#i went for a mottled look

[manywarriorcats]

you should do either brambleberry or crookedstar !!

[minnows-wc-blog]

MOONMOON 4 LIFE

[ID: A small cartoonishly drawn Moonpaw is gazing happily at the moonpool, a bright swirl of colors and stars in the vague shape of a heart, while blushing. Moonpaw is a heavily mottled black and beige cat with corrosponding yellow and blue eyes. Above Moonpaw and the Moonpool is the text: “You’re the brightest star I see tonight!” The text is multi colored with a white glowing affect behind it. The background of the entire piece is a dark purple-blue with faded pink sparkles. “Camp” might be a dull work to describe the image.]

[mothercain]

The Consequence of Audience

As I went there through the long, long wood, I felt no-thing and I was no-thing and I was at ease. The grey ash trees and their mottled plumage were as one with each other, curving and branching to form a ceiling overhead. There was wide separation between trunks, creating vast corridors stretching off in all directions before me, behind me, all around me. O, what praise I could sing of that never-ending dusk fall I spent between those oaks! None came with me, none came upon me, for I was alone and I was at ease. Yet came the day the trees broke, the corridor ended, and I was thrust upon the rocky expanse that was the Great Dark. There I saw first face and heard footstep, few and far between, but I was no longer alone. It was a shameful deed to carry these two naked hands as they clenched hotly, now in full display for all to see. I had never noticed them in the wood, for I was at ease. Here, the taut skin seemed to stretch and sweat, almost glowing, as if exasperated of their own grip. For as I wandered the Great Dark, there was not but grey, barren rock as far as any eye could see. It did make a passerby out of an observer. I saw them trudge by, fingers dipped into their open mouths desperate for wetness, the lolled tongue. There, in the wood, I was the watcher, but here I am nothing but displacing air. Yet, within the smothering toil of my apathy, I had heard the bell. Murmur of God between their slick, bent fingers ruffled the hair on the back of my neck. My muscles groaned against the weight of the skin around them, aching to be set loose. All at once, I saw, from where I stood, there rose a great dome atop a hill on the horizon before me. Yes, I saw it there with mine own two eyes! The white exterior peered at me with flat orifices obscured through the mist, barely distinguishable from the dark sky behind it, as though all the world beyond the dome was cut from the same slab, only slightly effaced. The convex roof sat atop a disk, held up by great ionic pillars circling the temple. Steps radiated out and down the slope, like ripples in a pond escaping a dropped stone. It was greater than life, greater than the wood, greater than all else which filled this dark, and my gullible delight was that it was all mine. Yes, all mine! One could follow me to it but they could not follow me in. My hands stretched outwards with an audible cracking in the bone as I crept forward there. I could not tell you the rest. I would not even attempt, for it would change no-thing. To know if I did go completely naked into the theater of the divine. If I did need for no-thing, want for no-thing. If I was then full to the brim, cylindrical pull slid through my gaping jaw into my endless throat. If I saw it there, shimmering through the veil like pearlescent oil over crystal water. If it heard me singing with every atom that formed me, through every orifice and wound I had, polytonal in my begging for it to complete me with the fifth. If it looked into me, saw how I needed to know what God knows and to be with him. If it spoke back to me in flat dissonance, “how couldn’t ye?” It would be of no good to speak these things to you. In what way I was still returned to the ground, even if beneath it, intact with my puerile need to repeat my-self and my mistakes. Who would not climb the wall for a peer over the edge? The cautionary tale is the fool’s errand, and I am no fool. I am as my hands are; twisting in on themselves and bursting at the seams. I can-not contain the ache for sensation, just as I could not contain the grief as I fell, nor the agony as I crawled my way back to this rocky countryside, and lo! I am on my way there again now. I am, I am, I am! But I will not tell you the visceral details, as you already know them. You all do.

It’s happening to every-body.

[inbabylontheywept]

she was dead silent on the drive home, but that was okay. sometimes, after band practice, she was just out of words. it was a short drive to her house. the only part where it actually felt weird was after i pulled up her parent’s driveway. 

after that, the silence stretched so far it smeared and left a weird residue. she kept looking at the car door like she wanted to leave, so i looked at the door too, then she looked at me, and i looked at her, and my first thought was that she was going to tell me that the door was stuck. i was used to that car always doing some damn thing. it was the car me and all my siblings had learned to drive in, and it was really beat to hell. there were dents all over the body, which we’d unsuccessfully tried fixing up with spackle. it had looked nice for maybe a week, but then the sun wrecked it - the spackle cracked up like the mud on the bottom of a dry riverbed and turned a sort of off yellow-white that made the car looked like it had been molded out of chicken shit. it also had a bullet hole it through the cabin that whistled like a toothless old man whenever the car went above 40, so loud it could drown out the radio, and a cabin that smelled so strongly of bugspray that even the arizona summer we drove everywhere we could with the windows down.

(if you have kids one day, you will maybe, possibly, begin to understand how much i loved that car.)

anyway, i was thinking about what else could possibly be wrong with the chickenshitmobile, and she just kept looking at me, and then i wondered if there was something on my face, and she just kept looking at me, and then the penny dropped and i realized she was trying to work up the nerve to break up with me. 

now, i’d seen her work up the nerve to do things like this before – it could take quite a while. and knowing it was about to happen made the waiting immediately unbearable. 

so i said hey. 

and she looked at me, very startled, and said hey back real small. like she’d been caught. and in a way, i suppose she had. 

and i said it’s okay. you can just say it. i’ll be okay.

i’m always okay. 

and she said: i’m really sorry. 

i loved her, you know? it was highschool, but teenagers are capable of love. the way people love changes over time just as much as the way they stand, or the way they talk, but things don’t stop existing just because they're different. opposite really – a thing only stops changing when it's fully gone.

and i said, nothing to be sorry for, and i meant it. she looked a little relived, and i was happy to give her that peace. then she left. i watched her make it through the front door, because that was just habit at that point, and then i sat there a while afterwards, checking how i felt. and the answer was not good, but good enough to make it home. good enough to limp on. 

so i put my car in reverse, took my last look goodbye, and immediately backed into her neighbor’s car. 

crunch. 

air bags didn't go off, which was good. i left a decent dent in the bumper of the other car. genuinely couldn’t tell if i did anything to my car – anything wrong with it just kind of blended together into the general ecosystem of hand mottled, sun cracked, chickenshit spackle. 

i checked my glove box, and my car insurance info was, of course, out of date. my phone was dead too. as a teenager, my phone was less my lifeline to my friends, and more my tether to my parents, so i wasn’t particularly conscious of keeping it charged. both my fault.

i sat there a few minutes, trying to think of the best way to handle things, and there was only one answer i could think of, and i hated that answer, so i spent a few more minutes trying and failing to think of a better one, and then a few more coming to peace with what had to be done. 

then i went back to knock on my now ex’s front door. 

her dad opened, which i was very relieved over, even if he seemed less than thrilled. he looked me over, and in a firm, but slightly apologetic way said: she does not want to see you right now. 

(i think he assumed i was going to try and talk her out of the break up?)

and i said not here for her. i just backed into your neighbor’s car, and i need to call my dad, but my phone’s dead. could i borrow yours?

and he looked at me, then back at his neighbors car, which sure enough was dented, then he looked at the chickenshitmobile, and if there was something wrong with it, it just kind of blended into the general Wrongness of the car, then back to me, and i could see him imagining the last ten minutes from my pov: getting broken up with, backing into a car, having to walk up to your exes door and borrow a phone, calling my dad to tell him that i just reversed into someone.  

and his expression shifted from stern and apologetic to truly sad, which felt more kind that i deserved. things only got here because i kept fucking up - forgot to look behind me, forgot to replace the insurance forms, forgot to charge my phone. it was my mess, but his sympathy meant the world to me. i probably would’ve cried if he said sorry, or patted me on the back or called me sport, but instead he said

stay out here – i’ll bring you a phone.

and then he left.  

i found a nice spot on the lawn in the shade under a sycamore, then settled into his grass.i was trying not to freak out, and was doing an okay job. he came out a minute or so later, not just with a phone, but a juicebox and a jar of green olives, which really threw a wrench in the whole try not to cry thing. soon as i saw those, a few tears squoze out. i was still hoping i could pass them off as Manly Tears but then he told me that he’d gotten the olives a few weeks before and had been meaning to hand them off to me, and that this was his last chance for that. then i made a sound like a horse drowning in a bog, and he patted my back pretty rough, four solid thumps, like he wasn't sure if i was crying or choking on an olive, and was trying to cover both bases at once.

then he went back inside, and i made a few more bog horse noises while finishing off the rest of the entire jar of green olives, and then i called my dad.

he was about ten minutes away that day, and luckily was home. he drove over, and we went to the neighbor’s house, and from there things actually went quite nice. the neighbor was a retired man who actually said he could fix the dent himself, no need for insurance. he said he appreciated that i didn't just drive off, and i said i was really sorry about his car, and he said he was really sorry about my car, and then he gestured to the chickenshitmobile and i laughed because it really was a disaster on wheels.

then we left.

i thought we were going to head straight home, but instead we went to a gas station, and we both got several slim jims that we folded into thick enough coils that we could put them on a hotdog bun because the growing up mormon equivalent of having a sad brewski with your dad is just choosing to make bad decisions sober. then he took me to the canals and we watched the sun turn all orange and pink, and he looked over at me and said:

brains are good at remembering bad days. so you gotta make sure that a bad day has a good part in in, so you can remember that too. remember that when you have a kid. try to do a good job on days like that - they're going to be a big part of how they remember you.

and then he gave me a big hug and said he was never going to eat another slim jim again.

---

the year after that i went to college, which kicked my butt in new and exciting ways. and on a lot of those bad days, after a test that went sour, or a faux paus that was particularly embarrassing, or some other hardship of my new adult life, i’d stop by the gas station and pick up leathery, half jerkied hotdog before heading to the canals to watch the sun set. i’d take a bite and imagine my dad next to me, grimacing through the slim-jim wad, asking what good thing i was going use that time to remember. 

and in my head, i’d say you, dad. 

i’m going to remember you.

[sanguineterrain]

window pains | jason todd

Summary: He's got a habit of coming in through the window. You want him to start staying... and using the door. 

Pairing: Jason Todd x gn!reader 

Word count: 1.6k

Warnings/tags: injured Jason Todd (he's okay dw), angst, pining, mentions of Jason's death.

A/N: sooo.... i guess i'm a dc girlie now. just a reminder that every character i write will always be 18+!!! this is probably canon divergent but we make our own canon.

If you like this fic and want to see more, please let me know through reblogs ♡

the divider

"Can't you enter my apartment like a normal person?"

"You know who you're talking to, right?"

"You're getting blood on my carpet, Todd."

It doesn't really matter. He'll come back and scrub it out as soon as his ribs are whole. And fuck if he's not good at getting blood out of surfaces. Jason Todd ought to start a housekeeping column. 

You catch his limp as he climbs over the windowsill. It almost topples him, but he gets to the couch before it does. He doesn't make a sound. 

That had freaked you out the first few times he'd stumbled through your window. Once, he came with part of a windshield wiper impaled in his shoulder. He'd lain on your couch so still and so quiet, you'd thought Red Hood had croaked in your apartment. Which would not have been a good look for you. Or maybe it would. Depends on who you ask. 

Sometimes you want to tell him to make sounds. To hiss and grunt and complain. To grab your wrist so you'll slow down as you pull thread through flesh. 

But it's not your place to request such a thing. You don't know where you reside in Jason Todd's life, but it's not somewhere where you can request to hear him hurt. 

Outwardly, his injuries aren't bad-looking. He takes off his helmet and tosses it somewhere under the coffee table. You offer a hand to help him lie down on the couch—he doesn't take it. 

"Jesus Christ, Jay." You suck in a sharp breath and peel back his bloody suit. "What'd you do?"

"Took a midnight stroll in the Botanical Gardens. Why, what'd you do?"

You frown, eyebrows pinching in the center of your forehead. Jason's stomach is mottled with purple and red bruises. There's a sticky gash right above his hip. A knife. Or a sword, maybe. Apparently, swords are commonplace in Gotham. 

"How'd they get you?" you ask. 

It's a rule-break. Jason's number one policy: don't ask questions.

You always do. Even when it was new, this… thing between you two, you'd ask. Who were they? Why did they hurt you? Did you hurt them back?

The last one, you always know the answer to. 

"There were, like, ten of them," he says. "Cut me some slack, will ya?" 

He has a cut across his lips. A ringed finger that caught on his skin, you guess. You wonder if he'd wince if you kissed him. If he'd wince at the pain or the kiss itself. If you'd know the difference. 

Rage suddenly cuts through you. It makes your hands careless, cruel; you pull the bandage around his waist too tight. Jason coils up slightly. 

"Jesus—ever heard of bedside manner?" he asks, looking at you through his lashes. 

"Ever heard of not breaking into someone's apartment and making them patch you up?"

"I don't make you," Jason says easily. "You wouldn't do it if you didn't want to."

That only increases your rage. Because he's right. You wouldn't be here if you didn't want to be. You'd have kicked him out four first aid kits ago if you minded. 

You yank down his shirt and pack up the kit. Jason shifts on the couch. A sliver of skin above his waistband is still exposed. You have to turn your head to force your gaze away. 

"No bandaids?" he asks. "All my cuts'll be exposed to the elements."

"You can put them on yourself." 

His cheek could use one. And his eyebrow. You're not in the mood. 

Jason doesn't say anything in response to that. You get up to put the kit back under the sink. 

"Can I crash here?" 

"Do what you want," you say, suddenly exhausted. Like it's you who just went six rounds with Gotham's scumbags.

You peek over the kitchen counter when you hear rustling and the couch springs squeak. Jason leans heavily on the arm of the couch, reaching for the window. You walk over and stand in front of him. 

"What're you doing?" you ask. 

"You want me to go," he says flatly. "So I'm going."

"I didn't say that, I said—"

"I can read between the lines." 

"If you could read between the lines as well as you think you can, we wouldn't be in this situation," you say. 

"What situation?"

You turn your head. "Nothing."

Jason steps towards the window. You block him again. 

"What is the matter with you?" you ask. "You're injured. Lie down."

"I'm not your responsibility," he says, glaring. "I'm leaving."

"No, you're not. And since you're allergic to using the door, you don't have a choice."

Jason's eyebrow rises. "Are you saying you'd physically prevent me from leaving?"

You lift your chin. "If that's what it takes."

"Hm. Can't tell if your confidence is stupid or brave."

"Lie the fuck down, Todd."

His lip curls. "I don't stay where I'm not welcome."

Sometimes you forget how young he is. Not that you're not also young, but, well… you don't feel your youth as acutely as other people your age might. It's something you two have in common. 

Here, in the gritty glow of Gotham, you are reminded that Jason Todd died once. Before he finished school. Before he fell in love. 

Your stomach churns every time you see that Y-shaped scar on his torso, strapped over him like a chain. 

"I didn't say that you're not welcome," you say. 

"Yeah, well, you didn't have to."

He sags against the couch and it occurs to you that he's as exhausted as you feel. 

"Can you just—" You touch his bicep. He winces even though there's no injury there. "Can you just lie down?" 

You stare at each other for another minute. Slowly, Jason lays down. His eyes are alert instead of heavy with sleep. Instantly, you feel guilty for making him think he has to be cautious around you. His hand curls protectively over his stomach. 

"Do you want a blanket?" you ask. 

He squints. "It's August."

"I know, I… I thought maybe the blood loss made you cold." 

"'M fine. Perks of being risen from the dead." 

You watch him get settled for a minute. He shifts his weight to his uninjured side and meets your gaze. His eyes are gray in the weak light. 

"You're tired of me," he says. 

Your head snaps up. "No, I'm not."  

"You are."

"I'm not tired of you, Jay."

You see it. The fear. He thinks this is the last time you'll let him in. He doesn't know you can't lock him out. You won't. 

You get up and go to get the kit from the sink again. Jason follows your movement the whole time. His face scrunches in confusion when you sit in front of the couch and unzip the kit. 

You pull out the tiny red bandaids. You'd bought them as a joke, initially. It had made Jason laugh and that had been reason enough to keep buying them. And then he let you actually put them on.

You peel the adhesive off of one and gently stick it on his cheek. He blinks at you, thick, dark lashes kissing the corners of his eyes. 

"I'm not tired of you," you say softly. 

"I'd be tired of me." 

"You keep this city safe. How could I be tired of Gotham's defender?"

Jason scowls and turns his head into the cushion before you can put the second bandaid.  

"I'm not its defender. The others protect this city a hundred times better. Nightwing does it with a smile on his face."

"I like that you go out there even when it's hard, Jay," you say. 

He doesn't respond. You lean in, so close that you can count the freckles on his neck. 

"Can I finish putting the bandaids on?" you ask. 

"I don't need 'em."

"You do. You need another on your forehead."

"It'll heal fine without it."

Your shoulders bunch like a cat on defense. You grab his cheek (gently, always gently) and his head whips to yours in surprise. 

"Jason Todd, I am not tired of you. I'm tired of the fact that you only come by when you need fixing."

He scowls. "I never asked you to fix me. If you want me to leave, I'll leave."

"I don't want you to leave, I want you to stay!" you burst. 

Jason scoffs. "No, you don’t. I'll overstay my welcome real fast."

"Maybe I care about you on purpose!" you say, voice rising. "Maybe I didn't stumble through a window; maybe I walked through the door and bought the bandaids and learned how to stitch wounds because I wanted to."

He suddenly looks overcome by grief. The agony in his face startles you. 

"I don't know how to use the door anymore," he says quietly. "All I do is stumble through windows."

Your hand slips off of his cheek. Jason closes his eyes; they fly open when you stick the second bandaid above his eyebrow. 

"You can come in any way you want to," you say, face an inch away from his. "As long as you come back to me."

His gaze darts to your mouth. You don't kiss him hard. He breaks anyway.

You avoid the right side of his mouth entirely, not wanting to pull at his cut. Jason shudders into your mouth. You cup his pulse through his neck and it quickens.

His eyes are wet when you pull away. His chest heaves like he's been swinging through the city. 

"I wanna try to use the door," he says. 

You touch the bandaid on his cheek, humming. 

"Then I'll leave it unlocked." 

[shotmrmiller]

smut because somehow i always end up there.

yknow something that pushy ass cbf!johnny would do?

tell you that he'd get more benefits and/or pay if he had a spouse.

"Because you're in absolute poverty, Johnny."

He clicks his tongue. "Be serious, hen."

You are being serious. Johnny's not hurting for cash. His parents are still alive, so he has no need to buy a place of his own, and even then, he just swings by his family's home before coming back to stay with you until leave's over. Honestly, you should be charging him rent.

"Johnny. Unless you're planning on buying another ostentatious vehicle with tires too big for this tiny town, I'm not seeing what you're seeing."

He digs his thumb into the arch of your foot that's draped over his lap. "But think o' the possibilities! If say, you married me, ye wouldn't need to work anymore. Jus' worked on gettin' the job of yer dreams! An' besides, ah'd never realistically settle down anyway; too busy savin' the world an' all."

The extra income must be drastic if he's this insistent. "Why not marry the big brit with the skull for a face? You talk about him enough to sound like you've got a hard on for him."

He avoids your gaze when he informs you that Ghost is already married.

"And what about me? What if I find a boyfriend or something?" you playfully teased. Johnny's bright blue eyes turned to ice.

"Is there someone?" A muscle worked in his jaw.

Dread crawled up your spine. Abort. Abort. "Of course not." The tension melted from his face— gaze gentling and lips softening.

Christ, can he be intense sometimes.

You clear your throat. "Say I do marry you. What do you get out of this as my benefactor? Math isn't mathing, Johnny."

His lips curl upwards in amusement. "Nothin' between us would change. Jus' get a nice, shiny band on my hand tha' keeps unwanted advances off of me, and I wouldn't have to live on base anymore. Tired of eatin' tha' slop at dfac."

Johnny's long fingers curl around your ankle, thumb drawing gentle circles on the bone. "C'mon, hen. Think about your career! Marry me and ye won't even have t'change yer last name, swear."

Once again, fooled by the pretty face and dazzling smile.

You were a MacTavish by the end of the month, and he'd ended up in your bed that same night. Pushed your face into the soft mattress as he bullied his cock into you, telling you to feel how he splits his little wife's pussy open.

Mottled the delicate skin of your neck and collarbone with purple love bites when he hooked your knees over his shoulders, forcing you to take all of him in that devastating angle.

Made you look at yourself in the mirror in the bathroom, one hand gripping your neck, and the other on your swollen cunt, rubbing tight circles on your slippery clit. "Look at how beautiful y'are. How good yer takin' me." He tilts your head upwards, locking eyes with you. "This cunt was made f'me, wasn't it, wife?" he rumbles.

If he said anything else, it was promptly drowned out by a buzzing in your ears as your world went white. Warmth trickled down your legs as pleasure burst through you, spasm after gut-twisting spasm. Johnny blessedly slows down, working you through it tenderly, until you hiss in discomfort from oversensitivity.

"The way ye look in yer pleasure is somethin' i'll see behind my eyelids forever, bonnie."

Heat licks up the sides of your jaw. "Johnny, please—" you cut off, a moan tumbling out of your lips when he presses himself flush against your arse.

"Dinnae worry, ah'm not done with ye jus' yet." There's a hand in between your shoulder blades, pushing down gently. "Bend over, hands behind yer back, Mrs. MacTavish."

ghost is in fact, not married.

and the pay raise is mediocre.

[inkdrinkerworld]

Logan and reader fighting about one of them being reckless in the field? 👀

Went with Logan x Scott’s sister!reader for this🤭 angst to fluff, canon level violence, Scott and Logan mentioning death but no actual death

“You were stupid and reckless! How the fuck did you think that was smart?” Logan’s voice rings out in the jet, his heart racing as he looks at the many cuts and bruises all over you.

“You do stupid shit all the time Logan. I had to make a call, and if I had to do it again I would.” Your voice is steady even as Scott cuts you a look.

Sure, jumping between two of the Sentinels was stupid, but you banked on Scott being near you and your own molecular alteration powers to fry them- and you were right.

Your brother wouldn’t even look you in the eyes, he kept his eyes on the gashes on your body. The wounds that soaked through your suit and had you pressing onto them.

“You could’ve fucking died. Do you get that?” Logan wants to punch something, there’s too much anger in his body right now and he needs to dispel it.

He’s hoping that something else pops out so he can jump out of the jet and attack it. He needs to do something with his worry other than yell and scream.

You roll your eyes, turning to look at him and hissing as you do, the gash on your side bleeding a bit more.

Logan reaches for you, claws out and slashing away part of your suit to get a good look at it. For a split second, even when you’re arguing, you can’t help but think about how much he cares for you.

What he finds is mottled skin, purple and black bruises forming around your cuts. “Fucking kidding me.”

Scott gulps a breath, his eyes sting. “I think there’s a first aid kit somewhere. I’ll go look for it.” Your brother’s voice is rough from unshed tears and you want to comfort him, but he’s gone before you can say anything.

As Logan presses his hand into the wound to keep it from bleeding, you sigh and touch his arm.

“I can die at any time Logan. It doesn’t matter if we’re fighting Sentinels or if I’m in the school. I can die at any time.” You’re not good at dispelling concern, but you also won’t apologize for doing what you did.

“Bub, that already scares the fuck outta me. Scares the fuck outta Scott even if he’s acting like he’s not affected. I’d burn the fucking world down if you died, do you get that? If I thought I could just even the score a little bit, I wouldn’t fucking hesitate princess.”

You mull over his words, thinking about how you’d react if something happened to him or Scott. How broken and lost you’d feel if you lost them and you sigh.

“I won’t apologize for doing reckless shit. Our entire job is reckless shit,” Logan huffs, a little smile playing on his lips. “But I understand. I’d do the same if something happened to you or him. I’m sorry you were worried.”

It’s the best he’ll get and he’s taking it. Logan’s lips press against your forehead and temple.

Scott comes back with all the necessary supplies, “I’ll stitch you up.” He says softly, Logan giving you one last kiss before going to clean all the shrapnel out of him.

Scott doesn’t say anything for a while, only when he’s pulling the last stitch through does he mutter; “I’m glad you didn’t die but please don’t make me look at you do that shit again.”

Scott almost never gets teary, so to hear the rawness in his voice has you stunned. “I won’t Scotty,” you hug him as best you can with such fresh stitches. “But I knew you had me. Knew you wouldn’t let me die.”

He laughs, flicking your forehead. “You’re a piece of shit.”

You shrug, smiling even wider when Logan comes out the bathroom with a change of clothes for you. “C’mon bub, let me clean you up and get you outta that damn suit.”

[woso-dreamzzz]

Proud VII

Hardersson x Teen!Reader

Summary: Your biological parents want a meeting

*TW: discussions of past child abuse*

Pernille can still remember the pictures from the police.

Nestled in with other pictures of your childhood, you were just a baby. A baby sitting on a big hospital bed in just her nappy and mottle of bruises around her skin, wrapped around you like a vine.

It was sickening and Pernille can remember dropping your foster file in shock.

She hadn't been able to equate the twelve year old moving into her house with the baby that had been so horribly abused.

According to the police report, they'd been called after a disturbance in the house. Bottles shattering. People shouting. A sound violation more than anything else.

But no one had answered the door when the police knocked.

They had been planning to leave if it wasn't for the wailing of the baby, the wailing of you.

They'd forced their way in after that, finding you laying on the floor, covered in your own sick and with way too high a fever for a baby.

What was standard child neglect turned into a child abuse charge at the hospital when your dirty onesie had been taken off to reveal all the bruises down your skin and the dilation of your pupils showing the concussion you'd received.

Rights were terminated by a judge and into the system you went.

The picture is etched into Pernille's mind though, something that appears to her any time you get injured, any time you go down in a match.

The picture appears to her now as she sits in a mediation meeting with your biological parents.

These are the people that did that to you.

The people that had bruised you and caused you a concussion.

The people that had their rights terminated because of their treatment of you.

The same people that sit in front of Pernille and Magda in ill-fitting clothes and unkempt hair. They're smiling a bit too widely, mismatched on their sagging faces.

"So," The lawyer that they've clearly paid an extortionate amount for says," We're here to discuss Miss Y/n L/n-"

"Harder," Magda says at Pernille's side," That's her name. Y/n Harder."

The lawyer flashes her a saccharine smile. "Of course. We're here to discuss visitation with my clients."

"Their rights were terminated." The same lawyer that helped finalise your adoption is the same one in the meeting with Magda and Pernille now. "Years ago. They have no leg to stand on. Visitation isn't something they can have."

"I have reason to believe that the judge that terminated their rights made a hasty decision," The slimy lawyer says back," My clients have put their lives back together and are ready to see their daughter again."

"I can't help but think this timing is a bit coincidental," Their lawyer returns," My client's child has had a breakout year as a footballer, joining the senior Sweden team so her face has been plastered on the tv everywhere. A bit coincidental that this is the time that your clients decide to reach out."

"Well, she was taken out of the country."

"When she was sixteen," Magda puts in bluntly," They had sixteen years before that. We live in Germany now."

"We were looking for her!" Your biological mother says," It's all just one big conspiracy against us!"

This is the woman who left you in a pile of your own sick, crying and sobbing and covered in bruises, suffering from a concussion that could have killed you.

Pernille feels sick, rage bubbling in her stomach.

"Oh, grow up! You're not nearly important enough to have a conspiracy around you!" She slams her hands onto the table. "You are nothing to her! She doesn't even know your names!"

Magda pulls at Pernille's hand, weakly at first and then a little harder when it doesn't look like Pernille wants to sit down again.

"Let me put it plainly," Pernille and Magda's lawyer says," My clients and their daughter have a packed schedule in Germany playing football for club and then football internationally. Their daughter is sixteen years old and is capable of making decisions by herself. Your clients have no parental rights and will not be getting them back."

"How dare-"

"I believe this meeting is finished."

You weren't in the dark about this meeting. You'd been told the moment the Magda and Pernille were sent the letter about it.

You just hadn't wanted to attend, sitting in the nearby café with your schoolwork spread out in front of you.

You expected it to take longer than it did so you'd brought a lot of your science homework.

You check your watch as Pernille and Magda slump down into the seats in front of you.

"Half an hour. I thought it would take at least an hour."

"Pernille went off on them. It was kind of hot."

You wrinkle your nose. "Gross."

Pernille huffs in her seat, arms crossed. "The gall of them! The audacity! You're not going anywhere near them, do you understand me? They don't even deserve to breathe the same air as you!"

A grin quirks your lips upward. "It's nice you hold me in such high regard."

"You're my daughter. They're nothing."

"I'm not all that much."

"You are to me."

You hold her gaze for a moment.

There's something immovable in her eyes, staring at you like she's daring you to challenge her.

You drop your eyes with a smile.

"Do either of you know anything about nuclear fission? I'm drawing a blank."

[fayes-fics]

Absolution

Pairing: Benedict Bridgerton x fem!reader

Summary: After an argument, Benedict seeks forgiveness.

Warnings: 18+, minors DNI. Sub!Benedict, domme!reader, established relationship. Strip tease, slight begging, praise, massage, sexual tension.

Word Count: 2.0k

Authors Note: Anon request fill from HERE, where sub!Benedict begs reader to let him touch her. I'm not sure this is begging enough for you, Nonny, but it's what my muse chose - and after being unable to write for 2 months, I went with it. I hope that's okay. Unbetaed, cos if I ask someone to read this, I will chicken out of posting it. Errr, enjoy?

You feel as much as you see him—a hovering, hesitant presence in the doorway.

“May I… join you?” 

His request is sotto voce, tinged with a gauzy hope that pulls your attention, eyes flicking to his reflection in the mottled glass of your vanity table mirror.

“You are not yet forgiven….” 

Your response is a touch sharp, perhaps, as you restart your motions, untangling your hair with an ornate silver brush, the bitter edge of your dispute still ringing in your ears, even now, hours later. Yet there’s a metallic taste of victory on the tip of your tongue that he is the one attempting to broker the peace between you. 

“Understood.” 

Benedict nods, stepping fully into the bedroom now, the door clicking closed behind him as he continues talking. 

“Perhaps I may find another way to apologise?” 

He bows his head, lacing his fingers together loosely in front of him as he looks upon you through his lashes—a gentle, reproachful demeanour that softens the sharper edges of your irritation. After a beat, you twist around and stand up, moving towards him, the silk of your night robe a balm on your flushed skin, your body reacting to him in this room as it always does, despite what has transpired, something very Pavlovian about it. His light eyes seem to dance with the reflective candlelight from the nearby sconce as you stop just beyond touching distance.

“What are you proposing?” 

You don't miss the way his gaze is drawn to the pull of fabric taut over the swell of your breast as you cross your arms, perhaps still a shade defensive.

“I seek absolution…” 

His words are a sighed exhale, eyes pleading. You know precisely what he is referring to—that power dynamic play that neither of you can resist. And sure enough, a twitch of a smile ghosts over your lips in spite of yourself.

“And will you do as I tell you?” 

You don't mean your voice to be quite so throaty, but the rapid dilation of his pupils and the jump of the vein in his neck speaks volumes.

“I will do anything for you…” His murmur draws attention to his pink, damp, plush, distracting bottom lip as if he has bitten it for your delectation. “My Lady.” It’s a goading, blatant addition, an invitation you are powerless to turn down, especially when he looks at you like that, all large pupils and quivering lip.

“Strip for me,” you command, a surge of want in your veins as his lip quirks up, his hands flying to his buttons instinctively. 

You watch greedily as he fights off the cropped jacket, and his dextrous fingers start to pluck at the pearl buttons upon his paisley silk waistcoat. He is always so exquisitely wrapped in jewel-toned fabrics that it seems nearly a shame to ask him to remove them. As both items fall to the thick rug with an audible thump, you take a step to the side and sit in a comfortable chair in the corner of your bedchamber. You cross your legs, enjoying the bob of his Adam's apple as your legs are revealed through the parting of your robe. He has probably correctly guessed you are naked underneath; a keen flare of his nostrils as you sit back to get comfortable, gesturing for him to continue. 

You lick your lips reflexively as you watch his elegant hands unwind his soft gold cravat, the candlelight catching the signet ring upon his little finger as he throws it to the floor and takes a step towards you, a nascent trace of that troublesome smirk toying at the corner of his lips.

“All of it, Benedict,” you warn, taking the upper hand as he seems to be advancing upon you still in his boots, shirt and trousers. 

He stops short when he is a couple of paces away, close enough you can scent his cologne but too far to touch—perhaps an intentional tease. He will sometimes push up against your boundaries, that cheeky nature flaring under those beseeching, wanton looks. He follows your command, though, your skin flushing as he obediently pulls off his boots and tosses them aside haphazardly.

He takes another half-step forward, watching your eyes tracking the movement of his hands as he pushes down his braces, bouncing once on the outside of his upper thigh as they fall. Subconsciously, you squeeze your thighs together, tamping down the pulse of arousal, the sensual tension between you already heady and delicious, thick in the air, despite so many crossed words earlier.

“May I touch you, My Lady?” 

His soft, yielding tone makes a thrill prickle across your scalp, but your tongue is still sharp with a barb.

“Earn it.”

His eyes flash at your challenge, and there is a flutter behind your ribs—you are as under his thrall now as he is yours. 

And then he does something that makes your body surge with want. He suddenly buckles to his knees before you, looking up at you imploringly again through those long lashes.

“How may I earn it, My Lady?” 

His ask is tender even as he makes short work of the buttons of his frilled shirt, kneeling temptingly beyond your kneecaps.

“I am still awaiting your fulfilment of my last command…” Your response is accompanied by a raised eyebrow, emphasising your point. Benedict is indeed still in shirt and trousers, although the shirt now hands lose from his broad shoulders, framing that lithe, toned torso.

“And once I am naked, what then, My Lady?” 

“Patience, my love…”

Your tone is portentous, but you don't miss how something warm melts in his expressive eyes at the term of affection. His shirt sails down onto the rug, his movements carrying more urgency than before, keen to here your subsequent plans for him, no doubt. 

With him still upon his knees, your breath quickens as he reaches for the buttons of his trousers, knowing as you do what lies beneath. Indeed as the front falls away, you are unsurprised to see he is without underwear as usual, a thatch of dark hair teasing before his cock springs free before you, you canting yourself forward slightly to see.

As he pushes the trousers down around his bent knees, you see the little half smile, noticing your lean-in, your eager stance to see him nude as requested—the flash of that playful nature, which makes his obedience so much more delicious. Your eyes focus upon the constellation of freckles upon his left shoulder as he does, temporarily transfixed by the play of muscle under his skin as he fights off his trousers the rest of the way while still on his knees. His triumphant huff and hurling aside of the item snaps you back from your short reverie, and indeed, what a sight it is to behold. A beautiful, toned, naked man before you on his knees, raptly awaiting your next word, his smooth chest rising and falling a little with shortened breaths of anticipation.

“My lady…” he prompts, but there is a trace of prideful preening, knowing he has you captivated, your legs uncrossing reflexively as you lean in further, your eyes drinking in the sight before you, his gaze falling briefly to your lap, hoping for a glance under your ribe.

“You may touch my feet, my love,” you offer, and you let out a ragged sigh as those large hands cup your arch and a thumb presses into a sensitive spot that makes you collapse back, putty in his hands already. 

“Thank you, my lady; I hope I can soothe you…”

His light whisper falls onto your skin like feathers, your eyelids fluttering shut as his hands work their magic upon your feet. Indeed, you have been promenading today and his assured touch seems the perfect salve to the ache of miles walked. Tension drains through the soles of your feet as he works. 

Before you know it, his hands have moved up, and you do not protest as he starts to massage your ankles and the lower part of your calves. Your whole leg becomes less stiff, your eyes still closed, breathe deep and even until he makes a sharp inhale that has your eyelids flying apart.

In your relaxed state your thighs have parted, and your robe following suit. His heated gaze is upon the thatch of hair at the apex of your thighs, not yet open enough to betray how aroused you truly are.

“You may not touch.”

It's a clipped statement, an attempt to wrestle control when he had you compliant under his touch. A slight pout claims his handsome face as if hoping a puppy dog expression will make you yield.

“You are the most beautiful creature, please, please, My Lady…”

“Not yet,” you modify, his adulation weakening your resolve a touch.

He massages your left calf muscle, placing your foot upon the warm fuzz of his bent quad muscle, feeling the warmth emanating from his nearby cock, a temptation you resist moving your foot to brush against. But you can no longer tamp down the need to moan gently as your body responds to his expert touch. It makes his fingers dig into your flesh temporarily, and you hear him take a steadying breath, knowing he is fighting his desire to pick you up and take you to the bed—a desire raging just as brightly in you.

And so, as if catharsis for your earlier argument, you tease him more. Begin to writhe slightly in your seat, an undulation that inches your foot higher on his thigh, your toes curling into his flesh there as your noises become less restrained, his touch heavier, still soothing but with an undercurrent of urgency that speaks of pent-up passion. You can almost feel the increase in his heartbeat, the blood thrumming through his body, his cock no doubt leaking even though you dare not glance at it—too tempting a prospect, wanting to elongate this tease, this foreboding simmering between you ratcheting up the tension between you.

“You are heaven itself, My Lady, I live to bring you succour….”

There is nothing like his lilting, wanton poetic praise. When his hands round your kneecaps, you let him continue higher, dextrous hands cupping your lower thigh and squeezing the tension from your muscles there. His breath is laboured as the movement parts your legs, and he can see what he has wrought, a glistening warmth you can feel deliciously as the cooler air swirls between your now parted thighs.

“Please, My Lady…. Please let me touch you there…”

His tone is broken now, fawning words tumbling from him between deep breaths as if scenting you, his whole body tilted over your lower half, looking up at you from your lap, supplicant arousal humming in his being, feeling the heat of his cock against your toenails as he leans in.

“Undress me.” your voice a breathy whisper.

The tiny noise of victory he makes has your heart skipping a beat as his fingers instantly fly to the sash, holding your robe cinched at your waist. Watching him work through a hooded gaze and a fluttering chest as he unloops the knot and then, as if unwrapping the most precious gift, parts the material from around your body, pulling it down from around your shoulders until you are as naked as him.

“My Lady…..”

It's a stuttering, wrecked sigh, trembling hands ghosting over the quivering of your stomach, your ribs—not touching without permission, but still making your pulse race, your skin tingle. And you hunger for him like nothing else, uncaring of the disagreement you had earlier, irritation and pride usurped by the burning need you have for him as much as he has for you.

And so you relent.

“You may touch me anywhere, my love.”

Your greenlight has him almost howling, and before you know it, you are scooped up from the chair and carried to the bed, his body flexing deliciously against yours, your lips meeting in a hungry, inelegant kiss, tongues tangling. Words of apology will come later—after your bodies have what they crave.

Benedict taglist pt 1: @makaylan @longingintheuniverse @iboopedyournose @colettebronte @aintnuthinbutahounddog @severewobblerlightdragon @writergirl-2001 @heeyyyou @enichole445 @enchantedbytomandhenry @ambitionspassionscoffee @chaoticcalzoneranchsports @nikaprincessofkattegat @baebee35 @crowleysqueenofhell @fiction-is-life @lilacbeesworld @broooookiecrisp @queen-of-the-misfit-toys @eleanor-bradstreet @divaanya @musicismyoxygen84 @miindfucked @sorryallonsy @cayt0123 @hottytoddyhistory @fictionalmenloversblog @zinzysstuff @malpalgalz @kinokomoonshine @causeimissu @delehosies @m-rae23 @last-sheep @panhoeofmanyfandoms @kmc1989 @desert-fern @corpseoftrees-queen @magical-spit @bunnyweasley23 @how-many-stars-in-the-sky @sya-skies

[sp0o0kylights]

Part One / Part Two / Part Three (you're here)/ Part Four

A03

It ain’t much.” Wayne started, half-curious if the sight of his trailer would be the thing to offend Steve’s (so far lacking) born-rich sensibilities. 

Of course turning to look at the kid proved he was in his own head about this more than Steve was, because Steve had his eyes closed and looked two seconds away from puking. 

Right. 

Pain management. 

“I’ll get your stuff.” Wayne said as he guided the truck to its usual parking spot. 

Steve’s quiet ‘okay’ had him hustling a little bit, and the fact he had to gently guide the kid’s hand off his bag handle told him it was the right choice. 

The nailbat could wait in the car for the moment he figured, as he led Harrington in. He’d get it sorted once he’d fished out the pain pills and gotten Steve settled a bit. 

"Eds--he's my nephew that I told you about--has the bedroom, so you and I get to share out here." Wayne explained as he loaded Steve up on Tylenol and put a bag of frozen peas in his hand, not bothering to give a tour of the trailer. 

It was pretty damn clear which door led to the bathroom and which didn’t, given Ed’s door was wide open. 

Steve peeked at the absolute chaos strewn about beyond the doorframe but didn’t say nothing of it. 

Didn’t, in fact, even look too long, instead sitting at the table as directed. 

Seemed to sink a little into it, leaning an elbow on the cheap wood to help keep his head up. 

"The couch is a pull out, but I'll warn you the bar across the middle is nasty. I usually sleep on the cot over there," Wayne nodded to where it was rolled neatly against the opposite wall, "but given the state of you, I'll let ya have your pick." 

Steve blinked (or winked, not like Wayne could tell since the peas were pressed against half of his face) finally seeming to perk up a bit. "I can't take your bed." 

"I'm not going to fight you for it, I'm just offering." Wayne responded, now focused on trying to locate the bandages in his ancient medical kit. 

The one on Steve's hand was falling apart, and he didn't like the look of the injury he could see under it. 

Yeah, Wayne was absolutely going to need to make a run to the store. 

“Lemme see.” He asked as he finally got what he wanted. 

It seemed to take Harrington a minute to process what Wayne wanted, but he finally held out his injured hand, watching as Wayne unwrapped the bandages.

"I'll take the couch." Steve said stubbornly, but Wayne was past it, too busy frowning at the kid's hand. 

It took him a moment, once he'd gotten it all off, to properly realize what he was seeing--that the mottled bruising on Steve's wrist was separate from the cut across his palm.

In fact, it looked a hell of a lot like…

Wayne paused, then pretended to fuss with the dirty bandages for a moment while his eyes sought out Steve's other wrist.

Sure enough, matching bruises.

Someone had tied the kid up--and it hadn’t been the feds, because these bruises were partially healed. 

Wayne had initially thought of Steve as having been tortured in the same way roving bands of neighborhood kids tortured their peers. The kind of hurt that came when it was an unfair fight; four on one and wielding knives, so you had to take what you were given and pray you didn't get stabbed. 

He was not thinking actual, honest to God torture. 

Yet here the evidence was, plain as day.

'What the hell went down in that mall.' 

Someone as young as Steve shouldn't have been caught up in it, and it made a deep part of Wayne ache for the poor kid across from him.  

All this shit, and his parents still couldn't be bothered to come home.Just left him on his own, as if it was another Tuesday. 

Did they even know? Wayne wondered as he got to work. Had Steve, or Hopper, or anyone tried to call them about the mallfire? Let them know their son got hurt?

Jim said he hadn’t bothered to reach out regarding the spooks, but that had been a week or so later past the fire. 

Wayne couldn’t even imagine it. 

Getting a call that Eddie been involved in such a thing would have him off the couch in an instant, and the image that played on the news, the ones all the reporters talked over of a gurney being wheeled out of Starcourt’s on fire front doors…

He’d have been a wreck until he had his kid in his sights. 

‘Nothing you can do for that,’ Wayne figured silently, ‘but you can help him now.’

Wayne wasn't exactly an expert when it came to wound care, but like many people who just couldn't afford to go to a doctor he'd gotten by.

Learned a lot of home remedies. Figured out pretty quick when something needed to be seen by an expert and when you could hold off.

Made friends with some of the local nurses on the night shift down at the Red Barn, well enough that a few well baked treats and dishes could sometimes be traded for looking over a potentially broken arm or two. 

It had come in handy plenty, given Ed’s ability to attract trouble, but thankfully he’d never managed to hurt himself like this. 

He’d never even gotten caught in a bad fight. 

A black eye or two sure, but the kid had adapted his “scary” act not too long after Wayne had gotten him, and it seemed to work as intended. It was half the reason Wayne never said anything about it (and hell, even let Eddie take his ancient leather motorcycle jacket.) .

All of that was to say that he could tell Harrington's hand needed cleaning before it could be rebandaged, but didn't appear to need stitches. 

Course pouring alcohol all over an injury like this wasn't exactly going to be fun, and he told Steve as such.

"I know." Steve replied, with a grimace. The kid’s injuries seemed to be getting to him, and Wayne anticipated he was going to drop here the second Wayne was done looking him over. 

He hoped Harrington could get in a few hours--particularly before Eddie came home. 

Wayne gently wiped it clean, noting how well Steve sat given the amount of pain he had to be in.

Tylenol, even given the more than recommended amount he'd given Steve, just wasn't going to cut it. 

Not in general, and definitely not for this. 

What could help was likely something Eds had, which was yet another conversation Wayne wasn't looking forward to having.

Particularly given that Eds had sworn off selling hard drugs after his last encounter with Hopper, and Wayne knew damn well that had only lasted until the damn kid caught sight of an overdue bill. 

Too smart for his own good, Eddie was.

"I can give you something to bite down on, if you like." Wayne said to Steve, getting the alcohol and bandages ready to go. 

He got a tight smile in response. "So long as you don't use a needle, I'm good." 

And Wayne figured it was just teenager talk--a young man who didn't really know how bad this was going to be, and prepared himself to hold Steve's arm down accordingly so they wouldn't have to do it twice.

"Four." Wayne counted down. "Three. Two."

He poured on two.

Better that than Steve clenching up in anticipation.

Steve hissed, arm jerking, but stilled it under his own power as Wayne began dabbing his hand with some of the medkit’s wipes. 

He felt his eyebrow raise as Harrington froze himself in place, breathing in a way that felt practiced. 

This, Wayne decided, was not Steve's first rodeo. 

"Almost done." He promised softly as he finished wrapping the wound back up, this time in the pattern he'd been shown long ago. 

"Thanks." Steve said, blinking rapidly. 

The kid's eyes were wet, but he didn't let a tear fall, and that perked Wayne's attention more than anything. 

Some men felt they weren't allowed to cry--and pushed the same ideals on their sons. 

It wouldn't surprise him any if Richard Harrington was one of them. 

"I know you got hit more than just your hands and face kid." Wayne said, after letting Steve have a moment to recover. "You bleeding under that shirt?"

"Not bleeding." Steve murmured, looking more and more like he was struggling to stay upright now that the worst part was over. "I think my hand got the worst of it."

"Do I want to know what happened there?" Wayne asked, keeping his voice calm and non judgemental. 

Like they were back to talking sports.

"I fell back into a broken window.” Steve responded, and now that Wayne had seen the kid lie, it was easy to see when he was telling the truth. 

"Ouch." Wayne said flatly. Which made that hint of a smile flash across Steve's face. 

"I'll cut you a deal. I taped last weekend's game, but haven't had time to watch it yet. I figure you might not have had a chance neither." He sat back, nailing Harrington with a no-nonsense stare. "You let me take a look at what they did to your chest n' back there, and I'll put it on."

Steve just looked at him a little miserably, a beaten dog still hesitant to wag its tail. "I don't think there's anything you can do for it, it's really mostly bruised. Nothing feels broken though."

"You know what broken ribs feel like?" Wayne questioned partially out of curiosity but mostly to make sure.

Teenage boys loved to think themselves immortal after all.

Or at least his did.

"Cracked, but yeah." Steve admitted. "Couldn't finish out the year on the basketball team because of it."

He said it like it didn't hurt, but Wayne knew better.

Boy like Steve? 

He'd bet big bills something like basketball was all the kid really had, in terms of positive relationships.

(Except apparently, whatever had made Hopper decide to look after him.)

"I mostly just wanna make sure nothing looks like it's broken or bleeding internally son." Wayne said, then tried to cinch it with some good old guilt tripping. "I'd hate to have to tell Hopper that after all he went through to keep you safe, you up and died on my couch." 

"Hey, it might save him some future gray hairs." Steve responded but he looked a little more open to the idea, at least. 

It took a bit more coaxing, but Wayne finally got the kid to take his shirt off. 

The damage had him whistling out of instinct.

A fucking artist had gone to town on his torso, with bruised of all shades parading around to his left side. 

Thankfully most of it didn't hold that deep, dark tone that indicated any kind of bleeding, his back had scratches and road rash, and his shoulder had one long, thin line that looked a hell of a lot like Steve had narrowly avoided getting cut with a knife. 

"You got lucky, kid." Wayne told him.

Steve let out a shaky breath. "I know." 

He hesitated, then opened his mouth, a question clear on his face. 

Which of course, was the exact moment Eddie chose to walk through the door. 

"Hey old man, I--Harrington!?" 

"Munson?" Steve said, looking just as confused. "What are you doing here?"

"I live here?" Eddie had frozen in their little entryway, so close the door nearly whacked him on the ass as it slammed closed. 

Privately, Wayne cursed his nephew's awful timing.

"What are you doing here?" Eddie challenged back, and it was only years of Wayne knowin’ the kid to see he was struggling to decide how he wanted to react. 

“Uh…” Steve said, trailing off and looking pointedly at Wayne. 

Eddie saw this just as he registered all of Steve’s injuries. “Shit Wayne, did you hit him with your car?” 

“Don’t try to be funny, boy.” Wayne warned. There wasn’t much bite there, and Eddie, far too used to him, didn’t take it seriously.

Eddie was glued to the spot, eyes narrowing, “... Did Harrington hit the car with his fuckin’ face? Jesus christ.” 

Wayne could tell he was struggling to pull one of his usual little bits, eyes too wide and voice too high. 

He rubbed his eyes tiredly. “Eddie.”

“We can take him out back and shoot him, put the poor bastard out of his misery.” Eddie continued, like a runaway train. 

All gas, no breaks. 

It was a joke but a poor one, and it made Steve straighten out of his sideways slant. 

‘Dammit.’  Wayne thought with a sigh. 

He needed to stop this now, before the two of them went for each other's throats. 

“Since you already know each other I won’t bother with introductions.” Wayne cut in, before Eddie could blow up like a tea kettle--or cause Harrington to do the same. “Steve’s gonna be staying with us for a while.”

That of course, got the reaction Wayne had been hoping to avoid. 

Eddie stood stunned for a second, mouth gaping like a fish. 

“Why!?” He finally landed on, seeming both at a loss for words, and equally trying not to have a proper meltdown in front of Steve. 

Certainly wasn’t for Wayne’s benefit. 

"I'm…" Steve glanced at Wayne a second time, "...on vacation?"

 It took everything Wayne had in him not to run a hand down his face. 

He was going to give Harrington a pass, on account of the head trauma.

"You’re vacationing here.”Eddie’s tone was flat, but seething, like a lit fuse. “In my living room?” 

“...Yeah?” He finished poorly tone up-ticking at the end like it was a question. “It’s a--college thing. Supposed to help my applications.” 

This time, Wayne did run a hand down his face this time. 

God save him from idiot teenagers. 

Hands clenched tight, Eddie took an aborted glance to the right before shaking his head hard and scoffing. At least it let Wayne know exactly what his kid was thinking. 

To Eddie’s right was the counter where Wayne kept the bills. 

Before he realized just how badly Ed’s daddy had messed him up about such things, Wayne hadn’t bothered to hide the bills that were past due. Turns out the kid noticed such things, and worry over money had been the leading factor in more than one of Eddie’s run-ins with Hop.

Clearly, he thought it was the cause of Wayne entertaining this bullshit. 

Offense was written in every rigid line of his body, and Wayne knew betrayal wasn’t gonna be far behind. 

“What the hell Wayne!” Eddie spat, taking a singular step forward, the accent he tried so hard to hide growing thicker the madder he got. “We’re not a damn experiment--why would you agree to that!?” 

He had seconds to salvage this, before Ed’s ran and did something dumb. 

“‘Steve’s here cause I owe Hopper a favor.” Wayne answered honestly, standing to put himself between the two. “He reminded me of all the times he’s been good to you, and then he called it in. Now,” 

He cut Eddie off before his rant could pick up steam and bowl them all over. “I need you both to listen to me. Steve, I need Eddie to know the basics in order to keep you safe. I’ll only tell him what he needs to hear to understand why that is.” 

Steve stared at him for a moment, catching Wayne’s eye as the elder man positioned himself so he could see both boys at once.

“Okay.” Steve said, dropping the hesitant tone for something serious. 

Eddie said nothing, crossing his arms tightly over his chest and gripping the edges of his jacket hard enough to leave creases. 

Judging that as good enough, Wayne continued. “He’s not here on vacation, Ed’s. Hopper has asked us to house Steve for a bit due to an ongoing situation. It’s a dangerous one, and it’s important you do not tell anyone that Steve is here.”

Eddie’s mouth did the thing it did when he desperately wanted to say something, but Wayne held up a finger in the universal “wait.” position. 

“Let me finish.” He warned, and though he caught a hell of a glare for it, Eddie remained silent. 

“Right now I need you to trust me, son.” He said softly, and prayed that alone was enough for now. “I don’t do things without a good reason behind it. I know you know that. Let me get Steve settled, and I’ll come talk to you.” 

He could go in depth a little more, outside of Harrington’s eyesight. There Eddie would be inclined to drop the parts of his personality he put on blast as a defense mechanism, and ideally, Steve could get the sleep he so desperately needed. 

“It’ll be tight, but we’ll all get through this so long as you two keep your heads. “You both got plenty of problems right now on your own, you don’t need to add to it. You understand?”  

Eddie’s eyes narrowed dramatically as he sucked in a deep breath. 

“Fine.” He snarled, letting air hiss through his clenched teeth. “As long as King Dick here can keep himself out of my shit.”

Steve didn’t rise to the bait--or perhaps, was simply too tired to want to do anything but exit the conversation. 

‘Yes Sir.” He said instead, and Wayne didn’t bother correcting him that time. Simply clocked the title as a nervous tick of Steve’s and let himself feel that brief pang of sorrow that he’d caused the kid to backslide a bit trust wise.

No use for it, though.

Not if he wanted peace in his home. 

“Good.” Wayne said. 

Eddie stormed past, beeling towards his room. 

The door closed with an angry slam, the sound echoing throughout the trailer. 

Steve reacted like a puppet with its strings cut, letting out his own breath and going right back to slumping sideways. 

“Come on kid.” Wayne said quietly. “I think it’s beyond time you got to lay down. Let’s get you a shirt and some blankets.”

Steve didn’t say a word, just managed to get himself up and over to the couch, fumbling for his bag. 

“Oh.” He said after a moment, pulling a green sweater from the duffel and blinking dully at it. “Shit--I mean, shoot.” He shot a guilty look to Wayne, like Eddie hadn’t just sworn up a storm in front of them both. 

“What’s the matter?” Wayne just asked. 

“It’s nothing, I just-- grabbed the wrong bag.” Steve told him earnestly. It was clear the day had taken a hard toll on him, because he was blinking rapidly, fighting away sleep. 

A bad sign, given the energy Eddie had just come in with. 

It should be taking him longer to feel safe to drop off, and that he was doin’ so anyway was a bad testament to the state of him. 

“You need a different one?”

Steve shook his head. “No this is just my grab bag for the Upsi-errrm.” He hummed, before falling silent for a minute. 

Wayne let him fish for words at his leisure. 

“These are just clothes that I couldn’t get stains out of, kept them as backups.” Steve managed, before beginning the long process of pulling a shirt on. 

Wayne almost offered to help, except he knew he’d likely be rejected. It was too soon, the trust between them not there yet. 

He almost let the clothing comment go, figured it as  just one of those things the brain did when it was injured and run down. The sweater Steve was struggling with was expensive and soft, and Wayne didn’t even see a stain until the poor kid finally finished getting it on. 

He nearly froze, for the second time that day, when he did.

On one sleeve, smeared like Steve had wiped his face with it, was a bloodstain. 

This one was old, and clearly attempts had been made to get it out. 

‘Aw kid.’ He thought, staring at Steve as the kid managed to swing himself up on the couch, looking seconds away from dropping off. ‘What the hell has life done to you.’

It didn’t take long before sleep took him, but Wayne watched over him for a bit longer anyway, working up to what the hell he was going to tell his kid. 

Eddie might very well not forgive him for this, but Wayne had a shot now to head things off before they got worse. 

He just had to find the right words. 

[pin-k-ink]

LAST RESORT ⋆✦⋆ kaji ren

synopsis ➸ you’ve got a habit of getting yourself into danger, and he’s done with it. if making you his in every way possible keeps you safe, so be it. he’s ready to show you just how serious he is.

tags ➸ posséssive!kaji, graphic violénce/assáult, sorta tóxic behavior, degrádation, heavy breéding kink, manhándling, rough séx, unprotécted séx, belly bulge, fingéring, dírty talking, praise kink, squírting

wc ➸ 6.3k

The dank alleyway reeked of stale vomit, spilled booze, and acrid smoke - remnants of the scuffle that had clearly occurred not long ago. Kaji stood in the center of the grimy passage, chest heaving slightly as he stared down at the two unconscious forms crumpled at his feet.

One of the men sported a rapidly blooming black eye and split lip from where Kaji's fist had caught him square in the face. The other looked even worse off, a trickle of blood leaking from his nose and soaking the collar of his shirt a rusty crimson. Kaji's own knuckles were purpling into mottled shades, skin split in a few places from the vicious impact.

He barely registered the dull throb as he flexed his hands, a muscle in his jaw ticking with barely restrained fury. If these two low-life dirtbags had managed to actually lay hands on you before he intervened...Kaji wasn't sure he'd have been able to control the full force of his rage.

The shrill ring of his phone sliced through the tension cloaking the alley. Already knowing who was on the other end, Kaji snatched it up and stabbed the answer button without preamble.

"Talk," he growled into the receiver, the single clipped word more threat than greeting.

"I got [Y/N]. She's holed up somewhere out of harm's way for now," came Hiragi's measured baritone, devoid of any flowery preamble. He knew better than to screw around when Kaji was in one of these black moods.

Kaji felt a miniscule sliver of the towering fury seething in his chest ease at those words. At least you were unharmed for the time being. Inhaling a grounding breath through his nostrils, he forced his next words to emerge slightly more even.

"Then why the hell are you calling? Get her home and wait for my—"

"There's been...a situation," Hiragi cut him off, something in his gravelly tone instantly rekindling the rage simmering in Kaji's veins. "With the thugs."

In an instant, Kaji's entire frame went preternaturally still - the coiled stillness of a feral predator zeroing in on potential threat to its kin. His spare hand clenched unconsciously into a white-knuckled fist, split skin pulling taut over the abraded ridges.

"What happened?" The words emerged in more of a feral snarl than any recognizable language. "Spit it out!"

A tense pause stretched out for several agonizing heartbeats as Kaji waited for Hiragi's response. He could easily envision his old friend squaring his broad shoulders, dark eyes narrowing as he carefully considered how to phrase whatever had gone sideways without setting off Kaji's hair-trigger temper any further.

"Got jumped when their reinforcements rolled up," Hiragi admitted at last in a low, matter-of-fact rumble. "Heat of the moment, she must've gotten spooked and decided to try finding you on her own while I finished mopping up over here."

Every tendon and cording muscle in Kaji's torso went rigid at those blunt words, jaw clenching tightly enough to grind molars. He opened his mouth to let loose what promised to be a torrent of obscenities aimed squarely at his idiot friend—

Only for the vicious tirade to shrivel on his tongue the second his gaze snapped back to the two unconscious men at his feet. His slate-hued stare widened fractionally as realization slithered through his scorching anger like an icy serpent's caress.

There were only two bodies when he distinctly remembered three would-be assailants from earlier. Which meant...

"Oh fuck..." Kaji exhaled in a low rasp that seemed to emerge from the deepest pit of his stomach. Nausea roiled through his core, warring with the volcanic surge of adrenaline that instantly lashed his senses into killing-edge clarity. "Hiragi, how many of those bastards were there total?"

Even across the tinny cell signal, Kaji could practically taste the weighted pause before his friend answered - resignation and bitter acceptance lacing each syllable.

"...Three," was Hiragi's laconic but utterly damning response. "Should've been three."

White-hot panic detonated through Kaji's neural pathways with the ferocity of a thermobaric blast. His phone dropped from nerveless fingers, battery casing clattering against the filthy concrete as he pivoted on his heel and took off at a dead sprint.

Screw backup, screw lingering to get more intel from Hiragi - every accelerating stride carried Kaji deeper into the delirious spiral of worst-case scenarios blooming like nightmarish visions. If one of those twisted fucks had somehow slipped the net while he'd been distracted...

No. He refused to even entertain the possibility of you being hunted alone and vulnerable while Kaji hadn't been there to shield you from the sick underbelly of this world. He'd burn this whole rot-infested town to the bedrock before allowing you to suffer that sort of torment on his watch.

Kaji's boots thundered over the uneven pavement with piston-like cadence, singularly focused on tracking down that elusive third scumbag by any means necessary. A murderous force of nature solely driven by the towering compulsion to locate and neutralize any threat to your safety with extreme prejudice.

Because if even a single hair on your head was so much as ruffled when he finally reached your side? May whatever forgiving deities existed have mercy on any wretched soul caught in the oncoming cataclysm of Kaji's full, unrestrained wrath.

-

The night air felt heavier than usual, laden with an unsettling undercurrent that set your nerves on edge. You tugged the thin jacket tighter around your frame as you made your way down the deserted sidewalk, footsteps echoing in the tense quiet.

Part of you recognized how utterly foolish it was to be wandering these sketchy back streets alone in search of Kaji. He would be furious if he knew you'd disobeyed Hiragi's Instructions and potentially put yourself in harm's way. But the icy dread pooling in the pit of your stomach simply wouldn't allow you to stay put, not with your boyfriend out there dealing with those predators all on his own.

Ever since those turbulent teenage days when you first fell for the hotheaded delinquent, worries over Kaji's safety during his "business" had become an omnipresent ache. You knew he could more than handle himself - had witnessed firsthand the impressive fighting skills and sheer ferocious determination he brought to every brawl. But that did little to ease the frantic pounding of your heart whenever you imagined him squaring off against those vicious gangs without backup.

As the years pressed on and the stakes grew increasingly higher, your fretful vigil only intensified in turn. Kaji might scoff at your overprotective tendencies if he were aware of them. But you simply couldn't fathom the alternative of not having his solid, unyielding presence by your side through it all.

So you pressed onwards into the looming darkness with heightened alertness, straining to catch any hints of the conflict you prayed was already over. If you could just locate Kaji and confirm he was unharmed with your own eyes, maybe then the bitter taste of dread would—

A rough hand clamped over your mouth from behind, dragging you backwards into the fetid embrace of a yawning alleyway with startling force. You instantly began thrashing and kicking out, but your assailant easily outmatched you in size and bodily strength.

"Keep squirmin' around and see what happens, bitch!" The man's rancid snarl filled your senses as he jerked you flush against his whipcord frame. Hot, moist exhales ghosted across the back of your neck as he sneered close enough for you to see the yellowed teeth and rheumy, bloodshot stare. "Now you just gonna keep nice and quiet while I figure out what I'm gonna do with—"

Whatever vile threat he intended to make died on his lips as you threw your full weight into one more vicious jerk to break free. Eyes burning with desperation and defiance, you brought your heel down in a vicious stomp directly onto his instep with everything you had.

The howl of agony split the night as the lowlife instantly crumpled backward, releasing you from his sour hold in favor of clutching at his brutalized foot. You scrambled back onto your palms, wheezing for breath and preparing to make a break for the street when his twisted expression of pure fury snapped back in your direction.

"Stupid fuckin' bitch!" he roared, already scrambling upright with murder glinting in his beady gaze. "I'mma mash that pretty face into—"

You tried to backpedal as he launched himself towards where you were sprawled. But your retreat proved sluggish and clumsy thanks to your disorientation and his greater momentum. One meaty hand lashed out to seize a fistful of your hair and yank you forwards before the other clamped like a vise around your throat.

White-hot panic detonated in your chest as his full weight bored down on top of you, the crushing pressure around your windpipe cutting off any hope of crying out. Grunts of exertion punctuated your struggles, his saliva-flecked snarl leering just inches from your face as you battered and clawed at his arm with growing feebleness.

Just as black splotches began swimming across your vision and every synapse burned with the screaming need for oxygen, a thunderous detonation split the silence like a sonic boom. The vise-like pressure maintaining its relentless stranglehold around your airway abruptly evaporated as your assailant's bulk was bodily hurled off of you by an unseen force.

You immediately curled onto your side in a choking, hacking spasm - grateful lungfuls of air scorching their way down your abraded throat in between rattling convulsions. When you finally managed to lift your bleary gaze at last, the scene that greeted you made what little breath you'd regained stall in your chest.

Kaji stood in a low, predatory fighting stance, every corded muscle and sinuous tendon standing out in stark relief beneath his tanned skin. The overhead streetlights cast his expression in chiseled strokes of black and gold - features twisted into a mask of such apocalyptic, unrestrained fury that it stole your very voice to behold it directly.

Your eyes tracked his movements with horrified fascination as he stalked towards your now-prone assailant, who cowered and backpedaled with hands upraised in feeble protest. Kaji's hands clenched into granite-ridged fists, posture becoming more low-slung and beast-like with each prowling step until it felt like you were laying witness to humanity's primordial roots rising to the surface.

Suddenly, with zero preamble or warning, Kaji exploded into a lethal flurry of blurred motion - fists, elbows and knees battering into his terrified opponent in a frenzied tempest of shattering impact. Sickening crunches and pained howls filled the night as he unleashed the full unfettered fury of his savagery without mercy or quarter.

You flinched instinctively with each thunderous collision, dimly aware of cradling your ravaged throat as Kaji swiftly reduced the other man into a limp, unmoving heap on the filthy asphalt. Yet still he rained down abuse on the unconscious form, monstrous growls of animalistic rage echoing from the deepest pit of his chest.

That's when his blazing steel-flint stare snapped up and caught yours at last, twin pools of mercurial promise and retribution burning into your very psyche. In that fractured instant, you caught a glimpse of the unmistakable beast Kaji could become when inflamed by undiluted wrath - unrestrained, unholy, and unmerciful towards anything that dared threaten what he'd so utterly claimed as his to protect.

The last coherent memory you retained before the world spun into velvet blackness was that of Kaji prowling towards your sprawled form with the same lethal, purposeful grace of an apex predator finally reclaiming its chosen prize.

-

The first tendrils of awareness filtered back in slowly, like wading through a dense fog. Your eyes felt heavy, weighed down by lingering disorientation even as shapes and shadows gradually coalesced into recognizable forms swimming above you.

"...ink she's coming around. Hey, can you hear me?"

That familiar gravelly baritone finally pierced the cottony haze as Hiragi's concerned features solidified into focus mere inches from your face. You managed a feeble groan in response, head lolling towards the source of his voice.

"Oh, thank goodness!" A feminine timbre chimed in - higher and distinctly more upbeat despite the underlying worry coloring the lilt.

Kotoha leaned into your periphery a moment later, hazel eyes wide and lips pursed into a small "o" of consternation. Despite the gravity of the situation, you couldn't quite smother the reflexive twitch of fondness at her typically exuberant presence.

"We were so worried when Kaji showed up carrying you all roughed up like that!" she fretted, delicate brows furrowing slightly. "Are you hur—?"

"She needs space," a low, dissonant rasp cut across whatever else Kotoha intended to say.

Your lungs hitched in a breathless stall at the sound of that voice - still hoarse and graveled from the sheer animalistic ferocity laced through its tones. Slowly, you rolled your throbbing head to the other side until your vision snagged on Kaji's imposing silhouette hovering above the couch where you lay.

He stood with arms tightly crossed over his chest, every line and sinew of his muscular frame exuding a barely leashed menace even in repose. The stark planes and angles of his face were thrown into harsh chiaroscuro by the dim lighting, chiseling his expression into an inscrutable, unyielding mask that made your heart skip a frantically.

But it was his eyes that truly ensnared and pinned you into place like a frozen animal before the barrel of a rifle's scope. Those glinted steel chips bored into you with the same scorching, relentless intensity you'd briefly witnessed at the alley's other end - untamed and hypervigilant, as if daring anything or anyone to make the slightest aggressive move against its chosen quarry again.

It made your breath stall in your battered throat, a sense of primal trepidation slithering through your consciousness at being caged under that raptor's scrutiny once more.

"Both of you," Kaji growled without preamble, turning that razored glare momentarily towards Hiragi and Kotoha in a clear dismissal. "Take a walk. Me and my girlfriend need to have a little...chat first."

Hiragi opened his mouth, jawline tightening in a telltale sign he meant to protest or offer advisement. But something in the frigid gunmetal promise flickering behind Kaji's stare seemed to leech away whatever objection he might have voiced. After a prolonged beat of silence, he gave the barest dip of his chin and rose to his feet with a low exhalation.

Kotoha hesitated a fraction longer, worrying her full lower lip between her teeth as those vivid hazel orbs flitted between your prone form and Kaji's unmovable silhouette hovering over you both. But she eventually followed Hiragi's lead and trailed after him, her small hand reflexively twining into your periphery to give your fingers a reassuring squeeze.

Only when the sound of their departing footfalls had completely dissolved did Kaji finally unfurl from his rigid stance with a low, rolling expulsion of breath. Slowly, he pivoted towards the couch, unhurried strides eating up the distance until he loomed directly above where you lay.

That unrelenting, tempered steel stare continued blazing into you without compromise from this extreme proximity. Every cording tendon and bunched muscle reflecting the lethal tension coiled through his entire being - not quite given free rein yet...but not far from doing so either.

One calloused hand reached out, fingers splaying possessively over your sternum in an authoritative brand that seemed to sear straight through the thin cotton separating his scorching palm from your rapidly pounding heart. Still, Kaji said nothing. Simply maintained that fraught, weighted silence thick with all the volatile undercurrents and unvarnished promise of what was about to unfurl between you both.

Like a merciless tempest hovering in its full and terrible glory...awaiting the slightest provocation to unleash its brutal, cleansing force without quarter.

The weighted silence stretched out between you both in a rapturous, fragile suspension - charged particles practically crackling through the static-swept atmosphere like stray bolts of lightning.

Then Kaji's calloused fingertips began tracing a blazing path along the battered column of your throat.

You instinctively flinched at the initial searing contact, unable to repress a tremulous whimper as his pads grazed over each lurid, blossoming weal. Every mottled blemish and inflammation stood out in livid discoloration - a visceral reminder of how narrowly you'd slipped fate's clutches this night.

Rather than react to your plaintive noise, Kaji simply continued his unhurried exploration with the sort of granular intensity usually reserved for assessing gunshot trajectories. The pad of his thumb mapped the deepest imprint scored across your windpipe with an almost clinical meticulousness, as though committing every ridge and contour to permanent memory.

When he finally did speak, the words emerged in little more than a hoarse, frayed rasp that made you shiver despite the sweltering undercurrents rippling from his formidable frame.

"You ever stop and wonder why I fell for a stubborn, reckless little thing like you?"

The unexpected query - coupled with that deceivingly mild delivery - caused your brows to knit momentarily in bewilderment. But Kaji simply continued musing in that same gravel-tinged drawl, eyes flickering with some unreadable emotion.

"Was a total pain in my ass from day one back in high school," he murmured, knuckles ghosting featherlight swirls along your feverish skin. "This mouthy brat who never missed an opportunity to get all up in my business, no matter how many times I brushed you off..."

Despite yourself, the faintest curve tugged at the corners of your mouth at the transparent nostalgia coating his cadences. You couldn't even begin to count the number of times your brazen refusal to be cowed by the infamous Kaji Ren had nearly gotten you throttled back then.

The barest whisper of a chuckle rumbled through Kaji's chest at your reaction. For a fleeting heartbeat, the specters of the harsh lines etched into his visage seemed to soften infinitesimally - enough for you to catch the faintest glimpse of the easy, cocksure teenage rebel he'd once been peeking through.

Then his expression abruptly shifted on a dime, thunderous scowl reappearing like the casting of a shadow as his tone plunged into something far more low and dissonant.

"Should've known back then what an absolute magnet for trouble you'd turn out to be..."

Instinctively, your senses went on high alert at the razor-edged undercurrents in his rasping murmurs - every hair along your nape prickling as the precarious tension swelled through the stifling atmosphere once more. Kaji's free hand reached out, palm searing like a brand against your flushed cheek to carefully tilt your face upwards, ensuring his smoldering stare pinned you ruthlessly in place.

"All these years later, and you're still the same goddamn problem child who won't listen to a word I say," he growled, voice lowering into a predatory rumble that seemed to reverberate against the bruised staves of your ribcage.

"Never stops to consider putting herself in the line of fire at every turn, even when that pathetic death wish puts the people protecting her at just as much risk..."

An animalistic snarl twisted his full lips into a rictus of pure fury, grip tightening fractionally until the vicelike pressure bordered on bruising. Not that you dared so much as part your trembling mouth on a whisper of protest. Not when Kaji's entire frame had gone utterly, preternaturally rigid with a towering umbrage that seared into you with all the blistering might of a solar corona.

"Do you have ANY idea what would've happened if I got there even a second later?" His words detonated in a psychic percussive force that pummeled you straight down to your marrow, even without raising his voice an octave.

"How close I came to watching that sadistic fuck rob you of everything that makes you MINE while I was stuck chasing decoys like a fucking amateur?!"

Kaji's thunderous inhale raked through his gritted teeth with a labored, hissing rasp - clearly battling to throttle his raging fury back into some manageable configuration. When next he loomed over you, teeth bared and every bunched sinew straining like a hair-trigger bowstring, you could practically see the detonation wavefront smoldering in those achingly familiar steel-bright irises.

"I would have razed this cesspool down to fucking bedrock," he bit out in a cadence rendered molten by sheer hatred. "Every miserable lowlife within a hundred-mile radius would've drowned in their own blood before they took you away from me."

Blazing manifolds of retribution and delirious vengeance cascaded between each stygian syllable clawed from his chest - so blindingly intense you could practically taste the bitter ash saturating your own tongue. For several fraught, suspended heartbeats, you remained utterly transfixed by the spectacle of such apocalyptic, unholy apotheosis simmering at the very precipice of unchaining itself wholly upon this mortal plane.

Then, with a guttural snarl that seemed to attenuate all the violence, rage, and obsessive need coiling through him into a single searing crescendo...Kaji slammed his forehead against yours with punishing force. The shock of dizzying impact jarred through every synapse, effectively blanking your mind of all thoughts beyond submitting to the impending tsunami.

"But you just had to jump the leash again, didn't you?" he growled against your trembling mouth, chest heaving against yours with every ragged inhalation. "Because deep down, you still don't actually trust me to keep you safe like I promised all those years ago..."

Somehow, that final blistering accusation sliced even deeper than the molten lashings of blame and fury preceding it. You drew a ragged breath, hazy vision refocusing just in time to watch Kaji's lips slant over yours in an utterly dominating, punishing deluge that robbed whatever feeble protests might have slipped free.

There was zero hesitation or restraint in his movements - only the punishing, all-consuming need to possess and dominate you fully in this moment. His thick tongue immediately surged past your parted lips, tangling with yours in a lush, devouring dance that stole the air from your lungs with its ferocity.

You couldn't repress the desperate little whimper that slipped free as his calloused palms roamed over your sides and hips with possessive fervor. The weight and heat of Kaji's powerful body pinning you to the couch's unforgiving surface made you feel deliriously consumed and caged by his virile presence from every angle. Any feeble attempts at squirming or seeking even an inch of relief only resulted in him anchoring you more ruthlessly in place beneath his hulking mass.

When finally Kaji tore his mouth from yours in need of air, you gulped down ragged breaths in a dazed rapture - scarcely able to track the slick glide of his lips trailing a scorching path along the thundering pulse at your throat. His gravelly rumbles of approval vibrated deliciously against your sensitive skin as he lavished the exposed column with rasping drags of his tongue and soft nips.

"Yeah...that's what I fucking thought," he growled in a tone made rough from the sheer intensity blazing between you both. "Can't get enough of having me take control and put that greedy little body in its place, can you?"

To emphasize his point, Kaji rolled his hips in one purposeful grind that dragged the painfully rigid length trapped within his sweats against your molten core in a lash of electrifying friction. Your back arched with a needy mewl, already feeling the slick arousal gathering at your entrance as he pinned you open with the bracket of his powerful thighs.

"Get you so worked up just from a little dry humping and rough kisses," he husked against the glistening column of your throat, tongue laving a lush, openmouthed path to the hollow between your collarbones. "Should've known you'd go all reckless and fuckup like this again just to get my hands all over this perfect body as punishment..."

One large palm drifted up to engulf the lush fullness of your breast, giving it a firm, possessive squeeze before brushing over the peaked bud with tantalizing lightness. You squirmed and whined helplessly, rapidly becoming undone by his ceaseless carnal praise and handsy lavishing. Kaji's deep chuckle of undisguised gratification at your unraveling vibrated through your very bones.

"God, look how fucking desperate you are already," he grated out in clear satisfaction. "Bet you've been craving this since storming off on your own like an idiot earlier – getting put back under my full control where your dumb ass belongs."

With that crude observation, Kaji ducked his head to mouth hotly over the nipple he'd been teasing, swirling that wicked tongue in tight, maddening circuits. His free hand snaked down to boldly palm the clothed swell of your mound, fingertips digging into the rapidly dampening material to find your slickened folds through the barrier.

"Yeah, feel how soaked you're getting just thinking about me punishing that reckless little body into submission again..." He punctuated his low rasp by easing two thick digits past your panties and into your drenched folds in a torturously measured glide, burying them to the last knuckle in your clenching sheath. "Like it's the only damn way to get it through your thick skull that you never leave my side without permission, understand?"

All you could do was nod and whine as Kaji began to steadily pump those calloused fingers in a gliding, purposeful cadence explicitly designed to milk every shocked keen and shudder from your overstimulated form. Each searing retreat ended with his palm grinding against your swollen clit, the muscles of his arm and shoulder rippling powerfully from the effort of slowly dismantling your coherence in the most exquisite manner possible.

"Fuckin' lucky I'm even considering letting you off easy with just a hard-earned dicking down this time around," he growled between lavishing your panting mouth with messy, biting kisses. "Should be tying you to the bed the second we get home, cuffing those wrists over your head so you're stuck staring at the ceiling and remembering who you fucking belong to while I breed this greedy pussy over and over..."

The vivid imagery coupled with Kaji's rough dominance and crude narration had you rapidly dissolving into a squirming mess of desperation and need. Whines and cries punched free with each mind-numbing plunge and retreat of his thick digits working your silken interior into an overwrought frenzy. You could feel yourself rapidly teetering right on the shuddering precipice of blissful release with every harsh grind of his palm into your straining bundle of nerves.

"That's it...let go and come all over my hand like a good girl," Kaji rumbled in clear satisfaction, drinking in your glassy-eyed unraveling with rapt focus. "Might actually keep you half-sane and out of trouble for a few hours after pumping that heavenly little pussy full of my load..."

He leaned in close to growl right against the swollen bow of your trembling lips, smoky amber gaze swallowing you whole. "At least until all that cum really kicks in and has you crawling right back for another hard reminder of why you'll never leave my side again..."

The harsh grating demand of his words, combined with one last unforgiving curl of his fingers against that shockingly snug internal cluster, detonated your teetering release into blinding delirium. You came undone around Kaji's pumping hand in a helpless convulsion, crying out against the branding heat of his mouth swallowing each keening noise. He drank in your rapturous shattering with undisguised gratification, continuing to steadily work you through the rolling paroxysms until the final quakes gradually ebbed away into boneless lassitude.

Only then did Kaji slowly withdraw his glistening digits from your sated depths, lifting them to his lips to lave the musky evidence of your shuddering release with clear relish. His smoldering gaze held you utterly transfixed and caged even as he sat back slightly, swiping his arm across his slick mouth with a rumbled chuckle.

"Good girl..." he husked, thick cock visibly twitching in a way that made your spent channel spasm reflexively. "From this point on, I'm gonna make sure you're either pregnant or getting there every single night."

Before you could even process the blunt statement, let alone formulate a response, Kaji's hands shot down to grip the hem of your panties and skirt. With a rough jerk, he roughly peeled the clinging garments off in a single yank. A low, primal growl rolled through his chest as his ravenous stare landed on your slick-soaked folds, the engorged lips already glistening with renewed arousal.

"You're gonna be begging me for this cock every day until your belly swells up with my kid," he muttered in a low, almost wondering timbre. The reverence coloring his rasping words made a flush crawl up the column of your throat, even as your eyes widened at the unabashed filth spewing forth.

"Don't try fighting it. I've made up my mind - that fertile little body is going to stay swollen with fresh batches of my seed one after the other," Kaji grated out, reaching down to impatiently drag his sweatpants down and kick them off. "You get off on tempting danger, I get off on the thought of you barefoot and glowing, swollen with multiple loads I've pumped into that greedy womb."

Any lingering objections or attempts at logic died on your tongue when Kaji's massive erection sprang free, rigid and throbbing against his abdomen. Even now, the size and sheer girth of that pulsing monster made a shiver run up your spine in primal recognition of the thorough, unrepentant fucking it always promised.

His calloused palms wrapped around your hips, gripping the delicate span firmly to drag you closer, allowing him to notch the broad head of his length against your slick entrance. Then, with one punishing, unrelenting thrust, Kaji sank inside the silken, fluttering walls until he was buried to the hilt in your shuddering depths.

You threw your head back with a choked cry, instinctively wrapping your legs around his hips and locking ankles to pull him closer. Every straining nerve ending lit up with electric fire at being split open by his impossibly massive cock. It took several seconds of ragged, heaving breaths for the overwhelming fullness to gradually ease into something less deliriously acute.

Kaji groaned against your parted lips, hips twitching and thighs shaking with the sheer effort of restraining his urge to simply hammer into your pliant form and claim you in the most savage way possible. Still, his rasping words emerged in a low, uncompromising growl.

"Fucking hell, you're tight...even after all this time, it's like sinking into pure heaven..."

When you could finally manage a shaky breath, he drew his hips back slightly and began to build into a steady rhythm. Every measured roll and grind of his thick girth against your swollen channel stoked the molten pressure simmering anew at your core, sending sparks shooting along every straining nerve ending.

"Oh god," you panted, barely able to register anything beyond the delirious sensation of him filling you to the brim and dragging every last shred of rational thought out with each slow, measured stroke. "Ren...please..."

Kaji's teeth snapped together with a growl, clearly struggling against the same primal instinct to simply give in and drive into you with wild abandon.

"You better be asking for this dick like a good girl," he husked out, leaning down to nip sharply at your kiss-swollen lips. "Or else that smart mouth of yours is gonna stay too preoccupied moaning for me to fuck another breeding into you to risk any more misbehavior."

With that final threat, his hips abruptly picked up into a rougher, faster pace, each snap of his pelvis slamming home against your cervix in a lashing assault. Your nails dug into his muscled shoulders, leaving deep red welts across his taut flesh as you struggled to find any anchor to ground you amidst the onslaught.

"Fuck," Kaji groaned, clearly reveling in the punishing force he was able to unleash without the constraints of a public environment or the threat of an audience. "Can't believe how tight this perfect little pussy gets for me every damn time..."

He reached down to grip one quivering thigh, hooking his arm under your knee to spread you open even wider and allow him to sink deeper. His heavy balls slapped obscenely against the supple flesh of your ass, the slick sounds of his cock plunging into your soaked core echoing around the room.

"You gonna come for me, sweetheart?" he husked against your parted lips, clearly reveling in the hazy desperation clouding your vision as he drove you higher and higher towards release. "Come all over this cock while I give you the first load of my cum for the night..."

When you could only gasp and keen in reply, Kaji's grip on your hips tightened fractionally, ensuring his pelvis ground against your straining bundle of nerves and clit with every ruthless snap forward.

"Come on, I know you're close...just a little bit more," he muttered in a low rasp, pupils blown wide as he stared down at your flushed features. "Need to feel this sweet pussy milk me dry and squeeze every drop of my seed straight into your womb..."

One of his hands drifted down to your abdomen, fingertips pressing down lightly over the spot where his cock bulged obscenely through your taut flesh. The gesture somehow managed to magnify the sensation of his brutal thrusts, drawing a choked gasp from your chest.

"F-fuck, Ren..." You were rapidly spiraling towards the edge, unable to resist the pull of the inevitable tidal surge. "Oh god...I'm gonna..."

"Yeah, you are," he bit out, voice rough and uneven as his hips began to slam into you with a punishing force. "So do it - come all over my cock like the good girl I know you are, baby..."

His command and the raw authority underlying the words shattered the final vestiges of your resistance. Your entire body went taut, straining as though suspended from some invisible wire as a seismic ripple began to radiate outwards. The first gush of release erupted around the thick length still pumping into you, slick and scorching.

"Fuck, yes!" Kaji hissed, the sound strained and almost tortured as his powerful hips faltered for the briefest heartbeat. "That's it – take my fucking load, sweetheart...so goddamn perfect when you're creaming all over my cock..."

With that final praise, his entire body went rigid against yours, a choked growl spilling forth as he began to spurt thick, heavy ropes of his essence deep within the clenching vise of your channel. The sensation of his release bathing your quivering depths, along with the sheer knowledge that Kaji had just emptied a fresh load of his seed straight into your fertile womb, sent you careening over the edge a second time.

You clung desperately to the broad span of his shoulders, keening as the waves of release wracked your shuddering frame. Kaji's own groans of ecstasy mingled with yours, the two of you drowning in the raw, unfiltered carnality of the moment.

Eventually, the final aftershocks began to ebb, leaving behind the blissful lassitude and bone-deep satiation. Kaji slumped against your prone form, careful not to crush you with his massive bulk, and buried his face into the crook of your neck with a ragged groan.

You felt him inhale deeply, the scorching brand of his nose and lips brushing over your salt-dampened skin as he seemed to drink in your combined, musky scents. A shudder rolled through Kaji's powerful frame - one you weren't certain originated from the lingering throes of pleasure or something more visceral entirely.

When at last he shifted enough for you to glimpse his features, the intensity burning behind those steel-flint irises momentarily stole the breath from your spent lungs. Gone was the razor focus of his earlier, primal dominance. In its place, an inscrutable cocktail of residual hunger and...something darker, more haunted than you could immediately parse.

"Don't you ever pull a stunt like that again," Kaji rasped in a low rumble that seemed wrenched from the deepest pit of his diaphragm. There was no mistaking the undercurrent of quiet ferocity threaded through his gravelly tones, nor the slight tremor betraying the sheer unvented intensity still simmering beneath the surface of his controlled cadences.

One of his broad palms came up to cup the side of your face, calloused pads ghosting over the feverish winged curve of your cheekbones and temples in a shockingly tender caress. You instinctively leaned into the searing brand of his touch, trapping it against your flushed skin as you searched his shadowed gaze for answers to the enigma playing out behind them.

"You have any idea how close I came to..." Kaji started huskily, only to trail off as his jaw clenched until Herculean cords and tendons stood out in stark relief. His amber stare bored into you with smoldering intensity for several suspended heartbeats before the words finally emerged in a low, rumbling exhalation. "I could taste the bloodlust when I realized one of those fucks had slipped the net. Could practically feel every strand of control starting to splinter apart at the thought of losing you to those sadistic pieces of shit."

Despite the explicit menace suffusing his murmurs, you felt your breath hitch at the naked admission blazing there. Witnessing Kaji openly acknowledge the maelstrom of possessive, protective obsession that had nearly lashed free upon encountering such grievous stakes was...sobering. But also reaffirming in a way that both terrified and thrilled you down to your marrow.

"So I'm going to get what I want, one way or the other," he husked with quiet, unapologetic conviction - punctuating the matter-of-fact declaration by hooking one of your legs over his powerful hips once more. You whimpered softly as the dense ridges of his still-hard cock twitched within your swollen, over-sensitized folds with casual insistence. "Because from here on out, there won't be a single opportunity for you to stray into the line of fire again."

[monstersandmaw]

Male orc x gender neutral reader (light nsfw)

Disclaimer which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

Commission number two folks!

Content: Gender and body neutral reader who’s autistic deals with sensory overload while at a funfair, stimming includes rocking and pressure on the hands. Male orc offers a way out so the reader can catch their breath. Very brief mention of the orc losing a close friend in the past year, and of deciding to live more in the moment because of it. Light-ish nsfw at the end with a bit of a fade to black. 

Wordcount: 7562

Three hours ago, you’d been sure you could handle this. How could you not? It was a day out with your friends for Lily’s birthday, but of course, the orc had chosen the modern equivalent of a jousting tournament to show off her skills to her girlfriend. Still, you and Luke and Ellis had met up and made your way through town, collecting Lily and Maggie outside a gelateria, where naturally you all paused to buy the most amazing ice cream in town. With a start like that, how could things possibly go wrong?

After a leisurely walk to the fairground on the outskirts of town, you’d watched Luke win a fluffy white rabbit toy that was almost as big as he was on the coconut shy, despite the way the game was obviously rigged, but the werewolf had wagged his shaggy grey tail and howled his victory to the sky and clutched his new friend to his chest like it was his own goddamn child, and you’d clapped and cheered along with everyone else at the soppy wolf.

You hadn’t noticed the way you'd started to grip one hand with the other, squeezing tightly with finger and thumb just to give a little release to the steady buildup of pressure inside you as the atmosphere of the fanfare closed in around you. You also didn’t notice that you were gently rocking from side to side on the spot while you waited for Ellis to decide if he was going to go and say hi to the girl he’d been crushing on for a while, so when you found a teenager staring openly at you from the queue for the paintball stand, you assumed their attention was on Ellis.

Ellis usually attracted looks, not only because he was a goblin — a species that was relatively rare in your part of the world — but because his storm-grey skin was mottled all over with pale patches from vitiligo. He wasn’t bothered by the attention for the most part, but when you saw exactly where their gaze was directed instead — at your twisting hands — you felt an ugly stab of something bitter go through you. Carnivals may not offer the outdated and heartless ‘freak show’ elements anymore, but boy were you made to feel like one sometimes by other people.

“Hey, look!” Ellis exclaimed, his scratchy, reedy voice cutting through the maelstrom of noise and crush of people easily enough. “There she is! I’m gonna go see if she’s up for a ferris wheel ride. You think she’ll say yes?”

Your nod came out jerky and a bit stilted, but you mustered a smile of encouragement for your friend and he grinned back at you, all his sharp teeth glinting in the sunshine. Then something shifted in his expression and he frowned. “You ok?” he asked as his completely black eyes went a little wider with concern.

Again, you nodded and tried to look a little more convincing. After weeks of dancing around each other, he was finally going to shoot his shot, and there was no way you wanted him to miss because of you. “Fine,” you croaked. The word came out like a cat hocking up a hairball, but at least you got it out.

“Ok. Text me, alright?” he said. “Text me if you wanna go.”

You nodded. No way were you going to be the reason everyone left. If things got bad, you’d just… bail. Somehow. If you could find your way out of the crush of people without imploding first.

Glancing right, you saw Lily raise the hammer on the high striker and watched her muscles bunch and flex in her arms, shoulders and back. She was wearing a black tank top that said, ‘If lost, return Butch to Femme Fatale’ and beside her stood pint-sized Maggie in her denim hot pants and white t-shirt that read ‘Femme Fatale’. It was adorable, honestly, but as you stood there alone in the stream of people coursing and jostling down the avenue of grass between the smaller stands and side-shows, over-stimulation swamped you completely and you found yourself drowning silently.

Flashing lights, blaring funfair music, screaming, children running this way and that, rides rumbling and rattling on all sides, electronic bleeps and jingles mingling into a cacophonous mixtape in the air and reverberating in your head, cartoon pistol noises on the laser gun range sounding over and over and over, more screaming as the pendulum ride swung overhead once again…

The sensory overload raked its claws across your skin and left you with white noise in your head and cotton wool in your mouth.

The scent of candy floss grew chokingly thick in the air as you just stood there, paralysed.

Out of nowhere, a small and extremely solid lizardfolk kid barrelled into you, nearly knocking you flying. His horned head collided with your thigh and it hurt, but you didn’t cry out. His father scooped him up by the hand and apologised to you, but when he saw you rocking from side to side, he snatched his kid away and shot you another look, as if you were contagious or dangerous and not just struggling to kick start your brain again so you could get yourself the heck out of there and find somewhere safe to process everything.

Struggling to catch your breath, you gripped one hand with the other, squeezing as hard as you could but it wasn’t enough. There was just too much, inside and out, and you had nowhere to put it — nowhere to park it all until you could deal with it.

Someone ducked in front of you, their huge form blotting out the searing light of the afternoon sun.

Blinking, you looked up, still rocking, and tried to focus on their face.

He was an orc, you realised when you saw the huge, jutting tusks in his lower jaw and the expanse of sage green skin. A long, thick plait of black hair hung forward over his left shoulder, and through it ran a streak dyed a dark, vibrant red that was really attractive; it complemented the green tone of his freckled skin beautifully. Wearing a white, sleeveless tank top that had the logo of the fairground company on it, he wasn’t built like he spent every spare minute in the gym, but he looked like he could have lifted the ferris wheel right off its supports with no trouble at all.

Someone snickered nearby and you flinched, but you didn’t break the steady rocking motion of your body while mentally you tried to fend off all the unending stimuli around you. The orc’s expression darkened when he caught the sound of  laughter, and he stepped pointedly a little to the left. The movement served to block you from their sight and to refocus your attention on something that was quiet and solid and steady in front of you.

Yeah, he was solid alright. You blinked and watched the corners of his mouth twitch upwards just a little behind his colossal tusks, both of which bore silver caps over the tips to indicate that he had reached full maturity in the eyes of his culture. It probably meant that his tusks were filed to sharp points beneath the caps too. It was rare for orcs who lived in the city to stick to the older ways, but as you continued to stare up at him and move side to side while you ran your hands over your forearms, you noticed the beads in his braid of different materials: wood, copper, steel, glass, stone, and even bone. He’d lost someone close to him then at some point. Gods, now was not the time to be fishing everything you knew about orcs out of the depths of your brain.

For another few seconds, he continued to shield you from the staring judgement of the people in the queue for the nearest booth, but when you didn't seem to be able to settle, he jutted his chin to the side of the grassy avenue between the stalls.

“My name is Rhokann. You wanna step this way for a second? Catch your breath where it’s a bit quieter?” he said.

When no words came to your lips, he tilted his head just a little and then beckoned you with a big hand. “There’s a quieter spot over by that oak tree and the river. You want to come with me for a minute?”

You did. You also wanted to say thank you, but the words got glued up on their way from your brain to your mouth, so you just nodded.

He stuck out his arm and halted the flow of people for a moment to usher you between the candy floss stall and something else that was painted a thousand lurid colours so you didn’t look too long at it. Only when you saw the bole of a huge, old oak and a wide patch of un-trampled grass around it did you let out a shaky breath and turn to see him standing a little way off. A couple of people peered after you down the gap between the stalls, and he looked back at them with a very articulate and animalistic growl. That done, he stepped a little to his right, obscuring the view of you down the small alley with his body.

“Forget about them and look out over the river for a minute,” he suggested.

His dark brown eyes slid from you to the railings behind you, and you turned to see the river gushing in a white foam over the weir that controlled its flow through the city beyond. The sounds of the funfair behind you faded slowly, dissolving into the steady stream of white noise from the river, and you took a deeper breath and gradually released the death-grip you’d had on your own hands.

You let your gaze unfocus a little, but your body kept on moving as it tried to help you dissipate all the tension that had been building in your muscles and your mind ever since you’d first arrived at the fair.

A shadow moved in the corner of your vision, and you found Rhokann approaching slowly. He cast a pointed look at the metal railing to your left and said, “You mind if I join you for a moment?”

You shook your head. The word ‘no’ didn’t want to come, but he didn’t seem to take it as rudeness.

“Cheers,” he said. “Carnival gets intense, huh?”

This time, you nodded and he smiled when he saw it. You liked the way it hitched his mouth up around his tusk on the right, and it brought a twinkle to his coffee-brown eyes.

“Take your time,” he said. “You here with your friends?”

You nodded.

“They know where you were?”

You shook your head, but reached into your pocket and drew out your phone. Shaking it a little, you hoped he’d get the idea that they could contact you if they wanted to find you, or the other way around, and he smiled again in understanding. Your heart skipped a beat. He may have been seven and a half feet tall, but he had a gentle demeanour that you hadn’t really realised was possible in someone that big. He had a paunch too, which he clearly wasn’t trying to hide with his close-fitting, sleeveless top, and you could see from the scoop of the neckline that he had an attractive swirl of dark hair across his pecs that made you wonder what the rest of him looked like without clothes on; a fact that was startling enough in that moment to make you flush hot and look away.

“You want me to keep you company for a bit, or do you want some space?” he asked after another couple of minutes floated past.

You shook your head and then struggled to find the words to make him stay just a bit longer. When he saw you floundering, he smiled and asked, “Stay?”

You nodded, exhaling in relief, even as you fought off a rush of disappointment in not being able to form the words.

“You’re good,” he said with a wave of a huge hand. “Don’t stress talking.”

He took a deep, luxuriant inhale and leaned his massive forearms on the metal railing, easing his weight forward and gazing out at the river. His braid went all the way to the small of his back and it made you want to wrap it around your hand and tug just to see what kind of sound he’d make, and again, you had to look away before he caught you lusting after him. Just because you’d been rescued by a heroic stranger, didn’t mean you had to go falling in love with him in the following five minutes. It didn’t hurt that he hadn’t batted an eyelid at your stimming, or that he didn’t seem bothered by the fact that you’d been rendered almost completely non-verbal by the whole experience.

Your phone buzzed in your pocket a while later and you drew it out again to see that Lily was looking for you.

‘Where are you, Titch?’ she’d texted and you smiled when you saw the nickname. The massive orc had given it to you back in college, and it had stuck ever since. Even Ellis called you ‘Titch’ sometimes, despite the fact that he was nearly a foot and a half shorter than you. ‘We turned around and you’d gone!’

Rhokann was watching you from the corners of his kind eyes, and you waggled the phone again before typing out a message to Lily. ‘Needed to step away for a second. Got rescued by a super hot orc guy. More at ten.’

Lily texted back immediately. ‘Super hot orc guy, huh? I’ll be the judge of that. Where are you?’

‘Big oak tree on the edge of the park near the river. Don’t embarrass me please.’

‘As if I’d ever…’

‘You spend every spare minute you’re not kissing Maggie trying to embarrass me and El and Luke.’

‘Fair play. We’re nearby. I can see the tree’

You locked your phone and swallowed thickly, feeling a bit more able to talk. “Friend’s coming…” you faltered. Wow. Nice and articulate, you sneered at yourself with your usual sarcasm.

“That’s good,” Rhokann smiled back. He made no move to push himself back upright from the railings though, and shifted his gaze back out to the city that sprawled over the other side of the river. He gave another sigh.

You stepped a little closer and looked up at him. “You… ok?” you asked.

“Mm,” he hummed. When he looked back down at you, his dark eyes were strangely sad. “Just… thinking,” he said with a gesture of his hand near his temple. “I’ve been working here all summer, and it’s been amazing, but I’m starting a full time job in a week. I’m just thinking about what’s coming next.”

“Doing what?” Words were starting to come back a little quicker now, but it wasn’t great.

He turned his head over his shoulder to look at you, but before he could answer your question, you heard Lily’s voice coming from behind you.

“Hey Titch!” she called, and then she eyed the other orc ostentatiously up and down.

She raised an eyebrow when she saw the beads in his braid and the cuffs around his thick tusks, and you watched Rhokann deflate a little. Lily was not a traditional orc. For one, she was dating a human, which wasn’t exactly frowned upon but humans weren’t normally seen as suitable partners for her kind, and for another, she had cut her black hair short in a style shaved close to her skull above her pointed ears and left a little longer on top. She wore no cuffs on her tusks, and she’d filed them to softly-rounded points. “As much for Maggie’s pleasure as my own damned convenience,” she’d once told you.

Lily disdained orcs who stuck to the old ways, thinking them brutish thugs stuck in the past, and she folded her arms as she stared Rhokann down. “You wanna head home?” she asked in a low growl.

You turned your attention to Rhokann and he offered you a tiny, sad smile and a shrug of his shoulder. You wanted to stay and get to know him, but you also desperately wanted to be away from the fairground now. Your body felt drained of life, like you were running on fumes, and all you wanted was the quiet of your apartment, a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, and a good book.

In the end, Rhokann decided for you. He offered you a broader smile, and said, “It was nice meeting you. Take care.”

You’d never regretted your tendency to go non-verbal more than watching him walk away and not being able to say thank you.

With Lily on one side, you were joined by Luke a few minutes later, still hauling around the giant fluffy bunny he’d won, its ears flopping comically with each of his bounding steps, but you kept scanning every face for Rhokann. You saw an ogre with green skin that was a similar shade to Rhokann’s, but disappointment bit deep when you realised it wasn’t him, and when a flash of red hair up ahead drew your attention, you barely contained a sob when you saw it was a troll with multiple streaks of red in their black hair.

The walk back home passed in a daze, and you spent the rest of the day buzzing in the worst way possible.

A week later, Luke texted and asked if you wanted to grab breakfast on your way to work, and since you only had stale cereal in your cupboard, you practically leapt at the chance. ‘You mind if we drop my car off at the garage on the way?’ he asked with a subsequent text. ‘There’s an amazing little cafe just around the corner and we can get the metro from there afterwards.’

When his sputtering old deathtrap wheezed onto the garage forecourt though, your heart practically sputtered out as well. There, in oil-stained overalls, was Rhokann.

He didn’t spot you to start with, but when you climbed out of the passenger side and closed the door, his eyes flickered to you and then away again. Then back in a huge, obvious double-take, and his face split into a hearty grin. “Hey,” he chuckled once he’d taken the keys from Luke. “I didn’t think I’d get the chance to see you again.”

“Neither did I,” you admitted, and Luke shot you a look. He was in his human form this time, but he was no less intimidating than he looked as a shifted werewolf. For all that he was happy to haul a fluffy, cartoon rabbit around a funfair all day without a lick of self-consciousness, he was a dedicated gym-rat and had the body to match, but while his commitment was certainly admirable, he wasn’t your type. Rhokann, on the other hand, with his strongman physique and solid layer of fat to soften the strength that lay beneath… unfff… It was hard to look at him for long without feeling your skin start to prickle with heat.

“Wait, you two know each other?” Luke asked you and you nodded.

“He came to my rescue at the fairground last weekend while you were showing that white rabbit the time of its life,” you grinned.

At that, Luke flushed. You weren’t the only one who liked Rhokann’s build, but the orc wasn’t looking at Luke’s incredibly toned arms, which were currently being deliberately shown off to amazing advantage by his tight, black t-shirt. No, Rhokann was looking at you like you were the most interesting thing he’d seen in a year, and it was enough to make a cloud of butterflies erupt in your chest.

“Damn,” Luke hissed down at you, smirking. “You weren’t kidding about the ‘super hot orc guy’ thing.”

At that, your eyes went wide with horror and you smacked him in the chest with a wild flail of your hand. “I can’t believe Lily told you I said that, but you didn’t have to fucking repeat it!” you hissed around a strangled yelp. “In front of him,” you added through gritted teeth.

Rhokann chuckled quietly from a few feet away, and you turned quickly back to look at him. He raised one thick, black eyebrow and you rolled your eyes.

Turning to Luke in desperation as a mild panic seeped across your brain, you blurted, “Didn’t you say they were super busy at breakfast? Come on, we’d better go…”

And with that, you bolted from the garage without waiting for Luke to follow.

You weren’t proud, and you were sorely disappointed in yourself for chickening out, but in your defence, your friend had just embarrassed the hell out of you in front of your hero of the day. What if Rhokann just thought you were some human with a crush now?

Luke caught up with you, looking back over his shoulder at Rhokann for a second, and then trotted down the road at your side. “Hey, wait, I’m… I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“It’s ok,” you groaned. “I know how it feels when there’s a gorgeous guy standing there looking like… that… In your case, stupid stuff falls out of your mouth. In my case, I clam up.”

“Fair, but still,” Luke groused, holding the door of the cafe open for you and letting you step in ahead of him. “I’m sorry.”

The scent of coffee and sweet icing sugar wafted around you and you forgot your embarrassment for a bit, but the way you’d scuppered your chances haunted you for the rest of the morning at work.

By the time you got home, you were fractious and stimming and in need of some space to slough off the day on your own terms. When your phone chimed a little while later, you assumed it would be one of your friends, but it was an unknown number, and your heart skipped a beat.

‘Hey, it’s Rhokann. I hope this isn’t presumptuous of me. Your friend Luke gave me your number and said it was an apology, but he didn’t say what for. Anyway, if you’re not interested, just ignore this and block my number, but I’d love to see you again. Let me know if you’re up for that, and maybe we can figure something out soon. If not, I’m glad I met you all the same and I won’t contact you again.’

No one had ever said anything like that to you, and you stared at the text for a full five minutes.

The first person you texted though was Luke to yell at him affectionately in all caps. He called you back, and you accepted the call with a little huff that made him laugh with quiet fondness. “I’m sorry, Titch,” he said. “But I fucked up, and I figured he’d been about to ask for your number before you bolted…”

“Yeah, but I would have had the chance to say no…” you said.

“True, and I’m sorry I interfered again,” he sighed, and then after barely a beat had passed, “So are you gonna meet up?”

You rolled your eyes and flopped down onto the sofa. “I haven’t texted back. But probably.”

“Yes! He’s stunning. You saw those caps on his tusks though, right? He’s old school… He’s probably gonna go all-out to impress you…”

“So long as he doesn’t literally hunt and catch dinner for me, I don’t mind. Lily told me about orc courtship, and I am not interested in a whole fucking elk on my doorstep or something…”

“Nah, but he might challenge the chef to a death match for the honour of feeding you…”

“Oh please don’t even joke about it,” you groaned, and Luke did laugh, long and loud. “I’m hanging up now, you bastard.”

“Love you too, Titch,” he said, and hung up for you.

It took a while to figure out how to reply to Rhokann, but eventually you came up with something that you hoped didn’t sound super desperate and strange. ‘Sorry I bailed earlier like that. Luke has no shame, I swear, but I’ve told him off for going behind my back and we’re friends again now. You free this Friday evening?’

Before you could chicken out, you sent the message and sat back on the sofa, wringing your hands quietly in your lap and breathing steadily.

His reply came five minutes later. ‘If it helps, he was really awkward about broaching the topic with me when he came to collect his car. And yes I am free this Friday. What were you thinking?’

‘All on me then?’

‘I have suggestions but I wondered what you wanted. Cocktails at ‘IceCube and Henbane’? Catching that new movie they’re advertising all over town? Dinner somewhere? A walk along the river and takeaway from one of the food trucks? Any combination of those?’

Realising he was probably letting you decide on something that wouldn’t be as overstimulating as the funfair had been, you decided to keep being playful first. ‘You know henbane is poisonous to humans?’

‘They serve human-safe cocktails too, and non-alcoholic ones too that are just as good. Steer well clear of the naga-specific menu though because that shit could clean out a drain. Or strip the rust off your buddy’s car.’

You barked a laugh that echoed off the walls of your apartment. ‘I’ll tell him you said that.’

‘Go ahead, I said as much to him already.’

His texts had a cocky kind of confidence that he’d not really exuded on the day you’d met him at the fair, but then you remembered how he’d drawn himself up to his full height to shield you from those artless onlookers and flexed his shoulders just a fraction to make them back off, and you figured the two sides of him could probably sit well on his bulky frame after all.

‘Oof, I bet his ego took a hit with that. Let’s do cocktails and then maybe walk them off along the river afterwards?’

‘Sounds perfect. Shall I meet you somewhere first or meet there?’

You looked the place up online, which you probably should have done first in case it was out of your price range, and hit the map on the website to see where it was. Having arranged to meet him there, you signed off for the night and tried to get your mind to stop spinning. Somehow, despite two missed chances, the universe had thrown you a gift and a third chance in the form of Luke’s meddling.

That Friday, dressed in what you hoped would be an appropriate outfit for a cocktail bar in a swankier part of the city, you headed out with your heart in your throat.

Rhokann was impossible to miss, standing under the soft, orange light of the lamp outside the cocktail bar, and wow did he look good in black dress pants and a white shirt. His twin silver tusk-caps caught the light, and you noted that this time he had his hair tied back off his face in twin braids that melted into a single rope that hung down his spine.

He spotted you and turned to watch you walk towards him, but he didn’t make any kind of move towards you until you came to a stop in front of him and looked up into his softly smiling face.

“Hi,” you said awkwardly.

“Hi. You look gorgeous,” he added, eyeing you up and down in a way that made his gaze feel like a physical presence against your skin, and it was all you could do to repress a shiver.

You swallowed thickly. “Likewise.”

“Shall we head in?”

“Lead the way,” you said, not really wanting to walk into the unfamiliar space first. Rhokann just nodded and pushed the door open, holding it for you to enter behind him before heading into the softly-lit, wood-panelled bar.

It had the cosy, secretive air of a speakeasy, and as you wove through the tables behind the server who had looked Rhokann up and down and licked her lips in a very unsubtle display of interest, you spotted someone playing an upright piano in a far corner. Rhokann thanked the server politely and let his eyes drift back to you a moment later, the woman apparently forgotten. Something warmed in your chest and you took your seat opposite him.

He was one of those people that had real presence, and it wasn’t just his size that conjured it around him like a tangible aura. There was something about him that made people look at him, but his eyes never left you. After two menus had been set down before you, he said, “Tonight’s on me, if that’s alright?”

“You’re sure?”

Rhokann inclined his head and you caught sight of an earring dangling from his right ear. It looked like a piece of jet shaped like a small fang, polished and set in silver and dangling by a single link to a ball stud in his earlobe. He had silver rings up the line of cartilage to the pointed tips of his ears, and in the lobe of his left he had a simple silver stud. At the artfully-open neck of his white shirt, you could see the hint of an orcish tattoo and a whisper of dark hair that made something thrum through you again.

In contrast to your habit of moving around, he seemed still and calm as a monolith, and you found yourself drawn to that; drawn to his steadiness in a way you’d never experienced with anyone. Over the course of the next two hours, the two of you also talked in a way you’d never found easy with anyone. He listened, and in a measured, easy, back and forth of conversational give and take, you got to know each other.

His family was wealthy and lived in the country for the most part, and yes, they were very traditional by modern orcish standards. “You might think I’m pretty formal when it comes to orcish ways,” he said, looking self-conscious for the first time all evening, “But you should see my parents and my two older brothers…” He took a deep draw of his smoky, whisky cocktail and blew out a breath. The tip of his tongue caressed his lower lip just a little as he savoured the lingering taste, and your eyes tracked the movement hungrily.

To distract yourself, you eyed his silver tusk-caps and said, “I was going to ask about…” and tapped the side of your mouth awkwardly, not sure if you should really be asking about his orcish jewellery and personal tastes so soon.

To your relief, Rhokann smiled and brought his finger and thumb up to the right hand tusk. He lifted the cap off and turned it over in his hand for a second before handing it to you to look at. The tusk beneath gleamed beautifully in the low light, and you had been correct in guessing that his tusks were tipped with wickedly sharp points beneath them.

In your fingers, the cap was practically the size of a tiny shot glass, and you could see the orcish patterns engraved into its surface all the way around. “It’s beautiful,” you said. “My friend Lily told me a bit about orcish culture, but she doesn’t really keep to traditions, so I don’t know all that much. Just the things she personally doesn’t like. Which, to be fair, seems like a lot when you get her started on a rant.”

He laughed and delicately took the silver cap back from you when you held it out to him. He slid it easily back into place and said, “You can ask me anything you like. I figured your friend didn’t like me much when she gave me the once-over at the fairground.”

“She’s protective of the people she cares for,” you said. “It’s the one orcish trait she hasn’t abandoned. That, and showing off her muscles for her girlfriend.” The heady atmosphere and the slight rush of adrenaline that was coursing through you from being so close to him at last was making you bold, and you spoke before you’d realised you might actually be insulting him, but Rhokann only laughed.

“Ahh, those traits are etched into our DNA,” he said. “You’re gonna have to go a long way to find an orc who isn’t protective, and who doesn’t like to show off just a little bit.”

You stared pointedly at his muscles beneath the white shirt and then looked him in the eye. “If you’ve got it, why not show it off a bit.”

“Only if it works…”

You cocked an eyebrow. “Can’t you tell?”

He leaned just a fraction closer and your heart skipped a beat or two as his big, brown eyes seemed to glow softly. “I’m getting some hints,” he purred. “You slipped through my fingers twice now,” he went on, bringing his hand up onto the table and laying it knuckle-down on the wooden surface between your empty glasses. “I’m not going to let a third time pass me by without a proper answer from you.”

“What’s the question?” you asked faintly.

He smiled. “Can I see you again after tonight?”

You nodded.

“You want to get out of here yet?”

Again, you nodded.

His smile returned, and you sat back in your seat while he hailed the server and paid for your drinks. He gave her a tip generous enough to make her blush, and then stood and looked down at you. “Ready?”

A third nod was all the answer you could muster, but he didn’t seem to think you rude.

He walked behind you this time as you led the way out, and when you stepped out into the balmy, end-of-summer evening, you heard him heave a huge sigh. Glancing back over your shoulder, you found him looking at you, and you flushed. “What?”

“I’m just glad I got the chance to see you again. I thought… I thought that was it when your friend bustled you away from me.”

“Why were you working there?” you asked bluntly. You wanted to know why he was working as a mechanic at a tiny garage on the edge of town too, if his family was so well-off, but you didn’t know him well enough to ask something so direct. “At the fair, I mean.”

He smiled. “I wanted to?” he shrugged. “I’ve always been the dutiful son — I went to a good university and got a respectable degree and got a sensible job, but I felt… choked.”

Rhokann sighed again and checked the street for traffic before gesturing with his hand for you to start crossing. You walked by his side as the pair of you headed towards the river, where a long, flat promenade stretched, and you listened to him talk. His beautiful, rumbling bass carried easily on the still evening, and it made you feel steady again amid the noise of the city behind you.

“I’m not on bad terms with my family or anything, but… after a close friend of mine passed last year, I decided that I was going to live my life on my terms, and not anyone else’s. My heritage is very important to me, but it’s not everything I am. My family doesn’t understand why I quit my career and got a summer job working at the fair of all places, or why I turned my love of cars and fixing things into a job as a mechanic.”

“If you’re happier now, that’s all that matters, right?” you said.

He grinned. “I’m happy tonight, that’s for sure.”

“You’re such a charmer.”

“If it works, right?” he chuckled. You got the impression there were depths to him that would slowly unravel to you over time, and you found yourself looking forward to it already.

“Yeah, it works,” you mumbled.

You walked along the embankment together for a while until his footsteps faltered and he asked, “Would you let me hold your hand?”

“Sure,” you smiled, hoping you didn't have sweaty palms.

His hands were rough and huge, but you made it work, and it was wonderful to have a physical connection with him after clicking over chat and drinks already.

In the lea of the oldest bridge that spanned the wide river, the two of you slowed and came to a natural halt to lean against the wall in easy silence, staring out at the water as it slid past in an inky, glittering ribbon.

Rhokann turned away from the view and the movement caught your attention, drawing your gaze up to his handsome face.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked in a hoarse murmur.

“Yes.”

Leaning down, Rhokann placed his palms on your jaw and angled your head gently upwards, but he didn’t kiss you right away. He bit his lower lip and although his eyes narrowed, you saw the way his pupils widened hungrily. “You’re stunning,” he exhaled. “I… I’ve wanted to kiss you all night.”

“Stop talking about it then, and do it,” you teased.

His eyes flashed and he closed the distance between you, hunching over and pressing his mouth against yours. His tusks framed your mouth beautifully, the silver caps nudging into your cheeks a little as he kissed you senseless. You’d never been kissed like that. His hands left your face and wandered down to your waist, where he tightened his grip and picked you up, setting you down on the wide, stone wall that bordered the river. At that height, it was much easier for him to reach you, and he stepped closer, parting your knees to stand even nearer to you. You hooked your lower legs around his hips and let him kiss you over and over until your body felt like it was on fire.

Your fingers found the intricate plait of the braids on the side of his head and he moaned when you ran your fingertips over the pattern. “I want you,” he said. “Not tonight if you don’t want it, but I need you to know I want you. However you’d like…”

“I want you too,” you breathed back in the scant space between you, foreheads touching. It felt more intimate than any words you’d ever spoken, but it also felt true.

Your hands moved to grip his huge, rounded shoulders and you squeezed before running your palms across his pecs. His chest heaved and he sounded out of breath when he said, “My place isn’t far from here. You want to come back to mine?”

You nodded.

He lifted you down and took a moment with his eyes closed to breathe carefully. In the light of a nearby street lamp, you could see the impressive tent in his trousers, and you bit back a smile.

“Told you I want you,” he said when he caught you looking. “Come on.”

Flattered and a little intimidated, you walked with him back to his apartment. It wasn’t anything showy like a penthouse overlooking the city, but it was in a nice part of town, and it felt secure and homely as you followed him into the lift. In a small rush of bravery, you placed your hand at the small of his back and you felt as much as heard the groan of pleasure he let out in the small confines of the elevator. His skin radiated heat through the fabric, and you splayed your fingers, feeling the solid muscle and the slight softness there too that made you ache inside and out for him.

By the time you got to his front door, he was taking deliberately steady breaths, but the moment you were inside, he lost a little of that composure. “I’d offer you a drink, or —” You silenced him by reaching up and pressing your thumb along his lip before drawing him down to kiss you again. Part of you wanted him to take you right there in the hallway, but you had hoped for something a little more comfortable.

Rhokann undressed you carefully but insistently, and between the front door and his stylish, modern bedroom you left a trail of your clothes and his, until you were both in only your underwear by the time you were standing beside his massive bed.

Dark sheets stretched neatly across its huge expanse, and he let you push him down to sit on the edge of the mattress, gazing up at you with his hands resting at your hips, thumbs drawing idle lines across the fabric of your underwear. The evidence of his arousal was obvious, and a darker wet patch had started to seep into the material at the tip of his cock.

His body was soft but strong in the kind of way that you’d always adored. His paunch was evident, but his arms were like anchor cables, and while he might not have had the lean look of a social media gym-junkie, he could outlast any of them in a show of strength.

“I never thanked you,” you said, reaching around to the back of his head for the plait that you’d wanted to feel in your hands since the first time you’d seen him.

“For what?” he asked breathlessly. His pupils were huge and the light reflected in his warm eyes like a cat’s in the dark. Desire swept through you in a heady rush.

Slowly, taking your time about it, you straddled his lap and sank yourself down to grind your hips decadently against his, and when his hard cock moved against your body, he let out a long, broken moan.

You tightened your hold on his braid and the sound he made would stay with you forever. The deep, guttural groan rumbled from his chest and his eyes rolled back behind fluttering eyelids. Beneath you, you felt his cock twitch.

“Please,” he gasped. His grip tightened on your hips and he shuddered like he was losing control of all his strength, fighting to keep from having his way with you. The jet earring dangling from his right ear glinted softly as it swayed like a tiny pendulum in the void between his earlobe and his shoulder.

“I never thanked you for taking such good care of me,” you said.

The orc responded exactly as you’d expected he would, and gave a throaty hum of pleasure.

“When I needed you, you protected me… got me out of there…”

You’d chosen your words very carefully, and Rhokann arched his spine, jutting his hips up and practically begging to fuck you without uttering a word.

You twisted his braid around your hand one more time and he tipped his head back, following the direction of the force you put on his head. The lick of red in his forelock looked perfect in the warm light of his bedroom, and you had been right about the orcish tattoos that covered his chest, right down to his hips. He also had the most delicious chest hair and the dark trail that ran down from his navel to the waistband of his tight boxer-briefs was gradually making you lose your mind.

“You were patient and understanding, and you didn’t mind that I didn’t have my words then,” you went on. “But I have them now, don’t I?”

“You do,” he choked. “You do. Please… Please…”

“Let me thank you properly then,” you said, and climbed carefully off his lap. You looked pointedly at his underwear and said, “Off.”

“Only if you do to,” he said, and you knew you’d met your counterpart in him.

He gave and took in equal measure, and as the two of you lost yourselves tangled in his sheets that night, you knew he was going to be the best thing that could have happened to you. The two of you moved in perfect synchrony, and you came apart within a heartbeat of each other. Rhokann made a mess of the sheets and you made more noise than you’d ever made coming in your life, and when the two of you lay back, sweaty and satiated at last, he wrapped his arm around you and pressed a kiss to your temple.

“You’re perfect,” he whispered.

“Thank the gods for third chances,” you smiled and he laughed quietly. “And meddling werewolves.”

“Indeed. Come here.” He tugged you against his body so that you were lying half-propped against him, with one arm draped over his soft middle, and you trailed your fingers up the centre of his chest. “You staying the night?”

You nodded, and hoped it would be the first of many.

__

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Masterlist | Ko-fi (tip jar)

[atinylittlepain]

Hi! I hope you’re well! I have a Joel request please!Reader collects keychains from the different states/places she travels. She’s a bit introverted, and she and joel are both quiet and don’t talk too much, nut she’s a good listener. After a close call with a clicker, reader feels like a burden to joel. Joel reassures her that she’s not but she’s still not sure. Joel gives her a keychain that he finds during their travel & it’s a happy ending. Also can there be an age gap lol

Hope this isn’t too much, but please feel free to make any changes/adjustments :)

Thank you!

sweet anon, this idea is so lovely - i hope i've done it justice <3

Pieces of Our Path - A Joel Miller Story

Joel Miller x f!reader

joel miller masterlist

warnings | 18+ canon-typical violence, angst, joel is a ding dong, and then fluff bc it's good for your cholesterol :)

.........................

“I’ll be right back. Wanna go check in that gas station.” “Tell me this ain’t what I think it’s for.” All she can do is smile as a blush creeps up her neck because it is exactly what he thinks it’s for. Joel huffs at her expression.

“I-I haven’t found one for Wyoming yet. Think I oughta get one since we’re living here now and all.” She knows it’s silly, frivolous, maybe even downright stupid, but she’s been collecting them for so long now, finding one for nearly every state they’ve crossed through, that she needs her collection to be complete. 

Joel had often given her an exasperated look when she’d show him a new one she had found, never asking why she held onto all those keychains. They don’t talk much, and she supposes that’s why they’ve worked so well together, managing to get Ellie across the country, and when that went sideways, limping back to Tommy’s place, where they find themselves living now. It’s the first time they’ve been settled anywhere together, ever, and they’ve both been working out their stir-craziness with patrol shifts and scavenging trips. 

“Just make it quick, alright? I’ll cover the outside. You holler if you need me.” She nods at his gruff words, already hustling over to the crumbling gas station and shouldering her way in through the rusted door. It’s dark inside, slants of light pock-marking the mossy tiles and shelves. Her fingers flex around the handle of her knife as she creeps further into the store, moving toward what used to be a checkout counter. After so long on the road, she knows where to look for these things. Joel had once joked that the keychains seemed to find her more than she found them. Sure enough, there’s a few scattered over the floor, but before she can get a better look at them, she’s startled by a loud screech coming from behind her.

It happens so quick, all she can do is let out a yelp as she gets slammed to the ground by an infected, all clawing hands and gnashing teeth as she struggles to keep it at bay. Her knife had skittered out of her hand at the impact, and as she tries to push the creature away with little success, fear starts to creep up her spine that this might be it. Just as suddenly as it attacked her, the creature stiffens before slumping down on top of her, but its body is quickly shoved off of her to reveal Joel standing over her, knife in hand. There’s a frantic look in his eyes that she’s never seen before as he kneels down between her legs and helps her sit up. The rough palms of his hands scurry all over her, checking her neck, her arms, her legs for bites. His face slackens just slightly when he finds no evidence of infection, cupping her face in his palms.

“Are you hurt?” She takes a steadying breath as his eyes hold her in place, her hands wrapped over his forearms.

“I’m ok. Joel, I’m so–” He doesn’t let her finish that sentence.

“C’mon, we need to get out of here.” He helps haul her up on unsteady feet. She feels her stomach drop when she glances back at the mottled body of the clicker, quick to hustle out of the gas station and back onto the road. Joel doesn’t say anything more, an unspoken agreement that they need to head back to Jackson. But she can see the way his hands clench around the strap of his rifle until his knuckles turn white, the hard set of his jaw as he walks alongside her. It doesn’t take a genius to see that Joel Miller is angry, and she knows it’s all her fault.

She spends the whole hike back cursing herself in her mind. She had put herself in danger, and in turn had put Joel in danger, for such a stupid, useless thing. Harsh thoughts are quick to burrow into her head, namely that Joel would be so much better off with someone smarter, more careful, someone older, as his… she’s not even sure what she is to him. They’ve been traveling together for so long now, but she’s hesitant to think of them as anything, even if they do end up tangled in the same bed most nights, something they excused as a simple human need for closeness, nothing more. She supposes that they’ve been a quiet comfort to each other, but not anymore, not now that she’s failed him. 

Anxiety rages on in her mind, and Joel’s icy silence does nothing to assuage it. Even when they get back to Jackson, he won’t so much as look at her, trudging straight to the bar. She lets out a heavy sigh and keeps her head down as she shuffles off in the opposite direction toward their house.

It’s quiet when she gets home, and she figures Ellie must be out on her own shift still. She goes straight to her room, the room she has been spending so little time in, Joel usually coaxing her into his bed because they both sleep better with each other near. She had stashed the other keychains in a crumpled shoebox she found in the closet, and would often get it out to thumb through the evidence of her wanderings. Normally, it was a comfort to her, being able to trace her past in these plastic relics, but now, looking in the box, all she feels is sick to her stomach. She shoves the box back into the closet, slamming the door shut and swallowing hard around the thick heat building in her throat.

A wave of exhaustion passes over her, the adrenaline from her close encounter finally wearing off, and it’s all she can do to collapse onto her bed in a tight curl as the first tears start to fall.

..,

She wakes with a start, light hands shaking her shoulder, and as she squints her eyes open, she finds Ellie hovering over her, a furrowed look of worry across her face. She lets out a ragged sigh as she sits up, Ellie leaning back on the bed.

“Are you alright?” She presses the heels of her hands into her eyes, bloodshot and tired from crying, but she nods at Ellie’s question.

“I’m fine, kid. Just tired, that’s all.” Ellie clearly doesn’t buy that, eyebrows shooting up at her.

“You sure about that? Saw the old man down at the bar, and you and I both know he only goes there when he’s really pissed.” She huffs, shaking her head and wishing Ellie didn’t know her and Joel so well.

“We had a bad shift. I, um, did something stupid.” Silence settles over them after she finishes murmuring her answer, but Ellie is quick to break it.

“Whatever it was, I’m sure it wasn’t that bad. You want me to go talk to him? I can knock a little sense into his head.” She rests her hand on Ellie’s knee and offers her a small smile.

“That’s alright, kid. Um, it was pretty bad. We’re both ok– but, yeah– it was bad. Joel’s right to be angry at me.” Ellie settles down, pressing her lips into a thin line as she nods.

“Well,  I’m glad you’re alright at least. Do you need anything? Is there anything I can do?” Her smile broadens at the girl’s words. Ellie had been and continues to be a bright spot in her world, and she muses briefly that if not for her, she would have already packed up and skipped town this afternoon, something she thinks would certainly be welcomed by Joel.

“No, I’ll be ok, kid, but thank you. Think I’m just gonna lay low tonight.” The girl bites her lip, clearly not convinced by her words, but she still nods.

“Um, ok. Well, in that case, is it alright if I go to movie night tonight?” 

“Is Dina gonna be there?” Ellie’s grin is contagious, and she laughs lightly at the girl’s flushed reaction.

“It’s alright kid, you should go. Just be safe, huh?” Ellie surprises her just a little with her quick hug before she gets up off the bed, digging her hands into her jean pockets.

“I’m glad you’re alright. And, Joel’s just– emotionally constipated, you know? I’m sure he’s not really mad at you, he’s just acting like it. But he’ll calm down. He likes you too much to be such an asshole to you for long.” That makes her really laugh, and the feeling is a relief, a weight off her chest, if even just briefly.

“Thanks for that, kid. You should go, they’re gonna start the movie soon I bet.” Ellie offers her one more smile before leaving. She slumps back in bed the moment she hears the front door close.

…

It’s much later when she’s woken up again by much harsher hands jostling her. It’s completely dark in her room, and she groans as she fumbles to switch on the lamp on her nightstand. She certainly wasn’t expecting to see a clearly drunk Joel Miller hovering over her. 

“Why’re you in here?” His words are thick and slurred, his southern accent tugging low in his throat to the point she can just make out what he’s saying. His cheeks are flushed, his eyes watery and wavering as he looks at her. She’s never seen him this drunk before.

“I-I was getting some sleep. Joel, how much have you ha–” She’s cut off as he slumps over her where he had been sitting on the edge of the bed, his cheek smushing into her collarbone and the mussed waves of his hair grazing her chin. His words are even more slurred as he speaks now, hot breaths fanning over her throat.

“Y’never sleep in here. Wan’ you with me. Should always be with me.” He hiccups at the end of his words, jolting her in his heavy hold as he lets out a long sigh. She’s never seen him like this and has to swallow the shock sitting in her throat as he continues to mumble to her.

“Scared me so bad today. Don– don’t do that again. Need– need you– I need you.” It’s breaking her heart, listening to him say these things– things she had often imagined hearing him say to her– but only because he’s drunk enough to not give a shit. She huffs, tamping down her sadness and instead letting anger simmer in its place. She presses hard on his shoulders to sit him back up as he grumbles at the movement, his head slumping back on his neck to look at her as she stands up.

“Where you going, pretty? Jus’ stay with me.” He practically whines out the last word, and she’s heard enough. She dips under his one arm to hoist him up off the bed, stumbling a bit as he leans most of his weight on her.

“C’mon, Joel. I’m gonna get you to bed.” He huffs as they start to shuffle down the hallway to his room.

“Will you stay with me, darlin? Ple– please.” Now she knows he must be drunk off his head, because in all her time knowing him, she has never once heard Joel Miller say the word please until tonight. She grits her teeth, hauling them both through the doorway to his bedroom.

“I’ll stay with you, alright? Just– just sit down.” She gracelessly plops him on the side of the bed, a hard “oof” leaving his mouth as he sits down. She moves over to his bathroom to get him a glass of water, having swatted away his grabby hands with a murmured “be right back.” 

By the time she comes back into the bedroom, she finds Joel slumped back on the bed, his legs dangling off the edge as he snores lightly. She sighs, setting down the glass before moving over to him and taking off his boots. He mumbles nonsense as she swings his legs up onto the bed, folding the comforter over to cover him up as best she can. 

She doesn’t stay.

…

It’s late the next morning when she finally goes downstairs. It had been a fitful night of sleep, and she had gone back to Joel’s room a few times to check on him, finding him still passed out each time. She stops by his door on the way downstairs and sees that he’s no longer in bed. Padding into the kitchen, she finds coffee brewed, but no sign of him or Ellie. She figures Ellie spent the night with Dina, but is still left wondering where Joel could be. As she shuffles through the house, she finally catches a glimpse of him in the living room window, sitting on the porch out back. She has to take a steadying breath before she steps outside.

He doesn’t say anything as she sits down next to him, neither of them glancing each other’s way. 

“How’s your head?” He scoffs, still not looking at her as she glances at him.

“About how you’d expect. Suppose I deserve it though.” She doesn’t say anything to that, keeping her eyes focused on her fidgeting hands in her lap. It feels like there’s cotton in her mouth, she keeps trying to say something else, but gets stuck before she can even get the first word out. Luckily, Joel breaks the silence again.

“Need to apologize. Acted a fucking fool last night and you shouldn’t have had to deal with that.” She swallows thickly before responding, her voice an uncertain murmur.

“I-it’s alright. I’m sorry too– for yesterday.” He finally looks at her, brow furrowed.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

“Yes I do. You wouldn’t have had a reason to drink so much if I hadn’t fucked up so badly yesterday. I understand. I’d be angry too.” His face slackens at her words and she can barely meet his unwavering gaze.

“What’re you talking about? I wasn’t angry– I was fucking terrified. Seeing you– I just– I couldn’t– fuck, the thought of something happening to you– I was shaken. And I handled it like an idiot, and I’m sorry.”

“Maybe you’d be better off without me then.” A heavy silence falls, but Joel quickly breaks it with a scoff.

“Don’t say shit like that.”

“I mean it.” “Well don’t. I wouldn’t be better off without you, goddamn it. I’d fall apart if I lost you.” Sober, this is the most he’s ever said about how he feels for her, and it makes her heart race in her chest.

She’s been keeping her eyes on her lap, but is forced to look at him as he turns her face toward him with a broad palm along the arc of her jaw. His eyes are soft, searching, and it’s all she can do to let out a sigh of his name.

“I can’t lose you, darlin. Pfft, better off without you. I’d be hopeless without you, huh?” She gathers up whatever courage she has in her, bringing her hand to the arc of his neck to coax him closer as she leans in. It’s a fluttering little thing of a kiss, her lips barely brushing his before she’s jerking away, but Joel steadies her with his hand still cupping her cheek, thumb brushing just under her eye.

“I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ha–” he surges forward and this kiss is certain in what it demands, what it means. She all but melts under his touch, mind hazy when he pulls away and presses his forehead to hers.

“I’m old– and no good for you– but fuck, I’m selfish, darlin. And I need you. Tell me you’ll stay with me, please.” There it is again, that rare word. She smiles.

“I-I need you too, Joel. I’ll stay. I’ll always stay with you.” He presses another kiss to her lips, both of them grinning into it before sitting back as he wraps his arm around her shoulders to tug her into his side.

“I, um, I have something for you.” She cranes her neck to look at him with a furrowed expression. He huffs as he digs into the front pocket of his jeans, holding his palm out flat in front of her. When she sees what he’s holding, she lets out a spluttering laugh. It’s a keychain, in the shape of Wyoming.

“When did you–”

“I picked it up as we were getting out of there. Figured it shouldn’t be for nothing, right?” She laughs again, shaking her head at the smug grin on his face. 

She lays her palm over his, tangling their fingers together with the keychain pressed between their hands. They smile like idiots at each other. She knows that wherever the next keychain comes from, she can count on Joel Miller being there with her.

[outofconcheol]

Exit West (LMH x F!Reader)

pairing: Minho x f!reader (afab)

genres/au/rating: angst, smut, some fluff, post-apocalyptic au (based on the Netflix series Sweet Home), 18+

summary: Even when the world is plunged into its darkest hour, you find the faintest light in Minho.

warnings: heavy angst, lots of mentions of blood and injuries (i tried to make it as non-graphic as possible), minor character deaths, weapons, panic attack (again not graphic), it's heavily implied OC struggles with agoraphobia and PTSD, brief infidelity, Minho and reader do get into verbal arguments (they're a little toxic lol), Minho is a true loverboy, ambiguous but hopeful ending, smut warnings: kissing, fingering (f rec), unprotected sex, brief nipple play

word count: 6.3k

a/n: i'm so sorry that this took so long, google docs decided to be a jerk and delete a huge chunk of this while i was working on it (I apologize in advance for the poorly written angst)! It is based on the world of Sweet Home but honestly you don't need to have watched the show or read the webtoon to follow along. the title is from the book by Mohsin Hamid. I hope you enjoy! &lt;;3

The sharp wire of the metal fence cuts into Minho’s palms, digging into his mottled skin, and he braces himself for the jump. Leaping over, Minho lands silently on his feet, skills honed from many years of observing his cats take the same leap from couches or counters. But none of that existed anymore.

His eyes remain sharp, taking in the cover of woods around him, and he remembers that while the trees helped him stay hidden, they hid the monsters from his sight as well. No sooner than he’s managed to calm down the ever-present racing of his heart, he’s swinging the door to the bunker open, closing it quietly behind him.

Wincing, he examines the cuts on his palms, tinged with dirty specks of rust. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep doing this, knowing the small supply of rubbing alcohol he’d managed to collect over the past few months was now down to the last bottle. And there was no more to be found.

The small bit of sunlight that streams in through the barely-qualifying window illuminates your sleeping figure nestled amongst a pile of dirty blankets, and Minho almost hesitates to disturb you like this. You look so peaceful like this, a stark contrast to the emptiness that fills your eyes when you wake, the pain of living through two starkly different lifetimes contained in their depths. He knows his eyes hold the same.

“___,” he shakes you awake gently, watching you stir. The gashes that mar your face have begun to scab over, leaving ugly scars in their wake.

“I brought dinner.”

That gets you to jolt up, rubbing sleepily at your eyes. 

“Are you okay? Anything hurt?” You shake your head, a small frown on your face when you see the fresh red marks that litter his palms. He has the feeling you’re lying to him again, but he doesn’t push it. A lot went unspoken between you two.

Minho wordlessly hands you over a full sleeve of crackers, your eyes lighting up. You chomp down eagerly on one, before pausing, holding it out to him.

“I already ate,” he lies, knowing he didn’t want you to sacrifice any kind of meal for his sake. He’d eat the less full sleeve when you fell back asleep.

Moments of silence pass between you, the soft sounds of your eating lulling Minho’s tired eyes to fall, becoming heavy with sleep. He rests his head on his knees, fighting back the shiver that night brought with it. 

A deafening roar breaks through the stillness, and you freeze, dropping the crackers to the ground. Minho is by your side in an instant, hand tentatively reaching out towards your shoulder. But he never closes the gap.

“Ten seconds,” you croak out, so softly that Minho thinks he might not have heard you. “If the distance that sounds travel is 343 metres per second, then ten seconds means it’s far enough away from us.”

The ghost of a smile twitches at Minho’s lips, and he wants to praise your sharp skills, considering he’d only ever been a pabo, but you’ve turned around and fallen asleep again, your back to him. 

Minho settles into the blankets across from you, watching you for a few minutes before his body is weighed down by the exhaustion of the day, knowing the exact same thing waited tomorrow. The end of the world was more boring than he’d expected it to be.

It hadn’t always been this way. The chaos had naturally broken through the quiet, starting one night when a fire broke out in his apartment complex. Amidst the screams and sounds of windows shattering, Minho’s only concern had been the cats, scooping them up, taking special care to cover their ears from the blaring alarms. But all of it hadn’t made a difference anyway.

He thought it was his neighbour at the end of the hallway. Or at least, it looked like him. He’d always had some sort of disdain for the man - in Minho’s eyes he talked too much. Always interrupting him during his morning mail runs to brag about his latest conquests when it came to dating. It was a sore spot for Minho, especially considering his own romantic interests were so singular, something he didn’t want to get into whenever his neighbor cornered him.

But the vain man who talked Minho’s ear off about sleeping with as many women as possible was nowhere to be found, lithe limbs transforming into ropes that broke through the ceiling. Heading straight for Minho.

Somewhere in the chaos, Minho briefly had time to register that whatever was in front of him was no longer human. And so, he did the only thing he could do. Run.

The floor slipped underneath him, hurtling Minho to the ground, the cat carrier thrown open next to him. Soonie, Doongi, and Dori are nowhere to be found. His palms claw against the tile, trying and failing to lift himself up, eyes widening when he sees the red that coats his palms.

“Please,” Minho croaks, attempting to break through to the human underneath the monster. “Don’t do this.”

There’s a brief flash, a spindly arm reaching out for Minho’s face, and he ducks. The sound of shattering glass follows, the grotesque body flinging itself out the window. Minho heaves, hot tears leaking from his face as he remains curled in the fetal position, arms braced over his head. When his breath returns to him, he looks over at the empty carrier and lets out a sob. Slowly, his eyes turn to the shattered window. 

Blood lines its jagged edges, dripping to join the mess on the floor. Peering downwards, Minho sees the mangled body of the thing (he refused to acknowledge it had been his neighbor) that had attacked him, unmoving. 

He had to get out of there.

…

The knock at the door startles you. It’d been days since you’d locked yourself away from the chaos, days since you’d heard a sound. But the screams would never leave your head. 

You’ve been huddled up in the same corner since it all started, exactly ten feet away from the door. Close enough to act quickly in case someone (or something) came knocking, but far enough away to duck into one of the rooms of your apartment for safety. 

However, the splitting pain in your ankle prevents you from doing either. The bruises are turning a nasty shade of yellow, mixing with the unsightly violet from before. You’re pretty sure it’s broken, your bookcase toppling over onto it the day this had all started.

The knock startles you again. It’s soft, gentler than the ramming you’d expected if a monster were to come knocking. But still, you could never be too safe. 

“Churu,” a soft voice whispers through the darkness, and you freeze. There was only one person in the world who’d know that word, and come knocking at your door.

Your palms burn as you drag yourself against the floor, taking extra care to make as little sound as possible. Fighting the urge to curse when the door creaks, you brace yourself against it, peering through the peephole. 

The banged-up face of Lee Minho greets you on the other end, and you nearly sob with relief. Swinging the door open, you take him in at the threshold, peering at you with a strange gaze. You’d often joked to Minho that his eyes resembled his cats’, curiosity mixed with having seen too much contained in their depths. But it seemed especially true today, his lip split open and face haggard while he clutched a baseball bat in his hand.

You know the first thing he’s going to ask before it even leaves his mouth.

“Are you hurt?” he huffs out, watching you collapse against the door frame.

“Junho is gone.” You watch Minho’s entire figure tense up when his best friend’s name comes off your lips, his grip around the bat tightening.

“I-, I tried to talk to him, but there was a weird sound on my phone that kept breaking us up, and then I heard him scream, and then…”

You collapse against Minho in a fit of sobs, forced to recount those awful last moments when you’d heard your boyfriend die over a phone call, the chilling screech of something that wasn’t human cutting off his screams for help. And you were trapped halfway across the city, crumpled on the floor, unable to do anything to help him.

Minho’s arms wrap around you, supporting your weight, and he’s moving you both over the threshold, taking care to shut the door softly behind him. You don’t know how many minutes you spend wailing against his chest, the sight of another human forcing you to confront the horror you’d dealt with in the past few days, but eventually, the pain in your ankle makes itself known again, and you slide to the floor.

Minho rests his head against the door frame, his own eyes red-rimmed, and you watch his face contort, trying to hold back the tears from falling.

“I’m sorry,” you blurt out, watching Minho’s gaze snap to yours. 

“What for?” he croaks. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I’m so scared, Minho,” your eyes fill with tears. “I thought that no one would come for me, that I’d be alone here, and that I’d…”

You choke, unable to finish the sentence, and you watch Minho straighten next to you. The warmth of his hand wrapping around your waist startles you, watching his lithe body contort as he helps you up off the floor, taking special care not to put weight on your ankle.

“You’re with me now. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

There’s a furrow in Minho’s brow when he hears your request, lips tightening into a thin line while his throat bobs.

“Absolutely not.”

The decision is final, resolute, stubborn — Minho’s arms are crossed over each other, and he stares down at your figure among the blankets, eyeing the makeshift splint currently tied around your ankle.

“Minho, please.” It comes out as a whine, years building in your eyes from the frustration of being trapped in the bunker for months on end. 

“I said no.”

Minho had dragged the two of you to safety not long after he’d found you, stealthily dodging the strange creatures that had begun to pop up on the city landscape. There was little in common between them besides their monstrous appearances, but Junho’s screams lingered in the back of your mind, causing you to wake up every night in a cold sweat for the first few weeks.

The tiny bunker became your new home, and Minho your roommate, forced together by circumstances beyond your control. You’d snapped at him when he brought up the idea of leaving, wanting to search for food and supplies outside. 

Unfortunately, your ankle made the final decision for you — Minho would have to be the sacrificial lamb, risking his life for you both. It filled you with an immeasurable amount of guilt, knowing he put himself in danger every day to provide for you both. But it also made you angry, the listlessness that had begun to brew inside you only becoming stronger when you felt more and more useless every time he’d come back with food and medicine for you and nothing for himself. 

Regret cut through you like a searing knife. Who was Minho to do all these things? He’d been Junho’s best friend, not yours. The relationship between you two had been cordial at best, Minho barely managing to string more than five words together every time he was around you. It always seemed to you like Minho stood at the other end of a vast abyss, impossible for you to reach in any way. Admittedly, you’d been no help in closing the chasm, even since you’d both escaped together, the pain in your ankle lulling you to sleep as soon as you swallowed the meds he brought every day. 

Your eyes flit to Minho across the bunker, holed up into the corner. You watch his hands rummage around in his pocket, pulling out a switchblade. The shiny metal gleams in the rays of the sun, Minho’s fingers enclosing around a lock of his messy, overgrown hair—

“STOP!” The switchblade clatters to the floor at the sound of your voice, Minho’s lips parting in surprise. A deep flush creeps across your neck, wondering what had prompted you to interrupt him in the moment. His eyes study you with a curious glint, a thousand questions hidden in them.

“You’ll dull the knife,” you manage to get out, amazed at the calmness in your voice despite your heart racing at a million miles an hour. “What if we need it?”

Minho’s lips twist up into a smirk, and you wonder if he can see through your thinly veiled excuse. If he does, he doesn’t say anything, throwing a baseball cap over the shaggy strands, smiling when they fall into his eyes. 

“Fine,” he acquiesces. “You can come along. But any sign of trouble and you have to leave me and get back here, okay?”

“What do you mean, leave you? You’re coming back with me, of course.”

“___.”

“Minho.”

You push yourself off the ground with your palms, hobbling over to Minho’s side. 

“Thank you,” you whisper softly to him, and Minho rubs at the back of his neck sheepishly, before the door to the bunker creaks open once more, this time the two of you stepping out into the sun together. 

. . . 

Sweat pools on Minho’s shirt, the sun beating down on the two of you while you make your way through the woods, eventually finding yourselves in a vast field. You’re slower than he is, trailing behind him while you skip on your partially healed ankle, but Minho finds he doesn’t mind.

In fact, he thinks he must look like a fool, the huge smile that threatens to take over his face creeping up every few minutes. Somehow, it feels different now, having you here with him. The sun’s rays feel less ruthless, and there’s the faint rustling of a breeze through the meadow. It's almost like he’s on an adventure, and not caught in an endless struggle for survival. He’s filled with the hope that maybe the two of you can come out of this alive. Together.

Pushing through the blades of grass, Minho pauses when he hears a small thud behind him, followed by the faint sound of wheezing. Turning on his heels, his heart turns to ice when he sees you, knees curled to your chest, the faint sheen of sweat lingering on your skin. 

“Shit!” Minho curses into thin air, crouching onto the dirt next to you. “Stay with me ___!”

His arm swings out to steady you, but recoils at the last second, not wanting to startle you. Guilt eats away at his chest when he realizes this is all his fault. He’d been the one to agree to let you go outside. Realization dawns on him that there’d been a reason you stayed in the bunker the entire time, his mind flashing back to the days you must have spent alone in your apartment, full of pain, wondering if anyone would show up.

Minho panics, looking around the field for something, anything that could help hold you over until this passes, when a thought crosses his mind.

“Do you want to hear about the time I tried to walk my cats?” He babbles out, cheeks hot at the silly interruption. It works though, your face jolts up, the trance finally broken. Your eyes are red-rimmed, hair dampened with sweat, snot running down your nose. Minho thinks you’ve never looked more beautiful.

“It was in a field just like this, I brought them out here with their harnesses,” he continues, the smile growing on his face when he sees the stream of tears that run down your cheeks dry up.

“It was a disaster. I thought Doongie ran away for sure, and Soonie just laid down in the grass on his belly, refusing to get up. Dori was the only one who took to it,” he reminsces fondly, a half-sob, half-chuckle escaping him at the memory, trying to soothe the hollow ache in his heart when he thinks of them.

“I wish I’d met them,” you reply softly, your hand resting on Minho’s shoulder.

“It was my fault,” Minho spits out bitterly. “Junho was over all the time, I could have introduced you. They would have really liked you I think.”

Just like I do.

“I hope we find them,” your voice is quiet, but there’s a resoluteness to it that surprises Minho. “They have to be out there somewhere, waiting for you.”

That strange feeling of hope bubbles up in Minho’s chest again, and he helps you up, fighting the burning in his cheeks when your hand remains clasped in his, the two of you hobbling through the field.

Half an hour later, and you’re stopped outside the remains of what looked to be a convenience store, completely ransacked. Minho ignores the emptiness he feels when he lets go of your hand to peer inside, his heart dropping at the bare shelves.

Behind him, a twig snaps, your sharp gasp echoing amidst the silence. The gleam of the switchblade is apparent in seconds, Minho pulling it out of his pocket.

The woman is whimpering, her gauzy white dress in tatters. His eyes trail to her hands, the discoloured nails offset by the glint of a fancy diamond ring, and for a moment, he could almost believe she’d just walked out of the church, beaming from the happiest day of her life.

But her eyes say differently. Hollow pools of black, nothing behind them. She’s one of them.

“___, run.” Minho commands, not even turning to look behind him. He hopes you’re gone already, hopes you won’t have to stick around to see this dark side of him, the one that was used to doing battle with monsters every time he left the safety of your little bunker.

But you’re not gone. Your hand wraps around his, lifting it up to study the switchblade in his hand. He looks into your eyes, full of fear but also sadness at the sight in front of you, and he wonders if you see yourself in her. What things could have been with Junho.

“I don’t think she’s going to hurt us,” you wrestle Minho’s blanched fingers off the blade. “We should just go.”

You pocket the knife, Minho’s jaw tensing at the thought of leaving the woman behind, unsure of the potential harm she could cause. He opens his mouth to protest, but realizes you’ve already begun to walk away, your slumped figure visible against the setting sun. You’re crying again.

The woman wails harder when she sees the two of you go, her cries echoing into the silent night.

It’s cold tonight in the bunker. 

You shiver among the pile of blankets, watching your breath turn into mist in the frosty air. Teeth chattering, you look over to Minho. His pile of blankets is even more sparse than your own, and you catch sight of his own trembling figure. 

It’s cold, your voice echoes in the back of your mind, your feet dragging across the floor, the blankets dragging behind you. 

It’s cold, it echoes again, Minho stirring when you lay by his side, throwing the extra blankets over the two of you. His eyes go wide with shock when he sees your face across his in the darkness, studying the way your hair falls messily in your face, the rapid rising of your chest with every breath. 

It’s cold, it repeats a final time, your lips surging forward to meet Minho’s, a strange noise escaping his throat before one of his arms comes up to wrap around you, his other palm steadying him against the floor. It’s cold and Minho is warm, the heat from his body burning through you when his tongue traces your lips, before slipping inside, a low whine escaping your throat. 

You break away from him, flushed and shivering, but no longer cold. Minho’s hot breath fans against your cheeks, his thumb resting tentatively at the curve of your jaw.

“Touch me please,” you beg him, and his grip around your waist tightens, hands tracing circles on your side. His lips find yours again, thumbs slipping underneath the hem of your shirt, resting against the curve of your hips. You burrow your face into Minho’s neck, leaving featherlight kisses against his jaw, heat rising in your chest when you hear Minho hold his breath. Breaking away, you meet his gaze, the tips of his ears turning red. 

“Anything,” he whispers against your lips. “I’ll do anything for you.”

Sparks crackle in the air between you, the once stagnant air in the bunker becoming filled with frantic energy, you slipping a leg over to straddle Minho, him fumbling with the buttons to your clothes, pushing aside just enough to feel how wet you are. The fingers of his other hand trace under your shirt again, climbing up your stomach, thumbs brushing against the underside of your breasts before he tugs at your nipples. 

Sighing, your hips move against Minho’s hardness, pushing aside the worn fabric of Minho’s flannel to press kisses to his collarbones, his thumb working on your clit. Your back arches when he presses another finger inside, and the familiar burn of your orgasm begins to rise, building in your stomach.

“Let go for me,” Minho groans, and the deep growl in his voice has you hurtling over the edge, trembling as you fall apart on top of him. The two of you exchange shallow breaths, Minho’s fingers still buried inside you, and you feel your core begin to clench around them, whining from the oversensitivity.

“Please, please, can I fuck you?” Minho whispers, desperation in his tone. You nod, head spinning with everything that had happened, and you reach back under his sweats, fishing his cock out from underneath them.

He pushes into you slowly, groaning when he feels your walls widening to accommodate him. The two of you stay there for a few moments, catching your breath before you tell him it’s okay to move. His hips snap lazily against yours, fucking you slowly and deeply, soft pants and the sound of your wetness reverberating through the bunker.

You rock against him gently, and you reach for his hands, his warm fingertips slipping through your own easily, limbs tangling together in desperation. 

“You’re perfect god, you’re perfect, I love you, I love you so much,”  he slurs the words, the confession ringing in your ears, soft groans accompanied by the speeding up of his thrusts before he spills inside you. 

Lifting you off of him, his arms reach around your body to press you against him, his lips ghosting your forehead, and you feel the wet trail of tears on his cheeks. Eventually, his breathing slows, soft snores telling you he’s fallen asleep, but you remain restless for the rest of the night.

The headache hits Minho like a freight train in the morning, as he stares up at the rust-covered ceiling. There’s a faint chill in the air, one that became even more pronounced when he woke up and you weren’t by his side, and he wonders for a second if he’d imagined it all, from the softness of your lips to the way the words he’d been wanting to say, waiting years to say spilled out of his throat, every kiss and laugh you shared with Junho burned into his memory. And all he did was look on, hopeless in his desperation. Until everything changed last night.

A loud clang startles him, and he jumps up, watching you throw a heavy sack containing the supplies he’d stockpiled against the walls of the bunker, your back turned to him. He lifts himself off his feet, padding softly behind you, his arm reaching out for you.

“Don’t touch me,” you hiss, words clipped and venomous, and you keep rearranging, completely ignorant to the way Minho stands there, unable to formulate a response, his tongue feeling as though it’s weighed down with lead. 

Rage lights up inside him as he watches you move around him, the silence making his heart freeze over, and he decides that he can’t take it anymore. It’s been months with you acting this way, cold and distant, refusing to let Minho in. Before, he’d been able to write off your happiness with Junho as an excuse, as a reason why he couldn’t let himself get close to you. But Junho was long gone.

“We’re not doing this,” he spins you around to face him. “You don’t get to walk away from me like that.”

You push against Minho’s chest with all the might you can muster, and he staggers back. The look in your eyes makes you seem like a wounded animal, ready to pounce.

“Why’d you say it?” Another push, the words leaving you in a broken sob. “Why’d you do that?”

You bat against Minho’s chest until he can no longer take it, grabbing both of your hands with one of his, pinning you against the wall.

“Because it’s true,” he breathes, looking past you through the window outside, unable to meet your eyes. “I love you ____. I’ve loved you this entire time, even when you were with Junho. And I hate myself for it.”

He lets go of your arms, stepping back, his shoulders beginning to shake with the force of his own sobs. 

“Why do you think I stayed? Why do you think I put myself in danger every day to make sure that you had medicine for your ankle, food to fill your stomach? Why do you think I go out there and kill every single monster I run into, because I need to make it back here, to be with you again?”

“You shouldn’t!” you scream at him. “What kind of life is this? Love should be the last thing on your mind right now, Minho! You should fucking worry about your own neck, and stop giving a damn about me!”

The words tear through you, because you know that if it weren’t for his love, you wouldn’t even be alive right now. And it hurts, hurts to think of how long he’s spent living like this, merely surviving, a wall of ice around his chest.

“You’re right, I shouldn’t. But I do. Do you know that these past few months, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been? What kind of fucked up logic is that? I have nothing, nothing in this world besides this stupid bunker and the clothes on my back, and it makes me want to sob with joy. Because I get you. I get a chance at life with you, after so many years of wishing for it, and knowing I could never have it.”

He falls onto the ground, tucking his head into his knees. 

“The universe gave me another chance,” he whispers softly.

Your blood turns to ice, and you crouch down next to him.

“What do you mean, another chance?”

He looks at you, and you finally see all the pain in his eyes come to the surface, everything that he’s kept bottled up inside.

“It should have been me,” he mutters, lost in his own head. “I told Junho about how I wanted to go up to you that night, how beautiful I thought you were, but before I could do anything, he was there. It ended up being him.”

Your head reels from his confession, and you think back to everything that’s happened through the years. All those memories you had with Junho, Minho lingering in the background, purposely keeping his distance. Memories that you could have had with him instead. Bile rises up in the back of your throat, and you back away.

“I can’t do this, Minho, not right now, I can’t–” 

“I know.” He’s at the door before you can stop him, one foot on the other side of the threshold. “Don’t worry about it.”

He leaves before you can even ask him to stay.

Minho knocks back another shot, stomach churning when he sees Junho approach the pretty brunette, chatting her up. She’s batting her eyelashes and giggling at him, and he knows he should be grateful that his best friend is helping him out, on a desperate mission to cure Minho’s singleness.

But all he can focus on is you in the corner, nervously watching your boyfriend flirt with another girl, and Minho wants to vomit when he sees your lip tremble, eyes glassy with tears. 

He’d driven himself nearly mad with the fantasies about what he’d do if he was in Junho’s position, how much better he could treat you. But at the end of the day, that’s all they were. Fantasies. You two were happy together, and he had no place in it.

Minho suddenly remembers the shiny ring that Junho had shown him last week, tucked away in the drawer of his dresser, and decides promptly that he needs to step outside, the stale air of the bar burning his nostrils.

There’s a faint breeze outside, and it calms him, rewiring his muddled senses enough for him to plop down on the curb. Minho heaves, the alcohol coming back up his throat, but he tries his best to breathe deeply, like his therapist had told him. The pity in her eyes when he’d explained his feelings for you lingers in the back of his mind. You were a vice he couldn’t quit.

A shadow looms next to him, and Minho looks over to see you standing on the curb next to him, studying him curiously.

“Not a fan of cheap vodka?” you chuckle, taking a seat next to him, and Minho internally curses when he feels your thighs brush. He was too drunk for this. 

“Just needed some air,” he tries to laugh it off too. “Gonna have a killer headache tomorrow.”

“She was pretty,” the statement startles him. He couldn’t give less of a damn about the girl Junho was talking to, but it seems that wasn’t the case for you.

“Not interested,” he grits out. Not when she’s not you.

“You know, dating isn’t all it’s cut out to be,” you sigh. “I mean, there are good times, don’t get me wrong, but the bad times feel a thousand times worse when you care about someone. Like seeing your boyfriend flirt with another girl right in front of you.”

There’s a bitter edge to your words, and Minho surprises you, reaching over to cup your cheek and tilt your head towards him.

“Junho is a fool,” the words come out in a slow, heavy breath.

“Happy birthday, Minho,” you whisper, a small smile on your face, and Minho leans in, lips searching for yours. The kiss is quick, a brief graze full of shy reluctance, but you’re surprised you don’t back away, dizzy when he retreats, and missing the feeling of his soft lips.

You lean your head on his shoulder, the two of you lingering on the curb for a few moments, before Junho’s loud voice echoes in the background, startling you apart from each other.

“Hey dipshits, the party’s inside,” he drawls, walking over to swoop you off your feet. Junho presses a peck to your cheek, wrapping his jacket around you, and your eyes roam around frantically, looking for any sign of Minho. But he’s already gone, the faint outline of his leather jacket the only thing you see before he disappears around the corner of the bar, vanishing into the night.

Minho stumbles through the forest, the pounding in his head only growing worse, the memory of the kiss you’d shared consuming his thoughts, splintered with snippets from the conversation with you. The one he’d been waiting so long to have.

The spell had been shattered, and Minho thinks he’s foolish to imagine that it could have lasted, the two of you playing house together, and he cursed the false hope he’d harboured for so long. It was a fucking apocalypse, you were desperate for release, and you’d never cared. Not like he did.

But then his mind flashes back to the kiss, and he doesn’t know what possessed him that night, or possessed you to return it. The moment was the single spark that kept the flickering flame of his love for you going, even now, when you’d basically banished him.

A sharp pain surges through him, and Minho staggers to the ground. He clutches the fabric of his shirt, lifting it up to see the ugly wound he’d been letting fester for weeks, a stray swipe from a monster he’d run into. It’s pulsating now, stabbing into his side, and he wants to kick himself. Why had he been so selfless?

Sometimes, he thinks loving you was the worst decision he’d ever made, the way it consumed him completely. He thinks that maybe if time could reverse, and he had a second chance, that he’d never do it, never lock eyes with you from across the party, your smile forever etched into his memory. But that was a lie. Minho knew he’d do it all again for as long as his heart continued to beat.

Minho feels something squelch on the ground below him, a metallic tang hitting the back of his throat. He swipes at it, crimson coating his fingers. Blood. His blood. He presses a tentative hand to his face, swiping at his leaking nose, but the bleeding won’t stop. There’s too much of it.

Minho screams when his spine cracks, the pain splitting through his entire body, and he feels his eyes roll back into his head. 

When he opens them again, the world is dark. And he runs.

. . .

Your lungs feel like they’re going to collapse, parched for air as you make your way through the forest, wobbling through the trees, looking for something, anything that could lead you to Minho. 

Your heartbeat echoes in your ears, accompanied by a ringing that hasn’t ceased since you left the bunker. The decision still made your stomach turn, afraid to confront the outside world without Minho by your side, but you had to find him. Had to let him know that you wouldn’t let him suffer anymore.

Mind lingering on a specific memory from Minho’s birthday, you realized there’d always been a strange undercurrent between you, even when Junho had been around. Despite how many times he drew away from you, you never let him escape completely. At first, you’d thought it was because he was Junho’s friend, but it all changed after that night outside the bar, your attraction to Minho settling in your chest like a lead weight.

You think back to the months you’d spent together, the world falling apart around you, and how Minho had become your entire world, the reason you’d continued to hope. How you’d fallen in love with every part of him, from the way he’d let you take the first share of food to the messy strands of his grown-out hair. 

The wind whips through your hair, the dense cover of trees thinning around you, and you stumble upon the meadow, a lone figure illuminated in the moonlight. You know it’s him.

“Minho!” you scream, watching as he stumbles across the field in response, trying to get away from you. “Minho!”

You scream until your voice runs hoarse, fighting through the pain in your ankle, and eventually, Minho draws closer and closer, collapsing in the middle of the field. His back is turned to you, and he ducks his head, avoiding your gaze.

You think he’ll run away when you approach him, but he remains lifeless, as still as a statue. Crouching down beside him, you lift his chin, turning his face up to you, a gasp caught in your throat at what you find.

There’s something wrong with his eyes. They shift from the dark brown irises you’d come to know to hollow pools of black. His face is smeared with blood, and his breathing is shallow.

“____, you have to go, I’m turning, it’s not safe, I’m not safe–,” Minho grabs your arm, looking at you with desperation in his eyes. His speech is garbled, but you can hear the gentle tone of his voice still trapped inside. He’s still Minho.

“How dare you tell me to run,” you hiss at him. “How dare you tell me to leave?”

“You don’t understand,” he growls, hands shaking in rage. “I’m a monster!”

Fear strikes you at the realization that something was very wrong with him, something neither you or him had ever been able to anticipate. But it’s overcome by a stronger, more profound emotion.

“I don’t care,” you take his face in your hands again. “I love you, Minho. I loved you through the world ending, and I’ll love you through this. Because your life is mine now, just like mine is yours. It’s our second chance. And we will do whatever it takes to survive.”

Minho clasps your hands in his, fingertips rubbing against your knuckles, and you smile when you notice that his eyes are normal again, no longer filled with darkness. Maybe there was a chance.

“We’ll head west,” Minho rests his forehead against yours, pressing a soft kiss to your temple. “I saw a hospital nearby. Maybe there are other survivors, people just like us.”

You nod, throwing your arms around him and burying your head into the crook of his neck. The two of you would exit west as soon as the sun rose, ready to start a new journey together.

Perhaps the life you shared was far from perfect but you realized that you’d clutched onto it as desperately as him, because he was the only thing you had. You were each other’s home.

a/n pt. 2: As always, any feedback or comments are much appreciated, but I appreciate you all anyway. Lots of love, Isi 💜

[takeariskao3]

they meet each other with different names and fuck in a hotel

sexy

He saw her as soon as he walked through the front door. The glittering lobby was reasonably busy with new arrivals, but she stood out like a beacon. A pillar of warmth and light that drew him in almost involuntarily.

Ignoring the short queue at the counter, he readjusted his hold on his duffel and went straight for the little lounge adjacent to the foyer. She leaned against the bar top with her back to him, her flaming hair spilling down her back and shining brighter than the ornate chandelier and the Italian sunset combined.

He dropped his bag next to a stool and sucked in a steadying breath.

His action was futile, however. As soon as she clocked his approach, she turned toward him and all the air in his lungs left in one jagged oophh.

A slow smile stretched across her face. There was something coy… yet… challenging about it. It made his insides twist in anticipation.

Before he could find a coherent sentence, much less utter a word, an overly attentive bartender stopped by to see if he wanted anything. He politely declined.

“You’re not staying?” she asked in disappointment.

“Need to check-in,” he explained, motioning to the front desk. “Line isn’t getting any shorter and… I’m supposed to be meeting someone…”

She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “Lucky girl.”

The lingering eye contact had his blood buzzing with phantom electricity.

He made no move to exit.

“I have a room.” She spoke low, for his ears only. “If you need to freshen up?”

He blinked. “That’s awfully generous of you.”

She shrugged.

He looked her up and down, his gaze lingering on the linen sundress draped around her waist. “You sure you aren’t meeting anyone?”

“He’s late,” she waved in dismissal. “Something about a black market deal and a runaway Chimera.”

“Unlucky for him.”

She hummed in agreement. “Shall we?”

She downed her flute of sparkling wine as he grabbed the strap of his bag. Leading him back through the lobby, she stopped in front of the lifts and jammed the call button.

“What’s it going to cost me?” he chuckled darkly, registering the slight flush creeping up from the neckline of her dress.

Her answering expression could only be described as igniting, and damn if he wasn’t willing and ready to be set fire.

“I’ll bet it’s nothing you’re not willing to give.”

They stepped into the lift, her pressing for the third floor and him doing everything in his power not to adjust the growing tightness in his trousers.

As soon as the doors slid closed, they collided. He couldn’t be sure who moved first, but within nanoseconds, he had one hand in her hair and the other squeezing her pert little bum. Meanwhile, her arms snaked around the back of his neck and pulled his face down to hers with such force, he couldn’t be sure if he’d ever stand straight-backed again.

Her mouth took up an intoxicating rhythm, her skin scorching everywhere she touched him. The scent of her, the taste of her, the feel of her, mottled his brain so throughly that he had less and less thought and feeling, and more and more instinct and compulsion.

Distantly, a soft ding! permeated his failing faculties, and he barely got a hand out to stop the doors from closing on the two of them again.

He kicked his bag out onto the landing at the same time she mumbled against his mouth, “Third on the left–”

How they made it down the hall without breaking their necks, he would never know, but they arrived the aforementioned door still in one (very tangled) piece.

She fumbled with the lock only a moment before it clicked and they fell into the room, nearly wrecking a side table. He only had a few seconds respite as he straightened the tea set before she hauled him across the room and shoved him onto the bed.

The next two minutes passed in a flurry of sensation. Clothes were discarded, love bites were given, hair was tugged… until finally–finally–he sank so deep into her that stars erupted in his vision.

“Christ, Ginny–” he gasped. “I missed you…”

She let out a raspy little moan. “Shut up and fuck me.”

Harry obliged.

[halestrom]

I made this gifset in an attempt to try not write the fic. It backfired. And I am really happy with the first scene so I felt like sharing 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️

Warnings for: blood, violence, pain, underground fighting. It’s mob boss Jake and fighter Bradley.

The first punch was always the worst. The feeling of knuckles against his skin; the way his head snapped back as pain spread across his synapses; the sudden urge to run filling his bones until he felt jittery with the need; the way thought fled his mind but the training ground into his very being had his arms coming up to defend himself from a second punch. All of it happening in a split second as the crowd roared around them in muted joy at the blood he could feel trickling down his face and then the world rushed back in and Bradley was moving, dodging the next punch and instead throwing one of his own, catching his opponent high on the chin and watching as his head snapped down and he went down in slow motion.

The ref was there, arms as thick as tree trunks pressing against Bradley’s chest to push him back, the tattoos wrapped around his skin telling his story as easily as the scars on Bradley’s body told his. Still, his opponent kept falling until he hit the mat and laid there, bleeding, eyes closed as his team screamed at him to get up, to get moving, to do something as the time wound down in flashes as the crowd screamed along with the coach because they wanted more blood than they already had, spattered around the ring that looked nicer than it should have for the world it belonged in.

But that was the nature of this world. Shiny, pretty things covered in blood, a veneer over the dark underground Bradley had found himself in. It was easy to forget, sometimes, what this world could do, with its brightly lit parties, the men and women dressed to the nines with flashing jewelry and perfectly done hair, outfits that cost as much as a new home. It was all a cover for the darkness, for the jockeying for the front row on the off chance some of the blood would fly over them, a badge of pride to wear for how close to the violence they could get. Bradley had been at more than one afterparty, face bruised and nose broken, again, only to talk to people who had blood splattered over theirs, some of the women with that blood splatter having smudged lipstick which told a tale as easily as the swollen lips of some of the men.

Violence and sex, a tale as old as time.

“Ten!”

The crowd screamed it’s joy as the ref grabbed his arm and raised it over his head, bare knuckles swollen and sore, his shoulder aching from a hit he had taken, the bruises over his ribs mottled and layered in various stages of healing. But all of it faded in satisfaction as he watched the other team pull his opponent out of the way of the rush of people, clamoring to get closer to him as his name was chanted.

“Your winner for the night ladies and gentlemen, Rooster!” the MC screamed into the mike, mouth twisted in a rictus grin, tall and thin and looking like the Grim Reaper himself in his black suit and pale skin.

Bradley knew his job, he knew what he needed to do to keep the favor as he shove his other hand up in the air and dropped his head back, crowing his victory, again, and spitting out the mouth guard, grinning with bloody teeth and split lips, his cheek aching even as the ref dropped his arm and people swarmed, hands clapping him on the back, hitting muscles covered in bruises as he worked his way through the crowd, accepting congratulations and smiling for flashing phones with his arms draped around women who let their hands drop lower than he wished, like he was just something else that was part of the setting and not a real person.

Sometimes, he doubted they thought of him as a real person. It probably made it easier.

He made it back to the corner, hands still clapping him on the back, fingers finding the sore spots and bruising them but he ignored it as he took the towel from his cutman for the night, wiping his face clear, the fabric ripped away from him as soon as he was done and he let it, bracing his arms on the ropes and letting his eyes slide from the cut man who was talking to a man in a fancy suit to a man dressed in a pair of jeans and a white shirt, looking so out of place with the rest of the peacocks but despite that, he looked like he belonged.

And he did. After all, this building belonged to him, the money that changed hands came with a tax that fed back into him, securing his empire with each punch thrown and real time bet made. Jake Seresin was at the top of this world, and like every other thing in this room, Bradley belonged to him.

“Good enough for you?” Bradley asked, forcing himself to smile around aching lips.

Jake smiled back at him, small and sharp and at odds with the coldness in his ice green eyes. “Better than, sweetheart,” Jake said, voice smooth and warm and it was a balm on Bradley’s bruises as he felt some of the tension leave his shoulders.

A good fight meant a good paycheck, something better than could mean a bonus. Something Bradley could use to chip away at the bills and put some money away so when his day finally came, his parents wouldn’t be left with the debt.

“Good,” Bradley said, folding his arms and resting his chin on them.

“Taking the hit at the end was inspired,” Jake said, taking a step closer until he was looking up at Bradley, head tilted back but Bradley knew who held the power here.

Crouching until they were eye to eye, Bradley left his hands on the top rope, keeping himself steady as Jake stepped ever closer, reaching out to brush a thumb over the bruise Bradley could already feel swelling his eye closed. “Half the idiots in the room upped their ante on you getting KO’d. Idiots.”

The derision wasn’t masked, but Jake never needed to mask anything. Not with his power, not with the three bodyguards Bradley could make out, and the loyalty of half the room. Bradley shrugged when it seemed like Jake was waiting for an answer. “Wasn’t thinking,” he said, telling the truth.

Bradley didn’t think when he fought. He had an objective. Win. That was all he needed to do and anything else would get in the way. Once upon a time he had thought more, building up the tension until he struck. But that was a long time ago, a different person. He couldn’t risk being that person anymore, not when he needed to keep standing.

Jake smiled like Bradley had said something funny and leaned in, hand still cupping Bradley’s jaw, thumb pressing down on the edge on the bruise until Bradley hissed at the bloom of pain, ignoring the way his pulse pounded. “Regardless, a fight like that deserves a reward. So what do you want, darlin’?”

Money. A way out. A year without something going wrong. To get rid of the axe hanging over his mother’s neck as each month passed and her cancer stayed in remission. To go back in time and beg God a little bit harder for a miracle so Bradley wasn’t drawn into his life. He wanted a lot of things. Jake Seresin might be god in this world, but Bradley knew better than to pray to the devil.

“A good days sleep,” he said dryly, smiling at Jake who huffed, a ghost of something Bradley might almost classify as a real smile ghosting his lips for a second.

“Oh, I think we can arrange that,” Jake said, moving his hand and rubbing a thumb over Bradley’s bottom lip before dropping his hand, but not before Bradley saw the red smeared on it. He licked his bottom lip and tasted salt and copper where there had only been copper before.

“Oh yeah?” Bradley asked, tilting his head to the side, wondering what Jake meant.

Jake gave him a once over before he nodded. “Finish up and then clean up, Rooster. Meet me in my office. We’ll get you out of here before dawn.”

Bradley knew a dismissal when he heard it and he nodded, standing and ignoring the ache in his muscles as he turned back to the crowd, aware of eyes on him, once again aware of the role he needed to play as he thrust arms up into the air and crowe. It was all the crowd needed before they surged, content with the knowledge Bradley had paid his dues to the man who owned all of them and now he was fair game.

Hands grabbed him and he was pulled into the crowd, the world reduced to flashes and half heard comments and Bradley focused on it, letting himself get drawn into it so he didn’t have to think about an opponent he would never see again, and a meeting in an office that had turned him down this path and taken him from aspiring MMA fighter to Jake Seresin’s prize fighter.