#i finally got them to shut up about it only by telling them i will no longer talk about it and if they ask i will leave the room | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

oonajaeadira · 9 hours ago

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Thank you. Thank you so so much for reading this and seeing it and giving me this beautiful feedback. I'm so sorry I'm dragging my feet on the epilogue. It's coming. I hadn't planned on initially, but after such a brutal chapter, I need to gentle them out of it and on with their lives.

Hence the watch in the shadowbox. Joel's spent so much time keeping going, he has to move fast and leave things behind and possessions come and go. But that watch is his one true thing, his one physical anchor, the only thing he can call his own and he keeps it strapped to his body because he might have to get up and run at any time and if he didn't have it, he'd feel unmoored and start wondering what kept him even a little good, a little human.

But here, he's finally finding that there's reason to trust that he won't have to run. There are other things keeping him anchored, other people. And the worst has already happened to the watch--it did go up in the fire. But there were more precious things to save--family, yes, but a whole existence he thought wasn't possible anymore, something Tess would have wanted for him, Sarah too. And he went out there without the reminder on his wrist not to lose his heart. And he made it home. And even then, the watch was found, so nothing of value was lost to him after all.

He saved what he could save. Including himself...by accepting that he sometimes has to step outside of humanity to keep it.

It makes me so happy that you appreciate Maria. She's a hard character to love in the series, but I do, especially in the TV version. I highly admire her drive. In the game, she was born into the family that started the town, but in the show she's a transplant. I decided to merge the two and have her start in the area and go and come back and let her be Meadowlark's tie to family. Because if it were me, I'd want to be close to her. She is hypocritical here because she's human and she's in charge. It's hard to justify difficult choices with all or nothing answers at the end of the world. Sometimes you have to make the choice to throw the switch when the train's barreling down the tracks. If anyone's got the teeth to grit and bear it and face the pointed fingers, it's our Lady of Jackson.

I'm sorry there's no epilogue waiting in the wings at the moment. But it's started. I've posted the snippet before, but for being so kind and thoughtful, here is the opening:

There’s a cardinal that’s decided that the A frame home you share with Joel is one of the corners of his territory and the light’s just starting to come into the day when he wakes you up and you find your way to the toilet and back. The mornings are still chilly and the best part of being woken up too early is getting to crawl back into the bed, full of warmth and flannel and chest and scratchy beard and a “hmmf” in your hair as an arm traps you against a man that is finally learning to rest.

You purposefully take up the left side of the bed so that he’s more likely to sleep on his good ear. And it works. The cardinal doesn’t bother him none.

And usually your hand sliding up the back of his shirt doesn’t either. Usually.

“Hand’s‘er cold.”

“Not for long. You’re a furnace.”

“Mmmf.”

He’s quiet and still a long while, but you can tell he hasn’t fallen back to sleep, even though you start to. But you’re thwarted by his moving away, by him finally deciding his bladder’s gonna bug him until he does something about it, and you hear the door slide open to the porch, picking up your head to watch him from the back as he leans forward and over the railing, see the tug of the band of his sleep pants across his waist.

“Joel, we’ve got a toilet.”

“So.”

“Just because we don’t have neighbors yet doesn’t mean you can just heave to in the yard.”

“Don’t see why not. Nature.”

You can’t help but laugh as you bury your face into the covers against the crispy morning air. “It’s called decency and civilization, you heathen.”

Seconds after the door slides shut, he’s grunting as he works his way back under the covers, curling himself around you.

“See? Now you’re cold. If you’d just used the bathroom–”

“I’ll warm up.” Now it’s his turn to run his chilled hands up and under your shirt, pull you in tight to the parts of him that certainly were not affected by the spring morning and hums, satisfied. “Thanks.”

“You ass. You not even gonna give me the decency of washing your hands?”

“After what you got up to down there last night, you’re gonna complain about what I’m touching with my hands?”

He’s got a point. Figuratively. And, by the feel of it, literally.

It’s not like you’ve brushed your teeth since last night and he doesn’t seem to have a problem kissing you very, very deeply, using one of those said hands to haul your leg over his hip. So who are you to complain?

Nature indeed.

Obviously, neither of you are going back to sleep.

Well, not for another hour at least.

Leave Off Your Wandering pt. 4: Winter

Fandom: The Last of Us (TV)/ Joel Miller

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader

Reader: Adult female. Old enough to have been an adult on Outbreak Day. Wyoming born and bred. Sheep farmer, easy-going but confident and self-sufficient. Likes to sing, not a great cook. Childhood friend of Maria. No other physical descriptors; no use of y/n.

Rating: Mature.

Warnings: Mentions of sex but nothing explicit. Canon-typical violence, bodily harm, death, (blood, broken bones, knife wounds, shooting, blunt force) and PTSD.

Summary: Revenge comes calling and you work though it as a family.

A/N: Series set after season 1 and then diverges. Does not acknowledge the existence of further plot/seasons, although it does use some characters/elements from the second game.

I’m so sorry it’s taken this long to get to winter. This one was difficult for me to face writing for reasons that may be made clear. But it was very rewarding. <3

The air is thin and cold this morning, takes your breath and makes a show of it as you quickstep it down to the stables. The sun is just starting to make the frost sparkle and no doubt Goldie will be using up the rest of the firewood at the Roost today.

Good thing you have a Joel who’s ready to chop more.

Although he’s also a Joel that’s forgotten his tea, the “stuff with the things in it” that Willa gave him for the stiffness in his knees. With this cold he’s going to want it today on patrol and the last thing you think you can stand is the tug in your heart when he comes home complaining of the cold and the ache and you sitting warm and cozy with his thermos on the counter when you had the legs to trot it on out to him.

It’s a relief to round the corner and find the patrol party still at the stable gate, Tommy helping one of the teens with their rifle strap, and Joel waiting on horseback, weaving his gloved fingers together, packing them down at the valleys to get his hands all the way in.

He’d laid one of those hands on your cheek this morning. Gentle. First thing you saw when you opened your eyes. Like most mornings now. His thumb rounding the rim of your cheek so he could lean in and take a good long drink of a kiss.

He likes it that way…soft, slow. Likes to pull you in as close as he can, twist his forehead into your temple when he hits his peak, jaw clenched in agonized pleasure, kisses along your jawline when you find yours, his eyes half-lidded and watching you in a hazy awe. He’s quiet but thorough, completely present like he can’t believe he’s got this little slice of warmth, sighs a hushed curse in your ear and calls you sweetheart in the same breath, and then sleeps like a baby the whole night through.

He doesn’t like to talk about the past much, but listening’s your specialty and it comes out in bits and pieces, stuck between the little he does say. You come to understand that he very rarely got to be very close with anyone while Sarah was growing up. There were the years when everything was a nightmare. Then there was Tess and she brought him out of that, thank goodness. But it took time. And there was also denial and survival and means to their ends. There might indeed have been strong love there. But you have the feeling he’s not had this–or anything like it–for a long, long time.

So if he wants it soft and slow, then who are you to deny him?

Maybe it shouldn’t be so surprising that it was him who pulled you in a little closer.

“What if you didn’t move in with Tommy and Maria this winter?” He’d lingered the morning after Christmas, leaning one shoulder against the frame of your bedroom door, savoring the show of you getting dressed for the day.

“And waste the fuel? Why? So we can cuddle up now and then without your brother down the hall? You keep me plenty warm, Joel Miller, but I’m not going to heat this whole house just for me and your more-than-casual visits. Everyone’s got a responsibility here to conserve in the winter. This is how I do my part. And besides,” you purred as he stepped in to button up your flannel for you, freeing up your fingers so they could run through his curls, “I know where you live and your bed’s good as mine.”

“You seem to like it there well enough.”

“I do.” His beard was growing in all but a patch on his jaw that was now your right to kiss.

“Well I was thinkin’ we just make it ours for the winter.”

His hands had circled your hips and his words had stopped your heart, but there was little for to say with his lips pressed against yours.

So mornings often started as they did today, waking to find Joel beside you, roused because you can feel him watching you with that little half smile that reveals the crack in his weary heart where the light shines through. Who needs spring to come with sunshine like that to turn to? Now there are family breakfasts with Ellie and cozy days knitting in the company of Maria and Riley and then warm nights with Joel on one of those pillowtopped mattresses that were all the rage before the outbreak…the ones that are great when you have a stiff back, but even better because the springs don’t squeak…

“Aw dammit,” Joel says when he sees you nearing the stables with the thermos, “Knew I forgot something.”

“Two somethings,” you say pointing to his bare head and passing your hat up to him in the saddle. “Your ears are already bright red. Here. Take my hat.”

“This’s Ellie’s.”

“Huh. Guess I just grabbed one on my way out. Oops. Be a man. Wear a pompom.”

He pulls it down over his ears and smiles. “Matches my scarf.”

You’d had a small batch of deep red wool you’d managed to squeak a hat and scarf out of and gifting the hat to Ellie around Christmas, but the scarf went to Joel. He may not want anyone to think of him as sentimental, but it was worth your while to make it easy on him by giving him something that was also practical. Even if he had his jacket zipped up all the way, it was always there, tucked around his neck; he may leave his ears to the elements but he never went anywhere without that scarf.

The line of horses start making their way toward the Jackson gates and you squeeze Joel’s shin before stepping out of the way, letting him and his horse follow the group. He simply lets a gloved finger glance your cheek as he passes by.

All the way out here on this side of the apocalypse and humans still have a million variations on saying “I love having you around and I’d like to keep it that way.”

________

“Ellie’s more than welcome around here if you and Joel don’t want to leave her home alone.”

Maria’s lightly bouncing a wet-faced and blubbering Riley on her lap, trying to tempt him with a frozen carrot for his teething. He has tommy’s curls and they sproing with every boing.

“Nah, she wants to come out. We’ll be dividing the ewes and driving part of the flock into the old town for the rest of the overwinter and she wants to see how it's done. Should see it, if she thinks she’ll be entering the rotation at any point. Speaking of,” you grunt, leaning down to gather your knitting basket and gather your things, “I promised I’d meet her after school. She’s gotten into collecting cassette tapes and the commissary says she’s hit her quota on goods this week. Gonna give up a couple credits so she can discover the wonders of Joan Jett and the Beastie Boys.”

“That’s throwing gas on the fire. She pick those out herself?”

“Nope. My points, my choice. And I say that girl needs to fight for her right to party and put another dime in the jukebox, baby.”

Maria rolls her eyes, chuckles, goes light on the sarcasm. “You’re the coolest auntie.”

“Don’t I know it,” you laugh, tying up your boots.

“Joel’s gonna just love that.”

Leaning in to bop a quick kiss to Riley’s head, you give Maria a crazed grin. “So much.”

Ten minutes later, Ellie has her doubts, holding up a cassette at the commissary. “But there’s a dinosaur on this one! How can it not be great?”

“Listen, missy. I’m not saying Dinosaur Jr. doesn’t have a place in music history, but I’m telling you that you’re likely to be disappointed. Trust me. Just this once.”

Ellie makes a face but you glance past it, distracted by what you see through the window behind her. Following your focus, she turns to look too. “Who’re they?”

All of the patrol horses coming back in have two people on them–a member of the party, and a stranger. And all the strangers can’t be more than teenagers.

“Dunno, but it looks like you’re about to get some new classmates. I’ll sign these out. You go ahead and make a good first impression.”

“You’re just sending me out there because you know if they’re infected, I can’t catch it.”

“If they were infected, they wouldn’t be on those horses or inside those gates. I’m sending you out there because you have a way of reading people. Go.”

Something in that puts a gasp in her throat and a sparkle in her eye and her ponytail whips behind her as she goes, striving to live up to the compliment.

But really, you just want half a minute to take a good look at the kids without Ellie asking questions. They’re all scrawny and filthy. Backpacks. Been traveling and living rough for a while now. Where’d they come from? What’s their story? Not an adult among them. How have they survived? You’d swear something feels off, but that’s the world now. Can’t be too careful. Everything seems off all the time.

Question is, off by how much?

You find Joel in the group; he’s the only one riding with a kid in front of him rather than hanging on behind. And once he gets down off the horse and reaches up to help his passenger down, you can see why.

She’s pregnant.

Shit. She’s what, fifteen? Sixteen?

Shit.

“There’s a house up near mine has good plumbing turned on.” Tommy’s speaking over his shoulder to the small group and leading his horse to the stable door as you come out of the commissary. “We’ll get you all washed up and fed. There’s at least two beds there and some other furniture fit to sleep on if it makes you comfortable to stay together. Give me a minute to put Lady away here and we’ll walk on up together. Joel? A word?”

Handing off the pregnant girl’s backpack to her, Joel takes the reins of his horse and follows his brother inside, leaving the newcomers to look around them and take in the town.

All but one. A girl with hair that’s neither light brown or dark blonde, somewhere in between. Your mother would have called it dirty dishwater blonde and you always thought that was rude. But your mother also would have said the girl had a hatchet of a face with a strong jaw like that. And it’s that girl whose head whips around the second she heard Joel’s name, quickly scanning the patrol to ascertain who belonged to it, and stands watching the stable door in thought long after the Miller brothers were gone.

Was Joel her father’s name? Her brother’s? Is it hers or close to hers? Is she a Jo or Joelle?

“Abby. Hey,” a boy calls and she turns. “Mel should get a bed and we can share. Manny and Nora can share too…if you’re okay with taking a couch.”

“Fine,” Abby says. Her eyes and mouth all unmoving lines.

“Hey. Welcome to Jackson. I’m Ellie.” Your starling jams her hands in her pockets as all the new eyes turn her way. “It looks like you’ve been wandering. Where you coming from?”

The boy who spoke before blinks and opens his mouth to say something, hesitates. You’d take him for the leader up until the moment Abby speaks for him.

“West of here. QZ. Seattle.”

“Oh. Cool,” says Ellie with a bounce to her nod. Easy. Instantly welcoming. “I came out of Boston.”

Seattle QZ. The same one your dead husband and his sister came from. Not a good place. Warring factions and nothing but oppression and disease, last you heard. Good that they got out. They’re gonna need to be de-loused.

But Seattle’s also much harder than most zones to break free of. You’ve been told the Western Liberation Front makes FEDRA look like a bucket of clowns.

“Seattle?” Now it’s your turn to pull focus from the group. “We’ve had refugees from there before. You really get out of there in one group like this? With no grown ups?”

Abby rips her eyes away from Ellie. “It’s a long story,” she says, shutting the questioning down.

There’s a moment that hangs between you and that stinks faintly of threat, but is mostly just the smell of feral kids. Tension breaks as the men emerge from the stable.

“We all ready?” Tommy says, making his way down the road and waving a hand for them to follow. “New home’s this way.”

Ellie starts to fall in with the group and you pull her back in close, speak low. “Go with them if you want, but keep your distance.”

“What? Why?”

“These are your first refugees. You’ll learn that they sometimes bring things with ‘em.”

Her face screws into a question mark. “What things?”

“Fleas. Lice. Viruses. Just give ‘em some space for a while.”

After the quickest flash of disgust, Ellie’s tried and true compassion kicks in and she gives an understanding nod as she turns to go, tape cassettes clattering in her jacket pocket.

You keep watching her even as you speak to the owner of the hand snaking around your waist. “Where’d you find them?”

“Up at the old crossing. They were under attack.”

“Jesus.”

“Nope. Infected.”

“Been a while since we’ve seen any of those stumble through here.”

“Infected? Or the kids.”

Turning to him in exasperation you look him over. “Both. And the same goes for you as for Ellie, Foxy. Let’s take you home and wash that scarf and hat. Run a fine-toothed comb through that hair just to make sure.”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” he says, stopping when he catches your zero-temperature glare. If it’s something else you love about Joel, he recognizes when something’s important to you and answers a lady with composure and respect. “Yes, ma’am.”

____

“You couldn’t have found her some Cash or Fleetwood Mac or something?”Joel grumbles into the fireplace as he places another log on the coal bed and moves the poker around like he’s doing something.

Ellie sits on a blanket near the fire, reading a comic book, headphones on, Joan Jett’s grinding guitar bleeding out into the otherwise quiet living room. With his face turned to the fire and Ellie facing away from you, she most likely can’t hear the conversation that’s happening around her if you keep your voices low.

“You’re just jealous that she asked me to pick something out instead of you,” you smile on the couch, picking up your feet and swinging them into his lap as he sits down beside you. “80’s rock is good for her spiky little soul.”

“80’s means trouble,” he counters, considering her as his hands absently squeeze and rub at your feet.

You go back to your book. Seemingly anyway. It’s easy to steal observing glances from where you are. The thoughtful concern he has for Ellie. You can see him looking over the wood in the hopper and calculating how many days of fuel he has before you all head out to the Roost. A twist of a lip tells you he’s realized he might be a day short and needs to chop more. His gaze drops to his lap as he lightly massages your feet–just running his hands along their contours, pressing a thumb in here and there to tenderize a muscle. The firelight loves him, plays at the edges of his curls, slides down his nose, kisses the purse of his lips.

You jump as he slides a tickling fingertip up the sole of one foot. “Hey!”

“What you get for staring.”

“I wasn’t staring at you, I was reading.”

“Must be pretty small print you don’t turn a page for five minutes.”

Taking off your readers and closing the book, you sit up and deposit them on the coffee table. From here it’s easy to scoot up to him and lean an elbow on the couch back. “What’s got you so thinky tonight, hmm? You look like you’ve got your worry pants on.” There’s a curl right behind his ear that’s so easy to twirl in your fingers and you indulge. You’ve found a little touch helps him open up.

“I can’t help thinking about those kids, thinkin’ they could just wander out in the world like that. If it weren’t for us hearing the runners….” He goes quiet a minute and you let him, his gaze haunting Ellie’s direction but living somewhere in the past. “They gotta be somebody’s kids. I can’t believe Seattle’s so bad they just let ‘em run wild…let ‘em run away from the best you got for ‘em.”

A faint guitar blares from Ellie’s headphones as she flips a page, purses her lips, absently nods along.

“Yeah, well teenagers rebel, Foxy. That’s what they do.”

“No,” he says, softly, resolutely, a tick of his jaw. “Not all of ‘em. Not if they’re loved. And fiercely. And I don’t know a love that isn’t fierce.”

It’s the look on his face that makes you believe him.

Love isn’t a word that Joel bandies about. It’s easy to see it work in him. The way he tells Ellie no when she wants to do something reckless but promises her something just as exciting, going to any length to make her smile. The way he holds Riley’s head in the crook of his arm, his other hand reflexively coming out in defense if anyone gets too near the baby’s soft spot. The way he shoves his brother with a laugh when Tommy picks on him or how he helps Maria to her feet when she’s been on the floor too long, even if she says she doesn’t need it.

The way he… with you he…

His hands work at your feet again. He understands the minute levels of his strength, knows how firm to go without bringing pain.

With you, it’s the way he rolls over and shows you his soft places, invites you in to be a part of it.

Not really what you’d call fierce. Does that mean he doesn’t–

“Is a cherry bomb like a little bomb or a big bomb?” Ellie asks, an earpad pulled away from her ear and spilling Cherie Currie’s stuttered chorus.

“It’s a little one. A firework. But it packs a big punch. It’ll take your fingers off. Hello, world, I’m your wild girl, I’m your ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch cherry bomb,” you sing, pushing your foot against Joel’s thigh with every beat.

“Alright, that’s it,” he says, wrapping a big hand around your ankle to secure it. “Ellie, run on up and get my guitar. Lemme teach you a better song.”

In the minute it takes for her to come back, Joel foregoes softness for force, tickling relentlessly, almost ending up with a foot in his face with how much you squirm.

___

Church isn’t really your thing, never was. You have your own way of listening to the beauty of the earth that doesn’t mean sacrificing a morning sleeping in to listen to lessons you’ve already learned and hold true.

But today you’ve come to the after-brunch curious to welcome the new residents and managed to show up a little early. So you’re standing in the back of the mess hall with Maria and Riley, waiting for the final hymn to end, for the preacher to call an end to the service and a beginning to the meal.

Maria leans in and murmurs in your ear as the final chorus comes. “Tommy and the crew are working on one of those bigger houses with the vaulted ceilings in the new district so the church can have its own building.”

“They’re not gonna like having to walk over there.”

She shrugs, adjusts Riley’s teething toy and bounces him up a notch. “Might cause some of them to move over there. Thin out the density. Easier on the power grid. We do have five new residents.”

You watch as one of the new boys–Owen–helps the pregnant Mel to her feet. “Soon to be six.”

Once the kitchen starts serving, Owen and Mel find their way over to your table, eager to meet Riley and ask Maria all kinds of questions about childbirth and your friend finds herself in a mentoring role she didn’t ask for. She’s not opposed to being helpful, just lets her judgment slide through on the whole babies having babies thing which completely flies over the kids’ heads.

They’re good enough kids, but something tastes a little sour when Owen tries to include you in the conversation.

“What about you? You and…is his name Joel? You gonna have any kids?”

It’s a rude question. He’s earned your side eye and he knows it, but smiles through it, playing innocent.

“Already got one. One’s enough,” you laugh, sly, chewing through some boiled oats and letting him know you’re gonna let that one slide.

“Oh, yeah, right. Ellie, right?” he asks, with a flick of his eyes to a table behind you. Turning, you find Abby at a table with some other residents and when you turn back it’s with a dry expression that tells him he’s worn out his turns at beating the bush and should be out with it.

“We just were wondering if she’d show us around,” Mel explains. “She’s the only one of the children here who will talk to us.”

You snort. “Don’t let Ellie hear you call her a child. She’s short for her age, but she’s not much younger than you. She likes people, but that won’t win you any points.”

“And don’t worry about the other kids,” Maria takes over, shooting you a look. “They’ll come around. A lot of them were born here and they don’t see a ton of new people.”

“Are they not coming to the brunch today?” Owen asks.

“Who?”

“Ellie and Joel.”

Shaking your head, you swallow your latest bite. “Joel and Tommy are off getting some work done in the new sector and Ellie would bite my face off if I woke her up before high noon on a weekend. But she knows where you’re staying. I’ll send her around to you once she’s up and acting like a whole human.”

You’re about to change the subject and ask them a few questions of your own but Riley starts fussing and Mel asks to hold him and the whole baby talk starts up again.

When you look over your shoulder, Abby is gone from the table. Left her dish for someone else to clean up.

There’s a thought creeps in that maybe Ellie can teach them all some manners. And then you remember the mouth on your starling and smile.

____

“And Owen showed me some of his drawings and they’re so amazing. He’s like a fucking Picasso or something. He says he’ll give me lessons if I can get Mr. Scowlface here to take him out hunting. Says he misses hunting deer with his dad. And Abby wants to go too. I told her how you taught me to use a shotgun and she seemed really interested to learn. She might want to join the patrols some day. But I told them not this week since we’re going out to the Meadow and they all had questions about that. Abby especially–”

Ellie has a remarkable talent for chewing and talking at the same time. She catches a piece of apple that escapes her mouth, slurping it off the back of her hand where it landed, then downs the rest of the milk and wipes her mouth with the cuff of her sweater, leaving you to negate your silent praise of her manners from earlier in the week and giving you a break in the chatter to speak.

“Well, you’re a little young to be recruiting your own Roostlings, but if Abby or any of the others want to come out sometime and see what the fuss is about, they’re welcome. I’d rather them wait until spring though, or at least until we get the whole of the flock back from the deep winter holding grounds. Chickadee’s taking up the caboose on that.”

As you push the carafe of chicory coffee toward Joel and clear the breakfast plates, Ellie snatches the last hunk of bread you left on yours, shaking her head. “Abby’s afraid of heights. Didn’t even have time to tell her about the Roost being up on stilts. What’s a caboose?”

Joel scoffs. “Last car on a train.” He takes a long, loud drag of his coffee, pouring on the annoyance to get a glare out of the girl and succeeds. “Well, if she don’t like heights, she’s not going to enjoy learning patrol duty either, not with the watchtowers and the mountain trails. And don’t go promising services you can’t guarantee. I’m not a scout leader.”

“What’s a scout leader?”

“Someone with a lot more patience than me. Get.”

Taking up her backpack, Ellie makes her way to the front vestibule to pull on her gear.

“Don’t forget your hat and scarf!” You call to her, but smile at Joel as you perch your butt against the table and tuck a little curl behind his ear. He’ll ask you to cut it soon. And you’ll put it off for as long as possible.Tickles, he'll say. I know, you'll say.

“Thanks, Gramma Betty!” she calls back and pulls the door shut behind her as Joel lays a warm hand on your outer thigh.

“What’er you getting up to today?” he asks.

You shrug. “I’m in carding mode. Got a whole bag of washed fleece needs combing. I’d ask you what you’re up to, but I assume you and Tommy are gonna be tearing down some poor old house.”

There’s a moment where he squints, thiinking. His thumb tracing the outer seam of your jeans.

“I want you to come with me. Got something to show you.”

“Really. Well I like the sound of that. I could use a little walk in the bitter cold with a mystery at the end of it. Gonna have to go pull on a heavier sweater though. Might need to take this one off first. You wanna come watch?”

There’s a knock at the front. Tommy. The door opening.

Joel only grins fondly and pats your thigh, sending you off, before pushing the chair back from the table and separating himself from his coffee mug. “I’ll catch the later show. ‘Specially if it calls for audience participation.”

Five minutes later, bundled and booted, the three of you head out toward the new section, Joel with his scarf tucked in tight and hat pulled down low, and Tommy with a set forced upon him because you’re quickly becoming the winter clothing police around here.

It’s not a long walk. Jackson was never more than a few miles wide and this is just the first expansion of the wall. You’ve wandered over during the construction crew’s activities enough to know the way without being led, but what you’re expecting is for Joel to lead you away from the furthest street, away from the beautiful A-frame house so neatly repaired along with its pretty neighbors and up the street with Tommy to the next clutch of houses they’ve been working on.

But instead, Joel tells his brother he’ll be along in a minute, and Tommy smiles knowingly as he continues on, leaving the two of you in the walkway up to the pretty A-frame that’s so much like the Roost’s bigger sister.

“You know what today is?” Joel asks, hands in pockets, squinting up at the peaked roof.

“Friday?”

“Probably,” he says, shifting focus to his boots. “I was thinking more holiday-wise.”

The air’s particularly crisp today, hitches in your lungs as you take each mental step and catch up with him.

February 14. Valentine’s.

As your mouth drops open, he jerks his chin at the house. “You like this one, right?”

“What…what are you….Joel?”

There’s a cringe that belies his confidence, maybe a tinge of regret. “I just figured we were gettin’ along so well, that maybe you’d… It was just an idea–”

He can’t even look you in the eye until you yank his hand awkwardly out of his pocket and wrap your gloved hand around his. He seems almost shocked to see your tears welling up–true, half from the cold–but he’s also relieved. Big breath in, big breath out. That must have been the hard part.

Words aren’t Joel’s way. This is how he tells you just how deep his feelings go. You know he’s had time to imagine with every window replaced, every floorboard leveled out, every load bearing wall reinforced, just which family was going to get to live in this house and what kind of life they might make in it.

What kind of life you might make together here.

So you take his lead and say only what’s necessary, as steadily as you’re able.

“Take me inside.”

His sheepish grin confirms that it was exactly what he’d hoped to hear.

The interior’s simple, but gorgeous. The dark wood gleams, and the whole back wall of the A frame is windowed. The triangle at the top replaced with a leaded stained glass in a sunrise of orange and rose that reflects the undertones in the timber inside and the pines out the window, the mosaic just high enough to catch the last rays that will come in over the mountains at the end of the day and turn the whole place into a dream. The open floorplan has the kitchen near the door, but over by the windows….

Joel gives the tour. The hand-laid stones in the fireplace. The built-in shelves for your books. This is the corner where your favorite chair can go, nearest the fire and where there’s good light for spinning. This rug was here, still good. He points out to the little shed in the back–a place for wool dying, he can hang pegs in there however you need them.

If he weren’t so occupied in explaining the wood he chose to finish the countertop, the way he followed the original dovetailing in the doorframe, the pattern he made with the reclaimed wood in the floorboards, he may have seen you admiring the most important part of the house…or, rather, the most important person in it.

There’s more. Two bedrooms, one off each side of the main part of the house, each with its own bathroom, the larger one with its own porch overlooking a little creek.

“The basement’s not quite done, but I figure I’ll just use that for my own. Felt you might not like the…vibe…”

Ah yes. The former owners. He took care of that too.

He took care of everything.

“I love it, Joel.”

“Yeah?”

“If there was a stronger word, it would be yours, believe me.”

He only wraps his arms around you as you dive in to squeeze him.

“Good,” is all he says. Breathes in the scent of your hair. “That’s good.”

________

The ewes hate the leader ropes, but they follow, bleating now and then as you slowly guide them through the woods toward the Meadow’s north entrance. Joel’s got two behind his and Ellie’s horse, and you’ve got four behind yours, a small party, but the only ones that were ready to come on back out after the coldest weeks.

Goldie’s happy to lead them out to the rest of the flock while you and Joel go up and get situated, get warm, get ready for the week ahead. Ellie follows Goldie and Joel hangs his watch by the door. All’s quiet in the Roost.

Until Joel’s tongue clicks. “That beam is bowing,” he points up to one of the main rafter struts on the far side of the room. “Wood stove keeps this side warm and the snow melts off, but there’s no balcony on the other side. No way to rake the snow off the roof. Tommy should have known better.”

“Well it’s not like he’s had a lot of practice with big boy tree forts, I’m guessing,” you say, dumping a sack of potatoes near the cook pile and throwing the stack of fresh sheets onto the bed. “Does it need to come down?”

“Don’t think so. But come spring we’ll add on another balcony and do some reinforcement.”

As he runs his hand up the wall seam, you come up behind him, hugging him from the back with the sole purpose of distracting him, your way of letting him know he’s obsessing like an old man. It gives you the right angle to grab onto his open jacket and start pulling it off him. “Take this off and stay awhile.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Goldie takes her leave on your horse, guiding Joel and Ellie’s behind, glad to be going back to more warm water than she can heat on a stovetop, and Ellie helps to cart a few buckets of the colder variety up from the stream so you can all just stay in for the night.

Then it’s stew and cards, and Ellie kicking Joel’s ass at Scrabble, all of you bundled in wool sweaters and slippers handmade by you and Chickadee, the firelight glinting off the game tiles, highlighting the glee in the girl’s eyes, the resigned agony in Joel’s smile.

Almost a whole year now she’s been coming out here with you, and it’s wondrous how much she’s grown inside and out. You never felt lonely at the Roost, in fact, you had always very much enjoyed the solitude. Now you don’t think you could abide it. It’s only a home for a week at a time, but only when they come out here with you now.

It’s a nice night. Stars are out. Ellie’s still staring out at them as you and Joel fall asleep in the big bed.

_____

It’s the scent of woodsmoke that wakes you in the middle of the night, sitting you up straight in bed. Or so you think, except that the embers in the stove are low, so it can’t be that.

No. It’s a voice outside.

“Burn in hell, Joel Miller!”

Is that…Ellie? What’s she doing outside? No. Not Ellie. No it’s–

“Abby?” Ellie says blearily from the bunk above you.

There’s someone in the room moving swiftly toward you from the windows, hulking, with a rifle–

Joel.

“Get up. Both of you. Get out. The place is on fire.”

It doesn’t register.

“What? What fire? Joel? What’s happening–”

He shakes your shoulder, pulling you from the bed. “Get Ellie out. Now!”

There’s no other thought, just fumbling in the dark as Ellie jumps down beside you and dives for her jacket, shoving her feet into her boots without doing up the laces while you reach out one hand to catch hers for when it comes to you. The other gropes the near table for the walkie and thumbs the button.

“Meadowlark to patrol. Meadowlark to Goldfinch. We’re in trouble, there’s a fire and–”

The whole cabin sways. A gunshot from the balcony. Joel growling over his shoulder. “Get out! Now!”

“Joel–!”

“NOW!”

The ladder is still sliding down into place when you jump on it and ride it part of the way down, still waking up as Ellie’s boots come fast, almost kicking you in the face as she follows you down the rungs two at a time, moving through a plume of choking blackness only to come out below it to a roaring bonfire that’s eating through the Roost’s supports.

Oh god. The Roost…

is burning….

“JOELLLLLL!” you scream up as your stocking feet hit the ground hard, as you catch Ellie and pull her off the ladder and stumble backward, as something hits your head hard and causes you to let go, as separate sets of arms grab each of yours and drag you roughly backward, fast enough to keep your feet from catching up until you’re on your knees.

There’s a crackle in the air– “Patrol to Meadowlark. What’s the trouble?”

The walkie lies somewhere in the pine needles just out of reach and you’re screaming at it for help but all that comes out of your mouth is a string of names and no’s and helps. You’re able to yank your non-dominant arm free, pitching forward, clawing for the radio, until a flash of hard silver–a meteorite, exquisitely dense and smooth, malignant, swift, direct–cracks down on your forearm with a sickening thud, shattering the bone.

The world slides out of focus through a screen of sudden pain.

At first, you assume you’ve been shot in the arm. But then a figure steps around to your line of sight. Abby. With a golf club? What? Why? Where did she get that? The commissary? Why the fuck would they stock golf clubs? What the fuck is going on?

And you watch as Abby picks up the walkie. Tosses it into the fire.

The hands are back upon you now, forcing you back to your knees, and a third set joins them, wrapping around your forehead and chin, pulling you back against a belly and you struggle.

Where’s Ellie.

You’re able to twist your head to one side despite being held. She’s there on the ground, face down, groaning, with Owen’s knee in her back.

“Ellie? Honey?”

One pair of hands holding you twists you hard, meaning to pull you further away from her without compliance from the other hands or consent from your muscle structure and there’s a sickening pop as your shoulder leaves its socket and then your scream drowns out everything even the roar of the fire.

“She keeps it in her pocket,” Abby says. Rooting into Ellie’s pocket, Owen finds the knife and pulls it out–the one she cherishes, imbued with the legend of her mother, given to her on the same day as her name, her life, and her orphanhood.

The day Ellie told you the story, you’d taken steel wool to the knife and cleaned it. Oiled the hinge. Shined it up good and pretty.

It flips open easily in Owen’s paw. It twirls swiftly around, and points downward, his fingers closing over the hilt, thumb curling over the butt of the handle to give it more leverage when he’s ready to bring it down.

The night is horribly black and lit along the edges in orange fire.

There’s a loud crack. Owen’s thigh explodes in a splatter of blood and he falls backward off Ellie, screaming. The hands around your head let go and Mel runs to him.

Joel stalks out of the plume of black smoke, cocking the rifle, pointing only long enough at Owen to confirm he’s down and then swinging the barrel around to Abby.

A stand off. No sound or movement but the whoosh of flames and a few ground-muffled cries from Owen, a few sniffles and shushes from Mel.

“Who the fuck are you,” Joel growls out over the steel barrel, his cheek quivering in barely hinged anger.

Abby stands, solid, unyielding, straight as the blonde braid hanging down her back, club wound up tight, ready for the pitch, a face full of lines and soot and destruction.

“The last survivors of the Firefly massacre. You didn’t think to check the rest of the compound? Like the whole team was just one-offs? Like none of them had family, you sick fuck? You fucking orphaned us. Left us to fend for ourselves. Go ahead and shoot, old man. Marlene always said you weren’t so good at keeping kids alive, actually surprised you got as far as you did. So go ahead. Not like we’ve got nothing to lose. We just came to return some favors and finish the job.”

It’s only in the moments later, before the dawn, when you’re laying on your back looking up at the stars, one arm laying broken and useless in the snow beside you, the other cradling a weeping Ellie Williams as tight as you can, that you’ll be able to slow the film of your memory and play out the next thirty seconds frame by frame.

The series of snaps and cracks as the support under the Roost gave way and the whole structure tumbled out and away from the scene, pulling several pines down with it, the crashing and burning the only sound you remember now.

Ellie trying to shuffle along the ground toward you and away from the fire.

Owen pulling himself up enough to raise the knife and bring it down into the meat of Ellie’s calf.

Owen’s body flying backward as a bullet ripped through his skull.

A wrench of your neck and the warm splash of blood from above you as another shot rang out, one person holding you falling away and back, gone, but still pulling you down with their dead body.

The roar of an angry Abby and the clank of a club shaft on a rifle barrel.

Another gunshot.

The sound of metal hitting flesh.

Thirty seconds. And now you can see the stars. Orion. The Milky Way.

Somehow you’re lying yards from the little patch of burning trees with Ellie cradled in your good arm. Someone dragged you here.

There are voices and flashlights. The patrol. Bear and Tommy. Goldie and Willa and Chickadee.

And Maria. Laying on the ground beside you, exhausted from the effort of dragging two humans out of the burning thatch of trees.

“Joel. Where’s Joel.” It hurts to speak. Breath comes fast and shallow.

Then he’s there with the others, a bruise blooming purple beneath his eye, saying only what scant words he needs to move past them and get to you. To Ellie.

His hands are gentle, but his eyes are cold.

Two still, black pools reflecting fire.

_______

Perhaps unsurprisingly, you dream of Troy, his mangled face open and bleeding, laying in the hole next to Ash, mutilated, stopped at the moment of transformation into something more sinister, your ex-husband and his sister lost to you because they were headstrong, foolish, too devoted to each other….

Ash’s eyes open, what’s left of them anyway. “Abby’s afraid of heights. Didn’t even have time to tell her about the Roost being up on stilts. What’s a caboose?”

They didn’t know the Roost was elevated. They followed us out here and didn’t have a good plan. Is that it?

They don’t answer. They get up and climb out of the hole, turn their backs on your and walk into the forest. You call after them, desperate to have them back after all this time, begging them not to leave you.

But you’re calling after them wrong. You can’t seem to say Troy. You can’t say Ash.

You’re only calling out for Joel and Ellie.

_____

The next thing you know, you’re sitting up in the snow, leaning against Goldie, the girl patting at your cheek as you’re coming around. “Come on, come on back, baby.”

The sun’s up, but not high enough to breach the mountains circling the meadow. Everything’s still lit by the slowly dying flames.

The one two punch of Willa setting the bone and popping your shoulder back in must have sent you off. Looking down, you see you must have thrown up as well.

“Holy shit,” you groan, “I’m sorry. Oh my god, holy shit that hurts.”

“I know, I know,” says Goldie, smoothing your hair and kissing your forehead.

“Here,” says Willa, handing you some dark root. You forget what it’s called, you just know you gotta chew. “Don’t swallow,” she reminds you. “You ride with Goldie. She’ll keep you upright once that sets in.”

“I gotta get up,” you mumble, struggling to stand and inhaling sharply at the twinge of pain the movement brings to your bandaged and immobilized arm. Goldie’s able to help get you up, but seems hesitant to let you go. “Ain’t nothing wrong with my feet, lemme go. Where’s Ellie?”

But you don’t need to ask, she’s just behind you, laying on her back in the snow, one arm flung over her eyes, breathing heavy to manage the pain, leg bandaged and tourniqueted.

Good. Next priority. “Where’s Joel?”

Goldie points to the fire. It’s starting to die down, enough to make out the bodies of three teenagers consigned to the flames. Past them, the group of the regular patrol. Joel shaking his head at them, speaking. Jacket zipped up to the top, no scarf, no hat; probably got left behind in the Roost. Rifle over one shoulder. A backpack over the other.

But not his backpack. Why would he have someone else’s backpack? Why would he have one at all…

He’s…. No.

Pushing off Goldie, you immediately find out that walking is hard. Even if the pain’s just in one arm, everything’s connected, everything hurts; it’s disorienting. Your knees are bruised and even your soft sleep pants feel like sandpaper on them. Feet cold and wet, no boots…

Joel sees you struggling to get to him and walks away from the group and the fire, meeting you partway, catching your good arm as your fist falls hard on his shoulder and yanks, fingers digging in hard to his coat, doing your best to hold on tight, to keep him here, to convince him not to go.

“Don’t you dare, Joel Miller. What do you think you’re fucking doing???”

He says nothing, only lets you collapse onto his chest, to sob. There’s not even an arm to comfort you, he gives you nothing but the bare necessity, a wall to keep you standing, and you know nothing you say will make a difference. In essence, he’s already gone.

“Please. Joel. Don’t. Please don’t go.”

“Trail’s fresh. Best to get on before it snows and covers the tracks. One of them’s the pregnant girl. One of them’s bleedin’. They can’t get that far.”

“You don’t have to. Just come home.”

“They’ll just come back. Maybe not soon, but someday.”

He’s right. You know he’s right. Stepping back, it hurts to look at him. The Joel you love has been asked to step aside, the care and fondness he’s come to show you locked up somewhere secure, somewhere where it won’t get in the way.

I warned you, this Joel seems to say, void of emotion, jaw set, brow even and low, hand on the strap of his rifle. You took me in knowing exactly what I am.

He’s right.

“I need you here, Joel. Ellie needs you here. Don’t you dare go…unless you can come back.”

“I need you here too. ‘S why I’m going.”

Nothing. No kiss goodbye, no waiting for approval, he just turns and walks.

Maybe this is the last of it, just one last loose thread, then he can finally leave off wandering, finally shake off the killer and just come home, just be your Joel.

Convincing yourself of this is the only choice you’ve got.

________

You find yourself out on Maria’s back porch that night. Unable to sleep from the ache of the mending bone and the swell of your assaulted shoulder, it seemed like the best remedy was to find the toughest jerky in the kitchen, to sit on the porch in the cold and chew through the pain, and to lean back in one of the porch chairs with a soothing snowpack between it and your back.

The moonlight plays illusions like the canteen filmstrips–a summer image of Tommy and Joel teaching Ellie the mechanics of tackle football. The twinkle of the fireflies lending veritas to the picture…which in reality is only the twinkle of a dusting of new snow.

Not enough snow to make tracking impossible, but enough to make it difficult.

The back door opens and a blanket lands over your lap.

“Was gonna ask you if you wanted company, but then I decided, it’s my house and you don’t get a choice.”

Maria plops her own blanket in a nearby chair before disappearing and returning with two steaming mugs of tea as offering for the table between you. She takes her time covering you just so before wrapping herself up and joining you on the porch. “Suppose I should have asked if you want that cold pack changed before I get too comfortable,” she says, not really offering, but leaving the suggestion there between you if you need it.

It’s not necessary to talk for a while. She knows exactly what you’re thinking. Sees what you see.

“Did I wake you?”

“No. Riley did,” she lies. You’d heard her shift when you got up from the bed–her bed, well, hers and Tommy’s. But hers and yours for now.

“Thanks for taking care of us.”

“You say that like you’re not my family.”

“Well then, thanks for staying behind as if you are.”

It’s hard to see her out of the corner of your eye, backed by dark shadows. But the moon plays little crescents on her face, the curve of her nose, her cheek, her chin. Her voice comes out velvet from the dark.

“I know you’re pissed at Joel for going, but he’s doing the right thing.”

Now you make the effort to turn, rotating more from the waist than the neck to save the injury from twinging, but it does anyway, mirroring your spike in irritation. “Really? You think so? Is that why you sent Tommy with him? After all that time you spent bemoaning the things Joel made Tommy do all those years ago–”

“This is different. This is about the greater good.”

“You know that’s what the villain always says, right?”

She presses her lips together, hating that you’re right. “Okay, so maybe not the greatest good for the morality of the remainder of the human race, but. For the good of Jackson.”

“Two grown men hunting down two teenage girls is the greater good.”

“They won’t be teens forever. They’ve both got reasons to come back for their revenge. And now they know where Jackson is. They get taken in by the wrong people, and then the wrong people will know where Jackson is too and when they come back they won’t be alone. They’ll know exactly how many and what kind of folk to bring.” She holds your gaze for a few seconds, steady and wise but also warning, her warmth only thinly veiling the matronly protectress behind it, like a Durga on her throne. “You know why we have patrols. You know what happens to people that get too close. Two more drops in the bucket is all.”

“Three. One of those little girls is pregnant.”

She has no answer to this. Rather, your dig brings no new argument to the table. It’s just words, just a fact on the wind. It doesn’t sway the needle one way or the other.

It’s exactly what you’d been thinking about, staring up at her bedroom ceiling. Then out here on the porch. It’s like she knew you needed to hear the justification out loud.

“They would have killed him, lady. And Ellie. And you. I’m surprised you don’t want them hunted down like dogs.”

You turn your attention to the back yard, the smallest hump of leaves under the big tree there not quite scattered to the wind, sparkling with snow cover. You can almost still hear Ellie’s high laughter as it sounded the day she experienced her first leaf pile.

“Oh, I want them run down,” you say. “I’m all for that, let ‘em eat lead. I just didn’t want…” It’s not really necessary to continue. Maria knows exactly what you want. She always does. That’s why she sent Tommy with him. To keep him tethered to humanity.

To the way Joel watched Ellie jump and disappear into a poof of leaves. The sun in his smile. At peace. At home. Free from the old violence. Reborn.

I just didn’t want Joel to be the one to do it.

______

Maria’s dinner table feels empty. Funny, you think, it was always the two of you. For a while there was four, what with Troy and Ash, but most of the time just the two. Then Tommy. Then Joel and Ellie. Now Riley…well, that is, if he’s still up during family dinner.

You’ve slept through most of the light of day and was hoping to talk to Ellie at dinner, but Maria’s been taking all her meals to the guest room for her. Mostly so she doesn’t have to walk down the stairs on her healing leg, but also because Ellie’s not been talking since that night.

And you can guess why. It has less to do with the injury and assault or the fire, and more about the truths she learned during them.

Not much to do. The arm has to stay stable, strapped to your body. At least they fucked up the non-dominant one so you can still hold a fork, still brush your teeth. But knitting? Spinning? Helping Maria clear the dishes? Fat chance.

Not much to do but chew root, smoke wild weed, and sleep it off.

Maria reappears with a plate needs washing. “There’s a break in the clouds. I got three whole words out of her. This might be your chance.”

“Oh. Joy.” It’s getting to be less of an effort to stand now that you’ve got rest and food in you. The stairs are daunting only because of the conversation that waits at the top.

A knock on her door only grants you silence.

“I’m coming in, Starling girl. Best not be naked.”

No answer. You take that as the opposite of opposition. Tolerance.

She’s sitting on the bed, propped up by pillows behind her back and under her knee, her bandages freshly changed, no more blood pooling or free bleeding. She plays with the cuffs of her sweater, tugging at a loop in the knit, a book abandoned by her side as if she’d put it down when you knocked. A good sign. She doesn’t want to hide.

You crawl in beside her, awkwardly, one-handedly, a big showy sigh of relief when you finally land. “You know, if I was your mom, I’d probably start off with ‘what’cha reading there, kiddo?’ just to get you to say something, but I’m not your mom and I’m not here to make you talk if you don’t wanna–”

“Well I don’t.”

“Good. I didn’t come up here to hear you yap anyway.” You detect the tiniest twitch of her cheek, not quite a smile, perhaps a sneer…to scare away a smile. “Don’t talk, just listen.”

“I don’t wanna do that either.”

“Tough titties. I’m cashing in exchange for all the time I had to listen to you go on about Sally Fucking Ride.”

Now she does smile. Barely. Gives you the teenager face you wanna slap sometimes. “Tough titties? Really?”

“They didn’t have tough titties in the orphanage? Seems off-brand.” The smile fades. “Tell me how you’re healing. I’m not asking, I’m demanding.”

A big breath in. But the air doesn’t come rushing back with a dramatic sigh, just melts out of her with a single tear she doesn’t move to brush away.

So you do. “That bad, huh.”

“It fucking sucks. It fucking sucks so bad.”

“Heh, tell me about it. I miss the good old days of ibuprofen. Shit. I miss morphine. You’re young though, you’ll be up and running in a week or two. Me? I’m gonna be aching for–”

“He fucking lied through his teeth.”

Ah. There it is.

Now the colony of tears follows the first scout, pouring out over the plains of her cheeks until she covers her face with those cuffs she’s been picking at, relieved at being able to let it all out in front of someone who might understand, but probably scared as hell to let herself be this messed up in front of someone who might not. A gamble.

And a win. You’ve still got one good arm and you put it to good use, pulling her into your side. “Yeah, you’re right. He totally did. He’s a fucking asshole. Why the hell would he do that.”

“It wasn't time that did it,” she hiccups from under her woolen cuffs.

“I don’t know what that means, Starling” you say, unable to stop yourself from kissing the crown of her head.

She wipes her nose and comes up for air. “I mean I know why. But he fucking lied about everything. Straight to my face.”

“Well, you’ve got every right to demand an explanation and an apology when he comes back. Straight to his face.”

“If he comes back.”

You let that sit a moment between you. It’s her way of saying that she knows you’re mad at him too, that she heard the conversation you had with him when he left. It’s her way of poking at your own fears and getting you on her side.

“Those girls aren’t armed and the Miller boys have a lot more experience with being hunters than those kids do being prey. He’ll be back.”

“I hate him.”

“I know. But also. You don’t.”

“I had a… a purpose. A fucking purpose.”

“Well….I know you did, but…probably not so much as you think.” She looks up at you but you can’t meet her eye, she’s right to mourn, and you can’t deny her that. “Remember what I told you about my sister and her treatments?”

“The research hospital.”

“Yeah. Cancer’s been killing people on this earth far longer than cordyceps and they’d had millions of patients to test on. Still couldn’t crack it. How many people are immune like you? Because if it ain’t millions, you just become one part sample in a petri dish and another part dead body that maybe give some vague clues and then you’re all parts in the bin, end of story. I mean, I’ll be honest. I don’t blame him. You’re quite a keeper.”

Now her sigh is dramatic. “And then he fucking lied about it.”

“So you would feel good about it. Accomplished in your goal. Also so you wouldn’t hate him for caring about you more than you do.”

“Why didn’t he just say–?”

“Do you know that man to be good with words?”

This quiets her. Both of you. For a few minutes. She goes back to picking at her sleeves.

The sun’s set completely now and her little bedside lamp can’t even drown out the stars so bright on the other side of the window. Clear night. Cold out there.

After a moment you take your arm back, jostle her with your shoulder. “Hey. I’m going out to the Meadow tomorrow, check in with Willa, look over the damage. If I bring you back a piece of the Roost, you wanna do some carving or whittling or something? We’ll build a platform like the old one and it’s probably just gonna be a tent up there for a while like it used to be, but hopefully this spring or summer we’ll get a structure up there and we’ll need a cornerstone or a plaque or something signifying its importance. Since you’re on your ass all day with nothing better to do, and you’re the star recruit, I’d love for you to do it.”

Her lips twist, half smiling at the request, but then in regret. “I lost my knife.”

“The one from your mom?” She nods. “Well if you’ll do some carding for me while I’m out there, I promise to look for it, ask around, maybe one of the patrol picked it up, okay?”

“Okay. Oh. By the way…How are you healing?”

“I’ve been worse. But mostly I’ve been better. Thanks for asking. ‘S kind of you. But don’t you worry about me.”

“Okay. Um…I’m…sorry about telling them about the meadow and all.”

“Why? You’re a Roostling. It’s your story to tell.” Sliding off the bed you head for the door. “Oh hey. I meant to ask–” you nod at the book by her side. “What’cha reading?”

She doesn’t miss a beat. “Oh…just porn.”

“Cool. G’night.”

“‘Night. Hey Meadowlark?”

You poke your head back in before the door closes completely. “Hm?”

“Thanks. For all that. But mostly for not calling me kiddo.”

You smile. Nod. Give her a warm wink. “Sure. I gotchu, kiddo.”

It’s worth the eyeroll you catch as you close the door.

________

The most sickening part of coming in through the north passage isn’t seeing the burn scar on the pine grove in the middle of the Meadow, isn’t missing the outline of the Roost through the trees, but rather the feeling that your home has been breached, that for a moment it wasn’t safe and now you’ll always wonder if it will be.

Riding across the north plain, you close your eyes and breathe, let the horse plod on without your guidance, he knows the way. Once spring comes and the valley fills with flowers and the music of the lambs calling for their ewes takes over from this cold silence that comfort will be renewed.

But for now, there is no comfort on the Meadow in winter, not without a pretty little fireplace and a warm spot to watch the snow build up on the mountains.

You know what’s coming, but it turns your heart inside out all the same when you open your eyes.

Where once there was a cabin in the treetops is now a void leading downward to a pile of blackened rubble and debris. Off to the side under some lower trees is the old canvas tent with the vent hole and a friendly little trail of smoke rising from it. Willa always knew her way around a fire and didn’t mind keeping a low one going on the inside. You never were that confident, even with a fire-treated tarp.

She’s been at work out here, pulling useful things out of the rubble. The woodstove. The pulley jacks. A few timbers that are mostly unburned.

But there’s a pile of other things too, useless items that shouldn’t be mixed back in with the earth: a burned walkie. Twisted silverware and blackened plates. The iron tools from the rafters. Shattered tile. Your charred and mangled boots.

All that’s left in the major wreckage is wood. And glass. And bones.

Three blackened skulls, three sets of eye sockets and three jaws gaping up at the sky as if they were caught in the moment of realizing their plans were going terribly awry.

Stupid fucking kids. ….Just kids.

If someone asked you how you knew which one was Owen’s, you wouldn’t be able to say. You just know. The memory of him sinking that knife into Ellie’s leg…of hurting her…intent to kill… His skull breaks like a cracker when you put your weight on it.

Willa doesn’t say anything when she comes up along side to stare down at the bones with you. It's not the first time you've stood with her at the edge of a burned down home.

"I hate that it’s gonna take me a while to sift though all this,” you say.

“We’ve decided to skip your turn for a while. At least until there’s a new platform.”

You nod, resigned. You don’t love it, but it’s best. Trauma lingers longest of all hurt.

“How’s the flock?”

“They’re over it.”

“Figures. Fluffy shits. Any chance you found a pocket knife out here?” You ask her.

She nods, reaches into a jacket pocket and there it is, like it’s been waiting to come back to its keeper, made itself shiny and easily found. It’s passed between you like a sacred object, holy, a relic saved and cared for, a thing infused with deep love and meaning. There’s an instant relief as your fingers curl around it, your shoulders relaxing and releasing a little of the pain.

“Thank you.”

“There was this too.” From the same pocket Willa pulls a disk of silver and glass, turning it over and placing it in your hand with the knife.

The watchband is burned away. But it’s otherwise unharmed.

Willa may be a stoic, but she knows enough to recognize a release through tears and to hold you while you cry.

Later that afternoon when you knock on Ellie’s door, you’ll hand her the knife and a piece of the old Roost to carve to consecrate the new one. And then you’ll give her the watch and ask her to be your hands, to help you with one more thing.

________

Two days later, you’re standing in Joel’s living room, never having been here when it’s so quiet, dark, and cold. With you and Ellie staying with Maria, there’s been nobody here to light a fire, to make the place live. You wouldn’t be here if Maria hadn’t made a side comment about maybe you and Ellie’d been in the same clothes for a day too many. Not that you thought you’d be with her that long.

She was right. It was nice to change into something clean–a soft fleece and some sleep pants. While the sword of Damocles kept things in check at Maria’s house, it did feel just this side of an extended girl’s night sleepover, might as well dress for it. Ellie had asked for something soft and comfy so you decided to go for it, an assortment of sweats and sweaters in the duffel at your feet.

What you’re eyeing at the moment is an empty hook on the wall by the fireplace.

You put your hand in your jacket pocket and pull out the watch.

Ellie did a beautiful job with it, took directions like a champ. Sitting together on her bed, listening to Joan Jett and Pat Benetar, you’d instructed her how to design the plaid stripes into the strap, how to knot and plait in patterns.

“Macrame. MACrame. Mac. Ra. Mayyyyyy,” Ellie’d chanted. “It’s a fun word to say. What’s it mean?”

“Fringe. Knotting. It’s just the name of the technique. I dunno. Probably something prettier in French.”

The strap clasps had been lost in the fire, so you’d had Ellie work him a new strap out of dyed and tightly-spun wool, something a little longer so he could tie it on. Most likely he’d come back here first, so you want to put it somewhere he’d see it, that way he could have it again without a lot of fuss but knowing at the same time you were thinking of him. So you slip the end loop over the hook, gently let it slip through your fingers and rest against the wall.

If he comes back…

The front door opens. Boots on the wood. The thump of a backpack.

By the time you’ve turned, he’s coming in through the front hall.

When he sees you standing here, he stops.

You never imagined this moment. You should have. It might have prepared you for the yellowing bruise on his face, the majority of his left pant leg browned with dried blood, his knuckles raw and just beginning to heal over.

You struggle with finding the right question. Find ‘em? They dead? Finish the job? No survivors?

I’d ask you what the hell you did, but I know and I don’t wanna hear you say it.

Instead all you can muster is a nod at the blood on his jeans.

His eyes slide to the staircase, already looking to move on, and he only answers with a short and shallow nod of his own before doing just that.

You find yourself sitting on the couch, staring at your hands, the duffel, the watch, back at your hands. Listening as he moves around upstairs, dropping boots, his belt buckle clapping to the floor. The shower running for a long, long time.

Sun’s going down. Getting colder.

The squeaks from the staircase are slow, softer than usual. He’s taking his time coming down. Doesn’t want to force himself back into a space so safe and quiet after pushing through one so big and mean.

He barely shifts the couch as he sits on the far side. Clean shirt. Clean jeans. A pair of socks you knit him.

“Where’s Ellie?” He sounds like he hasn’t spoken to anyone in days. You’d wager he hasn’t.

“With Maria. We’ve been staying there. I was just getting us some clothes. Didn’t think you’d be gone this long.”

“Neither did I. They had a head start. Younger. Faster. But you’re safe now. You’re both safe now.” He’s quiet long enough for the house to give a settling creak as the wind picks up outside. “How’s that arm?”

“Joel, you can’t keep us safe from the world. The world is what it is.”

“The fuck I can’t,” he whispers back, defiant, stubborn, with enough venom that he seems to scare himself and he breathes in deep, keeps it, holding back.

All you want is your Joel back. Even in all this mess. All you want is for him to lay down his fear and love you the right way.

So instead of arguing, you get up and stand before him, give him the time it takes to understand you’re going to straddle his lap whether he helps you or not. He reaches for you on your way down, guides and supports you, allows you to rake through his wet curls before leaning in to take possession of his lips, to will him–by kissing through to his very soul–to come back to you.

He can’t help but respond, his whole body coming to life, and in the cold, twilit living room, you become a tangle of silhouettes as his hand pushes up under your sweater–somehow still keeping an aura of care around your ruined and wrapped arm–to squeeze almost painfully at your curves, rough and wanting, panting between devouring kisses as he paws beyond the waistband of your sleep pants, sucking at your neck when you throw your head back as he reaches what he was searching for….what you hoped he’d find…

There’s a tousle of repositioning and a clatter of belt and zipper. You’re both raw and rough and needy, and you both take advantage of the emptiness of the house to fill it with the sounds of desperation, of effort, the song of casting off of all inhibition, a duet of total and grateful release.

But through it all, it’s the way he holds onto you that tells you how much he wanted to get back to you, how close he intends to hold you and never let you go, a desperation that tells you exactly where his faults lay…

…that it was necessary–and always will be–to eliminate any chance of someone taking you from his world by force.

It’s not so much possession as a fierce and burning need to be possessed. A need to belong, concentrated down to its basest form.

“I’m sorry,” he says as he softly kisses your temple, spooning you in the afterglow that burns bright in the darkening room.

“For what? You didn’t hurt me.”

“Rushed it a little. Tend to act before thinkin’ sometimes.”

You’re not completely sure what he means by that. At first you think he’s talking about the rough sex, but you get his meaning. Stalking off after Abby and Mel so impulsively. For being impulsive in general.

For acting out of trauma.

Or love.

“I’m not the one you need to apologize to for that, Joel.”

You can tell the moment he understands when his forehead gently meets your shoulder. “Shit.”

It’s probably the best time to break it to him, while he’s still a little softheaded and euphoric. “She’s ready to listen. But I won’t promise it’ll be easy. It might just be you and me here for a while.”

Once his breathing evens out, he shifts, still holding onto you, but just coming back down, settling back in.

“What’s that?” He mutters, just on this side of falling asleep, lazily pointing at the watch on the hook by the fireplace.

“Your Valentine’s Day present. From both of us. Sorry it’s late.”

________

Taking some shifts off from the Meadow rotation affords you time to start slowly moving things over to the new A-frame, Maria helping you to load up a skid now and then and unload it, walking beside you as you lead the horse that tows it.

After a week or two, Ellie’s up and walking–well, limping, but healing–and starting to talk to Joel at dinner again. She’s on the verge of actually gracing his bad jokes with a smile or even a laugh, but she’s making him work hard for it. Good for her.

You haven’t asked either of them how the talk went. Don’t know if you ever will. That’s between them, the less you interfere, the better.

But you know that things are on the mend when you find Ellie playing Joel’s guitar–learning some Johnny Cash song you know he loves.

And you have a feeling that spring is on the way when you drop off another load at the new house and find a new frame on the wall–a handmade, custom carpentry display shadowbox.

With a watch hanging inside.

_______

PREVIOUS: AUTUMN

NEXT: SPRING AGAIN (coming soon)

MASTERLIST

SERIES MASTERLIST

#bake me a jess as fast as you can #<3 <3 <3

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buckevantommy · 3 days ago

Note

1? For dialogue prompts

꒰ 1 ꒱ “i can’t fucking believe this.”

"I can't fucking believe this."

"Sal.."

"Where in the hell does he get off—"

"Sal! It was my choice."

That brings his friend up short. "What?"

"I broke up with him."

The worst of it is: there's no confusion in Sal's eyes. Just horrid understanding sinking in. And not without pity. "Jesus."

Tommy scrubs a hand down his face, stubble catching on his calloused palm. He hasn't bothered shaving on his days off. Evan was always so vocal about how much he enjoyed the texture of Tommy's scruff - beneath his fingertips, against his lips, between his thighs.. His next inhale is a heady rush. "Yeah."

The couch dips where Sal settles beside him. They sit in silence for a minute, maybe two, maybe more. Tommy fiddles with the label on his beer bottle and doesn't taste it when he takes a sip, the flavors bitter on his tongue.

Sal finally breaks the uneasy quiet. "What happened?"

He ran away. He ruined the best relationship he's ever had because he got scared. "I fell for him. I let myself think—" It was stupid. Foolish. He should never have let things get as far as they did. "It doesn't matter. He doesn't want me."

"He tell you that?"

"He's not seeing things clearly right now, but he will."

"Oh my god." Sal sways forward in his periphery. His tone is accusatory, which: rude. "Is this because of Jason?"

Tommy looks away.

"Jesus, Tommy. I know you cared about him, but that guy was an asshole."

Jason was Tommy's second serious long-term relationship with a man. They dated less than a year before moving in together. Three months later they broke up because Jason wasn't ready to commit and Tommy found himself on Sal's couch for the next two months.

That's putting it nicely. The harsh truth was that the man Tommy saw himself buliding a life with got bored of their relationship. Bored of Tommy. And Evan— Buck, would've soon realised the same: that he wanted more than Tommy could give him, wanted something different, someone better, wanted to explore this newly discovered facet of his identity without hindrances.

Not that Tommy was ever going to move into the loft, even in a perfect world where things turned out better for them; Tommy has a house for fuck sake, a mid-century ranch he's spent the better part of a decade making his own. And living alone. But he'd be a liar if he said he hadn't pictured waking up to a certain someone there every morning and going to sleep together every night.

Why be apart when we can be together?

"Hey," Sal knocks a knuckle against his knee. "I'm sorry."

Tommy gives a tight nod, doesn't trust himself to open his mouth in case what comes out is something more embarassing than words.

"For what it's worth, I thought you and Buckley were good together. Hadn't see you that happy in years."

He was happy. Happiest he's ever been in a relationship - except maybe for the giddy euphoria he felt with his own first boyfriend; it was fun but it ran its course. Same with Jason. And he was Buck's first, it wouldn't last. It didn't.

He let himself ignore the inevitable for six amazing months. He doesn't regret their time together, but the ease of being with Buck had lured him into a false sense of security. Buck didn't know the real Tommy - he barely knew himself - so it became apparent that moving forward together was not an option.

Foolish Tommy's happiness always seems to spell heartache down the line. He tried to spare himself this time but it was too late, and that notable happiness that was is juxtapose to a consequential pain that is and which feels like it could last a lifetime.

"I love him," Tommy confesses suddenly, voice quietly ragged. A heated sting presses behind his eyes and he squeezes them shut. Tries to steady his breathing.

And only resists for a moment as Sal pulls him in, big hand bracing Tommy's head, tucking into his friend's shoulder as the floodgates open.

"I know, pal. I know."

doing this thing

#sal and tommy friendship my beloved 🥲🫶#fic meme #fanfiction #bucktommy #.txt #evantommy #tevan kinkley firepilot

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corysmiles · 1 day ago

Text

Runes and Ruin Pt. 5

Arcane g/t

Notes: Hello so sorry this one took a little longer but I’m very excited about it >:)

The night of the gala changed something between Jayce and Viktor. Viktor couldn’t quite put a name to it, but it was like something in Jayce had snapped— a thread pulled taught until it finally broke.

He was still touchy, Viktor didn’t think anything could change that, but Viktor couldn’t help but notice that he seemed less comforted by it. He’d hold Viktor like he was afraid he’d disappear more than anything. Furthermore, the gentle teasing he would give Viktor over his stature had all but disappeared.

It was even worse when they were in the lab. Jayce seemed almost single mindedly determined to stay silent— his lips stayed firmly shut as he doggedly tried more and more ruin combinations. Every failed attempt only seemed to drag him further into his hardened determination.

It was three days after the gala when Viktor had finally had enough of the silent treatment. He was sitting at the edge of Jayce’s work desk where piles of withered leaves had been swept to the side from failed experiments, and Jayce looked like he was a second away from a break down. His gigantic hands trembled with every twist of a rune.

“Jayce,” Viktor called out to him. His eyes wandered to the open window at the other side of the lab, soft orange hues signalled that the sun had already started to set. “Maybe we should call it a day, yes?”

He didn’t really want to—not really. He’d much rather keep working, but he felt like he was going to explode if he had to sit through even a few more minutes of uncomfortable silence while Jayce tried and failed over and over again to come up with something that would work.

It felt uncanny to see Jayce so unnervingly quiet, and at least going back to Jayce’s apartment would mean he’d get to have some closeness back; Jayce still slept with him on his chest. Unfortunately, all he got in response was a small hum of acknowledgement—Jayce didn’t even look away from the Hexcore; his fingers stiffened around it.

Viktor gave him a few seconds before his lack of response started to hurt. Annoyance prickled under his skin as he stood up, leaning into the crutch Jayce had made him, so he could walk closer to Jayce’s hands.

“I know you heard me,” Viktor frowned.

Jayce stilled, his hands freezing around the Hexcore. His lips tensed like he wanted to say something before he let out a sigh.

“You seem unwell,” Viktor continued, trying to pry a response out of Jayce.

Jayce swallowed visibly, and his brows furrowed together as he finally spoke, “I’m just worried I—it’s almost been a month and we still don’t have a solution.”

Viktor had to stop himself from wincing at the reminder. Jayce seemed worried—more scared than Viktor had seen him before—and it felt unsettling. Jayce had always been the more optimistic of the two of them.

“It’s just like you said before, if the core can change me once surely it can change me back,” Viktor said, trying to sound more confident than he really felt.

Unfortunately, all his words managed to do was make Jayce’s lips tighten into a frown.

“What if I can’t do it though?” Jayce swallowed, his eyes falling on Viktor’s form like a heavy blanket, “I mean…I’ve already tried so many combinations.”

“You’re the smartest man I know, Jayce,” Viktor hummed in thought, “I trust that if there’s a way you can find it.”

The room fell silent as Jayce deflated in on himself—his shoulders hunched as he leaned over the desk, letting his head fall to rest on his folded arms. The angle brought him much closer to Viktor, and from only a few steps away Viktor could really tell how exhausted Jayce looked. His eyes seemed unfocused as they stared down at him and his stubble had started to grow out more than he’d usually let it. Usually, he kept himself well-groomed, one of the reasons so many people were fond of him—one of the reasons he was perfect for the council and…

“Wait, weren’t you supposed to have a council meeting today?” Viktor asked.

Jayce at least had half the mind to look sheepish as his lips twisted into an embarrassed frown, “Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you go?” Viktor scolded, walking closer until he was only an arm’s length away from where Jayce’s head was resting on his hands. He didn’t miss how Jayce seemed to lean closer to where he stood.

Jayce seemed to think on it for a moment, his lids heavy and exhausted from overworking himself, before he spoke. “I wanted to work on this some more.”

“While I appreciate it, I’ve told you before I can work on it without you as well,” Viktor’s lips tightened into a thin line, “At the end of the day this is my mistake.”

He didn’t like how Jayce’s eyes saddened at his words, like a dog left out in the rain. It was strange, only a few months ago Viktor would have been ecstatic to have Jayce back in the lab, but now it felt hollow. More than anything it seemed like Jayce felt like he had to be there, and Viktor couldn’t help but resent him just a bit for that.

“I know you can,” Jayce’s hushed words pulled Viktor out of his thoughts, “It’s just…the other night really scared me.”

Viktor stilled, looking up at Jayce curiously. “The gala?”

Jayce’s face twisted into a frown at even the mention of the party. “I thought—I thought something really bad happened to you. Something really bad could have happened to you.”

Viktor sighed as he finally walked close enough that he could lean against the meat of Jayce’s forearm. The touch seemed to pull Jayce out of his head just a bit. Jayce looked at him with such a gentle expression Viktor thought he might burn up on the spot.

“What happened at the gala wasn’t your fault,” Viktor reminded him softly. Jayce hummed in response— Viktor could feel the vibrations rumble through his whole body.

“I don’t blame you,” Viktor continued slowly, “You don’t have to overwork yourself to fix this.”

At that Jayce shook his head, nearly causing Viktor to topple over before a large hand reached out to offer him support. Viktor felt his chest warm at how easy the motion was for Jayce—it seemed like second nature.

“If I don’t fix this soon though something bad could actually happen to you,” Jayce’s grimaced, “I—I keep dreaming about it. The longer you’re like this the more I worry I—”

“Jayce, working yourself to death won’t fix anything,” Viktor sighed, as he tilted his head up, “I believe it was you who told me that before.”

“It’s not safe for you to be like this though,” Jayce frowned.

“Eh, just don’t take me to another gala and I’d say we’re relatively fine,” Viktor was almost shocked how easily the words came to him—how much truth was in them. He truly didn’t mind being small around Jayce…in a way it felt nice. And getting to have Jayce around more was certainly a nice bonus.

Viktor watched as Jayce’s face flitted between emotions like a radio flickering between signals. Even with Viktor’s reassurances he seemed conflicted—something heavy and sad laid hidden behind his eyes.

“Come on,” Viktor said, patting Jayce’s arm with his hand, “Let’s go back to the apartment yes? You look like you’re about to pass out, and if you’re out of commission you’ll be no help at all.”

Jayce looked like he wanted to argue, but as his eyes fell on Viktor the fight visibly left his body. His gaze softened as he let out a soft weak laugh.

“Alright.”

————————————

Even after getting back to the apartment Jayce seemed tense. He made them food in near silence, and Viktor had to pry conversation out of him whenever it got too uncomfortable. He was thankful when he finally was given his portion—at least with food in his mouth the lack of conversation felt more normal.

It was slightly better than it had been before they left though, Viktor noted. While Jayce was still quiet, stuck in his thoughts where Viktor couldn’t follow, he didn’t seem as sad. He almost looked apologetic whenever Viktor tried to drag a response out of him.

Needless to say, Viktor was thankful when Jayce asked if he wanted to go to bed. Even though he’d done relatively little that day, the tension and heavy silence between them had felt exhausting to manage. With a nod he let Jayce scoop him up into his hands, his fingers curled protectively around him, as he walked them both to his bedroom.

Their setup was familiar now, and even though it still made something warm flutter in Viktor’s chest, Viktor was starting to get used to it. The comforting up-and-down rhythm of Jayce’s chest was comforting beneath him, and the soothing warmth and weight of Jayce’s hand above him helped let his mind shut off.

“I’m sorry,” Jayce’s voice came out hushed and weak, pulling Viktor away from the edge of sleep.

Viktor blinked a few times, trying to process whether or not Jayce talking at all had been a product of his sleep-addled brain when he felt it. Jayce was shaking—just enough that Viktor could feel it throughout his body.

“Jayce?” Viktor looked up, tilting his head back to try to see Jayce’s face through the darkness. With the little light from the outside he could just barely make out a wetness around Jayce’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Jayce’s whispered, his voice wavering “I—I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Now Viktor was really awake. Softly, he pushed his hands against Jayce’s palm, a silent ask to be let go, and when Jayce reluctantly freed him Viktor stood up as best he could on Jayce’s shaking chest.

“What’s wrong?” Viktor asked, voice quiet—too worried he’d do something to accidentally startle Jayce even more.

Jayce answered with a pained sound. His other hand, the one not being used to help Viktor stay upright, went to wipe at his face.

“Nothing, nothing. I’m alright.”

Viktor frowned leaning against Jayce’s hand so he could get a more clear look at him. “You’re crying.”

Jayce just whimpered in response. Internally, Viktor berated himself—he’d never been good at comforting people.

“Do you want to talk?” He asked after a few awful seconds of silence only broken by the sounds of Jayce’s soft broken breaths.

“It’s okay. I—I’m fine.”

“Are you?” Viktor frowned. He hated the way Jayce recoiled from him as he spoke—his head bumped into the bed frame behind him.

Viktor softened his voice as if he was talking to a scared animal rather than a grown man. Jayce had always been emotional, it wasn’t a bad thing, but Viktor should have expected this would happen after their talk at the lab. “Is it about the gala still?”

Jayce’s face twisted into a pained expression as he looked away, “No…yes? Maybe.”

“Mhm,” Viktor nodded, urging him to continue with a hand gently rubbing against one of his giant fingers.

“I just… I feel like I should already have figured this out. You shouldn’t have to be relying on me and I—” Jayce’s voice broke off with a distressed gasp.

“And you what?”

Jayce swallowed nervously as the hand behind Viktor moved to rub against his back, “I feel guilty.”

“I already told you, what happened wasn’t your fault Jayce, I—”

“No, it’s…it’s not that,” Jayce’s winced.

Viktor studied his expression as best as he could in the dim light. He’d never seen Jayce look so distraught, his face was scrunched up and red with tear marks.

“What is it then?” Viktor asked, voice careful and calculating.

Jayce tilted his head, his fingers still rubbing absentmindedly against Viktor’s back as he spoke, “Everything. The gala, the council, you, all of it.”

Viktor’s brows knitted together in confusion, “What do you mean me?”

Viktor hated the broken laugh that tore its way from Jayce’s throat. “I feel so awful I…fuck. You almost got hurt because I still can’t figure out how to fix you and I still…I’m still—” Jayce’s voice trailed off.

Viktor watched him for a moment before he decided to make his move. Carefully, trying his best not to fall, Viktor walked his way up Jayce’s chest until he was standing right in front of his face. Jayce’s eyes squeezed shut as he quivered, new tears beading up in the corners of his eyes.

“You’re still what Jayce?” Viktor asked.

Jayce’s breathing stuttered as his face twisted into a grimace. Almost a whole minute passed before he opened his mouth to speak, his voice was so quiet Viktor was sure he wouldn’t have heard it if he wasn’t so close to his face. “I’m still selfish.”

Viktor stilled, staring intently up at Jayce like he could see into his thoughts if he just tried hard enough. “What do you mean by that?”

Jayce swallowed, the movement nearly sending Viktor toppling over. “Even after the gala, even knowing how awful this all must be…” Jayce took a shaky breath, “I’ve missed you.”

Viktor’s brows furrowed as he tilted his head up at Jayce.

“I know it was my fault that we drifted apart in the first place but… I’ve missed this—missed being with you,” Jayce’s voice faltered, “I—I worry once I fix it, it won’t be like this anymore.”

Viktor’s face fell as he looked up at Jayce’s distressed face. His usually warm golden eyes were wet and red around the rims as he wiped his tears away with the back of his fist.

“I’m sorry, I know this is hard for you I shouldn’t be—”

“Jayce,” Viktor interrupted him, laying his hand on his chin. The contact caused Jayce to jolt. “I eh, I understand…I’ve worried the same.”

“What?” Jayce whispered. Even the small motion of his lips nearly caused Viktor to topple over due to how close he was to his face.

Viktor swallowed down his nerves and anger from so many months alone in the lab. He might not be the most forward person, but he could try, at least to stop Jayce from crying the whole night. “I’ve missed you as well.”

At that Jayce looked like was about to fully burst into tears, and Viktor barely had time to react before a massive hand grabbed him from behind, smushing him against Jayce’s collarbone. Jayce’s whole body shook under him and while Viktor’s immediate thought was to push the gigantic hand away he decided against it. Jayce seemed like he needed it and Viktor was nothing if not a selfish man—he’d take what he could get of Jayce’s touch.

He let Jayce hold him until his breathing finally evened out. While a deep part of Viktor still prickled, angry that it took so long for Jayce to come back, a much larger part of him felt so relieved that Jayce wouldn’t vanish again. He had been getting tired of the hours upon end alone in what once was their shared lab.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cry so much,” Jayce’s voice wavered as he lifted his hand up from Viktor. His eyes were still red and irritated but otherwise he seemed better.

“It’s fine,” Viktor reassured gently, “You don’t need to apologize.”

“I’ve just…” Jayce sighed, “I’ve felt bad that I’ve been enjoyed this—having you around, being close again.”

“You know I don’t have to be dependent on you for me to want to see you, yes?”

“I know but…it just got to a point where I didn’t think you’d want to see me at all,” Jayce shrugged.

Viktor tensed, his eyes focusing on Jayce’s face through the darkness. As he spoke he squared his shoulders, hoping that Jayce could hear the deeper truth in his words. “I was angry sometimes, yes. I was mad at you for a while—for joining the council, for not showing up to the lab…But I never would have turned you away.”

Jayce frowned and slowly his hand moved to rest in front of Viktor palm-up, a silent invitation. Viktor didn’t think twice before taking it. He stepped between Jayce’s towering fingers to stand in the center of his palm, the warmth of blood and life under his skin was comforting in a way Viktor didn’t think he’d ever be able to replicate once he was back to his normal stature.

Slowly, Jayce’s hand moved, bringing Viktor up to the pillow his head was resting on, and Viktor had to grab onto his pointer finger to not fall over. When he was deposited securely on the pillow right next to Jayce’s face he allowed himself to relax, lying down next to him. Meanwhile, Jayce’s giant eyes seemed to stare right through him, searching for something, and Viktor felt himself flush as a warm wave of breath passed over his body. Even so small, Jayce looked at him as if he held the secret to the world, and Viktor was weak to it.

“I can’t wait till we fix this,” Jayce said in a hushed tone as he brought his hand to Viktor’s back, pulling him closer to his face. His eyes had started to flutter shut, hovering between open and closed as he let himself relax. The domestic sight of Jayce falling asleep made Viktor’s stomach grow warm with something he refused to acknowledge. It took all his power not to scramble away—to put some space between them.

“Why? So you don’t have to carry me around anymore?” Viktor teased, hoping desperately that Jayce couldn’t see how red his face surely was.

“No,” Jayce smiled, the action so soft and gentle Viktor wanted to scream, “So I can do this properly.”

And then, before Viktor’s brain could catch up, soft lips, the size of his whole body, had pressed him back into the pillow. The overwhelming warmth made Viktor’s skin feel like it was on fire, and the butterflies in his stomach seemed to migrate throughout his whole nervous system. Jayce was kissing him. The man he’d fantasized about for years—who’d never shown any signs that he felt even close to the amount of affection Viktor held for him—had him pressed back into the softness of the pillow, trapped by his lips.

It felt like it had barely even started before Jayce pulled away, eyes wide and panicked as he stared at Viktor.

“Fuck, I’m sorry. I thought—”

And Viktor couldn’t have that. He couldn’t have Jayce, the most caring and beautiful man he’d ever seen, think even for a second that he didn’t want the same thing.

“Jayce,” he interrupted. Jayce stared at him like he’d just been shot. The fear clear in his eyes was sweet in a way. The fact that he thought for even a moment that Viktor didn’t want him back was a ridiculous thought.

Viktor laughed at Jayce’s wide-eyed expression as he leaned forward. It felt wrong, like it was all a dream. But as he pressed his much smaller lips into Jayce’s bottom lip it felt warm—real. He didn’t think he’d ever get tired of it, and once he was the correct size again he knew he’d take any chance he had to kiss his stupidly handsome partner who somehow liked him back.

After a few moments Jayce pressed his lips back against him, slow and careful like he was still afraid somehow Viktor didn’t want this. And as he pulled away and tilted his head up to get a better view of Jayce’s awe-struck expression he laughed. The man looked like he was about to combust.

“Just kiss me again.”

#runes and ruin #corywrites #g/t #gt #arcane gt #g!jayce #t!viktor #fluff #hurt/comfort

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beabnormal24 · 3 days ago

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Quick Carbon wip just got inspired and wanted to write it.

“George.” Alex hisses, pressing his phone against his cheek until he’s sure he could mold into it.

He can still feel his heart racing from the run he had made up the stairs. He hasn’t really gone to the gym in a while, so it could be that, or maybe it’s just the way his brain had felt like melting out of his ears when he had laid eyes on the labelled boxes in the hall, first, and a muscular back near the doorman box, after.

“Alexander.” George hisses back, “why are we whispering?”

“Carlos Sainz, George.” Alex says, just before realising that, probably, saying a name without putting it in a properly complete sentence doesn’t make any logical sense. “I just- I just saw him- in the hall- fuck”

“Did you run up the stairs?” George asks, sounding way too amused. “I told you, you should take your working out more seriously at your age. Again, I can talk with Rita and find a spot for you in my morning Pilates classes, they would do you only good I am sure.”

“George, Carlos Sainz, in my- in my building.” Alex repeats, frantically looking for his keys in the utter mess of his jacket’s pockets.

He was pretty sure he was already holding them as he got in the hall, but then they seemed to disappear just as he was getting up the stairs, skipping the elevator because he surely wouldn’t stay there with Carlos Sainz just a few feet away.

Perhaps he just mechanically put them back in his pocket, he wouldn’t put it past himself after seeing Carlos freaking Sainz in the same place as himself. Talking to Alex’s doorman, of all people.

“Ah, I see, I see.” George says slowly, “But weren’t you watching him playing in San Diego just, like, a few days ago? Ah these rich people and their private jets, our poor sustainability!”

“It was last week, George.” Alex says, moving his phone to the other shoulder as he gets both his hands finally free. “Do you really not listen to me at all when I talk about golf?”

George is suspiciously silent for a second too long. “Eh, no.” He says, sincerely. “That being said. I don’t see the big deal with him being in the same building as you. You’re obsessed with the guy, just make sure to not act weird and all.”

“Weird?” Alex whispers, but it almost sounds like a screech to his own ears. “Yeah, no, I am perfectly normal about this what are you saying?”

“I can literally hear your brain exploding from here.”

“Shut up.”

“You called me.”

“And I am regretting it very much.” Alex says, stuffing his hand in the back pocket of his jeans just to come out, once again, empty handed. God, why does this have to happen now of all times? He is in desperate need of a coffee and, even better, a long cold shower to properly wrap around what he just saw. “Ah, my keys-“

There’s a tap on his shoulder and the only reason why Alex manages to not jump out of his skin is that he’s way too distracted with something like avoiding having to change all his locks because of his own idiocy.

As he turns around ready to tell somebody off, though, he desperately wishes his soul had actually made the jump.

“Looking for these?” Carlos Sainz says, dangling Alex’s keys in front of his face with a smirk. Distantly, Alex is pretty sure his phone just fell to the ground. “You dropped them in the hall, I can see it’s an habit.” Carlos Sainz jokes.

Because, as it stands, Carlos Sainz is in front of him making a joke about how Alex seems to have an habit of dropping his personal stuff around like an idiot.

Which is precisely the best and worst thing that could ever possibly happen to him.

In a remote part of his barely functioning brain, Alex knows that he should probably laugh to not look like a complete weirdo - which is exactly what George had advised him of, amazing.

But all that actually manages to come out of his mouth is just a strangled noise as his mind goes through two things, not necessarily in that order: fuck he is hotter than on TV and fuck he is shorter than I thought.

“Is everything-“

“Yes!” Alex rushes to say, taking the offered keys out of Carlos’ hands before remembering that he has been raised with manners. “Thank you, I am- a bit distracted yes.”

“That’s okay.” Carlos says, reassuring. His smile is almost blinding, way too gentle than it should be when offered to, well, a complete stranger.

Alex can’t exactly miss the way Carlos’ eyes seem to take in the sight of him, raking from the top of his head to the worn points of his Converse. He probably looks ridiculous compared to the well-put and squeaky clean shoes on Carlos’ feet, but in his defence, they don’t have a dressing code at work, and he is no professional golfer.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, new neighbour.” Carlos says, and when his eyes meet Alex’s there’s a glint in them he can’t exactly decipher. “I am Carlos Sainz, but I seemed to notice you already know that.”

Oh.

Alex is fucked.

#carlos sainz jr #alexander albon #carbon #carlex

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leashybebes · 18 hours ago

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I am so excited about all your wips I can't pick so I'm going to ask you to post about whichever one you haven't had a chance to talk about yet!!

that's so sweet of you, bless you!

so, yapping about you plus me. i originally thought this verse was the only thing i'd write but that was before i got pulled deeper into fandom than i have been in over a decade lol. there are a BUNCH of fics in this in various stages of doneness/abandonedness so here's a rundown:

kink discussion except they keep accidentally getting horny about it and buck has done Research (aka spiralled while tommy slept) and he knows you're supposed to have these discussions when you're not actively having sex. featuring clipboard buck having feelings (positive ones. lbr horny ones) about his own relative lack of knowledge

buck meeting tommy's friends because i decided he needs friends. queer friends! connections! people who love him!

buck having feelings about being too needy, tommy having precisely ZERO PROBLEMS being needed <- yeah this one is like four lines of dialogue lol

zany madcap proposal fic where everything that can go wrong does but it's still the single best day of tommy's life because buck is trying SO HARD to give him the romcom moment of his dreams

maddie and buck talking about their parents - how they are as parents, how they are as grandparents to jee, how they might be as grandparents to any kids buck and tommy have in the future

triple date fic with hen and karen and eddie and marisol. largely abandoned but just...cute flirting and a counterpoint to hen and karen's deleted scene with tommy where they grill buck instead

buck bottoming for the first time. unsurprisingly he is VERY EAGER but tommy is very concerned about making it good, making it okay, making it right and buck slowly driving him insane talking about like, how much he likes the feeling of tommy on top of him, how into pegging his ex girlfriend was etc etc. honestly, this is just an excuse for various smut scenes loosely tied together

fic where tommy's sister (who buck didn't know existed) turns up out of the blue and precipitates big conversations about why the fuck tommy can't just TELL HIM STUFF <- started writing this way before we learned just how shut off canon tommy really is, i feel like i jinxed myself lol

5+1 fic where they get to know each other better via different activities/locations in and around LA. basically i was pining for the city and taking it out on them lol

tommy's dad dies, and they navigate their way through it including things like whether he goes to the funeral, how the hell he feels about it etc

possibly 5+1 maddie pov fic where she's trying to figure out who the hot pilot is by talking to other people about him, and then finally talking to him

disaster fic where buck and a civilian are stuck in the rubble of a collapsed building having conversations about love and queerness while they wait for rescue

#bucktommy #wip games #uhhhhhhh well that's a lot of things i'll probably never write 😬

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milkweedman · 1 year ago

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I know you've talked about your frustration with how difficult it is to make money with fiber art, but would you ever consider selling or trading for the dyed fleece you have? Not like opening an etsy shop and dying fleece just for selling or anything. But like, say I wanted to buy some hand veg dyed wool...you could destash some of what you have....then you could use that money to dye more wool.....infinite wool hack.

I trade my stuff all the time (and am always down to trade hand made and hand processed stuff for other handmade/hand processed !). I dunno if selling dyed fleece would actually be an infinite wool hack though; I haven't really done the math but like, if I buy 2 pounds of raw fleece for $25 (definitely a price I've paid before, idk if its standard for me off the top of my head), once I wash it I likely have anywhere between a pound and a pound a half (depending on breed and how dirty it was, the lanolin and dirt that I wash away can be up to 70% of the weight of a raw fleece, but usually closer to 50% in the breeds I like working with). So I'd have to sell a single pound of washed dyed fleece for like $35 ($10 shipping for 1 pound package is what I just paid at the post office a few days ago) just to get the money back from what i paid for the fleece in the first place--basically paying in labor and foraged materials (so more labor) for the joy of getting to dye wool for strangers. Idk about that. I'd definitely do it if it looked like I could get at least double the cost of the wool for it--Maybe people would pay a lot more, but I'd be a little surprised if that were true, honestly. It's a very nice idea and i wish the world worked that way :(

#as it is i just trade/gift away most of my wool #wool processing #no-pants-dan #adding price tags to my stuff tends to just make me feel like shit #because 1) it never ever moves the meter on how much money i need to survive each month #2) theres not a single thing i can do that doesnt cost in pain. not just time but pain and frequently the clear and measurable #degradation of my body per project #my body will degrade anyway becauae i have no choice but to find some kind of work #but at least the other work pays better and usually degrades my body slower #i feel deeply uncomfortable selling my art that for example is the piece that made me stop being able to knead dough by hand #id kinda rather keep it bc if i cant knead dough by hand anymore at least i can look at the physical manifestation #of what caused me to not be able to do that anymore #idk if that makes any sense #i suspect not bc ive been trying to explain this to my family for literally years #and they do not get it at all #i finally got them to shut up about it only by telling them i will no longer talk about it and if they ask i will leave the room #yay for boundaries. now i just need to get over how angry even being asked that question now makes me. lol

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lamefish · 24 days ago

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when fratboy!satoru takes your virginity you kind of expect him to be an ass about it. he's cocky as it is, and has a habit of gassing himself up too much when it comes to his... skills in the bedroom. if you're not listening to him talk about how he's the strongest, you're listening to him talk about how he's the biggest.

being the only virgin of your friend group was starting to grate on you and... a small part of you might've wanted to find out if there's any bite to satoru's bark. it's not like the two of you were dating or anything, but you felt comfortable enough to walk up to him one day during lunch and ask, in front of his best friend:

"will you take my virginity?"

maybe you expected him to blush. or freeze up. or at least trip over his words. but instead, the stupid white-haired prick looked up at you with the most relaxed expression possible and shrugged.

"okay."

and that's how you ended up here, sitting criss-cross applesauce on his messy dorm-room bed with his tongue halfway down your throat. a few empty cans of beer and abandoned cheat sheets lay strewn over his floor, and you hate yourself for letting this be the backdrop of your entry into the sex-having life.

but you can’t hate yourself for long because as he runs a hand up your thigh and under your skirt, you start to feel more excited than you thought you’d feel. he pushes you back, slots his knee between your thighs and bites at your bottom lip before trailing down to your throat.

still, it’s satoru, so when he pushes your panties to the side and feels just how wet you are for him, he laughs. “you get this wet when you touch yourself or is all of this just for me?”

“shut up,” you groan as he nips at the skin of your throat and gently runs his finger through your folds and up to your clit. you’re surprised he knows where your clit is, even.

and he’s not wrong—you’ve never been wet like this before. you can feel just how damp the fabric of your panties are you as satoru pulls them down your thighs and hikes your skirt up to get a clearer look at your soaked cunt.

“pretty,” he licks his lips. “wannna taste her, that okay baby?”

his eyes search yours for consent and you’re stunned for a moment as he waits for ‘enthusiastic consent’. you didn’t expect this sort of check-in from a frat boy. your nod seems enthusiastic enough to him, but just for clarity—“use your words.”

“yes. please, gojo.”

“satoru,” he corrects you. “want to hear that name when you cum on my tongue. cant believe no ones tasted her before.”

the use of referring to your pussy as ‘her’ is odd but quickly overlooked when he delves into your pussy like he’s dehydrated. tongue flat against your heat just to flex and circle around your clit. he sucks and bites a little and pulls you to your first orgasm in nasty speeds.

you cum on his tongue whilst his eyes bore into yours from between your thighs. white hair pulled out of his face by your hand as you tug the strands in hopes that he’ll stop licking at your overstimulated clit. it takes until you’re shaking for him to finally pull back and free his angry cock from his pants.

you think you gasp when you see it. he said he was big but you didn’t think he was a truthful man in the slightest. his cock is so heavy it doesn’t even stand at full mast—it fights gravity. satoru sees the look on your face and instead of sporting a shit-eating grin like you expect, he climbs over you and presses a soft kiss to your forehead.

“let’s stop here?” he asks. “we could watch a movie. oooh what about die hard?”

you giggle, your nerves melting a little at his words. “i’m okay, i want this. i am not graduating as a virgin.”

satoru snorts and, after rolling a condom on, gently pries your legs apart enough for him to slot his wait in between them. he guides your ankles to link behind his back and slowly runs the tip of his cock through your slick folds. “tell me if you need me to stop,” he says. “just relax. i’ve got you, baby.”

you actually manage to relax a little, focus on the feeling of being stretched as satoru slowly pushes into you until his tip is completely hidden in your cunt. it’s uncomfortable, but not unbearable. “keep going.”

one of his long fingers dips down to rub soft circles over your clit to relax you a little more as he pushes deeper. you’ve never felt so full, so sore yet desperate for more… you wonder if it’s always going to feel like this, or if it’s just because satoru is the one breaking you open to find pleasure in your insides.

he lets out a pretty moan as he bottoms out inside of you, the weight of his heavy balls resting against your ass as he stills and catches your lips in a wet kiss. his tongue slips into your mouth, runs over your teeth and pushes against your tongue as he slowly draws out of you and then, with a grunt that you taste, snaps his hips forwards into you.

that hurts, but there’s an odd stitch of pleasure in the way he’s broken you open. “sorry,” he speaks against your lips. “it’s better that i just got it out of the way, it can start feeling real good soon. gonna make you cum on my cock, baby. you want that?”

you nod, eyes staring into his as your foreheads meet. satoru nods back, licking his lips and smiling. “yeah? you wanna be stuffed full, huh? always knew you were filthy. but i’m the only one that gets to see it.”

his arrogance pulls at your lips. “until i fuck the next guy.”

snap. his cock splits you open at that, and though you wince and screw your face us, you’re letting out moans made for porn too. his finger on your clit starts working a little faster as he draws back again just to drive into you even harder.

“no,” he dips his head down to bite at your neck. “not until you fuck the next guy. i mean you can try, baby, but it’s not happening.”

“ngh, what do you mean?”

another thrust into you sends you further up the bed. you’re sure you look a mess but satoru looks down at you with such wide blown eyes that you could be convinced you’re from the heavens. “not giving you up that easy,” he groans. “you know, i fucked someone last week just because they had your name. got to moan it without being slapped. again.”

your hand flies up to his chest, almost in an attempt to slow his now mean pace. “wait you—ngh god—you like me?”

“i’m far fucking past like,” he moans, hips starting to stutter. any discomfort has faded into glorious pleasure. your stomach starts to tighten again and you know you’re close enough that he’s going to try and time your orgasms. “you’re so perfect. so much better than i imagined.”

your eyes roll back a little at the thought of satoru fucking his fist late at night to the thought of you. how nonchalant he was when you asked him to take your virginity, you wonder if he went home last night and stroked himself to the sheer anticipation of being inside of you.

“satoru i’m gonna—”

he cuts you off with a deep kiss. it’s sex and want and lust, but it’s also soft in a way you can’t describe—maybe even a little anxious after his confession. it might just be his pending orgasm, but you swear his lips tremble between yours.

his cock throbs as he drills it into you, hits your most sensitive spot with every single thrust. it’s like he already has you mapped out, because you’re both cumming in tandem with each other before long.

a part of you aches to feel his cum spill into you instead of the condom he wears, to be claimed and filled by his seed over and over. would he fuck it back into you? clean you off with his talented tongue? would he plug you with his cock until he’s ready to overfill you with a second load?

he moans into your mouth and pulls back a little to revel in your fucked out expression. your legs still wrap around his waist, boxing him in and keeping him close. you worry that in typical frat boy fashion he’ll make an excuse and run off to recount the fuck with his friends. but satoru pecks at your lips, then your chin, then down your neck again.

“what are you doing?” you ask, vision slightly blurred from the intensity of your orgasm.

“gonna make you cum again,” he smiles against your skin. “didn’t you hear?”

“hear what?”

he pulls back to look at you, a soft smile pulling at his pretty lips. “that if you cum at least five times when you lose your virginity, you’ll fall in loooove.”

#gojo smut #satoru gojo smut #satoru gojo x you #jjk smut #gojo satoru smut #satoru smut #gojo x reader #satoru gojo x reader #gojo x you #jujutsu kaisen smut #jjk x reader

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tonycries · 5 months ago

Text

The Family Matter?!

Synopsis. Babyfevér - it’s never felt so good.

Pairings. [SEPARATE] Gojo x Reader, Sukuna x Reader, Choso x Reader, Geto x Reader, Nanami x Reader, Toji x Reader

Content. MDNI, fem! reader, breéding, mentions of kids/ marriage, a LOT of creampíes, Gojo’s powers, cúmplay (like a lot), spítting, overstím, exhíbitionism (Geto’s), chokíng Nanami, pússy-slappíng, proposals, rúts (Choso), bíting, true form! Sukuna, overspill, dp, bondagé, mentions of dàddy kínk, pet names, swearing.

Word count. 5.9k

A/N. To the one anon that wanted this - how did you read my mind?? Hope y’all have a lovely week <3

♡ TOJI FUSHIGURO - Santa, baby…

“B-but- Christmas isn’t for another few months, Toji—”

Now, Toji has to admit - that broken, honeyed-out little drag of his name is enough to crack even that tough demeanor of his - just a bit. And it’s all he can do to calm down the raging twitch of his buried cock, driving it deeper and deeper against your mushy g-spot to shut up those dangerous moans of yours.

“B-b-but-” You’re flinching when his deep, baritone voice pitches dramatically high to mock your own, a large palm coming down to give your poor clit a branding smack! “-but, you think that’s gonna stop me, ma?”

Stupidly, you’re whirling your dazed eyes over your shoulder to catch his, only for the calloused pads of his fingers to swiftly force your face back down.

“Not me, you don’t get to hah- look at me just yet, doll.” Toji grits out from behind you, feverish puffs of breath sending goosebumps down your spine. Down to where your puffy cunt was just bulging with all long, solid inches of his swollen, overworked cock. Sloppy. Overspilling. “Not until you’re giving me another brat by Christmas.”

A sob wrenches out of you when Toji jostles his sharp hips against yours. Harder, until you could feel every minute smack of his still-full, sensitive balls, every slosh of his syrupy sticky cum coating your walls from earlier.

“Look.”

You’re shaking your head in almost-bratty protest, the fat of your ass still pushing and pulling against his rugged thrusts. You feel like you could go insane if you saw any more. Thighs twitching to a shy close, “Ngh- can’t s’too- too much.”

This only pulls out a displeased growl from your pussydrunk boyfriend, rasping out a warning. “No fuck- don’t you fucking dare-” Big, beefy hands wrench your legs even farther apart to admire the mess he’s made, bruising where he holds them unable to escape. “Don’t you even think of it, woman.”

It’s accompanied by another harsh slap! on your puffed-up clit, this time harder than the last. Shocking you to your heated core until you’re seeing stars behind your eyes, already-ruined cunt just clenching in painful pleasure.

He laughs - laughs, “Instead of squeezin’ the fucking soul outta me, look here at how you’re wastin’ my cum. How can I make you a momma in time like this, huh?”

You’re blinking away those big, fat globs of tears to finally spy back down again at your drooling cunt. Swollen folds spread shamefully, gaping. Every slam of his hips makes you gush down his achy shaft with a gloss of your sweet sweet juice and his own cum. It splays in a creamy little puddle at your silken sheets, clinging to your bodies like a second, sloppy skin. “Y-you’re so filthy, Toji.”

But Toji couldn’t bring himself to be disgusted - not one bit. In fact, he could feel the tip of his angry head growing even fatter, expanding to meld its way deep into your elastic walls.

“Filthy, huh?” he chuckles so darkly. “Got such a mouth on ya, can already tell you’re gonna be a ah- strict momma.” His fingers are prying your jaw to sag open, whispering so slow and syrupy along your open mouth, “Well, let me tell you a little secret, ma. Doesn’t matter what you call me now, because in about nine months you’ll be calling me something else.”

“And what would- mmpf!” Oh, for how much he loved your sharp mouth, he sure was well and fully intent on shutting you up. Toji’s hitting his cock at the back of your pussy, just mashing deep into your g-spot in sinful sync. Over and over. “-and what would that be?”

Another finalizing smack to your pulsing clit, so smug and messy. He tilts his head to that growing pool below you, splurging farther and farther with each decisive, feral ram. “Your baby daddy, that’s what.”

As if on cue, you’re cumming - you can’t even remember which saccharine sweet high of the night, but all you know is Toji’s gifting your gummy cunt with a few bullying kisses on your ravaged g-spot. Rough, lingering clashes of his weepy tip on your ravaged g-spot, sending your toes curling, white-hot shocks of pleasure. Again and again and again-

“Fuck- fuuuck yeah take it.” he’s grunting out hoarsely, hips stuttering and so so feral. Barely having the sanity to pull out in his jagged half-thrusts, splitting you apart on all his weighty length to cum inside you - deep.

Painting each and every inch of your heavenly cunt that could be reached with coat after coat of velvety white - all the way from where he was gliding his fat tip across your cervix, down, down, down to your sensitive spots, your sopping wide opening. “Want- need it so bad. Need ya to make me a daddy again. So fuckin’ bad you have no idea- you’d be fuckin’ scared.”

Those mean fingers smushing your cheeks into an embarrassing pout dance down to gather the dredges of his own cum, oozing out of the corners of your slit in a milky white sheen. Still rutting into you, he suckles on them languidly like his favorite candy, “Mmpf- as sweet as ever, doll.”

“Y-you’re so fuckin’ mean, Toji-” your jaw slacks open at his lewd actions. “Our kid better not get such an- hah- an awful personality.”

That makes him pause - it makes him pull away his digits, glistening and connected with stringy ropes of the mess he’s made. Grinning for just a split-second before shoving the entire length of his fingers into your plush mouth.

Toji huffs cockily, the rounded tips of his fingers swirl around and around your lolling tongue, addicting you onto the slighty-salted taste. “Our daughter will be lucky to hngh- get my personality n’ your pretty looks.” And you’re barely even lucid when he’s whispering into your sweat-sheened forehead, “So you better give me good news for Christmas this year, ma.”

♡ NANAMI KENTO - “Take it, like a good lil’ wife.”

Your mouth is sagging open at Nanami’s uncharacteristically gritted words. So hoarse, pained - like they were dragged out of his raggedly heaving chest with each bullying ram of his hips.

It was barely midway into the evening, and you had no clue how you ended up like this. How those fleeting little titters during your romantic at-home dinner date about kids wound up with Nanami splayed on his broad back on the soft silken sheets. Sculpted abs curving into your back when he nuzzles your neck, plowing his furiously hard cock in his favorite mean full nelson.

“Ha- you’re being so-” you’re gasping out in a wet stutter, ass grinding back onto those neat lanes of blond at his thick base. He’s spearheading you so- “-so mean, Ken.”

“Am, I?” he’s purring, a low rumbling growl from the bottom of his chest. “Well, I might be the stricter parent, that’s right.”

Rolled-up sleeves graze against your heated skin, and you could feel every ridge of the veins along his forearms when he spreads your dangling legs even wider. Jutting his hips so deeply upwards to bow your body to the throbbing curve of his dick. “But, I apologize, darling.” Neat rows of his pearly white teeth sink down on your earlobe, “Feel free to do something- anything about it. Because m’afraid I won’t be able to stop any time soon.”

It was a promise - just the clingy feeling of your walls molding and wetting according to his very shape has him losing his mind. His sanity.

Choking back a long, drawn-out groan when two thick fingers slide down to roll over your puffy clit, “Fuuuck, my love, you’re so- hngh perfect like this.” The bed creaks in protest when his powerful thighs arch even higher upwards, all those hours at the gym paying off when every frenzied mash into the bulging treasure of your g-spot makes your mouth water. He breathes into the intimate crook of your neck, “Though, I bet you’d look even prettier as a momma, right?”

Somehow, that makes your face burn more than being split apart on his relentless cock has.

“Oh- shit.” you whine, fucking your hips back in a sloppy little staccato. Reaching your trembly arm around his strong neck, your fingers find his favorite speckled yellow tie. Yanking until Nanami’s stern lips in a syrupy sweet kiss. “Really wan’ you to hah- breed me, Ken.”

“Fuck- Oh yeah?” he gasps. And if you didn’t know any better then you’d have said that that came out as a fucking whine. The ever-stoic Nanami Kento crumbling bit by bit with each rummaging thrust to shape your gummy walls. “Then why’d it fuck- take so long. Fuck, I’ve been dreaming of this since the ah- day I met you, my girl.”

Sharp hips dig into the plush of your ass with each pivot, it’s bouncing you back and forth along his slobbering cock. So rough. So tall and angry, you’re hit with a steaming hot gush of milky precum every time Nanami’s sliding out of you up to his thick, girthy tip.

“Been thinking about you and I- and a little one. A few, actually. One blonde with your eyes, the other two with mine and your gorgeous smile.” That sweet little admission has your twitchy fingers subconsciously dragging at the heavy fabric of his tie. Tight around Nanami’s straining neck, making his head light and cock twitch wildly to draw little patterns on your cervix. “Fuck! Fuck no- keep pullin’ like that, darling.”

You could feel his raw length rub against sensitive sports you never even knew felt good, in sync with that wandering free-hand of his. Now dancing upwards to glide his touchy thumb over your bouncing tits. “K-Ken, m’so close.”

“How pretty these would look all full of milk, darling.” he muses, sounding more like he’s speaking to himself than anything. Your knees are buckling now, cunt eagerly taking in every powerfully pressurized thrust of his. But Nanami hasn’t had enough of his fill, feeling a burning trail down your arching body. Down the valley of your breasts, your stomach, “And here- where m’gonna fuck-” He’s cutting himself up as his hips slam up into you like with a mind of their own, “-fill you up, make you a momma. Oh, you’d be the best momma. The best.”

He’s fucking you so rough now - so jagged that you’re white-knuckling his tie, reeling him in so close. “And you’d- fuck m’gonna-” you’re sobbing now, over those drawled-out squelches from your velvety cunt. “You’d be the best da-”

You can’t finish your sentence - you couldn’t, because with a few more practiced strokes, you’re cumming all over Nanami’s massive cock. Feeling your elastic walls try to suck him up so hard you wondered whether it didn’t hurt.

But it didn’t - it felt so sinfully good, in fact, that it was only a matter of a few blissful seconds before you’re being filled up with thick globs of his seed. Drooling out of you with each creamy rut into you, your gaping entrance only takes more. Still pounding into you, bottoming out - yet still pushing to give you everything he had to give.

“Sh-shit.” Nanami marvels at the silky ribbons of cum being stuffed inside, the way it slews up with your honeyed slick to form a glistening gloss down both your fronts. “Wait- oh, wait.” Nanami’s trembling cock spurs out a few more overflowing shots of seed at the very thought of what he was about to do. Still stuffed in, he’s reaching over to rustle through the pockets of his dress pants scattered mere inches away from the two of your slick, convulsing bodies on the bed.

You’re jolting when you feel something cold and metallic slide around your left ring finger, “Didn’t think I’d let you be the mother of my kids without a ring, did you, my wife?”

♡ GETO SUGURU - Escape?

“Gorgeous…” Geto’s sultry, slow whisper sends goosebumps running down every inch of your skin. And it’s so soothing - so gentle, and yet- “-doesn’t matter how much you tug, these things won’t let you escape, m’kay?”

A wrenching sob rips from your hoarse throat, and all you can manage to do is tug on those tight, hot-pink handcuffs around your wrists. Pulling to prop your fucked-out body against the very top of his luxurious futon, “S-Sugu, you’re so mean.” Your wide eyes scan the pristine tatami room at his shrine, “Anyone could walk in-”

“And yet you’re still being such a slut, my girl.” He flashes you a rosy red grin, so blindingly pretty that it makes your cunt throb. “Still waiting f’me to breed your pretty pussy. Which would it be? The fifth now?”

Geto doesn’t even have to finish the sentence before you’re abruptly sitting upright, bottom lip wobbling with need. Your swollen pussy is just weeping beads of his cum at this point, sobbing down where he was still buried so eagerly inside your gummy walls. Your thighs shaky in- fear? Anticipation? The need for more?

“Ah ah-” you feel two soft little smacks to the side of your cheek. “Don’t zone out on me just yet, gorgeous. S’this hah- boring for you?” And despite all the pleading shakes of your head, he only plows on, “Aww, what a shame. Guess I just hafta spice things up-”

It’s all the warning you’re getting - barely even - before your poor, weepy cunt is back to being just split apart on his fat head. Not even being eased into it, no care or concern for those overstimulated spasms when he stuffs you full.

“F-fuck-” your eyes are shooting open - when did they even close? - at the sound of nearby footsteps in the hallway behind those sliding doors. Very nearby. “I swear someone’s gonna catch us, Sugu-”

The only sound that rings throughout his humid, heady room is your wet gag - muffled around the pale, slender fingers of his being shoved between your kiss-bitten lips. All you can register are the soft pads of his digits pressing down on the back of your taste buds and the unforgiving little pulses of his prominent veins dragging against your gummy walls.

Leaning down - until he’s so dangerously close, until you could count every long, dark lash on his eyelids, every flex of his muscles - slosh of his syrupy sweet inside you - as he sets a languid, lazy pace. “If someone catches us then I will hngh- jus’ keep going, do not test me, pretty girl.”

The other of his splayed out fingers are drawing methodical, dizzying circles on the very tip of your sensitive clit. Matching his teasing place, every grazing nudge of his leaky tip coating your bruising g-spot.

“Haven’t I already told ya not to start things you c-can’t finish?” Geto’s husky voice is talking you through every clingy thrust. Falling from his pretty lips with each deep snap, fucking you into the drenched futon leisurely like some cocksleeve. “N’ what did you do, hm?”

You couldn’t answer if you wanted to - because Geto’s fingers were still firmly swiping around your tongue. Murmuring, “Exactly that. Just had to make that fuckin’ hah- stupid little joke about me not being able to handle another daughter, huh?”

“Mmpf- hngh Sugur-” you try to moan out at a low thump! outside, but he’s shushing you pliantly quiet with a ragged pump into your womb. Making you gush velvety ribbons of his previous cum.

“Heh, think this cunt actually wants to get out of this without being bred?” It was true, your painted-white walls were just clinging elastically to Geto’s shaft every time he drove into you, sucking up every bit of him like you’re trying to milk out something delicious. Again.

“And guess what?” he’s so crazed now, eyes glowing with a dark delight. Hips pistoning into yours with fearsome accuracy to smash over and over into the bullseye of your sensitive spot. Sloppier. The shuffling outside getting louder. So unfairly good that you’re barely registering his next words, “M’jus’ gonna breed this slutty pussy until you give me another. Until everyone knows you’re my slut.”

It only takes one, two, three more drilling clashes with your g-spot for you to fall apart once more.

Your own orgasm bursts out of you. Squirting in glistening dredges again and again until it’s just a few fatiguing shocks of pleasure that have you heaving for air, whining Geto’s name like a mantra. The overstimulation too much, his twitching cock too big - over and over-

“F-fuuuuck- squirting all over, y’made such a mess.” Geto’s moan is so pornographic when that angry divot at his flushed head explodes with spurts of thick hot cum. So addictively sweltering against your plush walls, it floods into your womb, down your thighs - to your lungs it almost feels like. “Gonna give me another daughter? Yeah?” He breathes, head thrown back while he stuffs you too-full, until he could see the seeping white on your creamy cunt in his glassy peripheral vision. And he still isn’t done cumming - thinning out to mere sticky wisps. “Gonna make you so full- so swollen. Until everyone looks at you and knows what I did- how I defiled you. They’ll look at you and see me. Me, me, me, me-”

There’s such an animalistic cadence in the way he’s rutting into you, pushing you further and further up those drenched sheets. Just dragging your body forwards with one strong arm around your handcuffs when his sheer volume gets too much that you’re trying to pathetically escape.

Thump!

In a split-second, Geto’s grabbing at a hidden dagger from underneath his robes. Throwing - dead straight through the paper doors - only for a loud thud! to echo from outside. “Bet the scum outside don’t even need to hear the pregnancy announcement, huh?”

♡ CHOSO KAMO - My strange addiction

Oh, there’s nothing you loved more than Choso losing control - around the time of year when the weather grows a little warmer, when your sweet boyfriend becomes a little more restless. Those dark, dewy eyes of his turning black with something primal, desperate.

Ingrained in his blood to breed you. To do nothing but breed you.

Like right now.

“Oh?” you’re purring with a coy bat of your lashes, looking over your shoulder to where he was looming. Flushed, gulping, absolutely drunken off your heady scent. “On your rut again, Cho?”

And that makes his entire body jolt, as if zapped by a sudden wave of electricity. Large, trembly hands fist your thin shirt to pin you down like some ragdoll onto the cool kitchen counter. Breath hitching, such a pained grunt leaves him at the sound of his name leaving those pretty lips of yours.

Almost guiltily, he’s baring a wet gasp, “Y-yes. Saw you makin’ ah- makin’ us dinner in the kitchen and-” It’s like he hasn’t even realized what he was doing, slapping his raw cock against your drooling slit with each word. Smack! Smack! Smack! “-and- I just thought about how- just needed to…”

But alas, Choso doesn’t get to finish a single thought - because you’re stepping up onto your tip-toes - ever-so-slightly. Feeding your needy cunt with just the round girth of his very tip.

“Just needed to what, Cho?” you hum, quirking a devilish brow his way, holding back a keen at the sheer stretch of him around your sopping entrance. “Or do you wanna stop?”

Fuck, Choso swears he could feel his overworked balls squeeze so painfully at the very thought. “No-” he’s hissing, glassy gaze widening almost comically. “No no no no no- please no. please, please this is all I want.”

With a sultry giggle, you reach behind to pull him roughly by his soft strands. Choso’s grunting out hoarsely, letting himself be dragged to clash his lips against your bruised ones in such a sloppy kiss. All tongue and teeth, he drinks you in like a man depraved. “All you ever want is to just hah- fuck me in this kitchen, Cho?”

It’s so cute the way he’s sputtering dazedly into your sagging mouth, such a sweet whiny cry of, “Yes but no- fuck, I jus’ wanna–” The slow drag of his heavy tongue coats the crook of your neck in his saliva, hammering his swollen cock upwards until he was practically lifting you off the ground with sheer inhuman force. “Jus’ wanna breed you full, baby. Breed this pretty pussy like m’meant to.”

It’s with an almost-animalistic type of worship that Choso’s just ramming the rest of his thick cock into you until he’s spearheading straight into your spongy g-spot, weighty balls - painful, and ready for breeding - smacking against your ass. Addicted.

“O-oh, fuck–” you can’t stop your honeyed gasps. “You’re s-so big- so hard even after just this morning? What a naughty boy.”

Just slamming you down onto the cool marble,“Fuck- fuck fuck y’know what I imagined when I hah- saw you in the kitchen?” Such throaty groans drag along with each and every plunge into your slobbering pussy, Choso was always so talkative when he was like this. Slurring out a mile a minute, “Saw my pretty wife, the pretty mother of my kids.”

And you knew what he was going to say, but that doesn’t stop you from milking him so tight, velvety walls contracting in a way that almost made it difficult to maintain his sloppy staccato. Back arching into such a slutty bow to drag even needier down his drilling length

But your beloved boyfriend still wasn’t done, kissing away hotly at the corner of your mouth. “N’ s’not jus’ the hngh- rut talking either. Fuuuuck-” All six feet of his muscled body pins you to the counter, and distinctly, you could feel him scramble desperately to buck up a knee to angle his hips even deeper. “Saw you makin’ breakfast before school, and I’m- hngh- and I’m getting the kids ready - a boy and a girl, both as gorgeous as you.”

“Y-yeah?” Is all you can breathe out, “What- hngh- what else?”

You didn’t expect his humorless chuckle - broken, and a few pitches higher than normal. “What else?” His eyes are absolutely crazed now, and he’s biting down on your pouty lower lip. “Oh what didn’t I see?”

Bowing till you could feel every ripple of his abs against your back. Every slow tremor of his glossy head nudging past your defenses, hitting deep at the bottom of your g-spot. It takes a few more sloppy pumps for you to realize that Choso’s still speaking.

“Saw the wedding- saw the first birth, the way I cried-” The way he was crying now, ragged, overstimulated tears dripping down his pretty cheeks. Panting out wetly, “-what a great momma you are, the best. The way I help you hngh- milk these p-pretty tits when it’s too much. But my most favorite of all-”

You don’t hear the rest - and he doesn’t tell you, because he’s too busy cumming. Cumming and cumming so much that Choso thinks he can’t stop, swollen base rummaging deep inside to plug up those thick ropes of hot seed inside. It was impossible that he hadn’t achieved his dream with this.

It’s bloating you up, too much. Spilling out of those little gaps at the dips and ridges of his twitchy cock that your inner thighs cover in a clingy white sheen.

Drawn on instinct, you can only scream when Choso’s sharp canines bite down on the sensitive spot at your neck. Hard enough to draw blood - and, if you two were in any better state of mind, you’d have noticed that he did draw blood.

A thin saturation of heady red coating his devilish grin, delicate strings of spit still connect to the mating mark. “-my favorite was when we made another.”

♡ RYOMEN SUKUNA - DOUBLE STUFFED!

“One more.”

“Kuna-”

“One more.”

When all you’re getting is that leeringly dangerous grin - the very same one he gifts any weak curses just about to be killed at his feet - you know there’s no way you’re getting out of this. Either you take it - or he makes you.

Gliding your palms across Sukuna’s bulging pecs, your trembly legs twitch atop his muscled thighs. Gingerly jutting along where your poor cunt was being split apart on his twin bulgingly hard cocks. Up and down up and down up and-

“S’too much-” you’re whining, feeling the gush of his sticky cum coat down your thighs. Oozing out of your bloated cunt with every syrupy sweet bounce of his ravaging cocks. “I- not enough space-”

Any you were about to stupidly babble out is cut off when Sukuna wraps five thick digits around your exposed neck, intentionally dipping his sharp nails to leave branding little divots right about your racing pulse. A warning. A punishment. “Did I tell ya to keep runnin’ that hah- mouth, brat?” he spits, waiting for you to shake your head deliriously “no” before grinning. “Then why am I hearing so much t-talking n’ not enough of this slutty lil’ cunt of yours taking one more? You hear that?”

All that was ringing in your ears was the honeyed echoes of squelches from below, smacking and slapping in sync with your pathetic movement.

“Exactly.” Sukuna’s snapping you out of your thoughts, one hand resting at the glistening plush of your hips, the other spreading your puffy pussy lips to let you just slobber down his angry, red shafts. Glossing over him all the way from those fat tips to the creamy ring around his base. “Wastin’ too much of my hngh- cum with yer talkin’, brat. How are ya gonna have time to carry my seed?”

And he’s so large - so strong. Not even breaking a sweat when he’s getting up from his decadent throne with you boneless in his arms, still stuffing your cunt full with all greedy inches of both cocks.

“O-oh, fuck, Kuna!” you’re squealing when gravity pulls you down until you could feel the scratch of his pink happy trail against the sensitively grazed areas of your skin. The dizzying push of two matchingly massive girths stretching your gummy walls to its limits. Your nails draw jagged red line down his tan skin, trying to keep just an ounce of your sanity together, “Fuck you’re in so hngh- deep.”

“Easy on the back there.” Sukuna’s rolling his eyes, but he can’t deny the way his heart clenches at the way you’re so fucked-out and easily sliding down his cock like some pretty sex toy. Whimpering about some baby names.

Not like it mattered, anyway. He’d name the little devilspawn whatever you wanted - after fighting about it for the fun of it. Heh, he always has been soft on you, huh?

All it takes is one hand holding you up, another to toy with the sensitive nub of your clit. Rolling and teasing you even deeper into his arms while another still rests firmly around your throat.

The remaining hand? At Sukuna’s favorite place cupping your teary cheek, gliding away those big fat tears with the cure of his soft thumb, “Shh shhh, you can take it. You’re my pretty lil’ queen, right?”

Even his mind a hot melted mess on your dripping cunt. Just fucking into you ruthlessly, up, up, up till he was bulging at the very back of your cunt. One fat tip firmly kissing your g-spot, the other gliding in a silky smooth cadence against your poor cervix.

Matching veins rubbing matching sensitive spots, rendering you so awfully dumb on his cocks. Mixing with the hypnotic splattering of his seed against the velvet of your walls, it’s impossible to not feel like you’re about to fucking burst.

Intertwining your fingers with his much longer ones on your face, you’re dragging them to rest at that palpable little nudge along the middle of your stomach. Pressing down to make him feel where he was buried deep, hiccuping lewdly, “You’re right here, Kuna. S’gonna be- hngh! impossible to not give you an heir.”

An heir.

And fuck he couldn’t take it anymore - if anything even fucking heard about this, they’d faint.

Because with a shuddering gasp, the king of curses was just dragging your weight down his cocks - over and over - to gloss your insides with each new coat of the thick, syrupy cum weeping out of his angry heads. So overfilled, but still greedily swallowing everything Sukuna gives.

“Fuck-.” With an angrily strained growl, Sukuna only speeds up his motions on your clit. Methodical. Urgent, even. Still fucking him seed deeper to smash his quivering tips at your g-spot. Both - two divots pressurizing you at the same time. “How dare you make me cum first, woman. Think you’re soo fucking funny, huh? Better give me hundreds of lil’ hellspawn to make up for it.”

“N-noo-” you croon, but that limp little curl of your lips at the abundance of seed seeping out of you gives you away. It was so unlike him - so startling to spy the blushing rouge at his ears, the way his fat balls smack and only squeeze harder when you milk every drop. So hot, and splattering right down both of your legs, forming a creamy puddle at his floor. “I didn’t-”

You don’t finish your sentence, you can’t. Because with all of his brute strength, Sukuna is just wrenching that orgasm from your grasp - fucking you over and over through your high.

The puddle only grows wider. And there’s no warning before he spits, once. Twice. Right onto the middle of the overwhelmed taste-buds on your tongue, gently shutting your mouth with one hand. The other spreading your puffy pussy lips to let you drool a glossy coat of cum down his front. Making a mess.

“S’inauspicious, y’know. Having the momma cum first-” He’s gruffing, sure you were still crashing into wave after wave of pleasure to even hear his whines. “-so why don’t you give me one more?”

♡ GOJO SATORU - Meet the Gojos

“Toru- we’ll get caught.”

“Shut up- fuck- shut up.” Gojo’s face was ashen, grinning so dangerously at the sight of you completely and utterly bound into that obscene mating press he loved so much. Your pretty pussy at the perfect angle for him to hammer his achy cock so thoroughly into you. “S’not what this cute cunt is sayin’ though, sweetheart.”

Fuck, if you were in any better state of mind, you’d have smacked him maybe. But you knew right by the glowingly amused tinty in his blue eyes that he was waiting for that to happen - goading even.

You’re whining hotly, fingernails digging sharply into the winding wooden desk rested cool beneath your skin. “The- the elders are about to have a- hngh! meeting in here soon and-”

Gojo’s lips curl when your breath hitches, feeding you each and every one of his merciless inches over and over- “Well then it’s damn good that they’ve been bugging me for an heir, dontcha think~?”

You’re letting your drooling maw fall slack in disbelief - only to create the perfect opening for your boyfriend to catch you into a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss. Spitting out little profanities with each harsh push of his fat gliding tip across the slippery slopes of your walls. “Heh, always so fuuuck- cute when you’re fucked dumb on my cock.” he’s chuckling, mouth looser than usual with the way the tight channel of your cunt is sucking out every one of his honest thoughts - his soul. “But ya needa get more firm, I’m gonna be the fun parent.”

It takes another harsh snap! of those toned hips bruising against your ass for you to jump back into your heady reality.

“T-Toru…” you’re murmuring, but it comes out so much more breathless than you wanted. Catching on to that syrupy, fucked-out tone of yours, Gojo takes the opportunity to ram his swollen length even meaner into your slobbering cunt. Wringing out your narrow hole to mold around the exact shape of his massive dick. “We- ngh! We’ve got to set an example.”

You feel the fat girth of his shaft grow two sizes even bigger at your scolding. Bulging those two prominent veins down the middle to imprint onto your gummy walls. The roaming point of his glossed-over head pressing straight onto your g-spot, making you writhe underneath him. Bucking up for more more more-

A pale, splayed-out palm slams! down onto the creaky mahogany right beside your head, and when you’re batting your dazed gaze up you see-

Oh.

Oh fuck - forget setting an example, you were about to be made one.

Because Gojo’s blue irises were sparking with tiny rods of lightning, teeth bared in such an amusedly feral grin that it made your cunt ache.

“Fuck-” even his voice sounded deeper - raspier, cracking ever-so-slightly with need near the end. “Fuck, you can’t talk shit to me about ‘setting examples’ when you get so fuckin’ wet just because I play a little rough.”

Playing a little rough was an understatement - and both of you knew it. Because if Gojo was simply toying with your sanity before, then he was well and fully intent on breaking it right now. Right along with your poor pussy with those bludgeoning, harsh thrusts you were being gifted with.

The expansion of his weighty cock has you squealing with each powerful slam, “Fuck- fuck you little-”

“Hunk? Absolute catch?” he grins, voice dropping to a low husky drawl. A slick little trail of drool dips down the corner of his mouth already with every cracking beg and plea, followed by a series of lingering grinds - not even thrusts, just slow, shallow swerves to feel you tighten wetly around his hot shaft. The lights flicker above, “Father of your kids?”

That makes you wrack in a sinful shudder, words tumbling out before your syrupy sweet brain could compute them, “You’d make a- a good daddy, Toru.”

Crack!

It’s happening in a split-second - a stuttering gasp catches in Gojo’s throat, those baby blue eyes going wide. Glowing. In the distance, your popping ears catch the sharp shattering of that prized vase in the corner of the room.

But right now it felt like you were the one about to break - because ribbons and ribbons of Gojo’s hot, potent seed were knocking on the door to your womb. Splurging in thick dredges to stuff you full from the inside out.

“Fuck- fuck, you evil evil woman.” Gojo breathes out, the only thing he could seem to do at this very moment. When the tethering clenches of his balls have tapered out, he’s pulling out to smack! the length of his throbbing, red shaft on your clit. Mouth hanging open at the way just buckets of his own cum gush out of your tight hole. “Shit- m’gonna breed this cute cunt. Gonna fill her up until you’re so round and swollen.” he’s babbling, gliding pale fingers across the sloshing cum now seeping onto the desk to shove it back inside.

“Fuuuck- m’gonna breed her till she hah- doesn’t know what it’s like to not be stuffed full. Until you’re giving me a cute lil’ blue-eyed baby.” Crackling with jujutsu energy, he’s smack down on your puffy cunt - hard! “Until m’not the strongest. Not even second- or third or fourth or fifth-” kissing your pouty lips in addicted little pecks. “-no. S’gonna be my- our kids. All ours.”

“Ngh! Toru–” you’re whining, only taking another few messy swivels on your cunt before you cum. And you swear, the lights go out at this very moment - the only thing you can see being Gojo’s flickers of purple jujutsu and his gleamingly white grin.

He smacks another hand down on that wooden meeting desk - the now broken desk, standing wearily on only three legs - and the puddle of cum seeping below you. “Think we’ll be excused from the meeting? Because m’not done with you just yet, ma.”

A/N. Yuh I had two Kendrick references I apologize (I don’t).

Plagiarism not authorized.

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