am I."

#YES HIS NAME IS WILLIAM IN THIS FIC #I REFUSE TO CALL HIM BILLY #billy 'fritz' avalone x reader #billy 'fritz' avalone x you #billy 'fritz' avalone x y/n #billy 'fritz' avalone x f!reader #billy avalone x reader #billy avalone x you #fritz x reader #fritz x you #top gun maverick #manny jacinto #my writing

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angel-inked · 2 months ago

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Winding down with them

Just time spent relaxing with the boys

Taglist: @vvkingofgaybisciutsvv @thequeenofthewinter @thedevilshardy @mollybegger-blog @wandawiccan60 @cameleonhardyfan63 @hoodeddreams13 @inkwolvesandcoffee @liliac-dreamer @potter-solomons

The rainy morning.

Thunder rumbled quietly outside as droplets raced each other down the window, the soft whirring of passing cars added to the ambience of the rain drumming on various different surfaces, ranging from the roads to the sidewalks to the rooftops. Well the weather made a dreary morning for those who had jobs to get to, safe to assume the weather reflected their mood, others took this morning as a sign that it was time to have a lie in. A well-deserved lie in, Tommy thought, sinking deeper into the pillow being held in place by his brawny arms. A dull ache settled around his right eye, the blow he took from his opponent's knee had caused some deep colored bruising, but any tension he'd held onto from last night was currently being massaged away by your hand wandering up and down his back. He released a satisfied sigh as you applied gentle pressure at the top of his spine with your thumb and ran it down the middle of his expansive muscle mass. Occasionally your mouth would make contact with the back of his neck, kissing and suckling, pulling away before you left any marks, neither of you were in the mood, let alone had the energy for that sort of thing. You nuzzled into him, slowly moving up from the base of his thick neck up to where his hair started and back down.

Tommy was vaguely aware of the sounds of the movie you put on coming from the laptop speakers, something about Virginia moonshiners waging war against twisted and corrupted law enforcement, truth be told he hadn't exactly followed most of the plot, his consciousness had been floating somewhere between sleep and barely awake at most due to the slow pace of your touch. Last he remembered was thinking about was how he related to the youngest of the three brothers, who were at the front line of all the fighting. He knew what it felt like to feel as though you were living in the shadow of your older sibling and often wished that could've been the only complaint he had from his childhood. At least in this moment, he felt as far removed from his past as he felt he could get. Your hand continued its path up and down, your mouth continued to caress his skin, and your warm breath and body against his in the bed remained one of his favorite sensations in the world. All the horrors he'd experienced, during his time as a US Marine and as a kid, were worth it in comparison, he found he was glad the initial internal kamikaze mission he'd entered the military with fell through.

He felt the skin of your cheek press against his shoulder, he heard you release a soft sigh of pleasure, and all his sleep drunk mind could think was that he couldn't be bothered to move. Your arm snaked its way around his bare torso and the muscles in one of your legs stretched lazily as it splayed across his, like it had the right to be there, truth be told, it did. On top of what he thought to be music playing over the credits, Tommy could hear your soft humming, could feel the vibration of your vocal chords in your throat against his skin. Between the soothing sound pulling him closer and closer to sleep, and the rain still plummeting down outside, straight and silvery, like a punishment of steel rods beating on the roof. That thing that grew inside of him as a boy, a seething rage that he tapped in the cage and when his dad went too far and Tommy used what the old man had taught him against his teacher, that thing that usually wreathed around in his chest had settled, still there, but settled.

The seaside.

The seaside was surprisingly sparse with people. The sun beating down had almost everyone who was there seeking refuge in the water, which remained cold as if it were intent on defying the sun. The soft white sand greedily soaked up the sun's rays as you hauled a pail of water across it, a mischievous grin playing on your lips. You had your sights set on your fiance, napping the afternoon away in the shade of a tree. He was in for a rather rude awakening. You almost felt a little bad as you approached him, the content expression of peacefulness on his face, the way his full pink lips were slightly parted in sleep, a part of you wanted to kiss them and another part wanted to see the shock on his face from receiving an ice cold shower of sea water. Both parts won out eventually. You leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips, pulling back with a grin as he, even mostly in his sleep, instinctively tried to follow your lips. That grin widened as you lifted the pail up and turned it over, dumping the contents onto his head.

Farrier jolted awake, "Gah!" He sputtered in surprise, wiping water from his face with the back of his hand as you doubled over laughing. "You little..." Farrier exclaimed, and you took off down the shoreline as he got up to chase after you, laughing and dodging his first attempt to grab you. He caught up to you eventually, "You think you're clever?" He laughed as he slung you over his shoulder. "Tom!" You squealed amongst laughing fits, wriggling in his grip. "No, you're not getting away that easy." He grinned as he tightened his hold, hauling you into the sea and tossing you into the water to give you a taste of your own prank.

You surfaced with a loud gasp, the cold water feeling like it was seeping into your very being, you splashed him in the face once more for retaliation. Farrier laughed again, shaking the water from his head in a manner similar to that of his black and white border collie, Confetti, after she had just had a dip in the pond, pulling you into his arms and flush against his chest. "Think I was missing my alarm clock, did you?" He asked with a grin, nuzzling his face into your soaked hair. You pulled back slightly to stick your tongue out at him in a pout, "Cheeky." He murmured with an easy smile, guiding your head back to his chest.

Too crowded.

Fall harvest, celebrated with a barn dance, a ruckus rising hoedown. Forrest hated it, how ever good for business it was. He hated it. A whole horde of people, dancing, touching, socializing, most would be drunk off illegal liquor, his illegal liquor, before the night was half over. Call it what you will, but being in a crowded building made him feel like he was suffocating. So, he parked himself on a bail of straw by the entrance. The fresh night air felt blissful in his lungs, combined with the smoke of the smoldering cigar he held between calloused fingers. Several party goers greeted him as expected. He was well known for what he considered rather undesirable reasons. The idiots, he thought, were the ones who stopped and tried for conversation, only earning a grunt here and a measuring look here and there before being hauled back off into the crowd. Closing his eyes and exhaling a smoke cloud sharply as he leaned his head back against the wall behind him. A few deep breaths before his hazel orbs flickered open again, staring directly up at the harvest moon. He wondered for a moment if he was even needed here. If not for keeping his brothers in check, he wouldn't be. With all the alcohol involved, Jack couldn't handle Howard on his own, not that he could handle the man particularly well sober either. Then he began to wonder if his older brother was ever truly sober. He shook his head at himself, feeling kinda stupid for wondering that, of course he wasn't.

The crowd emerged from the barn just as it had disappeared inside. the only difference that occurred to Forrest was that they were headed in the opposite direction. The music was done, but the festivities were far from over. He stretched his legs out straight, grunting quietly in satisfaction, then standing with another low sound, this one coming out as a strained groan. He was used to feeling older than he was, this eventful life he'd gotten himself into, It'd be the death of him sooner or later. He reached a hand behind himself to brush off whatever straw was clinging to his brown corduroy pants and then straightened up the rest of the way. He took a few steps toward the crowd, stopping at the edge of it, scanning the flow of people for his brothers, and finding them within a few minutes. Spotting Howard above the crowd was fairly easy with his height, Jack was trailing along behind silently with his head down, glancing up at Forrest like a child who had just been caught mid-squirmish. There was still a part of Forrest that was tucked away somewhere far in the back that wished Jack didn't look at him as such, but someone had to step up, and he wasn't going to chance leaving that to Howard. The middle brother eyed the empty wooden crate in Jack's hands, "Go on." he waved him off with one hand, and the other reached for the crate. Jack looked up at him with wide questioning eyes, "Well, you wanna run around, don't ya?" Forrest asked, and he didn't have to ask twice.

Howard guffawed as he watched Jack scamper away, Forrest shook his head at both of them for the umpteen time. His eyes landed on a blonde, seemingly conversing with a friend. "Who's that?" He asked, inclining his head toward the pair. "Patricia Holliday, she's the mayor's daughter from a couple counties over," Howard answered, Forrest turned to him, how Howard always seemed to know everyone, and their mother was beyond him. not bringing the same warm body home twice probably had something to do with that he figured. "You're gonna need a crowbar if you wanna get inside her, baby brother." Howard smiled, Forrest roughly punched his shoulder for his rude comment. "I'm not looking at her, dumbass!" He barked, loud enough that his voice carried to someone never intended to hear. "Does that mean you're lookin' at my friend?" A voice asked sweetly, sounding particularly amused. Forrest turned to the voice and found himself face to face with a grinning Patricia Holliday. "Um..." Forrest grumbled, removing his hat and stiffly nodding a greeting to Patricia and then to her friend, mentally cursing Howard, who appeared to be enjoying his baby brother's increased awkwardness with a grin. "Hey Howard!" Patricia beamed up at the eldest happily. "Y/n... you don't mind if I leave you with Forrest, do you? I think Howard and I have some catching up to do." She said, tucking herself under Howard's arm, her head barely reaching his shoulder, and smirked up at him as she pulled him into her with an arm around his midsection. "Sure, why not? Besides, he's cute." You grinned, watching with satisfaction as Forrest flushed pink.

You linked your arm with his, feeling him tense against your side, managing to get a distance of what you thought to be out of earshot of Howard and Patricia before Forrest decided to stop dead in his tracks. "Where in, and I do beg your pardon, the hell are you so intent on dragging me off to?" He asked. "Anywhere away from Patricia and that brother of yours, if they're 'catching up' the way I think they are, I have no interest in being anywhere near them." You explained, noting how Forrest seemed to relax once you had let go of his arm. He merely shrugged in response, "Guess I've heard enough of Howard to not think about it." He murmured, and you cocked your head to the side as you narrowed your eyes. "Living together does that." He added because that deserved a little more eloquence. "Alright then," you said, silence taking hold as you wondered, 'what now?'. "Um.." Forrest started hesitantly, looking off in a direction you thought he seemed rather keen on. "Yes?" You asked, trying to gently ease him along. You knew enough from Patricia to understand he wasn't exactly a conversationalist. "Was just thinkin' we could head toward the pond, fewer people there than here I'd reckon." He uttered, refusing to meet your gaze head on. "Let's." You agreed, gesturing for him to lead the way and you became increasingly more intrigued as you watched people make a point of moving out of his way as he did. He did seem as quiet and awkward as Patricia had said he was, but she left out the part about how people would huddle and whisper amongst themselves as he passed by. However, catching glimpses of a jar tucked into the pocket of his sweater gave you a few ideas. Learning about the quaint character hidden under his shyness on a peaceful stroll away from the far too dense crowds sounded miles more interesting than what Patricia and Howard were doing.

Sturgis

His shipment went to Pierre, the capital, but he couldn't pass up stopping off in Sturgis on his way back, not knowing if he would get the chance again. The streets were lined with hordes of bikes, a few classic cars, and some hotrods. Johnny thought the best part to be the feeling swelling in his chest that he was home, though It wasn't the place that felt like home. It was the crowds attending bike week, the fact that nobody gave him anything other than a nod, a wave, a smile, no judgment to be found in their bright expressions. "Hey," a bearded biker called to get his attention, "catch!" He exclaimed, tossing a beer can into Johnny's hands. "Cheers." Johnny said, holding the can up in the air and smiling at the cardboard sign that read, 'Ask me for a beer!' with an arrow pointing at the man's cooler. He continued walking with a relaxed pace, and the smile stayed plastered to his face. He wasn't being othered, alienated, or ignored. He was getting to be 'just Johnny' for a couple of days. Something in that wild streak he never grew out of seemed to settle somewhat in a way, settling happily into the understanding atmosphere. Johnny was welcomed as he was, being who he was for once wasn't leaving him more alone. His smile widened as a couple on a trike waved to him. The man had a prosthetic leg, and the woman was missing an arm, but they couldn't care less because they were happy and enjoying themselves. Of course, everything had a price, and nothing in the world was free. The memory of overhearing his wife discouraging the kids from speaking about who their daddy is like it was something for them to be ashamed of felt like a large fist slamming into his chest. His marriage had been good once upon a time, great even. By the time his firstborn started going to school was when everything went to shit. Suddenly, his wife was more concerned with keeping up the image of a perfect little American family, but apparently, a tattooed biker Johnny didn't fit that image according to her. He pulled the beer out of his back pocket and clutched it to his chest, hopeful the kindness of the man who tossed it to him would seep into him through the aluminum can and bring back the happiness with it.

He forced his legs to move him forward, trying to find something to distract himself with. He noticed a wet T-shirt contest in full swing, which didn't exactly have much to do with bikes, although most that were gawking probably thought the skimpily clad bebes looked better straddling the hunks of metal between their legs, it wasn't hurting anyone, so why not?. He moved on to the burnout contest. That was more to his tastes, standing amongst the crowd watching contestants prepare as much as you could for something like this. The smoke and squealing tires were a welcome distraction, onlookers clapped and hollered, some lewd whistles were thrown around as one of the contestants entered the box with one girl on his bike in front of him and another behind him, Johnny rolled his eyes with a snort, concluding that he was the only one actually looking at the bike instead of the women.

As the sun sunk lower, he found himself sitting on the window ledge of some business, inhaling the tobacco of a freshly lit cigarette, glancing up at the 'no smoking' sign near the entrance with a light scoff, like that was gonna stop him. His coping mechanisms may be worse than his actual problems, but memory keeps tapping a gun against the inside of his skull, demanding the dead be brought back to life. Some dinky sheet of tin wasn't going to stop that either. The rally wasn't a place where rule-followers went, it was a place for people like him. Who really just had a craving to be understood.

#Winding down with them #tommy conlon warrior #farrier dunkirk #forrest bondurant fanfiction #tom hardy #hope you enjoy #mostly fluff #slight angst #happy things are coming i swear!!

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holdingup-fallingsky · 2 months ago

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As today is the 49th anniversary of the sinking of the Mighty Fitz, I wanna talk about the facts of what happened. I've been hyperfixated on this shipwreck for a full year now, so if you'd like to learn more about it, please keep reading.

I feel that a good way to present this is with the Gordon Lightfoot song as an outline, as it's what most people are familiar with. When it was written in November and December of 1975 after Lightfoot heard about the disaster, he felt that it was his moral obligation to get the facts of the event as correct as possible. However, an official investigation would not take place until May of 1976 - it was delayed due to weather conditions - months after the song was recorded. That is why his guitarist Terry Clements convinced Lightfoot to do what his favorite author (Mark Twain) would have done; tell a story.

Superior, they said, never gives up her dead when the skies of November turn gloomy. Lake Superior is the largest body of freshwater on the planet, able to fit the other four Great Lakes inside of her. She’s also the deepest, with the average depth being close to 500 ft and the deepest point being 1,332 ft deep. It is also the coldest Great Lake, the bottom clocking in at a frigid 32 degrees Fahrenheit, making it just a hair above freezing. Because of this, that means that it is too cold for bacteria to grow and makes it impossible for bodies to undergo decomposition. So, instead of float to the surface as they would in other bodies of water, the bodies of Lake Superior instead sink and remain frozen in time. As of the time that this is being written, there has only been one body found from the crew of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. It was because of the discovery of this crewman that the wreck site has been designated as a graveyard and dives to the shipwreck have been severely restricted.

The ship was the Pride of the American Side… The Edmund Fitzgerald had many nicknames: “The Mighty Fitz”, “The Pride of the American Side”, “The Singing Ship”, just to name a few. “The Pride of the American Side” was given to her due to her size. When she was built in 1957, the specs of the ship were made so that it would challenge those of all other freighters. She would break shipping records throughout her entire career; six times, to be exact, often breaking her own records. She was given the name “The Singing Ship” because her third captain, Captain Peter Pulcer, would play music over her loudspeakers for boat watchers to enjoy, even going out on deck with a megaphone to give off facts about the ship - such as where it was headed and what it was hauling. Her fourth captain, Captain Ernest McSroely, took command in 1972. He would remain captain through the rest of her career.

As big freighters go, it was bigger than most… The specs of the Mighty Fitz were 729’ in length, with a depth of 39’ and a draft (how much of the ship is submerged in water) of 25’. She was given such a specific length so that she could just fit in the Soo Locks - the engineering marvel that connects the Huron and Superior lakes in Sault Ste Marie, MI (pronounced “soo saint Marie”) - which had a max length of 730’. She was the largest ship on the Lakes (earning her the title “Queen of the Lakes”, a title passed on to whichever ship is the largest sailing the Lakes) until the SS Murray Bay was launched, beating her out by a foot of length. However, despite her hulking size, she was one of the fastest freighters to sail the freshwater, her top speed clocking in at 14 knots (~ 16 mph). A very impressive speed when you take into account that she weighed 13,632 tons with an empty cargo hold.

With a crew and good captain well seasoned… It took 29 men to sail the Mighty Fitz. Michael Armagost, 37, third mate. Frederick Beetcher, 56, porter. Thomas Bentson, 32, oiler. Edward Bindon, 47, first assistant engineer. Thomas Borgeson, 41, maintenance man. Oliver Champeau, 41, third assistant engineer. Nolan Church, 55, porter. Ransom Cundy, 53, watchman. Thomas Edwards, 50, second assistant engineer. Russell Haskell, 40, second assistant engineer. George Holl, 60, chief engineer. Bruce Husdon, 22, deck hand. Allen Kalmon, 43, second cook. Gordon MacLellan, 30, wiper. Joseph Mazes, 50, special maintenance man. John McCarthy, 62, first mate. Ernest McSorely, 63, captain. Eugene O’Brain, 50, wheelsman. Karl Peckol, 20, watchman. John Poviach, 50, wheelsman. James Pratt, 44, second mate. Robert Rafferty, 62, steward. Paul Riippa, 22, deck hand. John Simmons, 63, wheelsman. William Spengler, 59, watchman. Mark Thomas, 21, deck hand. Ralph Walton, 58, oiler. David Weiss, 22, cadet. Blaine Wilhelm, 52, oiler. These are the names of all 29 men who went down with the Edmund Fitzgerald.

When they left fully loaded for Cleveland… The final voyage of the Mighty Fitz started on November 9th, 1975. They had a cargo load of just over 26,000 tons of iron taconite. This is where we run into our first discrepancy of the song. The Fitzgerald was actually headed for a steel mill on Zug Island near Detroit where it usually made berth. However, the word Detroit doesn’t fit well within the structure of that part of the song, especially with the Canadian pronunciation of “De-troy-at” which we hear Lightfoot use later in the song. So, Lightfoot can be forgiven here.

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound and a wave crashed over the railing. The weather conditions on Lake Superior went from bad to worse over the duration of the storm. A few hours before the Fitzgerald sank, the SS Arthur M Anderson reported at 1620 hours (4:20 pm) that winds had reached a speed of 58 knots (~67 mph) and waves reached a staggering height of 25’. The infamous Gale of November was upon them, and they were stuck in the middle of that merciless storm.

And every man knew, as the captain did, too, ‘twas the Witch of November come stealin’. November is infamously the most difficult month of the year to be sailing the Great Lakes. An estimated 70 plus ships have been claimed by the lakes during November alone. While November gets a bad rap, these deadly storms can occur during any of the fall months. The warmer air coming up from the south clashes violently with the colder fronts from the north, culminating into deadly gales. However, the worst of these storms happen most frequently during the 11th month. The deadliest storm on record to occur on Lake Superior was that of the Mataafa Storm. Occurring on November 27th, 1905, the storm was named after the SS Mataafa, a freighter that found itself caught in the storm and a massive loss of crew, despite only running aground 700’ from shore. These infamous gales are nicknamed the “Witch of November”.

At 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in… Here, we run into our next, and largest, discrepancy of the song. Now, as I stated before, the song was written and recorded before an official investigation could even be launched. So, Lightfoot had to embellish a few details to finish the song. However, the U.S. Coast Guard would actually corroborate Lightfoot’s claim that the sinking of the Fitzgerald was due to water entering through the hatchways. This report would actually anger a few mariners, some even stating that it was flat out wrong. Now, in 2024, we know that it was simply not the case. In 2010, National Geographic conducted an investigation of their own on the Mighty Fitz. While they were unable to dive on the wreckage itself, they were able to use footage of the wreck taken in the 90s that was shot in High Definition. Not only did they use the footage, but the researchers interviewed Great Lakes ship captains, one of the inspectors that inspected the Fitzgerald herself, as well as a survivor of a similar shipwreck - Dennis Hale, lone survivor of the sinking of the SS Daniel J Morrell. After conducting experiments on a scale model as well as in a simulator, they concluded that the Mighty Fitz had sunk due to rogue waves - waves that can reach upwards of 60’ and were previously believed to be a myth - splitting her in half.

Gordon Lightfoot was asked if his song could be used in the ending credits of the documentary, Lightfoot agreeing after watching the film. It was after this investigation that Lightfoot began changing the lyrics while performing the song live. No longer did a faulty hatchway cause the Fitzgerald’s demise in Lightfoot’s eyes, so the lyric was changed to “at 7 p.m. it grew darker and then…” One of the deck hands that was onboard the Might Fitz on her last voyage was Bruce Hudson. For 36 years, his mother - Ruth Hudson - had proclaimed and insisted that her son had always done his job at securing the hatchways, and that he did it with pride. In an interview with Lightfoot that same year, he said: “It wasn’t a hatchway. I don’t know what I’m gonna change [the lyrics] to, but I’m gonna change it. I hope Ruth Hudson will be around long enough to hear it, because she’s 82 and she’s worried about that all her life”.

The captain wired in, he had water coming in… Throughout that fateful last voyage the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, she was not alone. Another freighter, the SS Arthur M Anderson was traveling a similar path as the Mighty Fitz with an end destination of Gary, Indiana. The Anderson was, at first, smaller in length than the Fitzgerald. However, after the Anderson was refitted, she would be longer than the Fitzgerald. Though, the Mighty Fitz would take the Anderson in speed as she was still the faster vessel. The two ships would stay in communication throughout the 9th and the 10th of November, their communications becoming more frequent as the storm became worse and worse. At approximately 1530 (3:30 p.m.), the Fitzgerald had radioed in to the Anderson, telling the captain (Captain Jesse “Bernie” Cooper) that his ship had taken on water and was beginning to list (the tilting of a ship to one side that is not caused by an external force). It was at this time that the Fitzgerald informed the Anderson that it would reduce speed so that it might catch up with the Anderson. An hour later, Captain McSorely of the Fitzgerald radioed Captain Cooper of the Anderson that they had lost function of their navigation equipment - namely both of their radars - and asked the crew of the Anderson to be her eyes. The ships were approximately 20 miles away from each other, well within radar range. Both captains made the decision to hug the north side of Superior, close to the Canadian shoreline so that they might have a better chance at weathering the storm before making it to the relative safety of Whitefish Bay.

And later that night when his lights went out of sight came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Captain Cooper had stated on record that the snow had been falling so intensely that when the Fitzgerald was within 10 miles of the Anderson, the only thing that they could make out of her was her lights. At 1910 (7:10 p.m.), the Anderson radioed the Fitzgerald about a ship that was about 9 miles ahead of the Fitzgerald, stating that they were going to clear one another and did not have to worry about colliding. Offhandedly, the first mate aboard the Anderson asked “by the way, how are you making out with your problems”. Captain McSorely answered “we are holding our own”. “He showed no signs of panic,” Captain Cooper would later admit. At 1920, the crew of the Anderson could not find the Fitzgerald on radar and attempted to radio the ship. No answer came. Fearing their radio had malfunctioned, the Anderson wired another ship close by to test their comm systems. They worked just fine. At this point, the snow had stopped heavily falling and visibility opened up. The lights of the Mighty Fitz were nowhere in sight, despite being within visual distance of the Anderson. Captain Cooper gave the order to his crew to watch for a silhouette of the freighter, thinking the ship had lost power.

Does anyone know where the love of god goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours? The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay if they put 15 more miles behind her. According to the official U.S. Coast Guard report, the Fitzgerald was about 17 miles away from Whitefish Bay, the site of the wreck being at 46°59.9’N, 85°06.6’W. If she had maintained her top speed, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald would have made it to the salvation of Whitefish Bay in just an hour. The Fitgerald would never even send out a mayday or any indication that she was sinking. Within the blink of the Anderson’s watchful eye, the Fitzgerald disappeared. “I firmly believe that [Captain McSorely] thought that ship was gonna get him through,” Captain Cooper spoke when asked about that fateful night years later. The Anderson was the freighter to report to the Coast Guard that the Fitzgerald had gone missing after she reached Whitefish Bay at 2025 (8:25 p.m.). When Captain Cooper radioed about his fears concerning the Fitzgerald, the Coast Guard asked the Anderson if she would be willing to help with the search for the Mighty Fitz. Despite the danger of the still raging gale that claimed the Mighty Fitz, Captain Cooper agreed to aid in the search along with the SS William Clay Ford offering their help. No survivors were found, only pieces of debris from the freighter.

And all that remains is the faces and the names of the wives and the sons and the daughters. On July 17th, 1999, all of the families of the victims claimed by the Fitzgerald’s sinking gathered on the water on the exact spot of the wreckage. This ceremony was the official consecration of the site to be a protected graveyard. No longer would anyone be allowed to dive on the site; a direct response to a voyage to the wreck in the mid-90s capturing footage of one of the bodies of a crewman. Two wreaths were tossed over the site, one donated by Gordon Lightfoot, with the names of all the 29 lost that November night.

The church bell chimed ‘till it rang 29 times for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald. A funeral service for the men aboard the SS Edmund Fitzgerald was held at the Mariner’s Church in Detroit. Its bell rang a somber 29 times, each toll an honoring to a sailor’s soul claimed by Lake Superior that November 10th. Every year on the anniversary of the Fitzgerald’s sinking, the Mariner’s Church tolls its bell in remembrance of the men lost in the freshwater sea. On the 48th anniversary in 2023, the bell was rang an additional time, tolling 30 times. On May 1st, 2023, Gordon Lightfoot passed away due to natural causes. That additional toll was in honor of his life and all that he did to keep the story of the Edmund Fitzgerald alive, his song immortalizing the ship’s tragic end.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee. To this day, part of this fateful legend still survives. The SS Arthur M Anderson still serves on the very lake that claimed her sister 49 years ago. Her continued service is proof that, had the SS Edmund Fitzgerald not met her untimely demise so early in her life at the hands of the very frigid mistress that floated her cargo, she would still be its faithful servant. Every November 10th, the Anderson calls out to her sister; her horn wailing to both salute and mourn the beloved sister she honors with every trip she takes across Lake Superior. The Fitzgerald is a reminder to all of us. We do not know how long we have in this world and it could all be taken from us in an instant. Choose to live a life that you are proud of rather than one that is controlled and ruled by fear.

#the edmund fitzgerald #the wreck of the edmund fitzgerald #gordon lightfoot #i can't help but feel I've been training for this my whole life #i guess that history degree was useful for something

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earlofbats · 5 months ago

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One Last Dance

Hey! Sorry @zipper-ghost it's not very long! My gift for the @palestaticexchange I wrote you a little vignette about Kim and Harry returning to the church a few years later:

“You, do you really think it'll be there?” Kim looks up to the church.

It's cold again, many years cold.

You tighten the grip on the cane and shift it under the weight of your palm.

It's fine wood body holds your weight and moors you to the earth, keeps you on the ground.

Kim's hand comes to hold your shoulder, you feel yourself sinking into the mud.

Soon you'll be buried there.

“It's still there…” you offer, distracted as you take in your surroundings.

It isn't, not really.

The church has a thin blanket of snow snuggled up against the doors.

The ice on the steps cracks and shatters like glass under your weight.

Kim hesitates at the stoop watches with nervous eyes as you rest your hand against the handle.

He’s uneasy, you’re acting strangely and despite his trust in you he is unsure.

“There's no music.” he states firmly.

“…oh? But can't you hear it?” You give Kim a smile that crinkles at your eyes as you push the doors open.

They drag along the rough wood, bending and splintering, metal rust flaking off the hinges.

The space is set with a stillness, its dim and silent air floats dust particles into the light.

No one has been here in years.

“They boarded up the hole..” Kim follows loyally behind, looking down at the base of the portrait where wood has been paneled along the base of the giant glass pane.

You look up.

Gone is her ethereal beauty, her soft and gentle features now reclaimed.

sprayed across her face a new visage, cartoonish and dripping down red against her glowing lungs.

A dead man smiling.

The defeat of history… The Hard Core.

Your grin widens yellowed teeth shining gray in the light.

You turn to Kim and point.

But he isn't looking in your direction, no he's looking towards the center of the room.

It's bigger, the size of a newborn, an infant it grows everyday bit by bit.

A child of a real revolution, a true undoing.

You turn back, limping over toward where Kim stares off into the rafters.

“You would have said no.” You state your hand coming to brush against the back of Kim's.

He looks down at it with a fond and tired expression, a long weathered kind of look.

“Probably…” Kim turns his palm up and wrangles your fingers into his.

You give it a light squeeze and nestle in close to him.

Your eyes flutter close, your breath seeps out into vapor.

Thoughts orbit around your head in their fine line across your halo.

Little drops of ideation swirling around the pull of your mind's gravitation.

Tender thoughts.

Thoughts you think about when you need the softness against the folds of your brain.

Kim's mustache against your cheek, his body against the curve of your spine, his breath against the back of your nape.

“Please….” Kim breathes against the inside of your collar “can we-” he stops himself with a hitch of breath.

You open your eyes wide, the reflection of them glimmering in the shine of Kim's spectacles.

“Kim,-” you turn to face him grabbing his other hand in yours, “I had to know-” you tighten your grip “I just wanted to see how much time we have.”

“Wh-” Kim stops himself. He wants to ask questions, but knows he doesn't want the answers.

“It's okay,” you assure him.

“We didn't come for the club…did we?”

You don't let your smile falter “we can still dance.”

“Harry…” Kim scolds.

“No, the club is not here. It's in Jamrock…boogie Street maybe. It's under the earth in the concrete…” you trail off,

The long steel rafters intertwined like spiderwebs crawling outward along the ceiling and down to the foundations, the thumping vibration against the catacombs of intersecting housings, the music at the end of the world brought to you by the youth of the final generation.

A sound you had seen the birth of.

The hole in the world lingers in its stratus.

The revolution is sound and radio waves.

You shuffle your feet, running your hands to find their homes at the dip of Kims pelvis, thumb resting over that narrow jut of bone.

You hum a tune and sway from one foot to the other.

Kim tries to hold back a smile he rests his head against the wide expanse of your shoulder and allows himself the respite.

The ocean breeze seeps through the cracks, glides along the wood and rotting varnish, brushes up against your cervical nerves, prickling hairs on the back of your neck.

There in the Jamrock Quarter, she stands proudly, the new church, the new faith, three friends sit at the helm of a technological wonder, at the new vibrations.

The Paliseum, a sanctuary of a new religion.

Kim stops your movement and pulls you away from him.

Ever so softly he kisses you.

His lips feel like hope and the kiss tastes of a future worth existing and you think to yourself,

“Disco is dead, long live disco.”

#disco elysium #harry du bois #kim kitsuragi #harrier du bois #fic #palestaticexchange #pale static exchange #gift #its maybe a little sad #I didn't mean for it to come out sad

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rocknbolan · 6 months ago

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Recap 7-12

General News:

T-shirt theft continues, a rash of apparel crime, apparently. First crimes done in the Skid Row camp, and now Letti getting on Axl (GnR) to return her Faster Pussycat t-shirt or else!

Something happened to Jani (Warrant), Bret (Poison) arriving swiftly to extract him from a party. Where did things go wrong? Only someone well versed in drunk-ese will be able to decipher the Warrant frontman's type to figure it out.

Kitchen foibles continue in the Primus camp, Herb trying to put a taco into the toaster. For his crimes, banished to the chicken coop to sleep with Buckethad! Oh the humanity!

Rob (Skid Row) tackled the math problem of 2 + 2, with help from Arthur (New York Dolls), Dave (Megadeth) and Bret (Poison). While a number of solutions were floated around, and arguments/insults over who was wrong traded, eventually Snake slid in and helped Rob figure out the answer. (It's 4. FOUR. srsly.)

The Gossiptrain:

Rumor hazzit that øystein can't reach the sink! Height or skill issue? We just don't know.

Rumor also hazzit that Scotti (Skid Row) is kinda dumb. Rachel disagrees but he's also very biased. HEY I AM NOT!

Another rumor, Jani (Warrant)'s cat can open doors. Also he takes showers at 4:30 pm because he is from Ohio.

Fred (Cinderella) is rumored to e a grown man. IS HE? Inquiring minds want to know.

Joined the Chat: Jeff Nahherman @r3ign-in-bl00d has joined the chat!

Tom Araya @hauntingthechap3l has joined the chat!

And now, the weather:

It's a beefstorm, rockland. A cold front jettisoned down from up north and we got Lars (Metallica) beefin' with everyone. With Max (Escape the Fate), with Mozart, with Ron. Hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide your husband cause he's beefin' with everyone out here.

Also affected are Snake and Rachel (Skid Row), arguing over... someone having a crush on Rob? Don't ask, we just don't know. That weather front stalled out over Rob, though, demanding both his bandmates apologize to each other.

Meanwhile, there's a flash flood warning in the Motley Crue and GnR vicinities, Nikki reporting pipes breaking or... is that sewage backup? Either way, steer clear. Turn around, don't drown!

#rock star rp recap

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fumblingmusings · 17 days ago

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The more I think about France's metaphor of states and ships from Though I May Depart, You Shall Remain the more I like 'get' it but the more I am a confused lady.

The sails are the government, i.e. removable, changeable, serve a function but not necessary to keep the ship afloat. They can and will be packed away when not required. They can and will be replaced if broken or not working properly. They pull the ship in a direction they do not necessarily want to go, but can speed up the process of getting to safety if utilised correctly.

The sea is just the passage of time. Always travelling onwards, never static. This ship has no anchor.

Those both make sense to me completely. As far as metaphors go.

The wind are the people however... Like, no, I get it. Fair weather, stormy seas, the people will shape what kind of trek along the water/time the nations are about to have. It works in conjunction with the sails. If they're utilised properly.

But... again. You don't need wind for a ship to float. The ship is just the ship which is the nations which are apparently its own distinct thing.

So that implies a level of self determination but at the same time a lack of autonomy. In addition to this:

'As long as their are people to repair the ship, it can be used forever.'

So the ships have... crews right? Or docks? Is the wind meant to be like... all the people ever in the world? Not just that particular nation's 'wind' (bear with me), whilst the crew of the ship are a nation's people? Again, not part of the ship itself, but a heck of a lot more crucial for keeping it from sinking than any sails or wind.

Also the fact that Francis flat out refers to them as being 'used' makes me a bit :( Again, there is a lack of autonomy.

Finally, it's a bit noteworthy that there's no reference to the land itself or borders. Makes sense, since Nation-States are a very recent conceptualisation, in the grand scheme of things.

So according to Hima, they aren't the land, they aren't the people... they just... are.

Like this isn't necessarily me thinking like yeah this is a solid way to frame nationhood because there are parts where I'm seriously going hmm over the metaphor. I'm just trying to iron out exactly what Himaruya means or the way he thinks of them to better understand the choices in characterisations etc.

But who am I kidding he probably doesn't think about it that deeply. The man's just made an uno mafia alternate universe like somehow I doubt he's really thinking about it that much... I mean he might be. Give me more lore please. So I can poke it with a stick.

#hetalia #op #headcanon #canon #... i mean it's neither canon nor headcanon really I'm just trying to understand what was meant #hws france

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all-the-things-2020 · 11 months ago

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Late Night Talking - Chapter Five

Summary: Emily gets a swimming lesson and the relationship goes public.

Word Count: 2900+

Rating: PG-13

Tag list: @rhoorl @avastrasposts @readingiskeepingmegoing @runningmom94 @gwendibleywrites

I decided to take Sam’s advice and jump in with both feet. I was off for the summer and damn it, I was going to enjoy myself. As June faded into July and the weather got hotter, I spent more time at his place. It was slightly cooler there and much closer to the coast, so we could escape to the beach on really hot days.

Dieter kept bugging me about learning to swim, and I’d run out of excuses. When I said I didn’t own a swimsuit (which was true; the last one I’d bought had gotten ruined when I went to Glen Ivy Hot Springs for a friend’s birthday bash and the mud stained it beyond saving), he pulled up a website and made me pick out one, which he then ordered and had shipped to my house. When I claimed I’d “forgotten” to bring it with me, he ordered another one and had it shipped to his place. Now I had no excuse, and he knew it.

“Put it on,” he said, “or I’m putting it on you.” He’d do it, too. We might get sidetracked for a while, but I’d eventually end up in the swimsuit and in the pool, so I gave up and took the suit into the bathroom. When I came out, Dieter was wearing his swim trunks and had a couple of beach towels over his shoulder.

“Follow me, Grasshopper,” he said, leading me out into the yard. Like most places in the Hollywood Hills, the lot was tiny but there was room for a pool … because Los Angeles. He tossed the towels onto a lounge chair and dove into the deep end of the pool. He gracefully swam underwater the length of the pool and popped up at the shallow end. “Come on in, the water’s fine,” he said.

I stalled, sitting on the edge of the pool and dangling my feet in. “Let me get used to the temperature,” I said. “It’s a little cold.”

He splashed water into my face. “For Pete’s sake,” he muttered, shaking his head. He reached up and grabbed my hands, pulling me into the water. I yelped as the cold water hit my body.

“You are a jerk,” I said as soon as I had caught my breath. He shrugged.

“It needed to be done,” he said simply. “Now, let’s start with floating.” He lifted his feet off the bottom of the pool and spread out his arms. “See, this is a dead man’s float,” he said. “Easy peasy. You just relax and let the water hold you up.”

“But it doesn’t,” I protested. “I always sink.”

“Then you’re not relaxing,” he said. “If you relax, you’ll float. Trust me.” He stood up. “If I float, then you definitely will. You’ve got built in flotation devices.” He winked, pointing at my chest. “Seriously, though, women have a higher percentage of fat in their bodies, so it’s easier for them to float.”

“But …” He put his finger against my lips.

“No excuses,” he said. “Just relax, and trust me.” He reached down and slid one hand behind my knees, placing the other against my upper back. With one smooth motion, he lifted my legs off the bottom of the pool until I was floating, more or less. “Now, spread out your arms,” he said quietly. “Just like I did. You want to cover as much surface area as possible. Think about how a leaf floats but a pebble doesn’t. You want to be a leaf.”

I could feel myself sinking into the water, which was creeping into my ears. I started to panic, but Dieter pressed his hands against my back and thighs. “It’s okay,” he murmured in my ear. “I’ve got you. Just relax. I won’t let anything happen to you, you know that.”

I tried to relax the muscles in my arms and legs, even though my instinct was to flail about. Pretty soon, I felt the pressure from his hands lessen just a bit. “There you go,” he said. “You’ll dip into the water a little bit, but you won’t go under. It won’t go over your face.”

He continued to talk to me in a soothing voice, as his hands slowly let go of me. I tensed up and started to sink a bit, but his hands were right back in place, holding me up. Slowly, I relaxed, focusing on Dieter’s voice, until I realized that he had stepped back and was about two feet away.

Immediately, I started to sink and thrashed around in a panic until my feet hit the bottom and I was standing up, the water lapping against the bottom of my breasts.

“Now, was that so bad?” Dieter said.

“No,” I admitted. It had been scary, but I hadn’t sunk straight down. I’d been able to get my feet under me and stand up. “But it wasn’t exactly fun, either.”

He walked over to me and put his arms around my waist. “It’ll get easier,” he said. “Let’s take a little break and then try it again.”

We repeated the exercise several times, until by the last time, I was able to float for several minutes without panicking. I could hear Dieter slowly backing away from me, but I told myself to relax and trust the water. I heard a splash and turned my head to see him sitting on the edge of the pool, watching me. That distracted me enough that I started to sink again, but instead of panicking, this time I just dropped my legs down and stood up.

“Very good,” Dieter said with a huge smile. “You’re doing great, sweetie.”

“Can we stop now?” I asked. Physically, I hadn’t been doing much, but mentally, I was exhausted.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m going to swim a few laps, though, if you don’t mind.”

“Go right ahead,” I said, hauling myself out of the water. I wrapped one of the towels around me and went inside to grab my phone and my book, while Dieter slid back into the water and started to swim.

I turned on my phone and started to open Facebook, so I could post a status update bragging about surviving my first swimming lesson, but before I could, I got a notification from Instagram. Actually, a lot of notifications from Instagram. I opened the app.

“Wow.” I had one hundred and fourteen new followers, and seventeen DM requests. “What the heck?” Then I saw the notification that I’d been tagged in a post and clicked on it.

“Hey, Dieter,” I called out. “Did you know Jessica posted a picture of us on her Insta last night?” We’d gone to dinner with several of his friends last night, a total of four couples including us. Jessica had posted several pictures on a post with the caption “Couples only night out” and tagged everyone who was in the photos. One was of me and Dieter laughing at something, holding drinks in our hands, my head leaning on his shoulder.

“What?,” he said, climbing out of the pool. He walked over to the lounge chair where I was sitting, wrapping the other towel around his waist before he sat down so he didn’t get the cushion all wet. I showed him the post and he laughed. “Well, the cat’s out of the bag now.” Our relationship wasn’t exactly a secret; most of his friends knew about me and several of my friends and family knew about him, mostly because I’d posted a few pictures of the two of us on my Facebook page. But I hadn’t tagged him, and since my privacy settings on Facebook were very tight, they weren’t public knowledge. Neither of us had posted anything about the other on Instagram, though, since that was completely public.

“I have a ton of new followers,” I said, opening my profile and scrolling through. Almost all of them were women. I was about to start deleting the DM requests when I got an email notification from one of my friends, with the subject line “Check out tumblr, omg.”

I clicked on her email and then on the link she’d included in the message. A tumblr post by a user named Dieterluver1 proclaimed “DIETER HAS A GIRLFRIEND OMG. Saw this pic on IG from his friend @jessie1234, I’m dying. They are sooooo cute but whyyy??? Ugh, my heart is breaking. I looked at her IG but no pics of him. Boo.”

I Googled “tumblr #dieterbravo” and found at least a dozen more posts with our photo, all of them with basically the same text. One person had done some serious research, posting not only my Instagram handle but my work email and a mini bio, clearly gleaned from all my past social media posts.

“Well, that’s scary,” I said.

“Welcome to my world,” Dieter said with a shrug. “You get used to it after a while. Just ignore them.” He put his arm around my shoulder and kissed my temple.

I went back to Instagram and started reading the DM requests. They were all from women. A couple were threatening, calling me all sorts of nasty things for stealing “their” man. I deleted those immediately and reported the users to Instagram. But the rest were just fans who wanted to tell me how much they loved Dieter and asking me to post photos of him.

Dieter read them over my shoulder. “Go ahead and post some pictures,” he said. “I know you have a million of them on your phone. Just not those photos.” He winked at me. I knew the ones he was referring to; a few nights ago, he’d been sleeping with his face adorably smashed sideways against his pillow, the covers falling off his side of the bed, and I’d snapped a few pictures, not realizing that certain bits of his anatomy were visible until afterward.

“Oh, I think they’d like those,” I teased. He grinned devilishly, one eyebrow raised like the villain of an old melodrama. “What?” I asked.

“You do it and I’ll post the pictures I’ve got on my phone,” he said. I jumped up and ran for the house, trying to get to his phone before he did. Unfortunately, he had longer legs, and he knew where he’d left his phone, and he beat me to it.

“Show me,” I demanded. He held the phone above his head, well out of my reach. I jumped for it and he laughed. “Come on,” I pleaded. “Show me. I showed you mine.”

“Okay, okay,” he said. He opened up his Photo Roll and swiped for several seconds before handing me the phone.

The photos were of me, sound asleep, mostly covered by the sheet but clearly naked

underneath it. I swiped through them to make sure none of them showed my boob or ass hanging out, but they were all tasteful and rather artistic. “You have a good eye,” I said when I was done looking at them.

“I had a good subject,” he replied. I made a face. I had no illusions about being photogenic. “No, really,” he said. “You’re beautiful.”

I rolled my eyes. “Do that again and I’ll post them,” he said.

“You wouldn’t dare,” I said. Then I realized he probably would dare. “Do it and I’ll post my pics.” He glared at me. “I’ll blur out the naughty bits,” I went on. “Or put an emoji over them.”

“Okay, okay,” he said. “You win. Nobody’s posting anything taken in the bedroom. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop taking them.” He winked and I smacked him on the arm.

*************************************

SAM: you’re on TMZ

ME: what?

She sent me a URL and I clicked on it. Sure enough, there were photos of me and Dieter walking into the restaurant we’d gone to a few days before. They were kind of grainy, clearly taken with a telephoto lens, but it was definitely us.

I texted the link to Dieter, who simply replied with a laughing emoji. He’d warned me that eventually paparazzi photos of us were going to pop up, and that I should do my best to ignore them.

After the Instagram incident, Dieter had posted a photo of the two of us and captioned it “my ❤️.” He’d also tagged me, and suddenly I had another few hundred followers. Since his Instagram posts automatically got posted on his Twitter account, things exploded on there as well, once people figured out my Twitter handle.

The tumblr fans went crazy every time a new photo or video of him was posted, so I knew the TMZ photos would hit it soon. I’d get another wave of new followers, since at least one of them would include my Instagram or Twitter handle in her post. I got a few DM requests every week, including some that asked for very personal information about Dieter. I deleted those, but didn’t report them, just the ones that threatened me, which thankfully were few and far between.

Now the paparazzi seemed to have targeted us as a couple worth photographing. Of course, a lot of that was because the release of Dieter’s latest film was coming up, and Dieter was starting to do interviews and other press for it. It was his first project since Cliff Beasts 6 and there was buzz about him because of the stint in rebar. He was a hot property right now, and I was part of the package.

Dieter followed his laughing face emoji with a link to his publicist’s email.

DIETER: Talk to her. She’s amazing.

I did and got an email back within the hour. She warned me that things might get weird and made me promise to give her information to anyone who was bugging me. “Don’t agree to any interviews,” she told me. “All that has to go through me. Just tell them they have to talk to your publicist and give them my number. I’ll handle it. It’s what Dieter pays me for.”

When I talked to Dieter on the phone that night, I confessed that I was feeling a little bit besieged. “I mean, I have a fucking publicist now,” I complained. “And people are taking my picture without my knowledge and posting it on the Internet. I had some wacko girl DM me on Twitter to ask how big your dick is.”

“Welcome to Hollywood,” he said, with a sympathetic laugh. “It’ll only get weirder from here.”

We were on FaceTime and he was lounging in bed wearing only his boxer shorts. His phone was propped up on the nightstand, so I had a good view of most of his body. As usual, I was wearing a thin cotton nightgown. Not very sexy but supremely comfortable on hot summer nights.

“How’d your meeting go?” I asked.

“Okay,” he said with a shrug. “I think they’re starting to cool off of the whole idea. And honestly, I’m not sure I’d want to do a series. I mean, yeah, it’s steady work but it would be in Toronto and I’d be away from L.A. a lot more.” He fiddled with the sheet.

”Like at least a year.”

”You do what’s best for your career,” I told him. “But I have to admit I’m kind of glad it might not work out.”

”I’ll do what’s best for me,” he said. “My career is only part of it. I’ve got to think more holistically.”

”Did you get that word from Janice?” Janice was his therapist.

”Yeah,” he admitted. “But I like it. Holistic. It sounds kind of New Agey but also kind of scientific. I’m thinking about my life as a whole. Makes me sound more adult.” He sighed. “I still get that Hollywood bad boy crap. I’m forty-five years old, Em. That image is way off base.”

“But it sells,” I said. “That’s all they care about.” I pulled the clip out of my hair and shook it out so it could dry faster. I liked to shower in the evening and let my hair air dry whenever possible.

“Do that again,” Dieter said, scrunching himself down on the bed and scooting closer to the phone.

“What?”

”That thing with your hair. It’s sexy.”

I ran my fingers through my hair, feeling silly. “Oh, yeah,” he said, licking his lips. “I bet it smells like that shampoo, huh?”

”Um, is this going to turn into phone sex?”

”If you’re lucky,” he said, his voice husky.

“You aren’t just trying to deflect from talking about being an adult, are you?”

He sighed deeply. I’d called his bluff. “Why are you so smart?”

”I’m not smart, just observant,” I replied. “And I recognize avoidance because I’m good at it myself. Look, Deet, I’m on your side.”

”I know. It’s just … they don’t care how hard I’m working to keep my shit together. They don’t appreciate that I have to deal with this stuff every damn day.” Now he ran his fingers through his own hair, which made it stand up in every direction.

“I do,” I told him. “I see it, Deet. And I’m proud of you. Every damn day.”

He smiled. “How’d I get so lucky?”

”Same way I got lucky. The sheer incompetence of the universe.”

He laughed. “No, it was Fate. Capital F Fate.” His voice dropped into a lower register again. “You are my density.”

”Ooh, quoting ‘Back to the Future’. You really know how to turn a girl on, Bravo.”

”I know how to turn you on, you big ol’ nerd. Now about that phone sex …”

#pedro pascal character fanfiction #dieter bravo #dieter bravo x ofc #dieter bravo fanfiction #the bubble fanfiction #late night talking

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