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dahlibae · 2 months ago

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WILL YOU COME HOME WITH ME?

─ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ♡ ─── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──

(wanda maximoff x fem!reader)

summary — Wanda brought you home to meet her parents for the first time this Christmas, but for some reason, the woman is unable to keep her hands off you.

warning(s) — oneshot: age gap couple, alternative universe, mistletoe kisses, older!wanda, smut(?), nipple sucking, teasing (18+)

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The windshield wipers swiped rhythmically against the steady drizzle of snow as Wanda drove down the winding road towards her childhood home. The air inside the car was warm, the scent of fresh pine from a little tree-shaped air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror mixing with the lingering aroma of cinnamon from the hot chocolate you shared at the last rest stop. Wanda sat beside you, her gloved hand that wasn’t focused on driving the vehicle occasionally pointed out landmarks from her past—a diner she swore made the best cherry pie, the park where she and Pietro used to sled down the biggest hill, and the bridge where she'd once dared him to climb to the top… all for him to fall off and break his arm.

Her voice softened when she spoke about her parents. “They’ll love you.” She said, more to herself than to you, but you caught the edge of nervousness in her tone. She hadn’t brought home a partner since Vision – her ex husband – and you were, well, nothing like him. For one, you were a woman and her parents weren’t even aware of their daughter’s sexuality. And two, you were quite younger than her. You reached over, resting a hand on hers. She gave you a quick smile before looking back out the window.

The sky dimmed as she turned onto a long, snow-covered driveway lined with bare trees. At the end of it stood a cozy two-story house, its windows glowing golden against the winter evening. A wreath decorated the front door, and string lights framed the roofline, casting a cheerful, twinkling light over the yard. Wanda inhaled deeply as she parked, then turned to you.“Ready?” She asked, her voice almost teasing. You nodded, though your heart thudded nervously.

⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──

The warmth of the house embraced you immediately as you stepped inside, the scent of freshly baked cookies and coffee filling the air. Wanda’s mother - Iryna - greeted you with a hug that was surprisingly strong for her petite frame, her Sokovian accent making her words feel like a soft melody. Her - Olek - father shook your hand firmly, his eyes kind yet probing. He was staggeringly tall, even taller than her twin brother who must’ve been over six foot. It was clear Wanda took after him the most. Pietro wasn’t far behind, slapping you on the back with a grin that matched Wanda’s when she was up to something mischievous. You had met him before. He had came over to Wanda’s house one day, not expecting his sister to have anyone over, but found you… underneath her.

In no time, you were sat on the couch, a little overwhelmed but charmed by Wanda’s mother after she had led you deeper into the living room, already firing off a million questions. Wanda was sitting next to you, her hand occasionally brushing against yours as she joined in on her mother’s conversation with you, before she was whisked away, leaving you defenceless against her mother.

Pietro had been mischievous all evening. Every so often, you’d catch him whispering to Wanda or their dad before smirking in your direction. You figured he was just enjoying teasing his sister about bringing someone home for the holidays, and him being the only person in the room to know prior to Christmas.

You had finally settled in once Wanda had made her way back to your side, when Pietro suddenly appeared, a gleam in his eye. In his hand was a sprig of mistletoe, held high above you both. "Look at this!" He announced, drawing everyone’s attention. "A little holiday magic, right here!"

Your face went warm immediately, and you caught Wanda's eye. She looked equally surprised, her cheeks flushed. Her parents chuckled softly, sharing a knowing glance.

"Pietro.” Wanda warned, her tone half-amused, half-exasperated.

"But, sis, it’s tradition!" He declared, unapologetic, holding the mistletoe steady above the two of you. "You wouldn’t want to break tradition now, would you?"

You glanced at Wanda, unsure of what to do. Her eyes met yours, and for a moment, the noise of the room seemed to fade. Then, before you could think too much, she leaned in. Her hands cupped your cheeks, and her lips pressed softly against yours. The kiss was gentle but sure; family friendly and yet still managed to send warmth spreading through you like the glow of the fire.

When she pulled back, her eyes lingered on yours, a mix of shyness and confidence in her expression. Around you, the room erupted in playful cheers, Pietro’s laughter loudest of all.

“Guess you really like tradition, sis. He teased, earning a glare from Wanda that only made him laugh harder.

Her mother chimed in, her voice warm. “It’s good to see you happy, my love.”

“Thank you, Mama.” Wanda voiced before reaching for your hand, intertwining her fingers with yours as she leaned closer, ignoring Pietro’s continued antics. “Sorry about him,” she murmured, her voice just for you, “he lives for chaos.”

You smiled, squeezing her hand. “I don’t mind.”

She tilted her head, studying you for a moment before breaking into a soft smile. “Good,” she said, her voice almost a whisper, before she placed another quick kiss to your lips.

Afterwards, dinner was a whirlwind of laughter, clinking glasses, and stories that made Wanda groan and bury her face in her hands. You noticed how her family’s teasing only made her more endearing, her cheeks permanently flushed pink with a mix of embarrassment and affection. A reaction you’d rarely see with the older woman. By the time dessert was served, you felt more at ease, the initial nervousness melting away as Wanda reached under the table to squeeze your hand.

Later that night, after the dishes had been cleared and her family had gone to bed, you found yourself in Wanda’s old room. It was smaller than you expected, the walls painted a soft lavender and adorned with faded posters of bands and movies from her teenage years. You wouldn’t admit it to the woman but some of these bands you had no clue of. A small Christmas tree sat in the corner, its ornaments mismatched but charming, clearly a collection built over the years. She sat cross-legged on the bed, watching you with a soft smile as you took in the space. “It’s weird being back here,” she admitted, “so much has changed, but this room... it’s like time stood still.”

You nodded, moving to sit beside her. “It’s nice,” you said honestly. “It feels like you.”

Her smile widened as she leaned against your shoulder. The house was quiet now, save for the faint creaks of the old wood settling, the muffled sound of wind outside and the series coming from her brother’s room. For a moment, you simply sat there, soaking in the stillness, the glow of the little tree casting a soft light across the room. “Thank you for coming,” she said softly, her voice barely above a whisper. “It means a lot to me.”

You turned to her, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──

“Baby, no, stop, we’ll get caught.” You whispered, voice barely audible over the TV show playing in the background. Your hands hovered over her waist, unsure whether to pull her closer or gently push her away. Now, she was straddling your lap, her warm breath fanning against the crook of your neck. Her lips, teasing as usual, trailed wet kisses down to your collarbone, sending shivers coursing through your body. You bit your lip to keep from making a sound, every nerve in your body screaming at you to give in to her touch.

“Wanda.” You pleaded again, though your voice lacked conviction, and your hands had finally settled on her waist, fingertips brushing against the soft material of her open blouse. She chuckled softly, the sound low and sultry, vibrating against your skin.

"What’s the matter, baby?" She murmured, voice dripping with mischief. She nipped at your pulse, her teeth grazing your skin just enough to make your breath hitch. "Afraid someone will hear?"

You tilted your head back against the headboard, your gaze darting toward the door. It was closed, but the faint sound of her brother’s TV reminded you just how thin the walls were. "We’re in your parents' house.” You hissed, though your grip on her waist tightened as she rolled her hips into yours again.

"And?" She teased, pulling back just enough to look into your eyes. Her green ones sparkled with a mix of amusement and desire, a smirk playing on her lips. Her red hair was slightly tousled, and the glow of the fireplace painted her cheeks a soft pink.

You swallowed hard, your resolve crumbling under her gaze. “And you know I can’t keep quiet.” You pouted, hoping to win some sympathy from her - it usually worked.

“Aw, that’s okay.” She leaned back and you thought you had won, until you noticed her reaching for her remote to turn the volume of her TV up. “I can just help you keep quiet.” She leaned in once again, brushing her nose against yours, her breath warm against your lips. Before you could protest further, her lips claimed yours in a heated kiss - much more intense than the last. Your hands moved of their own accord, sliding up her back and pulling her closer as her hips rocked harder against yours.

⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──

“Look at me, princess.”

You were laid on your back. Your clothes and bra long forgotten as they were flung from your body and onto the floor next to hers. You felt Wanda shift from beside you, her body no longer pressed against yours, as her hands began to push your legs apart, placing herself between them. It didn’t take long for her fingers to find you, making slow circles against you through your soaked panties. “Is this what you want?” She asked, but you couldn’t respond, too wrapped up in the pleasure of her fingers and the sight of her breasts pooling over her bra.

She took your silence as an answer.

“No? You don’t?” Her fingers slowed, now trailing up and down, just missing your clit.

“No, please!” You cried out, hips bucking into her touch. “I mean, I- please, Wands.”

She shushed you, leaning over to place soft soothing kisses against your lips. “It’s okay, baby. Tell me what you want.”

“Need you to touch me.” You replied without a breath, no longer concerned if her family heard you or not. She pressed her lips firmer against yours, tongue softly stroking against yours as she hummed her approval into your mouth.

“Okay, princess. Remember to stay quiet, okay? We don’t want to wake anyone up.” You felt your body clench at her words, as her head ducked, tongue swiping against your nipple, she has sucked between her lips.

“My good girl,” she mumbled, your nipple pulled from between her teeth as she switched to the other. “I love you.”

“Love you too.” You managed to say between whines.

Wanda rewarded you by pulling your panties down, fingers rolling tight circles around your nerves until you came with her name spilling from your lips, and into her curls, as she held you in her arms.

⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──

#dahlibae fics! ⋆𐙚₊˚��♡#wanda maximoff #wanda maximoff x y/n #wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff x you

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rip-quizilla · 2 years ago

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1405 Peach Tree Lane

Pairing: Older!Neighbor!Eddie Munson x Reader

Summary: You like to watch your older, tatted shirtless neighbor now his lawn. He likes to watch you laying by your parents’ pool in those swimsuits that make his mouth water. Eventually, the inevitable happens when he invites you across the street for a drink.

Word Count: 8.2K

Tags: 🔥SMUT, modern au, age gap (Eddie 40s, Reader 20s), daddy kink, praise kink, degradation kink, slight breeding kink, spitting, light dom/sub, unprotected sex (reader has an iud), oral sex, p in v sex, shower sex, masturbation in a hot tub

(A/N: This is some of the filthiest shit I think I've ever written. You're welcome. Also I was very quick with the proofread, so if you see any spelling or grammar mistakes, no you don't.)

💜💜💜

Everyone in the posh gated community of Forest Hills knew about 1405 Peach Tree Lane.

The house was beautiful, as were all the houses in the upper-crust neighborhood- but the house wasn’t what people paid attention to.

Every housewife in the neighborhood knew that if they were lucky and timed their morning jog just right, they’d catch a glimpse of the toned, inked-up adonis who lived there while he shirtlessly mowed his lush green lawn.

You might not have done much speaking with the housewives in your parents’ neighborhood, but you knew about 1405 Peach Tree Lane- you had a perfect view of its front lawn from your lounge chair by the pool in your parents’ backyard. Luckily for you, all that separated your backyard from 1405 was a short wrought iron fence and a narrow stretch of road.

You didn’t mind living with your parents during the summers you spent home from college; they gave you plenty of freedom and while they were at work during the day, you got to spend the afternoon lounging by the pool, reading a book and soaking up the sun.

As well as soaking up the view of the way that same sunlight glinted off Mr. 1405’s sweaty, ink-riddled skin.

You didn’t speak to him- what would you even say? “Hi, it’s nice to meet you, my favorite part of the day is guessing what your tattoos mean.”? Or maybe, “Hey there neighbor, mind if I count the freckles on your shoulders? It’s for science.”

Eventually, the inevitable happened- he caught you staring.

He didn’t make it awkward, though. In fact, from the way he simply smiled and waved at you, you wondered if he thought your eyes meeting him had just been a coincidence, and you hadn’t been ogling him for the past thirty minutes and some change. You’d smiled back, thankful for your huge sunglasses that hid the way your eyes had widened under his attention, and waved in return.

An even bigger surprise had been that he spoke to you this time.

“That book any good?”

His voice, heavy with labored breathing under the exhaustion from finishing up his lawn work, had caught you completely off guard. You’d laughed nervously, sticking your bookmark between the pages and pushing yourself up from your face-down position on the flattened lounge chair.

“Oh! Ah-ha, uhm, yeah!” you shifted your weight back until you were sitting on spread knees and looking up at the source of the voice. On the other side of your parents’ fence stood Mr. 1405 Peach Tree Lane, sweaty and slightly sunburned on the tops of his shoulders. His curly brown hair had been piled into a messy knot atop his head, and you took note of the details that you hadn’t noticed from far away- a smattering of silver studs that decorated his ears, along with one on his nose. Five o’clock shadow that dusted his jawline. A more detailed view of his tattoos, some of which looked older than others but all of which looked very, very sexy on this man who had so much sex appeal already.

The crinkling of his plastic water bottle as he squeezed about half of it into his mouth filled the silence between you. After a loud gulp he piped up again.

“What’s it about?”

Your brow wrinkled confusedly before you remembered that he had just asked you about your book. “Oh!” you replied dumbly, looking down at the book as if you had completely forgotten that books even existed- looking at him had taken up your entire mental capacity, apparently. “It’s, uh, it’s a memoir! It’s this cool old lady’s life story, she does not hold back, so the narration is pretty hilarious a lot of the time.”

The inked-up Greek god smiled and nodded, eyebrows raising in interest. “That does sound good.” he mused, and his voice took on a slyer tone when he added, “What’s your definition of old, like thirty-five?” He chuckled as if he’d just told a funny joke, but your smile had all but fallen from your face.

“That’s not old,” you replied, not taking the joke, “This author was in her late seventies when she published this book, but even with that being said, this book is just told through such a youthful spirit- it’s easy to forget how old the author is when looking at her words.” You gripped the paperback a little tighter in your sweaty hands. “Plus, old people definitely don’t have the energy to mow their own lawns, and I have a feeling you’re not thirty-five.”

That seemed to catch him off-guard. A surprised laugh escaped him, exploding from his lips before they formed an intrigued grin and his arms crossed over his tattooed chest.

“Oh yeah? How old do I look, then?”

You grinned back, making a show of removing your sunglasses so that you could peer at him with greater focus. “Hmmmmmm…thirty-six?”

Another laugh, this one heartier than the last. “You flatter me, sweetheart.”

God, his voice is like brown sugar.

You tried again. “Forty, then.”

“Older.”

“No way.”

His grin became a smirk. “Are you patronizing me right now?”

You threw up a girl scout salute. “Scout’s honor, I would never.”

He chuckled. “Well, girl scout, I’ll be forty-five next month.”

“I’ll be sure to warn my parents about the rager you’ll be throwing.”

He peered up at your house behind you, like he just now noticed its- and your parents’- existence. “Nah,” he said, “No ragers for me, that ship sailed when I was your age.”

You smiled sweetly, placing your sunglasses atop your head. “At least let me bake you a cake, then, wouldn’t be neighborly to let you have a boring birthday.”

“You’d bake a cake for ‘lil old me, sweetheart?” His tattooed hand splayed over his heart, sweaty and shining in the blaring afternoon sun.

You giggled. You could get used to Mr. 1405 calling you ‘sweetheart’.

“Sure thing, just tell me what name to write in between ‘happy birthday’ and ‘forever young’.”

A flash of dazzling white teeth replied, “Eddie. Eddie Munson.”

That was when you rose a step above the housewives of Forest Hills- to them, he was still Mr. 1405, but to you? He was Eddie Munson.

You entertained yourselves with little conversations here and there whenever Eddie worked out on his lawn. You, always in a swimsuit and him, never wearing a shirt. You would ask him about his tattoos- what they symbolized, which ones he’d drawn himself before they were replicated on his flesh. He would ask you about what you were reading- it was always changing. Sometimes nonfiction, sometimes romance, fantasy, lit fic… he seemed impressed by your insatiable reading habits.

One day, however, he’d been particularly interested in a book whose cover bore a bare-chested gentleman and particularly busty woman in a corset.

“What’s today’s read, girl scout?” Eddie had greeted you with a nod toward the obviously risque reading material and a knowing smirk as he let his arms dangle over the black bars of your fence.

You looked up, glowing from the sweat that’s gathered on your dewy summer skin and smiled tightly. “Oh, just a period romance. Ball gowns, forbidden love, the scandalous touching of hands without gloves on- things like that.”

“From the looks of that cover, I don’t think their hands are the only naked body parts touching in that story.”

You laughed, glancing at the cover as Eddie waggled his eyebrows. “You’re probably right, but who knows? I’m only on the second chapter. I’ll keep you posted though.” you punctuated that last part with a wink.

“Oh please do, princess,” Eddie said with a wolfish grin. “I love a good smutty romance novel.”

You gawked. “No way you read this shit, you’re bluffing.”

Eddie raised a hand as if swearing on a bible. “Scout’s honor.” he said, mimicking your swear from the day you’d met.

You shook your head, smiling ear to ear. “You must be the first man I’ve met who openly admits to reading smut, and I respect that.”

Eddie shrugged. “Easiest way to know what women want- they’re literally writing me an instruction manual. It’d be stupid not to read them.”

You bit your bottom lip before you could stop yourself, making a mental note of that little tidbit of information. “And you enjoy them?”

“It’s porn, sweetheart,” he said, gazing at you incredulously. “Who wouldn’t enjoy it?”

“It’s porn with a plot.”

“I’m a sucker for a good plot, especially if the plot involves sucking.”

You barked out a laugh. “And one could also argue that it’s more emotional porn than physical.”

“Are you insinuating that I don’t have a heart? Because I’ve got one, princess, and it bleeds, it yearns-”

Eddie pantomimed grasping at his own heart in his chest, putting on a fucking one-man show as he hung onto the fence for dear life as if his heart were truly bleeding out. You laughed- that was something that seemed to happen more when Eddie was around- you laughed more than usual, so much that you found your cheeks aching whenever he walked away.

This time, something else ached as you watched him return to his lawn. As you continued to read, you were acutely aware of the heat between your thighs, the wetness that accumulated as you pictured corseted girls and muscled viscounts making eyes at each other across a sea of dancing courtiers. You imagined yourself, cornered in a rich rose garden bathed in moonlight, struggling to stifle your moans as a man in a tailcoat left a mark on your neck. You felt his hand hiking up your layers of petticoats until it reached your thigh, the only thing separating skin from skin being the white fabric of his gloves. You pictured his eyes, brown and bottomless as he moaned at the feeling of your hands tangled and tugging on his soft brown curls-

Uh oh.

You took a deep breath, bookmarked your page, and slipped into the cold water of the pool. You sincerely hoped that Eddie hadn’t been serious about an update on the smut in your novel; you didn’t exactly want to let slip that at some point, you’d stopped picturing the viscount and started picturing him.

But would he mind? Would he be upset to know that you’d pictured his hands on you, his lips on your pulse, your fingers in his hair?

You weren’t sure he would.

In fact, you had a feeling he might actually picture you in situations that weren’t too different. After all, you weren’t blind- you’d noticed the way his eyes would flit down from your face when the two of you were talking. He didn’t seem to put much effort into hiding his once-overs, his raking gaze that seemed more than pleased by the way your swimsuits hugged your curves, pulled your cleavage together, cut higher on your hip than your shorts ever would. Whenever you pulled yourself up from lying on your stomach, you’d seen how his eyes followed your ass hungrily as it left his line of sight.

That was the moment that you realized- Eddie Munson, more than likely, wanted to fuck you.

And you definitely wanted to fuck him.

So the next time he came over to see you after mowing his lawn, you offered him a beer.

“I’m already halfway through mine,” you said, leaning back to give him a full view of the way the sweat on your breasts shone in the hot sun. “don’t make me day drink alone.”

A salacious grin curled on his plush pink lips. “I could be tempted,” Eddie peered at the cooler beside you. “What are you drinking, sweetheart?”

You opened the cooler so that he could see the six pack of light lagers in shiny green bottles. Eddie wrinkled his nose distastefully. “Alright, young padawan,” he sighed, unlatching the gate to your backyard. “It’s time you learned your first lesson from Master Munson.” He didn’t enter the backyard, simply opened the gate and waited for you to join him outside your parents’ property.

You quirked an eyebrow; this was new territory. That wrought iron fence had always served as a sort of barrier between the two of you, never occupying the same space and keeping each other at arm’s length- flirty banter, but with boundaries.

Now, you smiled shrewdly as you slipped on your flip flops and crossed the threshold into Eddie’s space, following him across the narrow street to his driveway.

“Oh so I’m your student now, Master?” you quipped, launching him into a dark chuckle and a shake of his curls.

“Christ,” he cursed under his breath low enough that he probably thought you hadn’t heard- but you did. “Well, your college friends are obviously shitty teachers if your drink of choice is a basic ass bottle you can grab at the goddamn gas station.”

You scoffed, “Oh, what- are you trying to say you’re one of those pretentious beer snobs who only drinks micro-brewed IPA’s named after bad puns?”

Eddie laughed out loud, smiling ear to ear at you over his shoulder. “Oh that’s exactly what I am, princess!” The harsh sunlight finally relented as the two of you crossed into Eddie’s garage, and you followed him in a beeline to the old refrigerator in the corner opposite from his impressive-looking toolbench.

You nearly moaned with relief when the cool air from the fridge hit you as Eddie opened the door and grabbed a couple of unmarked silver cans from the middle shelf. You eyed them cautiously, which Eddie saw and snorted at when he saw your expression. “Not poisoning you, sweetheart, no need to worry.” He opened a door beside the fridge that you guessed- judging by what you could see past the doorway- led to his kitchen. “A friend of mine is a home-brewer, he gives these to me and the guys for free. Way better than any cookie-cutter shit you’ll find at a college party.” He held the door open for you, nodding his head toward the doorway. “You coming inside? It’s hot as hell out here.”

You hadn’t expected him to invite you into his home; it occurred to you suddenly that you were still only wearing your swimsuit. Smiling shyly, you stepped through the doorway, the chill of the air conditioning rolling goosebumps over your damp skin. Eddie stepped into the kitchen and immediately began opening the cans, handing one to you.

You eyed the can cautiously, raising an eyebrow at him. “Do I want to know what I’m about to drink?’

He smiled mischievously, inclining his head toward you as he held his can aloft. “First lesson, padawan- trust your master.” He tilted the can in your direction, to which you sighed and tapped your can to his.

Your eyes widened in surprise when the cold, bubbly liquid hit your lips. It wasn’t anything like you were expecting- instead of the tepid wheaty taste that you were used to. At first the drink was tart, but after a second it faded into a fruity dryness that reminded you of white wine. Its flavor was so light that you couldn’t even tell you were drinking beer.

“This is beer?”

Eddie chuckled. “Technically it’s a sour, but yes- it’s a type of beer. Dustin said it was a champagne sour, so if you like wine then hopefully this’d be up your alley.”

You smiled as you took your second sip. “I do like wine.” you murmured, testing the flavors on your tongue. “Like this, too. Your friend ever think about selling what he brews?”

“Dustin?” Eddie asked, laughing as if the question were something funny. “Oh I have no doubt he’ll try to sell it one day, but he’s not going to even think about it until he knows he’s perfected his recipe.”

As you took another sip of the cold drink, you felt another wave of goosebumps run through you. Coincidentally, this was the moment that Eddie fell perfectly silent. You peered over your can- his eyes were fixed on your chest. You became acutely aware that the goosebumps had resulted in your nipples growing so hard, you thought if something-anything- were to accidentally brush against them, you might moan from the sensitivity.

Stifling a smirk, you shivered and hugged your upper arms. “Brrrrr it’s cold in here!” you said coyly, “I guess my body temperature got a little too used to the heat.”

Eddie’s chest heaved slightly at the way your tits bounced and squeezed together when you shivered. He cleared his throat, looking down at the beer can in his hand for a moment. “I’ve got a hot tub, you know,” He spoke up, peering at you to gauge your reaction. “Downstairs. You’re welcome to it.”

You took another sip. “Only if you join me.”

His dark eyes snapped up to yours, lips curling up at one corner. “Yes ma’am.” he said, his voice lowered an octave and a bit huskier than before. You held his eye contact, mirroring his lopsided grin with a charged, heavy-lidded gaze.

Eddie led you to a staircase down the hall and said he’d be right back with a towel for you after he changed into swim trunks.

“Aw, no speedo?” you smirked. Eddie appeared unphased. “Mental note,” he murmured to himself, “the princess is eager to see my thighs.”

You giggled, “There might be more tattoos there I haven’t seen yet,” you countered, “How am I supposed to keep figuring you out if I don’t know the meaning of each and every one?”

Eddie placed his forearm above your head on the wall, leaning into it until he was close enough for you to feel his breath on your hairline. “You know, you seem to spend a lot of time staring at my body, kid-” You bristled at his blatant omission of the nicknames you liked. “-I’m starting to feel objectified.”

You forced the smile from your face, looking up at him defiantly. “I could say the same thing about you, Mr. Munson,” you replied, “-and I’m not a ‘kid’.”

His position didn’t change as his eyes raked over your nearly naked body, drifting from your eyes to your lips and catching on your cleavage. “Don’t I know it, sweetheart.” he whispered, before pushing off the wall. “Hot tub’s already heated, just push off the cover and hit the green button. I’ll be down in a sec.”

And then he was walking down the hall to what you could only assume was his bedroom. For a moment, you thought about following him… but if you were honest with yourself, you were actually pretty curious about this hot tub. So down the stairs you went, carrying a silver can of sour in each hand.

Eddie’s basement was cozy, but he had utilized the space to its full potential. The majority had been filled with workout equipment to create a home gym, the walls lined with floor to ceiling mirrors that created the illusion of a larger space than it actually was. Sitting on stylish wooden slats was the hot tub, topped with a brown leather cover. To the right of the hot tub was a door with a small window that was just at your eye level. Upon closer inspection… yep, that was a sauna. Eddie had a sauna.

Shaking your head in disbelief, you made a mental note to ask Eddie what he did for a living- as far as you could tell, he was the only one who lived here. How did a single guy in his forties have so much money to burn?

Placing yours and Eddie’s drinks down on a nearby surface, you removed the cover from the hot tub and pressed the green button as Eddie had instructed, and settled into the hot, bubbling water. God, it was relaxing. Just then, you heard footsteps descending the stairs.

Eddie appeared, his hair let down from his normal messy bun so that it fell in dark chocolate curls that cascaded over his shoulders. His swim trunks, simple and black with little white skulls lining the cuffs above his knees, hugged his thighs in a way that made you salivate. Tattoos you'd become all too familiar with danced across his skin, and you suddenly felt the need to taste them.

Eddie smirked when he saw you getting an eyeful without even trying to hide it. “How’s the water?”

You hummed, relaxing further into jets against your back. “Sooooooo nice.” You sighed.

Eddie climbed into the hot tub to join you, making you squeal as he practically fell into the water, splashing you as he submerged his head just enough to wet his hair and shake it out like a golden retriever.

You giggled, doing your best to ensure that your hair wasn’t wet enough to make you look like a wet rat. “I’m starting to think you’re a teenage boy trapped in the body of a middle-aged man.”

Eddie narrowed his eyes at you, tattooed arms stretching out over the edges of the tub as he relaxed into the seat across from you. “Hey now,” he said, voice laced with warning. “Careful with the term middle-aged there, kiddo.”

You matched his gaze, challenging. “Kiddo?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Eddie’s gaze was heavy, cocky as he looked down his nose at you. “Practically a baby.”

You grinned. “That one, I don’t mind.”

Eddie’s smile grew in tandem. “Oh, she likes to be ‘baby’, but not ‘kiddo’, huh?”

You leaned back into the water, looking up at the ceiling with a smug smile on your lips. “That’s right, grandpa.”

Suddenly, you felt a tug on your ankle and you were underwater. You emerged, spitting chlorine out of your mouth, struggling to force it from your nose as Eddie’s cackling rang in your ears. You gasped, sputtering in shock as you tried to catch your breath.

“You are a child!” you squealed as he tugged your ankle again- you hadn’t noticed his hold still grasping tightly- not forceful enough to bring you back under the surface but enough to remind you that he could.

“So not a grandpa, then?” Eddie teased, stroking the curve of your ankle with his thumb.

You gritted your teeth together, strategizing. “No, that would be too kind. You’ve got the maturity of a teenager. Luckily for me-”

Using Eddie’s grip on your ankle as leverage, you forcefully pulled yourself forward by your leg and launched yourself right into his lap, bending your knees so that a second later, you were straddling him.

You watched triumphantly as Eddie’s eyes widened, looking up at you with breath that hitched in his throat as you finished your sentence.

“-I know how boys like you think.”

The humor between the two of you dissipated in that instant, Eddie’s eyes blown wide and dark as he watched the way the water in your hair dripped down your neck and between your breasts, which were now inches from his face. If he leaned forward, he could catch that bead of water with his tongue. If he reached up, he could hold your tits in his hands, test their weight. Press them up, squish them together, squeeze…

You felt him growing hard beneath you, and smirked triumphantly. “See?” You said smugly, grinding against him teasingly. “Right on schedule.”

Eddie chuckled, his breathing strained as he shook his head exasperatedly. “Got me all figured out, do you princess?”

You nodded, finding your rhythm as you continued to grind against his hardening cock through his swim trunks. “I think I’m starting to.”

You shivered despite the warmth as Eddie trailed his hand from your ankle up your leg, your hip, your waist…finally resting at the apex of your sternum to splay across your neck. You hadn’t been expecting that- you faltered, breath hitching as he tested out a gentle squeeze and hummed to himself.

“Mmmmm…” He looked you over with passive attention, taking account of the way your eyes widened and your pulse quickened under his thumb. “...you know, I’m starting to figure you out too.” His other hand cupped your hip, pulling you to sit directly on his erection and holding you in place so you couldn’t grind. “You’re used to getting away with shit you know you shouldn’t do, isn’t that right, baby?” You sighed softly in response, pinned into place by his lust-blown eyes. You balanced on a precipice- on one side, obedience, which you knew would satisfy him. On the other, eventual obedience with a little bit more fight; more of a gamble, but you were willing to bet that he would enjoy that best.

“You really thought you could eye-fuck me every damn afternoon,” Eddie said, his hand on your neck moving lower to fondle one of your breasts over your swimsuit. “-and there wouldn’t be consequences?”

You breathed heavily, chest rising and falling under his hand. “I mean…” you drawled, still smiling smugly despite his authoritative tone of voice. “...I was kinda hoping for consequences.” you brought both hands out of the water, gesturing vaguely to the room around you. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

A second passed before Eddie’s hands suddenly grabbed both of your wrists, forcing them behind your back. You gasped, cheeks hot from the water and the position you were in, straddling his lap with both shoulders shoved back to force your breasts front and center. He saw the look in your eyes and leaned forward, lips brushing the shell of your ear.

“I can get rough sometimes, baby.” he said, voice low and husky. “Tell me it’s too much at any point and I’ll stop, okay?” You nodded, a shy little mm-hm escaping your bitten lips. Eddie crossed your wrists over each other, holding them behind your back with one hand as his newly free one reached up to caress your cheek.

“Fucking Christ, you’re cute.” he mumbled. “Cute little baby, all alone in her parents’ big house all day, so bored she had to go and be a slut for the neighbor. That right, baby?”

Your eyes were wide and wet, mouth opened in a slight pout as you ground your freed hips on his hard cock once again, whimpering needily. You nodded your head up and down, eager to hear more filthy words tumble from his lips.

Eddie wasn’t satisfied with that. A hand came up to grasp your hair at the base of your neck, tugging on it firmly but not painfully to force your head to nod up and down emphatically. “Use your words, baby, say ‘yes, daddy, I was a slut.’”

You gasped, surprised. You’d never called anyone daddy besides your actual father, and you’d certainly never called anyone that in the bedroom- or a hot tub, for that matter. However, his brazen demand that you call him that while you straddled him like this sent rolling waves of pleasure straight to the apex of your thighs.

“Y-yes… daddy…” You struggled against your instinct to be embarrassed, arching your back against your restrained hands and looking down shyly at your cleavage. “...I was a slut.”

“Look at me.”

Your eyes flicked up to his, wide and obedient. He was smiling at you, beaming with pride and adoration. His hand slid from your hair to the back of your neck, pulling your face to his. “Good girl, baby.” he praised, “I’m gonna kiss you, is that okay?”

You nodded eagerly. “Yes, please!”

That earned you a chuckle. “So polite, baby girl, good job.”

Eddie’s lips felt like the most comforting thing that a person could feel on their skin. His kiss felt like fresh sheets still warm from the dryer. His tongue was like a strawberry that was perfectly ripe, sweet and wet and a rush of relief. He explored you, he learned you, his lips devoured all they could reach and whenever they couldn’t reach, his tongue took over to fill in the blanks.

As you whimpered and squirmed in his lap, Eddie cooed, “What’s the matter, baby, something wrong with your legs?”

You shook your head, moaning into his mouth. “I need something on my clit, Eddie.”

“Something? You’ll just take anything on that clit baby? Is that what you're saying?”

You panted, straining against his rock hard dick for some kind of friction. He was right, you would take anything. “Yes, please touch me, Eddie.”

He made no move to do so, only looking at you pointedly with his eyebrows raised. When you realized your mistake, you corrected, “Please touch me, daddy.”

He smiled smugly, a cat watching a mouse. “Good girl,” he praised, “but I’m not sure you’ve earned that.”

Your face fell, eyes going wide as your lips formed a full-on pout. “But-” you began to stutter, but Eddie wasn’t finished.

He let go of you, pushing you gently off you and guiding you under the water to one of the seats in the corner of the tub. The jets coming off it were strong, nearly too much on your back as you turned to sit, but Eddie stopped you before you could settle into the seat.

“Princess, I want you to keep your knees open and ride your pussy on that jet stream until you cum.”

Your jaw dropped open. Whipping your chin over your shoulder to look at him in his seat opposite you, you stared and waited for him to specify or maybe apologize for misspeaking- there’s no way you heard him right. But then he repeated himself, and you realized that yes, you had.

“Press your pussy up against that jet stream under the water, and make yourself cum. Don’t use your hands. Don’t rush. I want you to fall apart in my hot tub, and I’m going to stroke my dick while I watch you do it. That okay, sweetheart?”

You were learning a lot of new information about your neighbor today.

You smiled devilishly over your shoulder at him, taking in the sight of him lounging in the opposite corner of the tub as he took in the sight of you. “You’re a kinky motherfucker, aren’t you?”

Eddie reached across the tub and wound an arm around your waist, pulling you in for a quick but heated kiss. “Yeah, I am.” he murmured into your lips before pushing you back toward the jets. “Now make yourself cum, I want you tight.”

He laughed at the pathetic little whimper that you let slip involuntarily as you situated yourself against the jet stream. You balanced your weight on your knees, spreading your legs enough to open your pussy further inside your swimsuit. Once the pulsing stream of water made contact with your clit, your automatic impulse was to flinch away; the stream was strong, almost too strong. However, with a little shifting and repositioning, you eventually found an angle that pulled a moan from your mouth that sounded almost pornographic.

“That’s it, baby girl,” you heard Eddie’s rough voice behind you, and you couldn’t help but sneak a peak over your shoulder at him. Eddie sat with legs spread open and one arm slung over the lip of the tub, his other hand palming the erection you knew was only growing harder over his swim trunks. This told you he was a patient man, a man who liked to be teased a little before taking what he wanted. A man who liked to play with his food before he ate it.

You could play, too.

You pulled your eyebrows together, pouting your lips the way you’d seen him react to earlier. “Am I doing it right for you, daddy?” You moved your hips up and down against the jet, putting on a little show for him.

Eddie raised a brow, amused. “I don’t think I can answer that question for you, sweetheart.” he said, sighing heavily with pleasure as he tilted his head this way and that to take you in from every angle. “Don’t worry about me, baby, just make yourself feel good.”

You smiled shyly, nodding in response and turning your attention back to the jets. You maneuvered your hips against them, grinding on the strong jetstream as it hit your clit at angles that you didn’t even know existed. You lost yourself in the sensation, letting your eyes fall closed and humming little sounds to yourself as your heart rate picked up, that familiar pleasure bubbling up in your lower belly as your movements grew faster and more desperate.

Eager to see if Eddie was enjoying himself as much as you were, you glanced over your shoulder to look at him. What you saw was breathtaking- Eddie, his wet curls clinging to his dewy skin, muscles flexing under his tattoos as he fisted his cock underwater. You couldn’t see it clearly due to the raging bubbles, but the flesh-colored underwater blur was enough for you to know exactly what he was doing. You had known he would jack off to you- he’d outright told you he planned to- but seeing it was enough to turn you on so much that it became the thing that pushed you over the edge.

“Daddy, I’m cumming!”

You moaned, mouth hanging open as you rode out your orgasm against the harsh stream of the jets, overwhelmed and overstimulated by the physical feeling and the intense eye contact that you held with Eddie the entire time as your body gyrated and spasmed. He watched you with hungry eyes, lapping up the scene in its entirety and committing every second to memory.

“Good girl, good fucking girl, keep fucking that jet, baby.”

You whimpered, hips jerking away from the stream as it hit your clit at an angle that was a little too intense, and your limp, still-needy body floated over to Eddie. He chuckled, still stroking his cock lightly in the warm water. “Aw, I’m sorry baby, was that too much?”

You shook your head, still eager for him- he’d barely even touched you, and yet you were so desperate for this man. “No, I can take more.”

His eyes had a darkness to them that made your breath hitch. “How much can you take, sweetheart?”

You moved to straddle your knees on either side of one of his thighs, not close enough to grind against his cock, but certainly in a perfect position to rub your pussy along his leg, teasing him. “I’ll take whatever you wanna give me, daddy.”

A low groan sounded from deep in Eddie’s chest. “You might regret saying that one, babe.”

You couldn’t resist matching his warning with a challenge. “Bring it on.” you said sweetly, and it incited a little chuckle in him. He reached back and pressed a button on the hot tub, causing all of the bubbles to stop.

“Get out, dry off.” he said, nodding to the neatly folded towels he’d placed beside the hot tub. “You look like you could use a shower.”

You stayed put, confused. “You… but…”

He cut you off, cupping his wet hands against your face. You could feel the pads of his fingers on your cheeks, wrinkled from prolonged time under the water’s surface. “Sorry, sweetheart, I forgot you don’t like following instructions unless you know you’re getting something out of it.” You scoffed at his condescending tone, but all he did was smile. “What I meant to say was- get out. Dry off. I’m going to fuck you in my shower. Mmkay?”

Your eyes widened, excited by his words and elated by a strange submissive, post-orgasmic euphoria. “Okay.” you replied, but when you saw his testy look in response you quickly amended, “Okay daddy.”

“Good girl.”

The two of you dried off before heading back upstairs. Eddie let you down the hall to his bedroom, which you were sure was filled with so many interesting mementos on the walls that you were sure it would take you hours to study all of it. The first thing to catch your eye was the golden record, framed and mounted beside his dresser. When Eddie saw you looking at it, he supplied an answer without waiting for you to ask.

“Ever heard of a band called Corroded Coffin?”

You searched your brain but came up empty. “No, I don’t think I have.”

Eddie chuckled to himself, like you’d just participated in a joke you weren’t in on. “Most people haven’t. But I bet you’ve heard the song Upside Down on the radio, yeah?” He hummed a couple bars of the chorus, which you recognized instantly.

“Oh yeah! I love that song!”

Eddie grinned. “‘Preciate it, babe.”

Shocked, you glanced up at the record and back to him. “Wait, you wrote that song?”

He shrugged as if to brush it off, but you could tell he was proud. “It was a group effort, my band and I wrote and recorded it together. After that, though, when the offers for record deals and tours and shit started pouring in, it became clear to most of the band members that this wasn’t what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives- band broke up on good terms, we just had some differences when it came to future plans.” He reached up and stroked the frame affectionately with his thumb. “But one-hit-wonder money was still enough to get my name out there, make some smart investments. I’m a music producer now.”

So that’s how he made all this money. The big empty house made sense now. “That’s pretty cool, actually.” you said, smiling at Eddie. You relished the sensation of his hands as they slid around your waist.

“You wanna see something even cooler?”

Before you could answer, Eddie was scooping you up into his arms and tossing you over his shoulder. You squealed, laughing as his palm hit your ass cheek with a loud smack! He carried you into his bathroom, placing you on his vanity counter before kissing the laughing smile right off your face. You felt his hands as they worked your bathing suit off you, freeing your breasts from the confines of the damp fabric. Eddie wasted no time, pulling one of your tits into his hand and encircling your nipple with his mouth, sucking sensually. You moaned, hands fisting into his hair. He only left your skin to turn around and turn on the shower, giving the water a chance to heat up.

Once the bathroom had sufficiently filled with steam, Eddie picked you up from the counter, pulling your legs around his waist and your arms around his neck. You kissed him greedily, wetly, and hungrily as he walked the two of you into his spacious tiled shower, which was larger than your dorm room closet back at school.

You relaxed your legs around him in a silent ask for Eddie to put you down, which he obliged. The moment your feet hit the wet tiled floor, you began to sink to your knees until…

You snorted.

“Why do you still have your swim trunks on?”

Eddie had taken the time to take off your bathing suit, but you hadn’t even realized that even after carrying you into the shower, he hadn’t even taken a second to undress himself.

He looked down, noticing this for the first time, same as you. “I, uh… I don’t know. I was-” he flashed you a smirk that was equal parts embarrassed and sexy. “-preoccupied, I guess.”

You couldn’t help but laugh as you knelt before him, now eye-level with the drawstring of his swim trunks. “Well let me fix that, then.” you said softly, working your delicate fingers into the waistband and pulling his trunks down until they hit the floor.

God. He was a sight to behold. And you were right, he did have thigh tattoos. They were large, twisting images of hellish creatures, undoubtedly older but still in good shape since- judging by the paleness of the skin they decorated- they probably never saw the light of day.

You reached up, lightly tracing them as you turned your gaze to his cock. It was at full mast, eager and waiting for your mouth to encircle it and, hopefully, make Eddie moan your name.

Which he did.

The way your lips covered the head of his cock, the way your tongue generously licked the shaft under, over, around, the way your hands were warm and welcoming as they lightly played with his balls- all of it made him moan, gasp, groan your name. He called you baby, called you princess, moaned and pulled your hair as he fucked your mouth, and you just about burst into flames when he shoved his cock so far down your throat that you swallowed on it accidentally, pulling a growled “Goddamnit, sweetheart, fuck-” from his lips.

When he pulled you off his dick by your hair, his eyes were humorless and hungry. He crouched down, leveling your eyes under the hot water from the showerhead.

“Are you on birth control, sweet girl?” he asked.

You nodded, “I have an IUD.”

He kissed your forehead firmly, one hand still fisted in your hair. “Good girl,” he murmured. “Now I can grab a condom, they’re right over there in the cabinet under my sink.” he continued, nodding vaguely in the sink’s direction. “But baby, I have been fantasizing about the way your pussy’s gonna feel for a long ass time and I hate to ask you this, and you’re allowed to say no, but-”

“Fuck me raw Eddie.” You wanted it. You needed it. You needed him. “I fantasize about it too. I think about it every day, I touch myself to you before going to sleep and wake up wishing your cock was the thing waking me up. When I’m lying by the pool reading those stupid smutty novels and some lord is fucking a lady in waiting up against a wall, I can’t focus on it! I can’t because I want it to be you and I want to feel your cock inside me, and I want it to be your cum that drips down my thighs and your lips on my-”

He cut you off there, splaying his free hand on your neck and kissing you until you were laid horizontally on the hot, wet floor. He climbed on top of you, and in a moment your mouth fell open at the sensation of his hard cock splitting you open from the inside. He didn’t spend a moment waiting for you to adjust to his size or murmuring praises into your ear- he knew you wanted all of him, and you knew he wanted all of you, and that was all you needed. You moaned, you practically screamed, and above all you clutched him for dear life.

“Dirty girl,” Eddie growled into your ear, thrusting into you deep and hard. “Dirty books, dirty mind-”

He leaned back so that his face was directly above yours and grabbed your cheeks, squeezing to force your mouth open. Your lips parted, and Eddie spat harshly into your mouth before shoving your mouth closed around it. His eyes were feral, wild with lust and dominance. “Swallow.” he commanded, you obeyed in an instant. He felt your throat moving against his hand and smiled deviously. “Dirty mouth, too.”

He picked up his pace, spearing into you at a pace so relentless that you couldn’t even keep track of the noises coming out of your mouth- an incoherent stream of sounds and swear that would have made a sailor blush. He matched your dirty noises with his own, all the while dicking you down into his shower floor as your brain went haywire at the lewd noises of skin slapping against skin that echoed through the bathroom.

“God, this pussy is so fucking tight,” Eddie groaned, “good girl, cumming so hard for daddy back there. You gonna cum on my cock this time?”

You moaned, “Need something on my clit, daddy.”

Eddie pecked your lips with his own, and the way it made your heart skip a beat was like a reward. “Good girl, always tell me what you need, okay?”

You nodded, smiling giddily from the sudden subby euphoria. “Okay, daddy.” You made a mental note that kissing Eddie Munson while his cock was inside you gave you your new favorite kind of high.

Eddie reached down and began drawing small, soft circles with his fingertip on your clit. The richly gentle sensation was decadent, pulling deeper, louder moans from you as Eddie continued to fuck you. “Oh I feel you getting tighter, baby girl, that feel good?”

“Yes!” you practically yelled it.

“Yes what?” He taunted.

“Yes daddy!” you cried, arching your back against the tile. He was fucking you ruthlessly, ravaging you mentally, and the way his dirty words melted into you made your brain go so hazy that you weren’t sure if your vision was clouding or if it was just the steam in the air.

Your release was growing closer, that heat in your core coiling tighter and tighter, ready to burst with pleasure. “I’m gonna cum soon, daddy.” you whined.

Eddie’s dick hit you in that perfect spot inside over and over, and you leaned your face against his hand as he cupped your cheek affectionately. “Yeah? You gonna make a mess all over daddy’s dick?” You pouted, nodding ‘yes’ in response. Eddie smiled at the way you could be so cute and so filthy at the same time- he fucking loved it. “That’s probably gonna make me cum, sweetheart, you want that? That pussy’s gonna grip my cock so tight that it fills you with cum, huh?”

You were whimpering and pouting and letting the sluttiest little sobs fall from you now. “Yes, daddy, fill me with cum, please!”

“You want me to fill you with cum? Fuck all that cum inside you?”

“Yes!”

“Yes what, sweetheart, gotta tell me whose dick you’re cumming on-”

“Daddy!” you cried, “Daddy’s dick, I’m cumming on daddy’s dick!”

“Fuuuck, yes, cum on daddy’s dick you little slut-”

Eddie’s filthy words tumbled from his lips as your pussy pulsed around him, fluttering walls squeezing him tight from the aching pleasure that shot through you. His cum filled you, and the size of his load reflected just how long it had been since he’d cum into anything that wasn’t his own hand. When he finally pulled out, a stream of both your releases oozed out of your hole and onto the floor. Eddie stared at it, fascinated, and he silently used his finger to catch the milky liquid and push it back into your hole. You whimpered, overly sensitive and puffy, your pussy lips inflamed and screaming, but Eddie was gentle as he sheathed his finger completely inside you, ensuring that his seed stayed exactly where he’d put it in the first place.

He pulled you up to a sitting position, smiling gently. “Hi.” he whispered, placing a soft kiss on your temple.

“Hi.” you giggled, a giant smile stretching out across your face, blissed-out and more than satisfied.

Eddie stroked your wet hair out of your face, gazing down at you adoringly. “I’m sorry if that was a little… much,” he winced. “I may have gotten carried away, usually I would talk to you to see if that kind of stuff would be okay, but I was just so fired up-”

“Eddie,” you interrupted softly. “I loved it.”

He grinned, grateful and relieved. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Eddie pulled you against him, your body fitting itself nicely against his naked chest as water poured over the two of you from above while you sat holding each other on the floor of his shower. He sighed, completely and utterly content. “Yeah.”

***

The rest of the summer days in your parents’ neighborhood went like this:

Wake up imagining what you and Eddie would do today. Touch yourself when necessary.

Do whatever chores needed doing around the house, sometimes making batches of lemonade for Eddie when you knew he would be working on his lawn that day.

Lounge by your pool and read a book- this part hadn’t changed.

Spend the rest of the afternoon at Eddie’s. These afternoons usually consisted of activities like discussing the whatever book you were reading, drinking whatever strange new beer Dustin had come up with, and fucking each other’s brains out.

The next month, Eddie celebrated his birthday. He didn’t throw a rager (true to his word) but he did have a little get-together. To your surprise, he invited you.

You got to meet his friends, their kids, their dogs- and see the way Eddie smiled for hours without reprieve when they were around. This whole summer, you’d been figuring this man out bit by bit, but it wasn’t until that night that you truly felt like you knew him.

You baked him a cake, as promised. Three layers of funfetti sponge, vanilla frosting and decorated with oreo crumbs and rainbow letters that spelled out “Happy birthday, Eddie, forever young”.

He wasn’t this way with the rest of the neighbors. To them, he would always be Mr. 1405 Peach Tree Lane, but with these people? With his friends? He was Eddie Munson. Now, you were included in that group of people who were allowed to know him, and how wonderful he really was.

You felt so incredibly lucky that you were a part of that.

#eddie munson x reader #older!eddie munson #neighbor!eddie #eddie munson smut #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson #eddie stranger things #stranger things fic #modern au

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inf3ct3dd · 4 months ago

Text

HARD WORK.

summary: your grandmas retirement to hawaii finally let you escape the annoying city life. but as it turns out, being a country girl aint easy work. luckily a hot stranger with a truck full of rakes and hoes has taken a liking to you.

gardener abby x black!oc

warnings: I AM A FREAK FOR GARDENER ABBY. little bit of creepy perv behavior, stalking, SEX

wc: 4.6k

authors note: heyyy guys miss u 😈 if anyone gaf i’ll post a part 2 cuz yk how i be… ts long as hell

abby noticed your presence about a week after you had moved.

she had recognized the yellow house, a familiar sight when she went on her drives to clear her head. it was certainly a sight for sore eyes. it was one of only three houses on the block, recognizable by the pale paint and the burnt orange front porch. she often wondered how the owners maintained it, as it was full of plants and trees. a big front yard with wildflowers, a cherry tree by the garage, and flower pots galore. its gorgeous. she also dreamed of what was behind the big door to the backyard, but she could see the faint sight of green trees from the top of it. its a beautiful house, no doubt. and the foliage was always kept perfect. bushes trimmed, lawn mowed, and the trees left the perfect shade for the summer time. she’d love to work there, but it seemed that the owners had it under control.

until you moved in.

after a while, she noticed the lawn becoming slightly overgrown, the bushes losing their shape, and the tree was dropping cherries all over the adorable pink slug bug in the driveway. she had taken that the original owners had moved out, but she had no idea who had replaced them. and clearly, that replacement had no idea how to tend to that house.

and then, she finally caught sight of you.

it was around about 3:30, if she remembered correctly. give or take five minutes. she was on her usual drive, exhausted and irritated from having to tell a woman that her grass would take at least a month to grow back from its butchered state. a bad raccoon problem left the entire yard torn, holes and dead yellow grass everywhere. but she had that off her mind now. she turned on her car stereo, old dad rock silencing her thoughts as she drove. the road you have to take to drive by the house is basically inside the forest. big, green trees on each side, a bumpy gravel road, and big hills. it was always a smooth ride, and the cool breeze from her window was a relief after sweating for 5 hours straight. she always hung her left arm out of the window, so much so that its slightly tanner than the other.

when she finally got to the house, she forgot everything she was thinking about. she even forgot where she was for a moment, making her stop the car.

she finally caught gaze of .. you. bent over the grass, seemingly trying to weed the garden. all she could see of you was your ass, and she wasn’t exactly complaining about the view. the denim shorts you were wearing left absolutely nothing to the imagination. along with the booty shorts, (the name very fitting), you had on a green spaghetti strap that clung to you like a wet suit. you had clearly been out there for a while, sweat pooling on the shirt and a drop sliding down the obvious cleavage in your shirt. she tried so hard to pull away, to leave you alone and not be a creep, but she couldn’t. it was like everything was moving in slow motion as she was eyeing you, and she slowly made her way up to your face after staring at your tits for an inappropriate amount of time. you had thick, black curls, that were pulled up haphazardly into a high ponytail. probably to get it out of your way while you worked. its clear you take advantage of how remote your house is, sitting in the yard looking like that. its unsafe, what if a weird freak comes over and stares at you from his truck?

abby quickly realized that she was the weird freak in question. even with the headphones in your ears, you noticed the presence behind you. you felt the rumbling of the truck through the ground, given the fact you were barefoot. you turned around to look at her, moving a curl out of your eyes and behind your ear. you raised a brow at the truck, confused. you couldn’t make out the person inside, with your glasses resting on the porch. you squinted and saw a rough image of some..blond person? you stared for a while longer, almost considering walking up to them . what’re they looking at? were you that bad at gardening?

abby was frozen the second you turned around. she definitely stared longer than she should have, not even noticing that you were staring as well. you had a confused look on your face as you squinted over at her. it was almost as if you couldn’t see her. when she thought the two of you made eye contact, she instantly started driving away. she tried to pull away slowly, to not be suspicious, but she zoomed down the road like a derby horse.

fuck. did she see me?

almost as soon as you saw the car, it drove away. they must’ve noticed you caught them and got embarrassed. who is that? you had seen a blob that sort of looked like blonde hair, but not much else. it was hard to discern anything from that, so you focused on what you did see. you felt like you had seen the car before, but then again, so many people have black pickup trucks around here. and its not like it had any significant details you’d remember it by, it was just a plain truck. not even a funny bumper sticker or something! its like the exact opposite of your car, the back of your beetle is covered in cute stickers, and you even got heart shaped rims. their car was different. it was so…rugged. whoever it is probably does some sort of hard job, like construction or something.

you shrugged off the whole thing, getting a bit too sweaty for your liking and heading inside. you wondered to yourself if they’d stop by again, maybe you should keep an eye on your window!

while you were pondering over who the mysterious figure in the truck was, the figure herself was freaking out. she couldn’t stop imagining you on that lawn, seeing your confused face and glossy pout as you stared at her. did you even realize someone was looking at you? did you feel weird and scared now? was that the absolute most pervy thing she could’ve done?? and most importantly, would you notice if she did it again? she shook the thought as soon as it came. she was practically berating herself, mumbling “don’t be weird” under her breath. she tried to think about other things. the smell of the trees lining the road. the tree in your front yard. fuck, this is difficult.

eventually, she settled on thinking about your yard. she tried not to focus on the image of you bent over in front of it, and her behind you, and she slowly remembered something. you could not garden for shit. you had missed a bunch of huge strips mowing, the bushes were lopsided, and you were knee deep in weeds. it was obvious you had no idea what you were doing, and she knew it would be so easy to fix it.

“looks like you need some help.” she uttered from behind you on the front yard, and you turned around, puzzled.

“you think so?” you stared up at her, doe eyes nearly punching her in the chest. you were still sweaty, in the same tank top.

“yeah, you look hot. let me cool you off.” and with that, she grabbed at the bottom of the shirt. “can i”-

“abby. cut it out.” she pulled herself out of the daydream, realizing she had stopped her car once again. thankfully, the road was completely empty, so she kept driving. there wasn’t anything worth staring at over here, so she kept it pushing. freak.

she tried to push whatever happened earlier to the back of her mind all day. but its like she got hypnotized. she drove up to her house, and she stupidly expected to see you in her front yard. she went inside, and she wondered what the inside of your house looked like. does she have carpet? what color are her walls?

she quickly shut down the thought of ��walls” as an…untasteful image appeared in her head. she took a shower, a near freezing one, and she imagined what type of showers you like. or if you were even a shower person, maybe you liked baths. you’d probably shriek if you stepped into the shower and it was the wrong temperature. she imagined you sitting on the edge of the tub, letting the water run over your fingers until it was justtt right. she imagined you sitting down in the tub, and - nothing. she didn’t imagine anything else.

she cooked herself some pasta for dinner, and sat down on her couch to eat. do you like spaghetti? she started thinking about that scene in the lady and the tramp, except you and her replaced the dogs. once again, she shut that down right after she started. she ate her food and threw her dishes in the sink, almost running to her bedroom. because she was tired. no other reason.

you had gotten a call from your grandma a little while after you went inside. you didn’t necessarily want to talk to anyone right now, but you owed it to her after she basically gave her house to you for free. she talked for what felt like forever, about her new house, the beach, everything. and after a million “really”s and “oh wow”s, she asked you to show her the house.

you showed her around the inside first, panning around the living room, kitchen, and all the rooms, she was very satisfied with how clean you kept the house. its easy to take care of when its just you making the messes, and not an aggravating messy roomate. you felt like a lonely housewife who’s husband left for war.

afterwards, you went out into the backyard. her smiling face turned into a confused grimace within seconds.

“honey, who did the lawn?” she asked, so much concern in her voice you’d assume she just walked in on a crime scene.

“i did! doesn’t it look good?” you chimed, confused on why she sounds like you’ve just killed a man.

“…no. it looks like a hot mess. you missed like, three spots! and lord, what did you do to my bushes?” she let out a loud sigh.

“…i trimmed them?” your pride was wiped off your face, a small frown replacing it.

“i don’t even wanna see the front. you know what, you need to find a gardener. someone. as long as its not you. ill pay for it myself, just…don’t touch anything.”

“at least my plants aren’t dead and the grass is still green.” she mumbled under her breath, hanging up the phone.

where the hell are you gonna find a gardener?

with your spirits crushed, you sat with your computer and your glasses resting on your nose, “how to fix a messed up lawn” reflecting on the glass. r/lawncare said to leave it and let it re-grow before mowing it again, evenly. wait at least a week or two and keep watering it. but don’t touch it.

so, you decided to listen. the gardener hunt could wait till later, you were sleepy. you ended up dozing off on the couch watching chopped, and you had forgotten all about it by the morning.

abby however, can’t forget anything.

after a long, sleepless night, abby was running out of things to distract herself. why was she going borderline insane over some random girl? she’s seen hot girls before. were you a witch or something?

she went through her day with the same irritating questions going through her head. what does she listen to when she drives? what does she order at the coffee shop? whats her name?

she realized by the time she was on her lunch break she needed to answer at least one of her questions. she already knew where you lived, whats the harm in knowing your name?

she had slightly known your grandma, only the fact that they owned the farm that was down the road from the house. and that it was named after their last name. small town advantage, am i right?

after googling the last name, a facebook profile showed up. presumably exactly who she thought it was. she scrolled through pictures of her at the beach, on family vacation, unfunny memes,and a post that made her chuckle for a whole minute.

she knew she was in the right place now.

after scrolling for a while longer, she found exactly what she was looking for: a picture of you and the woman, your arm slung around her shoulder. you looked like you were at a wedding, all dolled up in a green satin dress with your hair down. you were wearing glasses, too.

“so she probably didn’t see me.”

you looked just as gorgeous as yesterday, and the picture was captioned “my beautiful granddaughter r ♥️💐😘🥰” and there was many more of her old lady friends and relatives calling you gorgeous. didn’t she know it.

she typed the name , your name, into facebook yet again, and there you were. the profile picture was of you as a baby, little black curls pulled into two pigtails as you grabbed at the camera with a cheesy smile. albeit, you only had two teeth, but it was definitely a smile. you’ve just always been cute, huh?

she looked down at the bio, and found everything else she needed to know. whos idea was it to make people give facebook all their personal information?

it was obvious this account was just for family, as it was mostly just reposts of your relatives posts and pictures she would deem “family friendly.” but the pictures were mostly of things other than you, like cats and pretty buildings you saw. it gave off the perfect, innocent impression to anyone who’d come across it.

but after finding your facebook, it didn’t take her much longer to find your instagram. and your tiktok. and your tumblr from when you were in highschool? maybe she was digging a little too deep.

your instagram wasn’t that stark of a contrast to your facebook. add a little more cleavage, and a much more active..social life, and it was basically the same. you hadn’t posted much with your friends in a while though, only stills of your plane and you relaxing in your new home. tough time making friends over here?

she snooped even more into your following, and at first there wasn’t anything really interesting. some music artists you liked, random cat accounts, and baking accounts. cute. but, after a while, she recognized something. the name of the place you worked at that she saw on your facebook. a veterinary office. the profile mostly had pictures of cats and dogs and some smaller animals, but when she saw a post about the offices pet fundraiser, she immediately recognized your face. cheesy smile, holding up a small kitten to your cheek. it was adorable.

she looked up the address in the account’s bio, and she saw that it was a 5 minute drive from her house. perfect coincidence. alice would love to take a walk after work today, wouldn’t she?

her snooping was interrupted by the alarm she had set for the end of her break. startled, she slightly jumped out of her seat before swinging her door open and plopping her phone in her back pocket. she knew what her plans for this afternoon were.

while abby was scheming up her stalkerish plans, you were just.. bored. you sat at the front desk, doodling one of the dogs you saw come in earlier with one earbud in your ear, fleetwood mac giving you soft background music to the emptiness of the lobby. with it being tuesday and all, it wasn’t very busy. your shift didn’t end for a few hours though, and you would rather be bored than busy.

you decided to people watch outside the window for a bit. you saw an old lady walking around with another old lady, holding coffee cups from the cafe down the street. they were engrossed in conversation, and you tried to lip read, but could only make up a few nonsensical words before they disappeared out of your view. a man walked by with his disgruntled teen daughter, headphones pulled over her ears with an annoyed grimace. once again, it looked like the father was saying something, but you had no idea what.

after a few more people walked past, you saw someone who actually…caught your eye. it was a tall blonde woman, hair weaved neatly into a braid that rested on her right shoulder. she had on a black tshirt that showed of her toned arms, and grey cargo pants with green grass stains on them. you tried to glance at her face, but she was facing the side. all you could really see was the outline of her curved nose, and the soft shape of her lips. her side profile looked perfectly carved, like a statue. she had on black over the ear headphones too, and she was holding a leash to a big german shepherd. shes hot, and she has a dog? you subconsciously started fixing your hair, just in case she was walking in here. she stopped near the door, and you nearly pounced to greet her. but your excitement was cut short when you saw her walk slightly further, and pull out a small stack of papers and a roll of tape. was she putting up fliers?

you watched her place one on the light post outside your building, holding the tape in her mouth as she did so. you tried hard not to drool all over your desk as you watched her. you couldnt make out what the paper said as she walked away, and you wasted no time going outside to see what it was.

and when you finally approached it, you felt as god himself was giving you an offering. the flier read "abby anderson gardening services.” there was a small graphic of a pretty flower, and an even more captivating image of the woman who had put up the flier. abby, that’s a sweet name.

you quickly ripped off one of the small pieces of paper on the bottom of the flier, placing it in your sweater pocket before skipping back into your work gleefully. a hot girl who was gonna save you from your gardening dilemma? somebody pinch you.

abby hadn’t had the smallest confidence her plan had worked. her heart was practically beating out of her chest, and the questions kept on pouring in. did she even see? will she even notice? what if she did see, and she recognized me as the freak who was ogling her outside her house? she planned all this perfectly. she spent 3 hours last night making those stupid fliers. scrolling through a million different fonts, searching through her camera roll for good pictures, she needed it to be as believable as possible. she had parked her truck well out of view a few blocks away, carried extra fliers, and brought alice with her to try and hide her true intentions. normal gardener walking her dog and putting up fliers, thats all she was. definitely not a weirdo that saw a girl pruning her front yard and got so hot and bothered that she devised a whole plan that would maybe get her to call her.

she shook her head, practically trying to shake away her thoughts, and she kept on walking.

you were telling yourself that you’d call her right when you got off work.

and after sitting on your bed for 5 minutes staring at her number typed into your phone, it was tomorrow.

and then tomorrow, it was the day after that.

the fear made absolutely no sense to you. you’re calling a gardener! whats the worst shes gonna say? ‘oh no, im not gardening for you because you’re stupid and also im going to run you over with my lawn mower.’ its her job to do this!! you had even saved her number in your phone as “hot gardener” so you wouldn’t forget her.

you were silently hoping that youd see her around somewhere. she’d approach you, start some dumb conversation, suddenly bring up the fact that shes a gardener, and then you get your “really? i’ve been looking for one!” moment. perfect meet cute.

but its like she vanished into thin air.

every time you went to work, or even out shopping, you were dolled up for no reason. wearing shirts with extra cleavage, making sure you have on lipgloss constantly, you were not taking any chances. even when you were doing the most mundane activities, you swiped on a layer of mascara before you left the house. just in case. but your luck wasn’t striking you at all. does she not live in the neighborhood?

abby definitely lived in the neighborhood. after checking her flier and seeing a missing phone number, she spent the whole night waiting for her phone to ring. she did anything and everything to try and keep her busy, which included cleaning her entire apartment and stalking your instagram. you had posted a picture of your cat on your story. cute.

after almost 5 hours of waiting around, she was pacing around her living room like a tiger in captivity. every notification she got she pounced at her phone, but she was continuously disappointed. no manny, i don’t want to go out tonight. dont ever text my phone again and also i hate you.

it was around 12:45 when her phone finally rang. she picked up instantly, barely letting it ring. she cleared her throat and tried to feign nonchalance in her voice. but instead of your sweet voice asking about her lawn, it was a telemarketer. she threw her phone on the couch and collapsed on her floor. it was gonna be a long night..

the next day, she knew she needed to check on you. what if something had happened? or, worse, what if you weren’t even the one who took the phone number? she came back the same way she did the first time she saw you, driving a liiiittle too slow past the vet office. and low and behold, you were perfectly fine. sat at the front desk talking to some girl with a cat. and when she looked at the flier, there was still only one slip missing. maybe you forgot?

she drove away, a childish pout on her face. it was pathetic , really.

when she was at the grocery store on the second day of waiting , that she definitely didn’t drive an extra five minutes to because it was close to you, she nearly had a heart attack when she saw you in the cereal aisle. cute hoodie and shorts on with your hair down. you seemed like you were having a hard time deciding between two cereals, holding the boxes next to each other and squinting. she imagined herself going up to you and delivering some smooth one liner about cereal that she was still trying to come up with, and carrying your groceries and you to your car. but as much as she wanted to, she kept her distance. heavily. she was looking around every five minutes like a shoplifter so she wouldn’t bump into you.

but not touching didn’t mean she couldn’t look. she saw you finally chuck the fruity pebbles into your basket, squeeze half the mangos on the display before picking one, and you last minute deciding to buy a pack of gum when you were checking out. she tried her hardest to not be jealous of the scrawny bag boy you smiled at, and when she finally saw you check out, she remembered she was supposed to be getting stuff for dinner. shit.

and the day after that, when she stopped at the gas station by your street because it was ‘cheaper’, she recognized your beetle in two seconds. she watched you step into the little mini market, clad in a pair of jean shorts and a random t shirt from a theme park , and she watched you walk out with a bag of hot cheetos as she pumped her gas. she had gotten a closer look at your bumper stickers, and she saw a small heart with a sunset flag. she couldn’t help but do a little fist pump when she got in her car.

none of her research was giving her any clarity though. she kept driving past her flier, day after day, and not a single other person had picked up a slip. was it even you who took it? are you gonna hire some other stupid gardener you found on your phone?

and on the third day, she had stayed home. she was beginning to give up hope you’d ever call, and she would never make a move first. especially if you had accidentally seen her on one of her little ventures. so, she cleaned her house again. she even dusted, thats how bored she was. the thoughts of you were constantly plaguing her. she almost took up mannys offer to go out tonight, try and get her mind off things.

but her mind stayed in the exact same place. her mind replayed the memory of you in the lawn yet again. she remembered the sweat dripping down your chest, the way your shorts were riding right up your thighs. she shoved her hand down her pants and imagined that they were yours.

she remembered how nice and smooth your voice sounded on the videos she saw. even though you never said much, even her imagining it made her even wetter. she kept rubbing her middle finger up and down her clit, picturing you whispering in her ear.

“you’re such a fucking creep. you keep watching me at work, following me around, and now you’re fucking yourself to me? we’ve never even met. you’re acting like a desperate slut for some random girl, you’re not embarrassed?”

the dialogue she was imagining in her head was getting her further and further. she almost imagined you saying it, the voice being strange and inconsistent to her. still, she moved faster, hearing the noise her slick covered fingers made as she moved. she kept letting out heavy breaths, flexing her hips upwards onto her hand.

“you know, you could’ve just come up to talk to me. how pathetic are you? can’t even talk to a girl?”

she imagined your breath on her neck, watching her. if she focused enough, she could feel the indent in her bed of you next to her. she started moving even faster, letting out loud moans as she pressed down on her clit even harder. she arched her back as she did, pushing her head against her headboard. she could feel the pressure building in her lower stomach, and she was practically humping her hand. she got sweatier and sweatier, the blanket covering her lower half not making it any better.

“are you really this desperate? you could-“

abbys fantasy was interrupted by the sound of her phone ringing next to her. right when she was close. fuck. she nearly abandoned the phone call, but then the thought crossed her hazy mind. what if it was you?

so she wiped her hands on her boxers , took a deep breath, and answered her phone.

she tried not to get her hopes up, worried it might be another telemarketer. annoyed at the fact that she gave up cumming for some random person.

“hello? is this..-abby?”

#HARD WORK.#abby anderson x reader #abby anderson x black reader #abby anderson x y/n #abby anderson smut #abby x you #abby anderson fanfic #abby anderson tlou2 #abby tlou

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thethirdromana · 2 years ago

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More travels with Jonathan Harker, in pictures

Here's the route that Jonathan travels by the public coach today:

I've tried to find copyright-free photos from the actual route, but I've not had much success. So this tour is going to be a lot more vibes-based than reflective of the actual sights out of the stagecoach window. Think of it like Jonathan's Transylvanian Pinterest board.

(Scenery photos are all of Transylvania, assuming I can trust the sites where I found them, but not necessarily the right time of year or the right bit of Transylvania. It's a big place.)

"Before us lay a green sloping land full of forests and woods, with here and there steep hills, crowned with clumps of trees or with farmhouses, the blank gable end to the road."

"There was everywhere a bewildering mass of fruit blossom—apple, plum, pear, cherry; and as we drove by I could see the green grass under the trees spangled with the fallen petals."

"In and out amongst these green hills of what they call here the "Mittel Land" ran the road, losing itself as it swept round the grassy curve, or was shut out by the straggling ends of pine woods, which here and there ran down the hillsides like tongues of flame."

"Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselves. Right and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon them and bringing out all the glorious colours of this beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown where grass and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of jagged rock and pointed crags, till these were themselves lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandly."

"As we wound on our endless way, and the sun sank lower and lower behind us, the shadows of the evening began to creep round us. This was emphasised by the fact that the snowy mountain-top still held the sunset, and seemed to glow out with a delicate cool pink."

"By the roadside were many crosses, and as we swept by, my companions all crossed themselves."

"Sometimes, as the road was cut through the pine woods that seemed in the darkness to be closing down upon us, great masses of greyness, which here and there bestrewed the trees, produced a peculiarly weird and solemn effect, which carried on the thoughts and grim fancies engendered earlier in the evening, when the falling sunset threw into strange relief the ghost-like clouds which amongst the Carpathians seem to wind ceaselessly through the valleys."

And a bonus: Bran Castle is marked as 'Dracula's Castle' despite being even further away from the locations in the book than most of my vibes-based photography choices. It also doesn't resemble Bram Stoker's descriptions of the castle.

But more importantly, it looks really cool. So here it is:

#dracula daily #may 5 #image descriptions in alt text #if anyone has photos from Jonathan's actual route i would love to see them!

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jiminiecrickets · 9 months ago

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HEAVEN'S SHEATH. KTH / M!READER

summary. a wealthy lord's pacifist son finds friendship and affection in a poor soldier, unremarkable except for the fact that he is the lone survivor of a massacre. fate has different plans for them.

wc. 10k

tags. smut | top!reader, bottom!tae, virgin!reader with a big dick (lol), reader is described as tall/strong, descriptions of blood/injuries/death, sex while injured (reader), riding, multiple orgasms, 2/3rds is only worldbuilding oops im just like that!!

a cloud of dust billows beneath the heavy black hooves of a friesian stallion, sturdy and strong-chested. the well-travelled dirt path swings over rolling green knolls, past flocks of white sheep herded into valleys and heavy brown cows grazing along the hillside. the untouched countryside is marked by clusters of tall green trees along the road and they shade the large river snaking through the vale.

amongst the verdant growth, throned between the river and the hills, lies a large manor built strong with stone and brick. other buildings lay scattered around its feet, and life is most evident here – servants hurry about, ushering goats into their wooden pens and their young ones out of the way of the black horse's brisk high trot. the little children stare with big eyes up at the regal stallion's wavy mane, watching how it falls softly over its long neck with each step. it is a horse that carries great presence and elegance, and its rider is no different.

at the manor's grand front entrance, an older man stands in wait, both hands resting on a cane tipped at both ends with gold. his hair is almost fully grey. his steely eyes track the horse and the dust and pollen dirtying its fine feathering on the lower legs.

"you've been sorely missed, son," he says in an unreadable tone, light enough for politeness but darkened by his heavy gaze. "does wartime make for a better view?"

the rider dismounts, hushing the horse as it snorts and tosses its head, hooves stamping. it yearns for the freedom of the run. he pets its soft mane. his voice is deep and monotone with disinterest. "certainly. it's quieter."

the man's eyes narrow. "you left all the kitchen girls alone, who i know you've a fondness for. you should be at home to protect them, taehyung, not gallivanting off to paint your pictures."

silently, taehyung passes off the reins to the stablehand, and turns to stare up at his father from the bottom of the steps. he tugs off his kid-leather riding gloves and places them in the pocket of his navy blue coat. "what do i know of war and fighting? you were the general, not i. i'd say you are much better suited to protecting these frail women from suffering under the hands of conquerors."

"you are the son of a general," he replies sharply. "the youth must carry on what their fathers forged."

"hate and subjugation, of course," taehyung sighs, shifting his bag of paints in one arm and his canvas in another. "humanity's pinnacle."

"stay your wit, boy. you'll find no friends with it."

he slips past him through the open doors of the manor, his paints clinking in its leather saddlebag. "yes, my lord."

upstairs in a large, sunlit room, he sets it all down with a soft huff. he glances around at the canvases lining the walls, leaning against cupboards and drawers full of paint thinners and varnishes. portraits of one woman dominate most of them – slender, pale, with dark hair, full lips, and a soft curving nose. in some, she sits primly on a chair amongst vases of flowers and goblets of wine, and in others, on chaises in simple dresses with a needle and thread in her hands, glowing with the early summer light blooming behind her.

these are the ones hung up or placed atop chests of drawers. not one touches the ground – that place, on the edge between floor and wall, is reserved for simpler landscapes and still lifes.

"i remember i told you to take down those portraits. do you find joy in antagonising me?"

taehyung turns. his father stands on the threshold, cane by his side. after he returned from the last war with a limp and new scars, he has not worn any other colour but black.

he turns back to his saddlebags, indifferent as he slowly pulls his paints and brushes one at a time from the bag. "no. i find no joy in speaking to you at all."

his father's expression tightens. "i did not make her ill. it was chance and nature. your hatred of me will not bring her back, no matter how intense. it is time to move on, son. lingering on it breeds only worse things."

"'worse things'?" taehyung snaps, gripping a put of paint so tightly his knuckles turn white. "i am not one of your soldiers, so don't speak to me like one. i don't need your pragmatism, your war-bred heartlessness. all she wanted was you. all she asked for was you, and you never came."

he has had this argument many times over since that winter. it festers hot fury in his chest just thinking of it, and it has not burned dimmer with time.

he turns and approaches his father, eye-to-eye. he is not a boy anymore. he surveys him for a moment. "war may have reforged you, made you richer and cleverer, but it burned away all that she loved. you never once held her again, felt her breath on your cheek." taehyung brushes his knuckles over his jaw. he shakes his head and begins to walk down the hall. "don't touch those portraits."

back for only a few minutes and taehyung already cannot stand the solemn weight of the air within these walls. he pushes open the front doors with more force than necessary and wanders through the large, walled estate, stone brick encompassing the major centres of activity.

mindlessly, he travels past the cowherds and shepherds leading in the meat for supper, and the stablemaster tending to his friesian, and the beekeepers. he passes the wall and almost reaches the wheat farm.

hushed whispers float up from the riverbank. he stops in his tracks.

by the water, the girls and women who work with the granary from the farm are crowded around something on the bank. the linens of their dresses are dark with water up to their knees, where they hold it back.

he notices the expressions on the girls' faces – bright with nervousness and fear, but tinged with… curiosity? they whisper amongst themselves behind their hands.

he approaches, ducking under a branch of the oak they shelter beneath. "what is so interesting?"

they startle, several sets of eyes turning towards him. one of the older girls, about his age, drops into a fumbled curtsy. "oh, young master—! we weren't doing nothin' bad, sir, but we was hiding from the sun when we found something the lord sir might need know. we found 'im caught up on the root branches here."

him?

taehyung steps past her. his eyes widen.

a young soldier, skin tinged grey, lies on his back on the riverbank, the water lapping at his calves. his boots have come off somewhere in the water. he wears an unfamiliar uniform: a mixture of thick fabrics to stave off the cold adorned with a strangely-patterned leather jerkin.

it is a poor man's armour, he realises, made of what he can scrounge up and what fits from the garrison's armoury. despite his lack of wealth, taehyung can tell he is a big man – tall, strong in ways only a life of hard work can create. he is fair of face, too, handsomer than many young nobles taehyung has met. perhaps a blacksmith's apprentice, or a baker's boy?

"which… which army is he from, master taehyung? can you tell?"

the question awakens him from his daze. he blinks. "ah – bring him higher on the bank, get his legs out of the water. let me closer."

he crouches by the body, pulling at the heavy cloth draped over the torso. at the neck, where the cloth is bunched and rolled to pack in heat, he finds a small red patch.

taehyung sighs and presses the soaked cloth back into place. "this man is very, very far from home."

the girls glance at each other uncertainly. "what does that mean, master?"

"many years ago, his homeland was seized, and now his people are under southern rule. he was an infantryman. simple cannon fodder." with a soft exhale, he leans over the torso and pulls him onto his side to reach the lashes holding together his water-heavy coat. "perhaps i can bury him someplace high, so that his soul may be reminded of home."

the body jerks and chokes out a lungful of water with a ragged groan.

the girls yelp, stumbling back. taehyung would have had he not already been on his knees. his eyes widen as the soldier's face pinches in pain, eyes still shut. taehyung reaches for the oldest girl, gesturing frantically towards the manor on the horizon. "find my father and tell him what you've found! you've my permission to leave the farm and all of that – he's alive!"

—

it is dark. everything hurts. this is hell – this is punishment, eternal and unforgiving. this is deserved for desertion.

then – light. light rings against bone and flesh.

velvet. mahogany. silk and down.

there is a girl beside you, leaning over you. her linen dress is plain but clean with a white apron over it.

your side explodes with pain. you launch upright with a violent shout, gasping and clutching the hot ache under your ribs. cries of shock throb in your skull.

you blink, hard, eyes adjusting dizzily to the brightness of the room. your torso is wrapped in cloth, which you can feel flat and taut against your skin. your hand comes away clean, and for several unthinking moments, you wonder why. your thoughts are slow and heavy.

"you ought to relax, master," echoes a soft voice beside you. her vowels are round and elongated, the accent so different from your own that you barely recognise it, much less understand it. you stare up unseeingly at her youthful face, framed by dark curls held back by a bonnet. she steps forward, a damp sponge in her hand. that is why your limbs feel cold. "your injuries are quite severe."

"where am i?" you mumble, your tongue thick in your mouth. words are unfamiliar. "who're you?"

she glances up at the other maids, huddling by the door. she sets down the sponge and extends a hand, though you flinch from it. she does not try again. "you are in the northern highlands. hadria. my name is aemma."

"aemma," you murmur. the sounds are soft and round, like a river pebble. like a river, you realise, you are damp and naked, save for a single sheet of folded cloth across your lap. you feel your face grow hot and you clutch it close, folding your legs towards your body for security. "m-may i – where are my clothes?"

aemma gestures for one of the other girls, who quickly scoops up a folded pile of clothes from atop the chest at the base of the lavish bed. the rest of the bedroom is similarly luxurious, with a dark palette that soaks up sunlight to warm its wood. the walls are pale, though framed by polished wooden frames embracing the room.

"here," she replies. "the lord father has gifted you some riding clothes to wear in their stead. they were to be given to the young master when he turned of age, but…" she pauses. she shakes her head and curtsies. "you're to meet the lord father and his son shortly. we were to inform them when you were to wake eventually."

"eventually…" you trail off. "how long have i been here?"

"two days, master."

your head begins to pound. you cradle it, wincing, and reach for the offered clothes. they are clean and soft under your callused fingertips. "ah… i'm no lord, miss."

aemma smiles briefly, folding her hands over her stomach. "the lord father requires it, master."

you have no heart to push. in fact, you would much rather lay down for another two days, though knowing you are under the roof of a lord churns up too much fear to do so. if northern men were anything like southern ones, you would do anything to keep your name clean.

"i'd like to dress," you say softly, glancing briefly at the maids watching you from the corner of the room. "alone, if the lasses would allow it."

with another curtsy, aemma ushers the other girls out of the room and closes the door after them. you do not miss how they sent you curious glances as they left. she now stands where they once were, watching you with badly-disguised intrigue.

you clear your throat and feel your cheeks and neck blaze, folding the cloth around your hips tighter. "i'm sorry. i meant entirely."

perhaps it is your imagination, but you think you spot a tinge of pink wash over her features. she finds sudden interest in the knots and grain of the floor. "the lord father instructed that you were not to be left alone in case you required immediate medical attention. you are evidently still in pain, so i must protest."

"ah." you swallow, and your mouth is dry. "p-perhaps… you could turn around, then?"

she glances up, as if to say something, but eventually nods, bobbing in a small curtsy before turning to face the wall.

as quickly as your aching body will allow, you shuffle off of the bed and dress yourself in finer clothes than you have ever worn before. the cloth is soft and sits finely against your skin like a baby's breath. you are so used to abrasive linens that you almost feel more naked than before.

"you found my boots."

aemma turns around – she almost regrets it, spying the last sliver of skin before white cloth falls over it like the pull of curtains. it is more titillating than seeing the entirety of you bare. "o-oh – yes, one of the servant boys found them downstream."

"ah, thank you. and my uniform, miss," you glance up at her, leaning heavily against the bed poster to slip on your boots, "do you know what happened to it?"

"they're with the hold's tailor. i heard it took quite the beating."

"that could be said," you mumble, straightening up at last. your side twinges with pain, but you attempt a smile. "well, s'pose it's time to meet your lord. i've got to thank my saviours."

it is just turning to twilight, and the hazy golden sun on the horizon feels like little more than a memory. candles light the path past gold-spun tapestries and gleaming windows. aemma leads you to a grand dining room, reminiscent of castles and times long gone. she halts by the entrance, curtsies to you, and hurries away without another word, which you find strange as she had been a pleasant conversationalist when helping you through the halls and down the stairs.

"the soldier awakens at last. how do you feel?"

you glance away from aemma's retreating figure. at the head of the long dining table is an older man with sharp eyes and a natural severity about him. seated beside him is a younger man, around your age, staring into his plate with his hands folded in his lap. you step forward cautiously, and a male servant pulls out a chair on the older man's other side. the lord gestures at it, watching you carefully.

"well, milord; thank you," you answer, taking a seat and quietly thanking the servant who readied it in the first place. he bows but does not otherwise acknowledge you, his gaze on the ground as he slinks back into the shadows of the dining room.

"you were asleep for quite some time. my son doubted you would live." he gestures to the young man across from you, whose romantic dark curls are loose over his forehead. "i am glad you are feeling strong enough to join us for supper. i trust that the girls took care of you?"

"yes, milord," you reply, glancing over the table almost longingly. you swallow the saliva building in your mouth. silver platters are laden heavy with dark ox roasts, honeyed lamb shanks, roasted salmon fillets, sausages and baked potatoes, and braised vegetable stews steaming hot. ruby wine is poured into silver goblets. you have never seen so much food at once in your life.

"the war has yet to touch us. we have plenty to share," the lord informs, his voice almost kind. "how long has it been since you have last eaten, soldier?"

your throat bobs before speaking. "ah… four days, maybe, including my time spent here."

the man's brow arches. "your general did not feed you before battle?"

"no, milord. they ambushed us before our rations were due." you glance at the young man. he has yet to look up, or indeed even move. "we… had issues with our supplies. weevils in the grain, rats in the captains' meat. we turned from two meals a day, to one a day, then one every two." you pause. "i don't think one more meal would have saved us."

the room falls silent, with only the crackling of the fireplace breaking the stillness. green wood pops in the flames.

"well, don't wait for me to begin," says the lord suddenly, shifting comfortably in his seat and reaching for a leg of ox, stabbing it with a knife and lifting it onto his plate. he piles his plate high with potatoes and mash. the action seems to spur on his son, who jolts into motion like a creaking old waterwheel, movements slow and measured. "tell us your name, soldier. i'd like to know the name and story of our guest. now, news comes to us slowly in this isolated place. how fares the war effort?"

glancing down, you realise exactly how many pieces of cutlery there are. knives and forks, spoons and little spoons, all slightly different in shape or size. you pause, hand hovering over the knives, nerves tightening in your chest.

a soft cough. you glance up.

across from you, the son rests his delicate fingers on the outermost knife and fork, using them to carry a richly-glazed steak onto his plate. he chooses a large spoon, fingers lingering on it where it sits on the table, and places it into his bowl of stew.

his gaze lifts to meet yours and just as quickly, a butterfly's flap of wings, he glances away. his cheeks are dusted pink, the rosy colour like gold on his sun-warmed skin.

you copy him. you take a slab of steak from the dish right in front of you. you are starving, but everything about this manor makes you feel small, and you fear taking more than you are offered. you give them your name, for it is the only thing you truly own in these foreign lands.

"the war?" you continue, trying to shake the tremor from your voice. "i wouldn't know, milord. the captains don't tell us much. it's all the same – i've fought in three different battles. this was the third. they give their speeches about king and country, and then we fight. it is noble," you say hastily, "but i am not a warrior. not many of us were. the enemy outnumbered us, outskilled us, and when the poppy fields lay silent, they piled the bodies of all our fallen and made pyres out of us."

"such would explain the scorch marks on your clothes." the lord nods. he leans in, and you fight the urge to lean away. "i shall ask the question we all ask ourselves, if you would not mind. how did you survive such a massacre?"

you glance at the son. he eats quietly, forking small chunks of meat into his mouth. you glance away. "i remember a spear. it was tipped… with a blue and white flag. it waved in the black sky as i looked up at it." you frown. "i'd never seen one like it before."

"the temerian lilies," he replies, almost approvingly. "you must have been some opponent – if the flagbearer loses his flag, it is a great shame to the army. it must be held aloft at all times. he would rather die than lose it to the enemy."

you lift a shoulder. the other aches too much to try. "they pulled it out of me after, then dragged me to a pile of corpses. i… don't remember much, but i remember them squabbling over another soldier's brooch for a while. i only wanted to escape the stench of death." you survey the feast laid out before you. "i s'pose i have."

"then we shall celebrate that," hums the lord, lifting his goblet of wine. "my son was the one who found you floating down the river. he said you were cold as ice and only recognised you from the flag you had sewn into your coat. it is brave to carry your homeland's colours when fighting for their conquerors."

"it was a small creature comfort," you respond as nonchalantly as you can. "they could punish me all they liked, but could never kill me. they needed every man in their ranks."

the lord raises his brows, and something like admiration crosses his features. he glances at his son and that admiration turns into a tiny downturn of the lips. he turns back to you. "not a warrior, you say, yet you stand with the united courage of a battalion. who was your father?"

you notice how his son stills, holding the steak on his tongue behind his lips for a long moment. he closes his eyes and with a deep inhale, resumes eating, as if unaffected.

"just a farmer," you say, diverting your gaze. "dead, long past. my ma raised the rest of us – six boys. i was their second. when the army came knocking, askin' for sons, i went, gave them my name. my older brother knew how to count, how to run the mill. i couldn't let them take him, especially not from the little ones – after da died and ma got sick, he was all they had." you tap the edge of the silver plate with your finger thoughtfully. "i imagined i'd either die or be done after one battle, so i'd be brought home quick regardless. now… it's been four years."

then, the servants bring out a round white cake, slices set down around the table – what a perfect intermission. you have made it rather impossible to return to frivolity with your story, and you gaze down at the cake in front of you. you assume this is their dessert, so quaint and pretty on its little silver plate, but you have little idea of how to go about eating one. something so small must require a similarly-sized utensil. is it the tiny spoon? the tiny knife?

you lift your eyes to the young man across from you. he is already watching, eyes large and dark. he picks up a small three-tined fork from the inner edge, tilting it towards you to show you its appearance, the little notch on the left prong. this time, he doesn't look away, and you have enough time to offer a grateful smile, however brief. he blinks owlishly, almost in surprise, before lowering his gaze again.

it is unfortunate. you would not mind looking at him more. he is undoubtedly beautiful, almost pretty, the sort of face people would immortalise in myths and paintings on temple walls – a kind of elven face, like those that turn goddesses to jealousy and gods to obsession.

you spend the rest of the meal stealing glances at each other when you think the other is not watching. he is far more successful than you.

—

from behind a balcony's closed doors, taehyung gazes up at the crescent moon hanging high in the sky, surrounded by pale stars glittering in the blanket of darkness. he cannot stop thinking about the shy farmer's boy, his accent unfamiliarly pleasant – the vowels are soft and blurred, with each consonant crisp and clear. it makes for a bouncing sort of melody to his voice, one that draws taehyung deeper into his song.

he sighs softly and turns away from the night's landscape, uncrossing his arms and meandering through the empty halls. most of the servants are already tucked away, and his father drowns himself alone in old letters and wine.

in loose trousers and a looser white shirt, the vee of the collared neck laced with string, he finds himself in his library, rich and warm from a hearth already lit. curious. he shuts the open double doors behind him quietly to keep the heat from dissipating into the night.

his silent feet carry him through the aisles, where the shelves brush the ceiling with books and ladders. a walkway surrounds the room, essentially giving it a second level.

silhouetted black against the white glow of the moon beyond the arched window, a familiarly unfamiliar figure stands in silence, gaze turned up towards the heavens beyond the lines of books and old tomes.

standing in this still and quiet room, statue-esque in the way of classics, taehyung cannot help the journey of his gaze wandering up and down the planes of your body, painting to himself the sturdiness of your shoulders, the perfect balance between your booted feet. there is a severity about you he recognises in his own father – he sees it in your arms, tucked behind your back, and the practised way of standing that arches the spine just so to emphasise the broadness of the chest. yet, he knows gentleness when he sees it, and he finds it in the almost childlike awe in your expression, aimed up at his personal collection.

he steps out, the shadows melting from him like the shedding feathers of a raven. "what are you doing in my library?"

you startle, and taehyung almost regrets interrupting you. coward that he is, he would rather watch from afar than bring you out of that handsome serenity.

"f-forgive me, sir," you stammer, twisting your hands together as you incline in an awkward half-bow, half-stumble, evidently having forgotten the extent of your injuries as your expression tightens and your hand brushes over your side. "i didn't know it was yours. the – the doors were open, and i—"

"invited yourself in," he finishes.

"i – yes, sir…"

before you, he stands perfectly still. you could fool yourself into thinking his heart does not beat, for he is pale in the moonlight and beautifully dark-haired, with eyes like midnight lakes and lips like a rose.

you tear your gaze from his, breaking your trance. you begin to move past him. "forgive me, milord. i shan't interrupt you."

his hand darts out, wrapping itself around your wrist. serpentine, it slides up your arm and grips your bicep, forming creases in the cloth.

"you shouldn't move so quickly. you're injured." he turns his gaze on you. "you'd leave so soon?"

"ah…" you flounder, helpless. "if the lord wish it so."

his searching gaze strips your body bare. you feel it prod your soul when his eyes meet yours. his eyes scan your face, and he reaches up with his other hand, brushing it lightly against the slope of your jaw. his skin is warm and tender-soft. your breath hitches.

"the maids missed a spot when shaving," he mutters, pressing his fingers against the patch of half-shorn stubble left on the soft underside of your chin. "a man would do it better."

all at once, he drops his hand and looks away. "i am no lord," he replies, his low, rich voice like waves lapping at the sides of a ship, almost careless. "just his son."

you hesitate, your heartbeat still in your ears. "th-then what should i call you, sir?"

he glances down where bandages hide the hole in your body. "just 'taehyung' will do," he says softly, eyes lifting again. he unravels his arm from yours, turning fully towards you. "you may stay – as long as you are quiet."

he moves away, so graceful he may as well have floated. his fingers glide over the covers like bumps of the spine, and they pluck a small yellow book from the shelf. he opens it, already turning to the first page even before he finds a chair to sit in. he curls up in front of the grand fireplace, the furry hide of a brown bear thrown across the floor in front of it.

for a while, you simply watch him and listen to the crackling of the fire. his slim fingers glide across the pages to turn them, the edge of the page caught gently on the pad of his thumb.

bathed in the yellow and orange hues of the fire, the lord's son is every bit as regal as northerners are said to be – hair like calligraphy ink, cheekbones fine, slim bodies tall and lithe. you could lose yourself in his cold, gentle darkness.

that burbling feeling of being out of place rises to the surface, worse than when you sat before the lord at his table. you and your callused palms, your worn and labour-worked body. you should not be here.

"you know you can choose a book, yes? i don't mind." he glances up. "forgive the mess. i can help. what do you like to read?"

"i'm sorry, sir," you murmur, averting your gaze. "i can't read."

it seems he'd forgotten your roots. he blinks. "oh. my apologies. but if not to read, what interested you about my library?"

"ah," you chuckle, scratching your head. "i've just never seen so many books in one place. travelling merchants would display some, but never like this."

"i see." he surveys you intensely, then glances away and clears his throat. he shifts in his seat, crossing and uncrossing his legs. at last, he says stiffly, "if you'd like… i can… read to you."

the silence is thick with more than just the fire's heat. it is hard to know taehyung's hot face is not because of the fire, and he is grateful.

"if milord wishes to," you reply quietly, watching him for any twitch of his expression that may give him away.

"of course. i wouldn't offer it if i didn't." he gestures to the chaise beside him. "sit."

you step into the semicircle of light afforded by the fireplace, licked by tendrils of warmth, and ease yourself into the chair with a soft grunt, holding your side. "milord is as kind as he is beautiful."

his eyes flicker down to your lap. "i wish you wouldn't call me that," he says suddenly, a little sharper. "can i not be called my own name in my home?"

your mouth opens and closes. after a moment, you reply softly, "i meant no offence. it just feels… wrong."

slowly, he exhales, closing his eyes and his book. he places a hand over its cover. "all of my life has felt wrong. everything is wrong no matter what i do – who i wish to be, the company i keep, the fears i carry… the love i desire." he pauses, opening his eyes to your earnest expression. he diverts his gaze to the yellow-gold cover of the book. "what more can one last wrong hurt?"

"i'm sorry," you whisper. "perhaps i can start over." you straighten slightly, offering a crooked half-smile. "what do you want to read to me, taehyung?"

he does not disagree that his name sounds strange coming from another's mouth, but he cannot remember the last time it was used by anyone else. he hums and rises to his feet, coming to stand over you in front of the fire; his shadow cast over your body deepens the maturity of your features.

"when you said i was beautiful," he asks, "did you mean it?"

staring up at him, you can do nothing but tilt your head in bewilderment. "yes. you are fair and handsome."

taehyung chooses his next words carefully. "if… i were a girl," he decides, clasping his book over his stomach with straight arms, "would it be a different sort of beauty?"

you frown, shaping an approximation of a girl with taehyung's features in your mind. "maybe. but she would still be beautiful if she was you." you shake your head, dispelling morphing images of regal dark-haired daughters. you hide your warm cheeks behind an apologetic smile. "i'm sorry. i don't know much. i don't usually deal with such thoughts."

but it was enough for taehyung. slowly, as if not to frighten you, he lowers himself, grasping the chaise's rests and draping himself gently over your lap. he watches your face all the while, his heart beating faster at the shock and nervousness that cross your face in a single second.

"is this… is this alright?" he whispers, placing his hand against your chest.

your adam's apple bobs, your hands hovering an inch off of his body as if he is made of glass. gently, you place one on taehyung's knee and the other behind his back, and glance up at him.

"perhaps you can sit closer," you murmur, eyes wide and searching, "so you may not fall."

taehyung smiles, then – the first smile of his you have ever seen. it is sweet, and crinkles the corners of his eyes. it makes your heart swell.

he hides his smile in his chest, his knuckles brushing the corner of his lips. he lifts his eyes, and a sliver of hope twinkles in them. "shall i read to you, then? i will give you a synopsis of each story so you may choose your favourite."

"please," you murmur, settling back in the chair and sliding your hand higher up taehyung's thigh so he may be more comfortable. "do whatever you wish."

"'whatever'?" he hums, and with a flippant little kick, throws off his boots to the ground, where they thump carelessly. he meets your eyes and falls into a nervous smile, tucking his bare feet against your leg and resting his temple against your shoulder. his hair is still slightly damp at the ends from his earlier evening bath. "then you wouldn't mind this, would you?"

"of course not," you whisper, biting back a shy, embarrassed smile. you are too old to be acting like this, especially with the only son of a wealthy lord, but the rush of excitement from seeing such a reticent man blossom and show his petals to you is too much to keep you away. "i am only a farmer's boy, taehyung. anything with someone like you is… a dream."

at the mention of his name, his smile widens slightly and a pinkness warms the apples of his cheeks. he busies himself with opening the book and flipping through its contents to find the correct page. he presses his thumb against the spine between the pages.

"here." he taps the words on the page. "this story is one my mother used to read to me. a princess is trapped in a tower, guarded by a dragon in an ever-changing thorn maze, and a brave, handsome knight rescues her. they are married and live happily ever after."

he looks up at you, searching for a reaction, and you can only give a breathy laugh in return, still dizzy with the idea that someone like taehyung could ever be interested in someone like you. "are you sure you should be telling me these stories? i'm not a princess or a brave knight. i'm plain."

"perhaps. but do you know who else was seen as plain?" he taps your chest. "the dragon, disguised as a statue. and you, strong dragon, will protect the princess," he taps his own chest, "from all the boredom and politics of castle life."

"don't you have other, richer boys chasing you?" you ask, because you know your place. "your own knight? i don't see what i offer that they can't."

he licks his lips, setting aside the small book on a round side table and swinging his legs over your lap to straddle you. reading it is the last thing on his mind. "i do, of course. but it is like you said – they are boys. when their wooden sword chips, they get a new one." he trails his fingers lightly down the centre of your chest, wide and strong, and tentatively cups what is between your legs. he leans in, long-lashed brown eyes flickering down to your lips. "i want more than that."

"i—" your breath hitches as he squeezes gently, learning its shape and heft with deft fingers. "a-are we allowed to…? i am a stranger in strange lands with nothing to my name."

he chuckles, pressing his forehead against yours. his soft hair curtains your eyes. "allowed? no. but when a handsome soldier from far away falls into my lap, what else is a man to do?" he draws his thumb over your jawline, stroking your cheek. he lowers his lips to yours, hot breath sweet with honeyed treats. with the faintest thread of a breath, he whispers, "may i?"

with your heartbeat thudding in your ears, your head inclines, and taehyung wraps his arms around your shoulders and pushes his lips to yours.

his moan is sweet and starved as you kiss back to the best of your ability, your hands falling naturally about his waist. his lips are plump and warm, pillowy, and slicken with saliva as he deepens it, cupping the back of your head and pressing himself higher onto your body. he is desperate and dominating, sitting in your lap and rolling his hips into yours. you can feel his excitement through the cotton of his trousers.

when you part regretfully, gulping down air, he cups your face, his eyes dark yet gentle. he licks his shining lips, parted to pant. "you seem apprehensive. have you ever done this with a man?"

you wipe your lips with your thumb, tongue swiping over them in an almost bewildered motion. your eyes are wide. "a-ah… no. not with… anyone…"

"not even a girl?" he cannot help the surprise that coats his tone.

you shake your head, face aflame. "i never… my older brother had my father's charm. he was the one they all wanted, strong but lean. i was too much of a bull. they had fantasies of princes, and he was closer to it than i."

deeply and tenderly, he kisses you again. "it only means i won't have to fight anyone to call you mine." he brushes his thumb over your lips. "that suits me just fine. i was never the fighting sort."

he sits up on your lap, thighs bracketing yours. his bare feet tuck beneath him under his knees. when his palm grazes the front of your trousers, your breath hitches in your chest, and taehyung gives you a soft, if coy, grin. "i'll be gentle," he promises. he tugs slightly on the laces of the waist. "may i?"

mutely, you nod, your words sinking into the whirling depths of his eyes. his deft fingers undo the laces with ease and he pulls the thick cloth down your waist, tracing the vee of your hips with a pleased breath. he reaches in, lifting his gaze to gauge your expression. your chest rises and falls rapidly, and your knuckles are tensed on the chaise's armrest. the other arm is tucked tightly by your side.

"don't be nervous," he whispers, stroking you gently in your trousers. it twitches in his palm. "place your hands on my waist, darling. good. very good."

hesitantly, your hands graze his hips, sliding up to grip his slender waist. you splay a hand beside his waist, measuring it against him with fascination. he is slim and lovely… like the city nobles' soft-palmed daughters. you had noticed his hands during supper but hadn't the room to mull over them then, though now you do. they are square, masculine, but slender and fine-veined. his nails are clean and cut short, with a thin crescent of white at the ends.

he could not have been more perfect if he tried.

he slides his fist up to the tip of your cock, rubbing his thumb against the slit and the smooth skin. you are mostly soft, but still impressive – the number of taehyung's clandestine trysts have lent him a certain experience when it comes to men.

you have reinforced your place as his favourite.

"i see why they call you a bull," he says slyly, squeezing your shaft as his fist sinks down on it. "they just don't know how to tame you."

your face floods with heat as you stutter meaninglessly. your grip tightens on taehyung's hips and a single slant of a thought marvels at how delicate he feels in your palms.

"be still, my darling," he murmurs, "and be at ease. you are no longer at war. you can close your eyes and hold me without fear. nothing will happen unless we want it to."

his voice, like syrup, melts the frantic whirlwind of thoughts in your head. you cannot help but want to believe him. "you make it sound so simple. i want to believe you."

"why can't it be?" he tilts his head, glancing down and stroking you contentedly. he swipes his thumb over the slit, where a bead of precome bubbles. oil – from a small bottle you only now spot in taehyung's palm – smooths each stroke of your shaft. "the world is so complicated. affection can afford to be simple."

he lets go for a moment to step back, sliding his trousers down his hips and calves and tossing them aside on the chaise. he flicks his dark hair and tucks a lock over his ear as he reassumes his place on your lap, pressing his chest against yours and tugging your cock to throb against the curve of his ass. the silk of his white shirt is cool and light against your hot skin.

his lips ghost over the shell of your ear as his hips roll languidly. he whispers, "do you want this?"

do you want more? the question is unasked, but you hear it anyway.

"i do, yes. please," you reply immediately, your voice rough with desire. your hands trail over his hips and tuck beneath the long hem of his shirt to caress his warm, creamy thighs, a feeling that traps your breath in your throat. you force out a sigh, shaky, and rest your forehead against taehyung's shoulder. he hushes you and cups the back of your head, reaching with his other hand behind himself to ease you inside his warmth.

taehyung's head tips back with a slow exhale, shuddering as you pulse with heat inside of him. he watches you closely, committing to memory the way your brows pinch and your mouth falls open as your grasp tightens, trembling, around his waist.

"do you like that?" he whispers, breathy. he bounces shallowly, grinding his hips into yours. "how do you feel?"

"good," you choke out through a groan. your hand slides down to the dip in his back, trying not to seem too eager as it cups his ass. "oh, fuck…"

"don't hold back for me," he murmurs, hips quickening. he moans in surprise as you buck up into him, thighs meeting his ass. the slap of your balls against his ass is obscene, and he scrambles to cling onto your shoulders for balance.

"wait – wait, wait," he gasps, lashes fluttering as your cock kisses that spot inside of him that burns pleasure through his guts.

you stop immediately, sliding your hand up his side. "i'm sorry! are you alright?"

he huffs a laugh, panting softly, and nods. "you're injured, darling. don't waste the good work we put into putting you back together. sit back – i will take care of you, understand?"

"a-ah…" your face burns with heat. "all right. whatever milord desires."

"very good." he presses down on your hips gently, his hands between his thighs. he lifts himself off of your cock until only the tip rests against his hole, then sinks down on it in one smooth motion. a strangled noise escapes your throat as you scramble to hold onto him. his heat grips your shaft like a vice, gummy walls clamping down around you with each drop of his hips.

he moans when your fingers dig into the sensitive skin of his hips, sweat gathering in the small of his back. the fireplace crackles softly, the air warm and sweet with the smell of sex.

he gathers his shirt in his hands about his ribs, revealing his dusky cock, swollen with need. he takes your hand and curls your fingers around his shaft, his eyes fluttering and lips parting as you tighten it. your callused palms drag deliciously against his veins and he grips your wrist with a soft groan, bouncing on your lap in such a way that he thrusts into the warm tunnel of your fist.

carefully, you stroke his cock, cautious about rubbing raw or tearing his skin. wealthy boys are a different breed – so much softer, easier to hurt. the smell of him, sweet and musky, hangs in the air around him, enveloping you when he draws close – crushed petals, herbs, leaves. it seems foreign, or at least the mixture does, for you cannot quite place your finger on it – then again, what do you know of luxuries like this?

"you are doing well," taehyung praises, gasping as you flick the head of his cock with your thumb. "oh, yes… f-fast learner, hm? oh!"

a jerk of your hips has him jolting forward, his cock spurting a sudden white rope onto your stomach. he purrs, bracing against your chest and slamming his hips down on your cock to slicken him with your pleasure. it works, and he seems unduly proud of himself when your cock throbs and leaks, forming a white ring around the hilt that thickens with each bounce of his ass.

"milord – milord," you gasp, a tiny pathetic noise that does not match your appearance, "please – i'm—"

"let go," he demands, a breathy moan escaping his lips. he closes his eyes and lets out a punched groan as your cock carves into his insides, deeper than any other man had ever touched. his reddened cock throbs, slit pouring precome over his belly and thighs. the pleasure curls around his thoughts, his head spinning from it, and he feels your stomach tense under his palms.

you spill into him with a deep, satisfied growl, head tipping back as he arches against you. your hips roll up against his and the coil tightening in his belly snaps at the sight of you so wrecked from so little. he cries out, ropes of white streaking across your shirt, and his hips stutter and roll, milking your pleasure for his own like a succubus. he presses his ass into your lap, white teeth sinking into his plump lower lip, and his eyes roll as the thick warmth fills him up to the brim.

at last, he slumps against your chest, thighs trembling and tensing as he hums softly into your neck. he buries his nose in the soft, warm skin, and cups your cheek to place a soft kiss on the corner of your jaw.

"mm… good," he purrs, smiling with tender satisfaction. "i – i shall bring you to your… mm… room. it is just down the hall from my own... should you wish to see me, you only need to knock." his breath hitches as he raises his hips slowly, hole twitching around your shaft, and when it pops out, a steady stream of come leaks from him, staining his tanned skin. he sighs, closing his eyes to the slowing of your heartbeat. "but i think i will stay here for a time, if you don't mind. just until i – until i regain feeling and control of my legs."

"is that… is that normal?" you ask, a tiny panting tremor in your voice. "to lose feeling like that?"

taehyung laughs into your neck, eyes crinkling. "sometimes, when i feel overwhelmed. it is no fault of yours – you are just… big. don't worry. i liked it."

he shifts in your lap to get comfortable but pauses as something pokes his thigh. a sly smile spreads across his fine features, his fingers lifting to trace your jaw and tip your gaze to his own. he purrs, "is that for me, love? excited again?"

you gulp, unable to tear your stare from his despite the embarrassment clawing at your throat. "i – i…"

"handsome and energetic. i'm a lucky man." he laughs softly, reaching behind himself and groping your hard cock with a low moan. "i myself have been told i'm rather voracious. perhaps you will be the first to keep up with me."

he lowers himself on your cock, head tipping back as he teases himself with the thick head. his dick twitches.

"what say you to a change of scenery?" he asks coyly, perfectly content with your ragged-breath silence. every word you might have said disintegrates on your tongue when he turns around, arching his back and pinning your cock to your stomach. shining precome smears along the cleft of his ass.

his body, carved out of shadows by the fire, rocks and rolls like a ship in the harbour when all its crew are asleep. with an encouraging smile, he takes your hands and places them on his hips, pressing on them to guide you to control his body. he hums softly as you squeeze his hips and spread his asscheeks, your breath shaky as he angles his messy hole against your leaking tip.

he watches your face with gentle eyes as he sinks down on your cock, his warm, wet hole swallowing up your shaft like he was made for it. you jump slightly when his ass firmly meets your lap, taking you hungrily until the hilt, and if he were a lesser man, your expression alone would have been enough to tip him over the edge. he sears every line of your face, every edge and plane, into the backs of his eyelids. it will make for fine company on lonely nights.

you speak for the first time in a while. "p-please…" you whisper hoarsely, blunt nails digging into his smooth, unmarred skin, leaving crescent moons in your wake. "please, move."

"ah, but you are badly hurt… i must take my time with you. mustn't alert the servants, either, for they'd certainly report to my father what they've seen." taehyung giggles to himself, gnawing on his lower lip in an effort to subdue his grin. he grinds down into your lap in circles, relishing in the pleasured, impatient groans that escape your throat. "he'd toss you out in an instant, and we cannot have that! i haven't yet had my fill of you."

"a-are you always so… playful with your men, taehyung?" you ask, voice slightly strained. you watch your cock vanish into him, over and over again. the sound that is made when he bounces on your lap is obscene and filthy. your heart stirs with desire.

"mmh – no. my past conquests have not been as – as alluring as you," he gasps, wrapping his hand around his throbbing cock, thumb rubbing circles over the ridge of his tip. "mostly, they bore me. you, however – you're more than a cock i can use to please myself, if i may speak so crudely."

"i – ah – th-think i should be grateful, then…?" you reply uncertainly.

"yes. unless, of course, you enjoy that sort of game… but tonight is about simplicity," he breathes, his skin tingling where your rough palms glide over his thighs, soft as cream. "we have only so long until the sun rises and the servants wake. i want to spend that time with you – learning your homeland's ballads and epics, your favourite flower, where i can touch to make you melt…"

he looses an airy laugh as your grip tightens on his waist, his shirt folded up between your fingers to reveal the curve of his spine and ass. you drag him down onto your cock roughly and he keens, eyes rolling back briefly. "ooh, y-you like that, don't you? ah—!"

already he is so sensitive. nowhere else has he felt pleasure like this – where his body is treated as more than a means to an end. he had been completely content with that when he entered this library, agreeable to the idea that you might like him only for what he can give you. but he swears – he swears on the old gods and the new – that the way you press your nose into the curve of his neck, the way you stroke him thin and thick tight and loose – caring, properly, for his own high – means your attraction is more than fleeting.

years of ending up alone in empty beds have made him soft. lonely. desperate. perhaps he is reading into things too deeply, as he always does – poor boy, always a poet. the backs of his eyes sting with hot tears as his tightly-controlled leash snaps, making him cry out, writhe, and shudder, knees and elbows buckling under the weight of his orgasm.

you catch him in your arms before he can slip, pulling him backwards towards your chest. it is warm, your throat shining with sweat, and he can feel the burning fever of your body through your clothes. still, you do not let go, push him away – you cradle him close, your heart thudding through your ribcage and into his own.

one of your hands tugs languidly at his cock, milking his pleasure from him. you watch quietly as it spills over your knuckles, your lips pressed against his sweat-slick shoulder, and help him lift his hips off of your cock.

for the first time in what feels like hours, taehyung takes a deep, full breath of air. he cups your face in a hand and smiles, wide and content.

"i didn't believe you could be more beautiful," you murmur, words slightly clipped at the end from a lack of breath. "i've never been happier to be wrong."

he opens his eyes with a flutter of lashes, pleasantly surprised. "haven't i already let you take me?"

"what do you mean?" you ask with a frown, tilting your head. your thoughts are foggy with warm laziness. the fire's heat does not help. "taehyung?"

the sound of his name almost startles him. he sits up, and a pleasurable ache sparks up his spine. he sucks in a deep breath. "you really… truly think that of me?"

you blink slowly, like a cat, and the fire's flames dance in your eyes. "i am a simple soldier. lies are above a man like me."

"you're more than that," he replies immediately, turning around on your lap to face you properly. "if you were just a soldier, you would have died on that battlefield. forgive me, but you had all the time to die on your way down the river. still, you survived." his voice softens, and he fiddles with your collar, straightening it and folding it down. "i am glad you did. i am glad to have met you."

"ah…" gently, you tug his shirt down, allowing him the return of some of his dignity, though he does not seem to care. "that reminds me – i shouldn't waste much time here. i should report to the general."

"for what?" taehyung scoffs, and it sounds… hurt. he glances away. "am i so repugnant you would rather march thirty miles a day in mud-soaked boots than stay here with me?"

"no!" you protest, sitting up as best you can with the growing ache in your side. you had been too caught up in the moment to remember it, and now your body reminds you jealously. "t'ain't that, taehyung. you are intelligent and kind and if we were in my homeland, i wouldn't hesitate to ask your hand. but surely you have a girl you're supposed to marry?"

"no, not at the moment. despite what he says, my father still grieves my mother. it will be a while yet before he'll allow another woman into the house." he traces shapes into your skin. "i will free you from the servitude of the evil king who bound you, and together, princess and dragon will live freely, with the wind in their hair and the sun on their backs."

at first, you smile at the newfound softness of his voice, but freeze. "free… of servitude?"

taehyung watches you, draping his legs over the other side of the armchair, kicking his feet lazily. his eyes are dark and watchful. "as i know it, the king's oath swears that you are only relieved of your duty when you give your blood for his and fall in battle against his enemies. have you not satisfied these requirements?"

"i may be no scholar, but i'm near certain that to 'fall in battle' means to die in it."

"have you not satisfied these requirements?" he repeats, firmer. "our doctors and priests said you were dead when i brought you to them. they said you may have been alive when i found you, but somewhere between the riverbank and their stone table marked the spot where you died. as they proclaimed this, you coughed again, and nobody could deny me this time when i said you were very clearly alive."

"you are telling me that i died… and returned? like a saint?" you ask sceptically.

"i only tell you what our doctors told me."

for a while, you are silent. determination creases taehyung's brow, and you cannot hold in the disbelieving laugh that erupts from you, though it morphs into a groan of pain in the middle. taehyung sits up and presses his palm to your cheek, his eyes so vivid and certain.

"you have already died, and thus retain no obligations to the crown," he whispers. his gaze scours your face. "you are free. free to stay here. live here…"

with me.

your heart drops into your stomach. you grip his waist, shifting in the velvet chaise. "i'm…"

"agree. agree to it. even if i cannot bear your children, we will sleep in the same bed, take walks in the wheat fields, eat and drink every meal together. you won't fear for your life every day. and as soon as the war ends and they open the trade routes to your home, i shall book passage on a ship and take you there. you may stay, if you wish. i won't deny you."

"then why offer at all?" you ask quietly. "if you think i'll leave you the moment i can, why would you even try?"

"i can hope, can i not? by all accounts our kings have no desire to cease any time soon. perhaps you will learn to love me in time." he smiles, faint, and averts his gaze. "otherwise, i will be glad to help another soul. you will survive the war and return to your family, whole and healthy. out here, away from people, i have little chance to do something so good and noble."

"and if i grow restless? if i want to do something with my hands?"

he tilts his head thoughtfully. "how is your aim?"

"fair, i s'pose. haven't missed when it's important."

"the lord's hunter grows old," he proclaims. "he can teach you what he knows, and if you like, you may take up the title once he can no longer ride and shoot. besides that, there is always work to be done in the fields and granary – perhaps you'll find some comfort in the farms?"

you think about it, long and hard. in essence you would be a prisoner at his beck and call, though if taehyung tells the truth and is as earnest as he appears, perhaps you'll find freedom and enough work to fill your days with…

you give your answer, and taehyung's smile is like the sun.

#top male reader #x male reader #male reader #dom male reader #dom reader #top reader #bts x male reader #bottom bts #bottom taehyung #taehyung x male reader #kpop x male reader #bts x reader #kpop x reader #bts smut #taehyung smut

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paceypeternathanslawyer · 10 months ago

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One Tree Hill Meme {40/187} Season 2 Episode 18: The Lonesome Road Top 2 Favorite Characters Per Episode (As voted by fans on TVTime.com)

Coach Whitey Durham (59%)

Jake Jagielski (23%)

(Percentages as of April 2024)

#one tree hill #one tree hill gifset series #top two characters edits #oth edits #one tree hill edits #coach whitey #coach durham #whitey durham #brian durham #barry corbin #jake jagielski #bryan greenberg #the lonesome road #the wb #the cw #my gifs

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twirlyleafs · 3 months ago

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Falling apart, alone.

Lando Norris x reader

Summary: The season has been brutal, everyone could see it. Everyone could see Lando struggling. You could see it too, you just didn’t know how to help him when he so clearly didn’t want your help. PART 2

TW: bad mental health, anger, helplessness.

Notes: all I want in life is for Lando to be happy ngl I love that boy. Also sorry max <3 ALSO I got an anonymous tip to add summaries so I’m trying that thank u anon!! xx

~~~~

The sun hung low in the sky, illuminating the almost unbelievably blue water and bouncing off the golden cliffs. Your eyes had been caught out the window ever since you got out along the coastline, Lando maneuvering the car along the squiggly road. The blur of golden hues, olive trees and colorful villas had you let out a content sigh.

The break couldn’t have come at a better time. That’s the thought that constantly ran through your mind. This break, a three week break from everything that racing and f1 brought with it, came at the last minute and you couldn’t be more grateful. The season was grueling, both physically and mentally. You’d watched Lando push himself harder than ever, the pride of being on top overshadowed by a desire to do better. You could see how the weight of expectations, both others and his own, dragged him down like an anchor and you felt for him. His smiles had started to falter and the usually bright light in his eyes had been dimmed these past few months, only getting worse with each race weekend. He needed this, time away from the spotlight and the relentless scrutiny from the media. Time to just relax and be reminded that he’s loved, loved and appreciated. Max and P were already waiting for you at the villa you’d rented for the week, a little house tucked into the Italian hills. When Max brought it up as a suggestion you’d immediately accepted, not even giving Lando the chance to decline. Max was his safe space just as much as you were and the more people to support him the better, you thought. You hadn’t told Lando this of course, instead expressing how much you’d always wanted to rent a house on the Italian coast, but some part of you still believed he knew this was mostly for him. For his health.

You glanced over at him in the drivers seat, one hand securely on the steering wheel and the other resting on the console between you. His curls had gotten longer recently, almost dropping down over his eyebrows, and you made a mental note to offer to cut his hair while you were here. If he’d let you. Your heart ached at the tightness of his jaw and you gently reached over to wrap your fingers around his larger ones. Lando immediately glanced over at you, a small smile tugging at his lips as he flipped his hand to intertwine with yours.

“What?” He asked softly. “Why are you staring?”

“Nothing.” You smiled, leaned over to press a gentle kiss against his shoulder. “I’m just excited. We’re almost there, right?” When Lando nodded you let out a soft breath. “I’m happy we’re doing this. It’s going to be so nice.”

“Me too.” Landos smile had grown, although there was a flicker of something else in his eyes. Something somber. He brought your hand over to press a quick series of kisses against it before focusing back on the road, the silence settling in the car again. Just a few minutes later you rolled to a stop outside the villa, the epitome of picturesque with pale stone walls and green shutters surrounded by cypress trees. The front door opened just as you stepped out of the car, both Max and Pietra slipping out with huge smiles on their faces. You beamed as P skipped down the steps, hurrying over to wrap you up in a hug and greeting you with the type of enthusiasm that made you feel welcome and wanted.

“You’re late.” Max teased loudly as he offered you a hug, P moving to lovingly greet Lando.

“We took the longer route, more scenery.” Lando quipped back, backing away as Max approached him. You stopped to watch them, a smile tugging at your lips when you heard Lando let out a laugh as Max grabbed him in a playful headlock. Maxs laugh was louder, ruffling Landos hair before he finally managed to wrangle himself free. Watching them you felt a flicker off hope. If Max could pull a laugh from Lando after thirty seconds, maybe a week together would really do Lando some good.

The first few days in the villa passed in a haze of slow mornings and lazy afternoons, the four of you enjoying the quiet and each other’s company. Lando and Max made it a routine to take a morning run together while you and P prepared breakfast, all of you eating together on the patio when they got back. The breakfasts usually went on way onto midday, time not really being an issue for any of you. It felt like the rest of the world was on pause and you had all the time in the world. You would catch Lando smiling, the kind that actually reached his eyes and made you believe he might actually be doing better. But those moments didn’t last. It was the small things; the way his gaze would drift during conversations or the way he picked at his own cuticles until he started bleeding. He laughed and joked like normal but there was an edge to it, almost forced, and if you and Max and Pietra hadn’t known him as well as you did you never would’ve noticed. You also noticed how often he’d excuse himself for a few moments, disappearing under the guise of checking emails or answering calls. One evening the four of you were gathered in the living room, Lando absentmindedly rubbing circles on your back as you handed out the cards for the upcoming round of poker. The game started lighthearted enough, Maxs usual trash talk and both you and P calling him out when he tried to cheat. Lando made a rare mistake and before he could think Max called him out for it, teasing him about being off his game. You could see the way Landos jaw tightened, a flicker of something darker flashing across his face before he forced a strained smile. A comment like that was normal, usually nothing anyone reacted to, but it obviously got under his skin tonight and once again the worry settled in your stomach. That night, laying in bed together, you reached out to gently run your fingers through his curls. Lando hummed, opening one eye to glance at you.

”You okay?” The careful question had him pressing his eyes shut again, offering a nod.

”Yeah, of course. Just tired. Are you?” You knew he wasn’t but you didn’t want to push, didn’t know how he’d react, so you just mirrored his nod before shuffling closer. Lando wrapped you up in his arms, pressing a soft kiss against the top of your head.

The days went on like that, a wobbly line between worry and relaxation, until one evening. You and P were already sprawled out on the couch, tucked under a blanket each as you scrolled through the different streaming services.

”Im telling you, the parent trap is a classic.” Pietra declared, reaching over to grab her glass of wine. You couldn’t help but roll your eyes.

”It’s a classic you’ve already made us watch like three times.” She laughed at that, nudging you back after you softly kicked her. As you continued bickering over the movie for the night low voices could be heard from the kitchen. Max and Lando had been there for a while, preparing the snacks, but from where you sat in the living room you didn’t notice the tension brewing.

Lando stood with his back against the counter, his jaw tight as he watched Max lean against the opposite side of the kitchen island. Max’s brows were furrowed in worry while Landos eyes were dark, angry.

”Im not saying you have to quit.” Max spoke in a low voice, laced with concern. ”I’m just saying, maybe it’s worth it to consider it? Or at least a break, before things get worse.”

”I don’t need a break.” Lando let out a bitter scoff, shaking his head. ”And I’m definitely not quitting. I just need to push through.”

”Push through what? This season? Next? For how long? You’re exhausted Lando, we can all see it. You’re not sleeping, barely eating-”

”You’re exaggerating. Im fine.”

”You’re not!” Max’s voice rose, the frustration he felt breaking through. ”You’re not fine Lan, stop saying that.”

”You’re acting like I’m about to fall apart Max, it’s not that-”

”Not about to.” Max interrupted him, words hard and snappy. ”You are falling apart. I can see it, I know what that looks like. I’ve been there, you know I have. You think I don’t recognize the signs?” Lando visibly stiffened, hands gripping the counter behind him roughly enough to turn his knuckles white. He was quiet for a moment before speaking again, voice laced with venom.

”This isn’t like that Max. It’s not the same.”

”Isn’t it?” His voice cracked slightly as Max stared at his best friend. ”I know it’s hard to admit that you’re struggling Lando, especially when you’re under as much pressure as you are but please, you have to let us help you. If you keep going like this-“

”Just because you couldn’t handle it doesn’t mean I can’t.” The words cut through the room like a knife, Max flinching as if he actually got cut. Silence settled in the kitchen, save for the faint hum of the refrigerator and the distant giggles from you and P out in the living room. When Max stayed silent Lando felt the need to speak again, although his words had lost their harshness. ”I’m not you.”

”No, you’re not.” Max nodded, voice steady but clearly hurt. ”But you’re not that different. You’re not invincible Lando and pretending you are…it’s only going to make things worse.”

”I don’t need a lecture. I am fine, even if you don’t believe it. I’m handling it.”

”Handling it? You call this handling it?” Landos face flushed as Max raised his voice again. ”Snapping at me, shutting out your girlfriend, acting like you don’t have a care in the world-”

”You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Lando interrupted, his own voice getting louder too.  ”I know exactly what I’m talking about!” Max shot back, his frustration spilling over. ”I’ve fucking been where you are, I know what it’s like to feel like you can’t afford to stop, like the weight of it all is going to crush you if you admit you need help but come on Lando, snap the fuck out of it. This, what you’re doing now, its self-destruction.” The words hung in the air, heavy and raw. For a moment Landos expression faltered, the anger on his face shifting into somethings else, maybe fear, but just as quickly he masked it again. With a shake of his head he turned his gaze away, crossing his arms over his chest. Max realized he wouldn’t be able to break through Landos walls, not tonight, and with a resigned sigh he stepped back. His lips parted, as if he wanted to say something, but shook his head instead before walking out. Both yours and Pietras heads snapped up as he walked past the living room, having heard the last couple of sentences exchanged between the two men. When Max’s gaze found your worried one he simply shrugged his shoulders.

”What-” you began, not finding the words.

”I don’t know. I tried, I really did but he doesn’t want help.”

When you slowly entered the kitchen a few minutes later Lando was still standing tensely, bracing himself against the counter. He didn’t look up when you entered and the tension radiating of him was almost scary. When you softly spoke his name, taking a step closer, he flinched.

”Don’t.” His voice was sharp enough to make you pause. Swallowing harshly you forced yourself to stay calm, your voice to stay soft.

”I just want to talk.”

”Well I don’t.” He finally lifted his face, glaring at you. The anger in his eyes should’ve made you back down but the unshed tears glossing them had your heart aching instead. ”I don’t need you telling me what to do too.”

”No one is trying to tell you what to do Lando. We’re just worried about you, you’re not doing well-”

”Worried about me. Right. What did Max say to you? That I’m losing it? That I need to quit?”

”No,” you argued, frowning. ”No Max didn’t say anything to me but we’ve all seen you these past months, not to talk about these last days. We’re all-”

”Worried! Yeah I fucking get it.” Your eyes widened as he raised his voice, not being used to him speaking to you like this. ”You’re all looking at me like I’m fucking crazy but I’m not. I don’t need your help, I don’t want your help, so just fuck off for a while and let me deal with it.” You stared at him, heart slowly cracking open. He was unraveling infront of you and you didn’t know what to do, how to help him, and you felt like the worst girlfriend in the world. The worst friend. His words stung, sure, but you didn’t really have time to think about how he hurt you when all you could think about was getting through to him.

”I just want you to be okay, Lando.” Your words were mere whispers, broken by the amount of concern and sadness you felt. Landos eyes flickered away, the veins in his neck popping as he clenched his jaw. For a moment you had hope he might say something, anything, but he stayed silent. You felt your throat tighten, the tears pressing behind your eyes, and you realized you didn’t have anything else to say. Nothing that he would listen to anyway. Instead you whispered how much you loved him before turning and walking away. The living room felt colder when you returned, the sympathetic expression on Pietras face as you sunk down in the couch enough for the tears to start flowing. As you curled up against P your thoughts swirled in a chaotic mess. You felt helpless, as if no matter how hard you tried it was never enough to reach him. He was slipping further and further away and you didn’t know how to pull him back. Maybe it wasn’t just him, you thought, maybe it was you. You replayed the moment in the kitchen, voice soft as you tried to get through to him only for his anger to snap back at you. You’d never seen him like that, so defensive, and it had left you shaken. But more than that, it left you questioning yourself. How could you stand there and call yourself his girlfriend when you couldn’t even get him to listen to you? What were you doing wrong? You wanted to be his anchor, his support, the person who helped him shoulder the weight he carried. But right now, it felt like everything you did only pushed him further away. Now, with P’s arms around you, unsuccessfully shielding you from the cold reality of the evening, you couldn’t stop the creeping sense of failure.

”I don’t know what to do.” You whispered, shoulders shaking with sobs. Pietra and Max exchanged glances over your head, somber expressions on their faces. Neither did they.

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blondejellykitty · 3 months ago

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₊♡ ˚⊹ strangers in the woods ₊♡ ˚⊹

୨୧ toby rogers x reader ୨୧ When walking alone in the woods, off the beaten track a stranger makes himself known. intruders in the cabin (part two) a/n: (1.3k words, requested by @tychos-huzband) first request so I hope you enjoy!

Life sometimes sucks. It's true, it's something not everyone wants to admit but everyone feels it. Life can really suck at times. But right now? Right now it was feeling pretty damn shitty.

The day before was your last day of work. Your boss, a short egotistical man that you'd graciously put up with for three long years, decided to fire you.

Not because you'd used your sick days when your only family member had died last year, not because you were late to your shift one time when your ex had smashed your car up, not even because of the time you'd yelled at a customer for putting his slimy hands on you.

No, it was because he'd hired 'one too many lazy girls'. The sexist pig didn't seem to care when the guys on shift would slack off let alone steal cigarettes on their closing shift but when you forgot to stock one set of drinks that morning. Bam, that was it. No warning or anything just a ‘you’re fired, goodbye’.

When life got as bad as this, sometimes you needed to just get away from it all even just for a day. So you did.

You used what little you had left of your last pay and bought two bus tickets, to the end of their route and back. The trip itself wasn't all that exciting. The old bus was so cramped you had to awkwardly shift on your seat so your legs could fit.

You spent the whole time looking at the busted bus door wondering if this bump would be the one where it finally fell off.

You had been the only one on the bus for a while before the final stop finally appeared in view.

With a creaking stop, you were free of the shitty blue bus. Around you was nothing but forest, clearly far away from the concrete jail of a city you'd come from.

Across the dirt road were five small shops two of which were boarded and closed, the other three had seen better days. On your side of the road was a wooden trail map and a small bridge leading further into the woods. Perfect.

You'd been on the trail years prior, only once with your friend who said he'd known a spot. He was right, once you'd both reached the top of the trail it was a beautiful view, up on a hill looking out over the small town, if you could even call it that.

He was a good friend, one of your only friends actually. He'd been sent away not long after that trip. The doctor said he wasn't right and needed help to get better, though you never saw him again.

You'd been meaning for a long time to come back to this trail, it did always remind you of him. But that's not what you're here for today.

You're here to forget, not to reminisce.

After walking for a good while you halted on the dirt trail. Picking a random direction you walked off the trail to follow your own path. As long as you kept going one way, you could just turn back around and go back the way you came.

It was much better off the trail, the forest felt more natural. Being able to let your thoughts float away and focus on your rugged path instead.

The feeling of the sunlight through the leaves in the tall trees flickering on your face seemed to leave you in a trance. Losing all track of time, for once you weren't worrying about where you should be or what you could be doing.

A faint crack and a crunch of leaves pulled you from your gaze on the forest floor. Pausing in your tracks you scan the area around you, squinting your eyes as if that would help, searching for the source of the odd noise.

Regardless you kept moving, after all there was probably more wildlife the further you got away from the track. Continuing on your walk until suddenly you hear it again. A crack and a crunch.

You could almost feel your ears hurt from the strain you put on them to focus on every little sound.

Ruffling of trees against each other, birds chirping and flapping away, distant leaves crunching like audible footprints, a crack that sounded like when you crack your knuckles except this was much louder.

Just your luck, go on a nice relaxing walk to get away from people and assholes of the world. And along the way boom, people and potential assholes. Great, wonderful even.

You decided against your better judgement to be like every character in a horror movie and yell out, because if they were out here, they were probably here for you. No one else would be reckless enough to go this far out.

"If you're gonna kill me, at least have some manners and don't be a coward about it!" You yelled out causing birds to scatter into the skies, you twisted on your heel in a circle trying to get a view from all directions.

Crunch, another footstep much closer this time. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to call them a coward, might've just made them mad.

"Uh, not a coward and not gonna kill you either. Just wanna know why you're out here?" The stuttering voice almost scared you to death, you had enough self preservation to not scream.

A few paces in front of you stood what looked like a guy around your age, wearing worn down black sneakers, slightly muddy black jeans, a faded blue hoodie with a clean oversized brown jacket over the top.

The strangest part of his appearance wasn't his fingerless gloves in the middle of summer but a large hospital looking bandage that covered part of his cheek.

You felt your eyebrows furrow in caution.

"Why're you out here?" The sass laid on thick, you could feel the tension in your shoulders building as every second passed.

He let out a strange mix between a giggle and a scoff.

"I live here. Obviously, where else would I be out here? Hm?" The condescending tone in his voice made you wonder if the murderer in the woods was goin to be you instead.

"What? You live in the woods? You do know that the next town over has a homeless shelter right? I can literally take you there" Only if you stop being a prick.

"Wha- No. I have a home you fucking worm! One which you're about to trespass on which won't go too well for you, so my question is still unanswered. Why. are. you. here?"

Embarrassingly you were open mouthed like a fish right now.

"Well, I was on a trail, must've gotten lost on it." Half truth, please get me out of this.

His face really said it all. His brown eyes squinted in disbelief and his pale lips pulled into a sort of smirking snarl.

"You do realize how far away that stupid trail is, you must've been walking what? All day?"

You felt yourself nod meekly, which was not a way you'd usually describe yourself as being.

With a sigh he looked to the sun. He kept fighting with something in his hoodie pocket which did absolutely nothing to ease your nerves.

"It's going to get dark soon and there's no way you'd make it all the way back to the track in time even if you ran. So I can drive you back to the entrance in the morning, c'mon" He turned around and started walking without even looking back.

No way you'd make it all the way back, even if you ran. Totally not fucking ominous and threating at all but sure I'd just love to spend the night with you random stranger, sure all of this is totally cool.

With a groan and a stomp to the ground beneath you, you jogged over to him and began the walk further into the forest.

#jellydreams #blondejellykitty #ticci toby x reader #toby rogers x reader #creepypasta x reader #proxies x reader #ticci toby #toby rogers #creepypasta #slenderverse

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teddy-bear-naps-and-random-snaps · 7 months ago

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mediumgayitalian · 11 months ago

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———

By all accounts, Will knows what he’s doing.

He still drives like a godsdamn maniac.

“Do you want us to die?” Nico hollers, cheeks aching from the force of his grin, belly flipping at the peal of Will’s laughter.

The bike is exhilarating, as Will weaves it around cars at unbelievable speeds, working with the bike like it’s a part of him, like it’s not a separate thing he has to move. He steers it with a natural ease Nico’s only really seen in some of the best pegasus riders in camp — he knows the machine intimately enough to anticipate how it moves, how it reacts. It really is an extension of his body.

He left any panic about gripping onto Will somewhere in Long Island — to let go would be suicide. He has to hold on to stay onto the bike, to know to lean when Will leans, to tense when he tenses. Besides that, he’s having fun. He’s not the one driving, so he’s free to rest his helmet on Will’s back and watch as the world whips by — dizzying, really, as the speed of the bike making the green-budding trees melt into the bright blue skies, mix with the tar black asphalt, glow under the sparkling sun. The whole world looks like sidewalk chalk after it rains, a swirling mass of colour and streaks as artistic or more than what it was before it was washed away. The only indication that they’re actually going anywhere rather than standing straight in the middle of a kaleidoscope is the spots of roadside green that pop up every now and again, or a heavy lean to the side and Will switches lanes.

As they pull out of New York, Will starts to slow down. The dizzying mass of colours calms until everything’s at a slow spin, as Will mellows out to a speed that can be registered on a mortal odometer. With less wind whipping all over, Nico can actually hear him.

“Better than a flying chariot?”

Nico grins. “Definitely.”

“Another great thing about this is that it has a CD player. Two-nothing for the sad hunk of wood.”

By great thing Will of course means the same four songs I’ve been obsessed with for a month playing over and over and over until you are ready to launch yourself off the bike and join the dead raccoon at the side of the road, but that still doesn’t manage to ruin it. Something about driving top speeds in the early spring air makes it hard to be annoyed about annoying.

(Or maybe it’s the way Nico can feel Will’s muscles shift every time he moves, or how he winks every time he catches Nico’s eye in the mirrors, or the lowkey kind of sinful the way he straddles the seat. But Nico is quite happy sharing a name with a river in Egypt, so he ignores these fun facts and continues to delude himself, an art in which he is become quite wondrously skilled.)

Somewhere between Jersey and Delaware, the traffic picks up again, so Will shouts for him to hold on and cranks up the speed. Nico clenches tightly around his waist, squeezing his eyes shut, this time, and listens to the roar of air as they shove through it fast enough to rival sound. When they’re drifting, again, Nico can feel an incline, and looks up just in time to watch Will exit off the highway.

“Are we here already?” he shouts, incredulous. He knows his ADHD makes him bad with time, but jeez — it can’t have been more than an hour, an hour and a half.

“Not yet,” Will says, barely having to raise his voice as they come to a stop, heel of his boot clicking on the pavement. He checks both ways and then, once nothing comes around the bend, pushes off and guides them down a winding back road, tipping around curves and speeding down hills. Nico’s stomach bottoms out every drop, and he can’t clamp down the giggle that pushes out his throat, as ridiculous as it is. Luckily, Will’s giggling, too.

In a few minutes, they pull up to an old, rusted gas station, with signs so old they’re hand-painted. Will kills the engine and flicks out the kickstand, pulling off his helmet and shaking out his hair. It’s such a tangled mess that Nico can’t help but reach out and tug on a lopsided curl.

“I didn’t think this thing needed gas.”

“It doesn’t!” He pats a dark piece of glass in between the handlebars. “It’s solar-powered. But I figured you could use a minute to stretch your legs, and frankly, if I don’t eat something soon I genuinely might cook you.”

“You forgot to eat today, didn’t you.”

“…No.”

As soon as he speaks, his eyes start to water. His throat swells. He holds his breath for a noble four seconds, and then starts wheezing.

Nico sighs heavily. “Dumbass.”

Hauling him upright by the collar, Nico drags him towards the little corner store. This, at least, is familiar. Will gets caught up in his work easily, and forgets to do things like eat or move or, on one particularly amusing occasion, breathe. (Just tipped right over, one day, onto the floor, mid-poultice. There is a chip on the side of the stone mortar to this day. Nico, Will’s other friends, and his siblings take shifts bringing it up to dunk on him properly. Last he checked, Lou Ellen commissioned Jake Mason to make a plaque to hang on the infirmary wall, memorializing the incident forever.)

“C’mon, stupid. Let’s get you a sandwich. And Benadryl.”

“I’m honestly fine,” Will wheezes, cheeks swelling slightly.

“Stop talking,” Nico orders. “You’re making it worse.”

Wisely, Will clamps up. That, or his throat is starting to close. Either is likely.

His stubborn determination to continue lying despite being literally allergic to it would be impressive, if it wasn’t so irritating.

A little bell rings by the door when Nico pushes it open, making the person sitting behind the counter look up.

“Ah,” they say sagely, folding up their newspaper. “Demigods.”

Immediately, Nico’s on alert. Before he can draw his sword, though, Will lifts a hive-spotted hand in a wave.

“Hey, Berchio,” he croaks.

The person at the counter — Berchio — smiles ruefully.

“Benadryl?”

Nico nods hesitantly, still a little wary at the stranger, but Will is starting to keen over, now, and Nico didn’t think to bring an Epi-Pen (since the allergy is totally avoidable, William, you are your own worst enemy), so he’s running out of options. “Please.”

Chuckling to themself, Berchio ruffles around a shelf by the checkout counter, locating the familiar bottle after a minute — Will gets himself into these situations a lot, he has a serious twizzler problem and should consider getting his own stash instead of lifting it from the Hermes cabin and then lying about where it went — and rolling towards them. The spokes of their wheelchair have little skull charms on them that make a pleasant tinkling noise as they spin, making Nico trust them instantly. He should get Chiron wheel beads. That’s sick as hell.

“Here, kid. Drink water, too, you’re going to dry yourself out.”

Will garbles out a thank you, choking down the medicine. As all meds do with Apollo’s children, lucky bastards that they are, it works quickly, and in minutes he’s breathing right again.

“Gods, I love oxygen.”

“You are a human disaster,” Nico informs him. “Like, hugely.”

Will takes a sip of his water, pondering that. “Is that more embarrassing for you, or for me?”

“Why the hell would it be embarrassing for me?”

“Well, since you like me so much.” Nico chokes. “I might be a disaster, but at least I don’t have a crush on one.”

“All this wheezing,” Berchio sighs. “This must be Nico?”

“The one and only,” Will says cheerfully. He reaches out and touches a warm hand to Nico’s throat, immediately clearing his airways. Now no longer struggling for breath, Nico darts out and punches him, hard, on the arm.

“Ow! Meanie!”

“You are such a derp-faced dweeb,” Nico hisses, fully aware he’s red in the face. “Why are you — why are you this way.”

“I’m gonna tell Chiron you were bullying me!”

“Tell him! I’ll tell him you were the one to sprinkle instant mashed potatoes all over the grass before it rained, not Cecil!”

Will snaps his mouth shut. “I told you that in confidence.”

Nico smiles smugly. “Well, that’s on you. My loyalties are about as secure as my parent’s relationship.”

“If you two are finished flirting,” interrupts an amused voice, making both of them jump. Berchio watches them with their arms crossed, eyebrow raised in a similar chiding way to Chiron last time he caught Nico attempting to sneak an entire tray of brownies from the kitchen (mark his words — as soon as he can shadow travel again, no other camper will be seeing a brownie as long as they shall live). They shake their head, tutting exaggeratedly. “My, my, Will, I’m beginning to understand why you mentioned him every time you opened your mouth. I figured you liked him, but this is ridiculous.”

For once, Will is the one to flush crimson. He stutters something entirely incomprehensible, gesturing vaguely towards Berchio, and then frantically towards Nico, and finally squawks something about trust and the breaching of it. He goes red to the very roots of his hair, clamping his own mouth shut mid-sentence and scowling something awful.

Suddenly, Nico gets it. This is why no one ever leaves him alone. Oh, he is loathe to give the assholes he’s friends with credit, but…

When does he ever get to see Will — confident, easy Will — go scarlet?

“So you like me,” he says, shit eating grin stretching across his face. “Oh ho ho ho.”

“Oh, shut up,” Will snaps, without any heat. “Last time we played volleyball you got a concussion ‘cause you couldn’t stop staring at my chest and took a ball to the face.”

“That — it was — that hit was malicious,” he sputters. “And how is it my fault you’re always ditching your shirt at the first available opportunity like some kind of whore? I couldn’t not look!”

“Avert your eyes, then, scoundrel!”

“I — don’t call me a scoundrel! You’re a scoundrel!”

“You’re both late, is what you are,” Berchio interrupts again. “Will, I assume you’re running an errand?”

Still a little flushed, Will nods. “Yes. Thanks, Berchio. We’re picking up parts in Roanoke, I just stopped for some food.”

“He forgot to eat this morning,” Nico pipes up. He figures that Berchio seems comfortable enough with Will that they can act as a disappointed authority figure, which will make Mr. Daddy Issues Solace crumple like a castle built on a pillar of sand — he needs the humbling. (Also, Nico will get him on a healthier track or die trying. It’s not fair that he gets to be a big hypocrite about good diet and eating and sleeping habits and then turn around and act a fool. Someone needs to watch out for the idiot, or he’s going to get himself killed, and then Nico is going to have to spend the rest of his life in the Underworld, yelling at him.)

“William.”

Nico’s theory is proven correct. Berchio stares at Will with the perfect mix of disappointment and concern, immediately triggering the scramble-to-please expression on Will’s face. He practically stumbles over himself trying to follow after him and get fed.

“Are you happy with a sandwich, Nico? I know Will’ll eat anything that even remotely looks like food, but most of us have standards,” they tease.

Nico snorts at Will’s offended pout. “Yeah, a sandwich is more than fine. Thanks, Berchio.”

After handing them both a sandwich they pull from one of the many fridges in the little convenience store, they guide them outside, parking their wheelchair next to the curb they sit on and joining them in a little picnic.

“So how do you know each other?” Nico asks, gesturing between the two of them.

Will answers first, because Berchio, who is a polite person with manners, takes the time to swallow their food.

“I stop here all the time,” he says, garbled, making both Nico and Berchio wince. Nico takes the initiative to kick him.

“Stop being disgusting and explain yourself without showing off the contents of your mouth,” Nico threatens, “or I’m going to stab you again.”

Will swallows, sticks out his tongue, and continues.

“First time I used the bike, I got it into my head that I should go visit my mom. Would’ve been fine, except I was thirteen and hadn’t been outside of camp in six years and got chased by a pack of empousai the second I left the city, basically.”

“I was collecting herbs and sensed him coming,” Berchio explains. “He crossed the borders I have set up; I hid him here. Now he stops by whenever he’s travelling to chat.” Berchio smiles warmly. “I appreciate the company.”

Will grins back. “Me too! Plus, I very much appreciate the herb exchange. Speaking of which, I have your goldenrod.”

He digs into his jeans pocket, pulling out a bundle. He hands it over to Berchio, who accepts it gratefully, handing over their own bundle to Will.

“And your witch hazel.”

“Berchio’s an Ipotane,” Will explains, catching sight of Nico’s furrowed brow. “They’ve been doing this healing stuff for centuries. They’re real good with salves.”

Nico shakes his head fondly. “Even when you’re being cool, you’re a nerd.” He gestures to the bike. “Taking your secret motorcycle to visit your secret mentor to learn more about healing. Gods, it’s like Apollo made you in a lab.”

“You take that back! I contain multitudes!”

“And now you’re quoting famous poems, dear gods, try to prove my point better, why don’t you —”

“Blah blah blah!”

Nico grins at him, rolling his eyes, and Will is just as playfully dramatic with his bit lip and hidden smile and the hair he tucks behind his ear like he does when he wants to touch somebody but isn’t sure if it’s invited. Nico answers the question for him, reaching out and flicking his knuckles as an excuse to touch his hands. Will takes it, beaming.

“Thank you for the food, Berchio,” Will says when they finish, leaning down to hug them. “We gotta get going, but I’ll be back in a couple weeks. I had a dream about an outbreak, so no doubt the infirmary will need restocked soon.”

“Bring your boyfriend next time,” Berchio suggests, grinning when Nico goes red at the term. “Watching the two of you was not unlike one of Sterne’s famous productions.”

“I take offence to that,” Will says haughtily.

“Good. You needed humbling.”

“Nobody appreciates me around here!”

Nico bites back the I do that threatens to escape his throat. Gods, he’s so embarrassing. Whoever taught him how to speak should have to pay for their crimes.

They head back to the bike, waving goodbye to the Ipotane and speeding off. The drive the rest of the way down south is much calmer, bellies full and energy somewhat spent, and it helps that there’s no traffic. Will cruises, keeping time with the sun that’s inching across the sky, ignoring Nico’s suggestion to attempt to race his dad. They arrive in Roanoke in good time, following Nyssa’s scrawled directions to the parts shop.

The shop is old, visibly, paint peeling and smelling strongly of car grease. As Nysa predicted, the person they speak to — a mechanic, by the look of her jumpsuit — doesn’t ask so much as a single question at the two teenagers rolling up to her doorstep, heading to the greasy shelves of car parts and grabbing what they need with a shrug.

“Well,” says Will slowly as she piles them on the counter, “that’s…more than I anticipated.”

Nico looks at the stack of twisted metal. He looks at the bike. Finally, he looks at his dumbass friend.

“Solace.”

Will scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah?”

“Solace, tell me you have space to put this stuff.”

“Well, we can try the seat compartment?”

Nico buries his head in his hands. “Solace.”

“What!”

“You know what, lughead! We cannot do the one thing we came here to do! Gods!”

“I usually go on supply runs for the infirmary, okay!” Will cries. “That stuff is way less bulky! I forgot to compensate!”

Nico groans. At this point, they’re going to have to bus back, or something equally as stupid. And what are they gonna do with the bike? Gods, if Nico was here by himself and also maybe possibly with Reyna, who could share her strength, he’d just —

He stills.

“Oh, no,” Will says, pointing a stern finger, “oh, no, di Angelo, I know that look, you have been expressly banned —”

“Relax,” Nico grumbles. “Don’t you trust me?”

“With everything,” Will says automatically, then flushes for the second time that day. “But that is not the point —”

Deciding he will return to that later — and he most certainly will — Nico darts forward. Before Will can stop him, he puts both hands on the pile of parts, lunges towards the nearest shadow, and shoved them in, withdrawing as quickly as he can manage.

“Nico!”

He waits.

“Oh, you fuckin’ — you goddamn son of a mother!”

He checks his hands — still solid.

“I am going to smash you flat an’ feed you through a goddamn juicer! You fuckin’ heart-stopper!”

He grins. “I told you I could do some Underworld magic.”

“Underworld deez fuckin’ nuts!” Will stomps forward, grabbing Nico’s hands to do his own inspection. “What part of doctor’s orders are you missin’, huh? You think I wanna watch you fade again? You think I wanna —” His voice cracks, hands tightening around Nico’s wrists. Nico softens immediately, smug look melting into something gentler.

“Will.”

“You coulda died, Nico, you coulda faded to — to nothin’.”

“Will.” He flips his hands so his palms meet Will’s, and squeezes, smiling gently. “Feel my vitals, dork. Am I fading?”

Will exhales. “No.”

“Am I close?”

“…No.”

He squeezes again. “I’m fine, Will.”

“You scared me.” The anger in his voice has faded into something soft — something afraid. Suddenly the hands on his wrists feel more clingy than anything, and a twinge of guilt goes off in Nico’s stomach.

“I’m sorry.” He squeezes Will’s hands one last time, and when that doesn’t do much, lets go to wrap around his cheeks, instead, forcing him to meet his eyes. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I don’t mean to restrict you,” Will says softly. “It’s just — I worry, is all.”

Nico taps their foreheads together, smile pulling at his face. This, he can — this he can deal with. This version of Will, soft and nervous and caring, makes it a lot easier to slide his fingers into the mess of Will’s curls, to run his thumbs over his cheekbones and feel him shiver.

“Would that have anything to do with the alleged crush you have on me?”

Will grins. “It might.” One of his hands comes up to rest on top of Nico’s, brushing over his knuckles. “All your moonin’ after me had me looking twice, I guess.”

“You’re such a dick,” Nico scoffs, and yanks him down to meet him in the middle, laughing, swallowing his smile and relishing in the warm press of their bodies. It’s — gods, it’s everything, it’s a thousand times better than he imagined, and at the same time everything he expected. Will smells like wind and sunshine and his lavender shampoo, and his hands are roughened from all the antiseptic he has to use, and his lips are surprisingly chapped, but the press of his cheeks is soft, and the feel of him is overwhelming. It feels, as cliche as it is, like the final burst of a firework after watching the smokey trail of the rocket with bated breath, watching it crest the night sky before exploding, finally, amongst the stars, it’s like —

A cleared throat startled them apart.

“Anytime y’all feel like paying for those parts, it would be great.”

Will grins sheepishly. “Sorry,” he says, pulling out the money Chiron gave him. His grin turns sly, and Nico’s knees turn to jelly. “My boyfriend’s just super distracting.”

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