#i will....put this on ao3 sometime this week

[louiseolivier]

Late Night Confessions

Read below or on AO3

fix-it fic. hurt Tommy. Very PG-13 rated. nothing crazy. Edited because I forgot a v brief sex description. 😬

Buck didn’t hear his phone ringing the first or second time it happened. He was deep enough in sleep that it may have filtered into his dreams, but any memory of those dissipated when his phone began ringing a third time. This time, the sound pulled him from sleep, but it probably had more to do with the fact that someone was also banging on his door. 

Because the phone was closest and he was still groggy, he answered it first, pushing himself into a seated position. “Hello?”

“Buck? I’m outside, man. You need to let me in.” 

Eddie. The feeling of disappointment was automatic. 10 weeks on, and he still had hope for another voice. Buck swung his feet over the side of the bed, eyes still closed, still half asleep. Awareness was slow going, but eventually, the questions started coming. Why was Eddie calling him? Why was he at the front door? What time was it anyway? Buck cracked an eye open. The loft was dark sans the ambient light coming from the buildings outside. It was the middle of the night, and Eddie was at his front door. Fear and nausea bubbled up in his chest, afraid of what he was about to ask. “Christopher?”

“Tommy,” Eddie corrected a waver in his voice. 

Buck was out of bed and tripping down the stairs. He slipped halfway down, caught himself on the banister, and slid on his ass the last few steps. Adrenaline was pumping, so he didn’t notice how hard he hit his tailbone or the scrape on his forearm that was pooling pinpricks of blood.

He opened the door, and Eddie walked in. Eddie pulled Buck’s hoodie off the coat rack Tommy hung for him and tossed it to Buck. “I forgot your key. I don’t suppose you have any of his clothes or the key to his place?” Eddie asked. 

Buck put on the hoodie and sat in a kitchen chair to put on the shoes Eddie tossed him. “I don’t,” Buck lied. He didn’t have a key, but he did have one of Tommy’s flannels, and the pajama pants Buck was wearing were Tommy’s, too. Those, along with a bottle of body wash that Buck sniffed to masturbate or cry to (sometimes it happened at the same time), never made it into the box back to Tommy. 

“That’s okay. I’m sure there’s a key with his possessions. We can get it from the hospital when we get there. Where’s your wallet and keys?”

“Dresser upstairs.” Buck shoved his foot into his shoe and called after Eddie. “He’s going to be okay?” He hated how much his voice cracked.

“He’ll live.” Eddie jogged down the stairs and opened the door, waiting for Buck to finish dressing. “He was conscious when they brought him in. The woman I talked to didn’t have a lot of details. He was in a car accident and was still in imaging when she called. Ready?”

Buck nodded, walked to the door, and pocketed the wallet and his phone that Eddie handed him. He called the elevator while Eddie locked the door behind him and asked, “How’d you find out?”

The elevator door dinged open. They got on, and Eddie said, “I’m his emergency contact.”

“Oh,” Buck said and blinked back the tears that started to sting. 

&&&&&&&&&

A teenager ran a red light and t-boned Tommy’s truck. Against the odds, the kid wasn’t drunk, just not paying attention. The driver’s side door crumpled into Tommy’s thigh, and a malfunctioning airbag meant Tommy’s head knocked against the side window before it was deployed. The glass cracked and embedded into his right temple. He had a concussion, and they were keeping an eye out for swelling. No fractures to his femur, but he had moderate bruising to his thigh and was being monitored in case they needed to drain the hematoma. All of it together meant Tommy was going to be grounded and on crutches for a month or two.  

Buck listened to the doctor and Eddie discuss how lucky Tommy was, and how it could have been so much worse. He bounced on his soles, wanting to escape into Tommy’s room. He was less than 50 feet away, but he was terrified of being stopped, of being told he was no longer on the list and, therefore, must be excluded. 

Eddie caught his eye and nodded towards the room and that was all the permission Buck needed. He slinked behind the doctor, avoided eye contact with the nurses, and slipped inside Tommy’s room to find that Tommy wasn’t alone. 

The man sitting next to Tommy’s bed was lean, with a long face and tan skin. He was probably around Tommy’s age and had soft brown eyes that watched Tommy worriedly. That was until Buck interrupted his vigil. The man looked up in surprise, but then a resigned understanding crossed his face. “You’re Buck,” he said quietly.

Buck nodded. “And you're...”

A sad grin crossed his face. “A placeholder.”

“Sorry?” Buck said with a shake of his head. 

“Don’t mind me, I'm being maudlin. I’m Mateo. Or Matt. He’s called me both. Although, I doubt he’s mentioned me at all.”

The name did ring a bell, and Buck quickly flipped through the rolodex of information he collected about Tommy—a sadly thin collection. One of the things he realized during their time apart was Buck barely knew anything about Tommy’s past. The person he was before he met Buck. He’d give an anecdote about the army or his childhood, hints of who he was under Gerrard, but never enough to tell the whole story. Buck hit a crisis point on whether he knew Tommy at all. The cool and confident guy he fell for crumbled when Buck suggested they move in together. Was it all a facade? What depths of trauma was Tommy hiding? 

10 weeks was a long time, and the conclusion Buck settled on was that the kind, tender man who showed up for him was real. That his surface cynicism was real, but so was the covert romantic. In the end, Tommy loved him. Or at least he was close. Close enough that Buck scared him so bad he bolted. And in that time, instead of being soured by the arms-length Tommy held him at, Buck had only become even more certain that Tommy was his best chance for happiness. Maddie promised the universe would send him someone, but the fact was, it already happened, and Buck wasn’t giving up. 

He had thought the ball was in Tommy’s court. He made the mess, and as soon as Tommy pulled his head from his ass, he’d be back at Buck’s door ready to explain. But standing there, after a close call, and with a man who seemed half in love with his ex, Buck realized he would have to take the reins and lead them back to each other. There was no other ending he’d accept. 

Mateo blinked at him expectantly, and Buck suddenly remembered a scorching day in July. It was after the 4th, and they were staying at Tommy’s because, despite the blackout curtains and the building's A/C, his one-story bungalow consistently stayed five degrees cooler than Buck’s loft. They sat on either end of Tommy’s couch, legs tangled, while a Dodgers game played, volume low on the TV, and Buck was giving Tommy an internet quiz on where to vacation based on his favorite desserts. 

Tommy picked a lemon tart over a chocolate gateau, and Buck was questioning whether he should ever let that man inside his body ever again when Tommy’s phone pinged with a text message. Tommy picked up his phone, and his face morphed from mild interest into a scrunchy smile of pleasure. He chuckled and started to type. Another message came through because Tommy’s eyes widened, and a high “Hello!” popped out. 

“What?” Buck asked with a hesitant smile. 

“I just got a dick pic.” Tommy chuckled, shook his head, and continued to type. 

“What?! Let me see.” Buck was on his knees, shuffling between Tommy’s legs. He still had a smile plastered on, but it was more strained than amused. 

“No,” Tommy said and looked a little shocked that Buck even asked. 

“Seriously?” Buck reached out, but Tommy moved his phone away.

“This isn’t a random dick, Evan. I know this guy. Look, I get it if you’re weirded out. I’m deleting the picture.” Buck sat back on his heels and watched Tommy tap his phone. “There. Gone.” Tommy flashed Buck the screen long enough to show only text bubbles, but not long enough for him to read them.  

“Who is he? Ex-boyfriend?”

“Mateo? No. K, I told him I’m off the market, so no more surprise penises.” Tommy tossed the phone onto the coffee table and wrapped his massive hands around Buck’s waist. “There’s only one dick I’m interested in.” He pulled Buck flush against him and proceeded to kiss him into oblivion. 

Even back then, there was a part of Buck that knew he was being distracted, a tactic to keep him from digging deeper, but the larger implication wasn’t something that even crossed his mind until after Tommy was gone. It infuriated him.

“You texted him,” Buck told the other man. He moved to Tommy’s other side, desperate to touch but not wanting to overstep while this new wrinkle blinked sad eyes up at him. “Back in July,” he added. The lighting was dim, but Buck was pretty sure he saw pink creep into Mateo’s cheeks and neck. “He didn’t show me if-if that’s what you were wondering.”

“It crossed my mind,” Mateo said, his eyes not quite meeting Buck’s.

“Were you with him?” Buck asked. 

“I was,” Mateo answered and lifted his right hand to show his pinky and ring finger splinted and taped together. “I got lucky.”

“Are you two fucking?” Buck hated how thin his voice sounded. He knew the answer, but he craved the pain of confirmation. 

“Yes, but it’s not what you’re thinking. I’m his designated rebound.”

“10 weeks is pretty long for a rebound,” Buck bit out. His rebound was a pretty, petite redhead who bounced on his dick and moaned like a porn star. It was fun in the moment, but when she left, Buck wanted to scour himself with a Brillo pad. His next hook-up was a man who had a passing resemblance to Tommy. Buck had thought he’d be able to purge whatever residual feelings he had left and come out on the other side with a clean slate. It didn’t work out. Again, the sex was fun, but after, Buck locked himself in his bathroom until the guy left. After that, he went back to baking and since picked up cake decorating. He was getting pretty damn good at that too.

“It’s only been three, actually. I was seeing someone up ‘til then. Like back in July, he was seeing you when I called.” Still gazing at Tommy, Mateo said, “He loves you, but there came a point where protecting himself overrode that. Funny, since usually he’s the one who gets left.” His head snapped up to look at Buck, and he pointedly asked, “Do you love him? I’m assuming you do since you’re here, but I need to know.”

Buck nodded, unwilling to say those words to anyone until Tommy heard them first. 

“Good. Tommy and I have been doing this dance for five years, and his walking away from you tore him to ribbons in a way no one else has. And I was around for the Chester debacle. He’s stubborn, more broken than he lets on, and he’s VERY good at compartmentalizing. But I can promise you, you won’t regret giving him a second chance. You’re going to have to be willing to fight for it, though. Like I said, he’s stubborn.”

“I’m ready,” Buck promised. “I’m so fucking angry at him for putting us in this situation, but I get it. I do. I just want him back.”    

Mateo stood. He bent over Tommy, the fingers of his good hand carding through Tommy’s curls, and he bumped their noses together. Softly, he said, “I hope to god I never see you again.” He chuckled deep in his chest and kissed the corner of Tommy’s mouth. Mateo moved to the door but paused long enough to squeeze Buck’s forearm. “If he asks, tell him I left because he’s better off in your hands, and he knows that.” Mateo gave Tommy one last look and then exited the room. 

Surreal was how Buck felt, but he buried it and sat in the chair next to Tommy. He took Tommy’s hand in his and let himself fully feel for the first time since Eddie came banging at his door. He let the tears form and fall and pressed Tommy’s slack hand against his cheek. His anger still simmered somewhere low in his belly, but relief won out. Even the idea of a second chance could have been snuffed out in an instant if the accident had gone differently, and Buck cried tears of joy that was not the case. 

“You get 24 hours,” he told Tommy. “Once they release you, you get 24 hours of me doting on you, deferring to you, but after that? Holy shit, are we going to have it out. Because, seriously, how dare you make unilateral decisions for me. Especially since we both know they’re bullshit. After that, we should give ourselves a month to just be. I’ve missed you. I’ve missed waking up with you and watching all the dumb movies you think I need to watch, and just how easy it used to be. I think we deserve that reprieve because it’s going to get real hard after that. I’m going to tell you about Daniel and my parents and my exes, and you’re going to do the same even though I know you’re going to fight me on it. We need to talk about all the hard shit we avoided the first six months of our relationship. Like how much I hate basketball,” Buck ended with a chuckle. 

The door swished open, and Eddie stepped inside. “Any change?”

“No, he’s still asleep.”

Eddie stepped up to the bed and held Tommy’s ankle. “The doctor said he was acting agitated, so they gave him a sedative. Said it should wear off in another hour. I talked to the night duty nurse. She said you can stay as long as you're quiet and your presence doesn’t upset him, but you need to be gone by shift change.”

Buck nodded and gave Eddie a watery thin, “Thank you.” He cleared his throat and added, “I’m glad you let him depend on you.”

“That man is his own worst enemy, but he needed someone to be in his corner, and, well, I needed someone to care for. Even if that only meant drinking beer, eating fast food, and watching whatever sport was on TV.”

“Did you know about Mateo?”

Eddie looked behind him at the closed door, then back at Buck. “Is that who left?” Buck nodded, and Eddie said, “I have no idea who he is or what he means to Tommy. Is he going to be a problem?”

“No.”

Eddie nodded and patted Tommy’s ankle. “I should probably go. I’ll be back sometime tomorrow, but text me if anything changes. Okay?”

“Yeah. Hey, Eddie? Thank you. Thank you for including me.”

“You know, I almost didn’t. I don’t know what the answer is, Buck. I’ve watched the two of you act like smitten kittens that look at each other like the other hangs the moon. On the flip side, he crushed your heart and his own because...he loves you? Because your relationship falling apart was inevitable? Just as a warning, I don’t think he’s ready. But I also know your powers of persuasion and your need to at least confront him since he left. And to be fair, I cheated on my girlfriend and traumatized my son because I wanted to live the fantasy with a clone of my wife, so I have no room to judge.”

Buck kissed the back of Tommy’s hand before placing it on the bed. He got up and embraced Eddie tightly, thanking his friend again for giving him the opportunity for another chance, even if Eddie was dubious of their reconciliation.

Eddie chuckled and said, “Honestly, at this point, good luck. Either you guys figure it out, or you don’t. Just know, if it falls apart again, you’re getting me in the divorce.” 

Buck grinned, gave Eddie one last squeeze, and pushed him away. “Go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

With Eddie gone, Buck flipped the chair around to watch Tommy’s face head-on. He brushed the curls on Tommy’s head before sitting down and clasping their hands together. “I love you,” Buck told him. “I’ll tell you again when you wake up, and every morning we’re together. I’ll keep telling you even after you finally accept it to be true because you’re not just my last, Tommy. You’re my only.” 

[shoshiwrites]

Can I request Jo and Bucky + 39. a lit candle and a snowstorm, please? 💕

Please forgive me for really only using this prompt as a jumping-off point for fall vibes instead of winter. I was also going to keep this short and OOPS. Biggest hugs to @floydmtalbert for helping me brainstorm this and for answering all my questions, Harvest Festival-related and otherwise ♡ Bucky Egan x War correspondent OC.

sky full of song

She wished Kay were here, to take photographs of everything.

Kay had left Jo with a Kodak Brownie that she insisted she could spare — Jo hadn’t summoned the nerve yet to test it out, fearing she’d break it. The same skittishness she reserved for plants and watering cans and, she hoped, not a lot else. Kay had narrowed her eyes with only a little judgement. “I’d hand over the Rolleiflex too if I had another one to spare,” she said, while Jo made a noise of dismissal. “You’re very much to be trusted, Jo, I hope you know that by now.”

The Kodak, a couple of rolls of film to get her started. That didn’t count the fresh bars of soap packed at the top of Jo’s suitcase, the gin and fernet under the sink, or the tiny bottle of perfume she’d slipped into the pocket of Jo’s coat in the front closet. Jo didn’t remember the label — French, of course, and floral, like the beautiful dresses and suits packed away in Kay’s trunk from home. 

She’d dabbed a tiny bit on tonight, her wrists and behind her ears. She didn’t often wear a scent, or if she did it was something someone might call cheap. Orange blossom, usually, which she loved. But today she’d been out in the fields, observing the Land Army girls and the farmers around the village and the base. Talking about the harvest and about the relatives fighting, as carefully as they could. It loomed above them, behind them, below, the Norwich Blitz of the year before, the war still ahead, the news out of Italy they’d all been following on the radio. 

She was still dressed for the day outside, amongst the dry grass and the cow patties, having been too caught up in edits and wiring to change out of her trousers and light peasant blouse. She’d adjusted the blouse in the mirror in her room, tucked it in more carefully, and tried to do something with her hair — it still wisped out around her ears, the back of her neck. And, of course, she’d changed her shoes. 

It had even been sunny, and what you might call warm — it accounted for the tiniest hint of copper in her brown hair, and something almost like a tan, or as much as you could get in late September. She feels warm here, inside the village hall, the day’s sun and the stuffiness of the building, despite the beautiful decorations, the food and drink, the music. 

Kay would appreciate the decorations, too — flowers Jo carefully notes for no other reason than to let her friend know — heleniums and coneflowers, deep chocolate-brown dahlias and frilly white yarrow and coppertips, delicate cosmos and chrysanthemums besides. Kay could write a book, she thinks, of flower samples and photos and vignettes. Jo’s article doesn’t need such specificity — it’s about the American fliers joining the harvest festival, the cases of Coca-Cola brought over from the base to join the ale and cider and lemonade, the folk dances, the corn dollies pinned to olive drab by the children of Thorpe Abbotts. They’ve been shepherded home, the children, and now left are the grownups, the fliers, some of the village teenagers not far in age if not the same.

She’s not sure if she craves a ginger beer or something stronger. She knows she needs a cigarette. Cold air, too, maybe even more than the smoke.

There’s still plenty of people — part of why it’s so warm inside, too, she notes – and she slips out to the front steps with hand already in her pocket for her lighter. The stars look even brighter tonight, in the crisp fall air. She lights up carefully, shielding her hand. Her arms are covered in goosebumps, but she doesn’t care. It’s hardly the first time, here or back home. This time, at least, nobody’s locking her out. She sits, takes a drag. Tries not to think about how crowded it felt in there, how for a moment she felt as though she were suffocating.

“Oh good-” she hears behind her. “You’re still here.” She turns to see him behind her, above her, pressed uniform and the stray curl on his forehead. “Thought we spotted you leaving.” In the moonlight, his cheeks still look pink. “You heading out?” 

She hadn’t decided until this moment. “I think so,” she says. 

“Hot enough for you in there?” 

“A bit.”

He takes a second, adjusts to the outside. The chill in the air. Watches her, sitting on the step in her blouse and her bare arms and the hair she’s unpinned now that she’s alone. “Can I walk you home?”

She’d refuse the offer, except the house she’s staying in is at least a ten minute walk, on the edge of the village. A little more, even, ambling along in the dark. She’d refuse the offer, except she doesn’t want to. He holds out a hand to take her cigarette, the other to help her to her feet. 

“You can have it,” she says, before she can stop herself, but he’s handed it back to her already as he starts to unbutton his jacket. She watches the cherry glow, imprinted on the darkness, before she remembers to cup it with her hand. 

“Oh no- I’m alright-”

“Wasn’t a question,” he says, and drapes it over her shoulders before she can protest further. “What would Kay say if I let you catch something?”

She almost snorts. It smells like him, of course, settles the unease in her body before she can worry that someone else will leave the party and see the two of them standing there. It’s also entirely too big. Comical, even. It’s practically a coat on her.

“Pneumonia’s no joke, Josephine.”

“Oh, I know.”

Before she knows it, they’re on their way back to the house, gravel crunching quietly under their feet. It’s enough to walk beside him, here, take the moment to breathe.

The house is quiet too, blackout curtains drawn. Muriel’s gone upstairs for the evening, and it’s with a gentle yank of his hand that Jo leads them around to the back gate, the one that’s never locked. It creaks open, the sound magnified in the dark.

They don’t bother with chairs, or more accurately she doesn’t want to make the noise, open the shed door and drag them out onto the flagstone. They sit, on the ground, in the garden. It smells like earth and cold and she can partly make him out in the starlight, the slope of his noise and his ears and his mouth, eyelashes, the insignias on his shirt collar. He doesn’t let her take off his jacket, even like this.

“Yankees won the pennant,” he says. “On Saturday.”

“I saw. Heard,” she corrects. Her knuckles brush against his on the stone. “I’m glad.” She almost laughs — Lena would be shocked to hear her say so. “Don’t tell my friends I said that.”

She hears him huff a little laugh. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

She looks over at the dark outline of the house, her eyes drawn to what looks like the tiniest glimmer of light upstairs. A candle, she realizes, in Muriel’s window. Jo hopes she hasn’t left it burning while she’s asleep. 

“Can I get you a drink?” she asks. “Kay left a couple of things in the kitchen, some of the hard-to-find stuff. I’m sure we could rustle up some glasses-” She stops, stills, when she notices he’s reached into his pocket for his flask. His pocket, of the jacket she’s wearing, the one that’s trailing on the ground. “Sorry,” she says. 

“What’re you apologizing for?”

For rambling, she wants to say. For not knowing. For taking your jacket. For sending you up there day after day with nothing but a lousy stack of clippings to show for it. She doesn’t believe that, not really, except for when she does.

“Nothing, I guess,” she says.

“Good.”

She goes and gets herself a drink as quietly as she can, carefully making her way back to the spot in the middle of the garden. 

“Are you cold?” 

He shakes his head, tips back the flask. “Used to it.”

She sips at the gin, the sharp, piney flavor of juniper floods her mouth, makes her pull her lips over her teeth. Not enough tonic water, but she’s not about to head back in again in the dark. 

“It’ll be snowing already in Wisconsin,”  he says. She squints at him in the dark, at the warmth she feels beside her. “Or almost,” he corrects. 

“It’s only September.”

“We got snow in late September last year,” he says. “Up north.”

“Not in Manitowoc.” She tries not to stumble over the name, but it halts in her mouth.

He makes a noise that’s almost like a laugh, almost like surprise. “Not in Manitowoc,” he repeats. He hands her his flask; she can feel his arm bump her own. “C’mon, have some of the strong stuff.”

“Gin isn’t the strong stuff?” She takes the flask anyway, tips it back against her lips. She hasn’t had any in a while, certainly not like this. It’s hot in her throat, smoky and burning. The barest hint of honey. Despite herself, she coughs. 

She doesn’t hand it back to him yet, only proffers her own drink. “Only fair,” she says. She can’t see his face too well in the dark, but hears him take a sip. 

“Kay could make a killing here in England,” he says. “The booze.”

“She could.”

Upstairs, Jo notices the candle’s gone out. The warmth of the whiskey and the gin blooms in her chest. 

“When you do think they get snow in England?” he asks. 

There’d been a dusting on the ground in London when she and William had arrived in February. But not much. “I don’t know,” she says plainly. “Why?”

“Figured you’d know these things,” he says, and she can hear a smile shade his voice. “Being a reporter and all.”

She does laugh at that.

“There was a little, when I got here. A dusting. Like icing sugar.” It sounds silly as she says it. Like it hadn’t been pissing rain and cold and she’d had to bundle up in bed like she’d had to when she was a girl, curled up and waiting for William to come up from the hotel bar and whatever story he’d claimed to be chasing. She could think these things now, call it for what it was. That the “stories” usually had blonde hair and long legs, or red hair and short legs, or were anyone but Jo.

“Sounds picturesque.” He sounds like he’s sounding out the word.

“Almost.”

“Merry old England not living up to expectations?”

She takes a deep breath. “No- I just-”

“Just what?”

She can call it for what it was now, but she can’t think about what couldn’t have been. John instead of William, there beside her. During the air raids, the ones she’d almost always had to soldier on through without him. “I don’t know,” she says again. Maybe she should thank god it’s dark outside, so that he can’t see her face.

He takes another drink from the flask, but this time it’s slower. She can’t help it, the way she places her glass down and pulls her knees up, not quite to her chest. She can’t tell if she’s cold or not, between the jacket and the whiskey and the fact that he’s here, quiet and not, breathing, sitting on the ground here beside her. That there had been no questions about it. That she’d sat, and he’d sat. That he’s closer to her now than he was when they started. 

His hand, next to hers, and pressing against it now, and hooking his fingers around hers in silence. She thinks of the names she knows that he doesn’t, she ones she carries in her pockets, the names he stores away in his jacket lining, the barracks, buried out in the field. The runway. The air.

Maybe it’s alright, in this moment, to let them all leave her mind. To hold his hand.

Out beyond the garden wall, something rustles in the trees. A small animal, probably. A pair of birds. They both sit up just a little at the interruption. 

“I don’t know what time it is,” he says. “Must be late.” She motions for his wrist, and he holds steady as she shields her lighter with her hand, reads the face illuminated against his skin. 

“11:17.”

“A good year,” he says. She huffs a laugh. “I don’t know.”

“Me neither.”

It’s getting colder out, as the hour darkens. All that wind coming down off the North Sea. The thought of him walking back all by himself kicks at her heart. 

She wishes they could just go inside together. Go up to bed. She can’t say it out loud, she knows. A secret she can’t let him keep. Not now. Maybe he already knows.

“I can’t keep you out so late,” she says. 

“Protecting my honor, Josephine?” She can hear the laugh that doesn’t reach his eyes.

She stands with his help, her hands clasped around his. They walk to the gate, like holding a breath before they fumble a kiss goodnight in the dark. Slow, and unseeing, only feeling him, his lips on hers. His hand finds the small of her back, slides down to her hip. She leans into him, tasting the whiskey, the smell of him, his jacket still around her. His breath on her cheek. One hand on his chest, and then the other. She reaches, touches his jaw with the backs of her fingers. He hums against her, low and wanting. 

“I’ll go,” he says, like he’s convincing himself too.

“I’ll be back at the base in the morning,” she says, shrugging out of his jacket. Immediately, she’s cold. “You’re not flying tomorrow.”

He takes it, but he doesn’t put it back on. If he’s surprised that she knows that, she can’t see it. “Right.”

The moon is higher now, the stars scattered above. He kisses her again, the gentlest tug at her bottom lip, the brush of his mustache against her. He’s everything, here, where she can barely see him. She can’t help herself from the exhale, the kind that sounds like she’s trying to hold it all in.

“You smell nice,” he says. His voice is the quietest she’s heard. Like a little boy. He touches his forehead against hers, just for a moment. Her hand cups his cheek, thumb tracing. And then he’s gone. 

She turns back to the house, looming in the dark. The wind whistles in the trees, the only light the moon reflected in the closed windows. She wraps her arms around herself, and heads inside. 

[rosie-b]

🦮 fill this empty space (ask game)

(link to the summary)

This turned out to be... longer than a snippet, and like the summary, angstier than I expected. It's been that kind of week ig! But there's a promising ending because I needed one :)

It had been a warm summer day when the old Marinette died.

The new Marinette woke up surrounded by golden light, soft, green grass, and the soft murmurings of a stream in northern France. It was perhaps the best way for her rebirth to happen, in a calm, relaxing environment far from the place she somehow knew was home.

She met her family there. They already knew her, and called her "maman," or "ma femme," or "my lady."

Marinette was no one's lady. She never had been, but according to video evidence and the testimony of her husband and children and best friend, that was one of the many roles her past self had filled.

Marinette did not know how to fill any of those old roles anymore. But because of the secret, magical way she'd chosen to lose her memories, she couldn't let anyone know this fact. She had to study years worth of business lessons in mere weeks, preparing for her return to Paris and the international company she would soon be in charge of running again.

At least her past self had accounted for this new Marinette's incompetence. But no one else seemed to see that she wasn't the same woman she had been once, back when a kwami lived in her purse and villains of the day (and year) kept plaguing Paris.

Adrien, the man past-Marinette had married, professed to still be in love with her. He saw some of the differences between the new Marinette and the old one, but claimed they weren't nearly as big as Marinette thought they were. And he chose to spend most of his time around her, so maybe he was right. He whispered praises for each small thing she did, both when they were alone and in public; took the time to learn her new habits; made her fresh coffee for when she woke up two hours after he did; stayed out of her bed to help her feel comfortable.

Marinette could see why her past self had loved him. It was something both halves of her were beginning to share, a love for this man who found a way to bring joy to her life even when it had been turned upside down.

But it didn't change the fact that the new Marinette was not the same woman he'd married. That fact was written into the vows Adrien and the past Marinette had exchanged; the way they had split up their chores; the daily schedule that Adrien still remembered while the new Marinette did not.

To Marinette, this new self of hers was nothing more than a facade made to cover the void her past self had left behind. She was thirty years old and as empty inside as a newborn baby, with no memories to guide her through this unfamiliar world.

Marinette was an icon, the magazines said. A paragon of virtue in an age of corruption, one half of both Paris' favorite couples, a woman who managed to be a world-famous CEO and an attentive mother at the same time.

That wasn't the new Marinette's reality. She didn't even know her children's middle names, though she was learning their favorite desserts, sports, and hobbies.

Most days, it was like learning a foreign language, and it felt just as isolating when she got something wrong or tried to remember something she thought she knew but actually didn't. Sometimes, this new life of hers was crushing, a drain on her already empty self, taking the last bit of Marinette out of her.

But not always.

As out of place as Marinette felt in her own life, the people in it still felt right somehow. They'd been there for her when she woke up; they were there to hug and comfort her when she cried in the night, to help teach her about her own life and tell her about theirs, and to listen when she said she felt different. They loved her, that much was clear, and they promised to love her no matter which Marinette she was; the old one with all her memories or the new one just fumbling through life.

And somehow, even though she claimed not to feel anything more for them than for other strangers at first, Marinette still loved them back. Their presence soothed the ache she felt in her chest, the one she felt when she couldn't remember, and she found herself more than missing them when they weren't there. She looked forward to hearing about their day, to learning their middle names; she held on to the facts they told her about themselves like sweet gifts of gold and honey, like they were all she needed to survive, to fill the empty space her memories had left behind.

The new Marinette was not the old one, and she never would be.

But maybe that was okay. The new Marinette had her own space, too; it began here, in this remote, rural town near the seashore, and it would expand back to Paris, to the place where the old Marinette had lived.

Marinette's home had always been her family, the people she loved. That was something she knew without having to remember it, and something she was more sure of every day.

So she studied the journals her past self had written, re-learned how to design, baked bread beside Adrien, sang songs with her children and stayed by their side. If her mind was an empty slate, then she was going to fill it with love, the same love she'd chosen before and was choosing again.

And someday, this new Marinette would feel whole again.

Thanks for the ask! I hope you enjoyed <3

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

I read that same fic earlier and I just straight up muted the person so their works don't show up for me anymore lmao

there was also another one like that posted yesterday because the person was mad at something qBad did a couple of days ago while not at all in his right mind and amnesiac, it was odd (not shitting on the person just confused and slightly concerned)

yeah there’s. a lot of misconceptions around qbad rn lmao. It’s one of the reasons Im so obnoxious about him, tbh, so that it’s not JUST the negativity that gets spread. He’s a really good target for the hate rn, because he has a smaller fanbase and his pvp playstyle + lore lead him to all that antagonizing during purgatory, and that gets vented out into fics.

It’s genuinely really interesting, the dichotomy that seems to exist between tumblr and twitter regarding him. Ive heard nothing but slander about bbh from twitter (again, he is not faking his illness, that is a lie), but he’s got a solid enough foothold on tumblr that ive seen more hate towards the fans that the cc, here. which makes sense, given how we take over the tag almost ever day when he logs on. genuine o7 to people who find that obnoxious but thats one of the reasons i overtag so much, for blocking purposes.

anyway i think all the bbh mischaracterization means that we just need to write about him more >:D please this is a call for more bbh centric fics from people who do not hate him/know a little bit about his lore. blease he’s such a fun pov to write i promise

[1moreoffkeyanthem]

Ok my dudes I continue to languish and thus will be in bed all day again so

[safyresky]

Oh! It's February 13th, you know what that means!!

FROSTMAS ON AO3 UPDATE!!! 💃🏻🥳

Check out Frostmas: Year Two, digitally remastered on ao3, HERE. Now with more swearing and an extra 3k words somehow! I didn't add SHIT so this is very confusing!

Year Two

Trapped by societal conventions, Jacqueline has a contentious dinner with Jack. Jack discovers an unpleasant caveat to his new job.

What to heck is Frostmas?? Have a summary:

The Twelve Years of Frostmas

Nobody but he and I knew the truth. Jack wasn’t supposed to be Santa; I wasn’t supposed to be Jack Frost. He thought being Santa would fix everything. He was horribly, horribly mistaken. [My take on Jack’s reign as Santa during the Escape Clause. MAJOR OC involvement AND First Person POV from said OC. Finally cross posting THIS behemoth! Enjoy!]

Interested? Take it from the top HERE on ao3! And here on ff dot net, where it is done up to Year 10. But this ain't ABOUT HER.

This is about Y2 on ao3! Have a delightful little preview under the cut~

Jack’s next sentence took me right out. “I know, I know, it’s a lot to take in, I get it. But this’ll, this’ll make everything better!” I finally rebooted. “Everything better?!” I shot up out of my chair, stirring up enough of a wind for cutlery to go flying. “Everything was better eleven years into the future before you screwed it up again with your little timeline jump! We were okay, finally! I was okay! We actually talked about things and it was really, really, great! Then I wake up and suddenly it's 1994 and not 2006 and Mom and Dad are both upset and nothing is right! Nothing is the way it's supposed to be! And you think it’s better?! Better? This has made everything worse!” “Ah. So you do remember. I had a feeling that you might. Tell me something, Jacqueline,” he paused, shifting in his chair and recrossing his legs. “How much do you know?” I puffed up my cheeks and held my breath, trying really hard not to show how little I knew. My hands gripped the table so hard, my knuckles looked like snow. (Come to think of it, they may have actually shifted into snow. I was angry enough that that may have happened. Ough. Embarrassing.) I let out the breath I was holding. "What do you think I know?" "I think that you know something I thought only I knew.” Jack stood up, serving me with a calculating stare. I shifted unconsciously into a defensive pose. “But given your whodunit questions and how much you seem to know about different timelines and the future, you must also know something I know, no?” He arched an eyebrow, steepling his fingers together. A pulse near my eye started up; it twitched. The temperature in the room dropped. “Well? Silence isn’t exactly an answer, Jacqueline.” I scrunched my nose. UGH. On the one hand, if I told him I didn’t know, he’d have the upper hand. BUT. If I told him I did know, then maybe I’d be able to get a little bit closer to figuring out what he did. Or it’d backfire and he’d still have the upper hand. “Hmm. Seems I was mistaken, then.” He looked relieved in like, a kind of smug way. My nostrils flared. “Nu-UH. The something you thought only you knew is also known by someone in this very room!” Jack dropped his arms. “Interesting. I would’ve thought that the clause—” "AHA! So it's a CLAUSE!" I pointed an accusatory finger his way. "AHA! You DIDN'T know!" he pointed an accusatory finger my way.

Ohoho! the cold front are FIGHTING! I'm surprised it took this long, tbh. How will this go? Who's gonna emerge from this spat victorious? WHAT DOES JACK FIND OUT ABOUT THE JOB? Check out Year 3: 2024 Edition on ao3 HERE for all those answers and MORE! :)

[coralhoneyrose]

What Have I Ever Done to Rely on You? - m!Chrobin one-shot

Plot Synopsis: The Shepherds' most recent battle did not go according to plan, and Robin thinks it's all his fault. Chrom is determined to convince him otherwise. (Post-Battle Hurt/Comfort)

Originally posted on ao3 with f!Robin as part of the Day 4 prompt for Chrobin week. I thought it would be fun to share an m!Chrobin version of it here for anyone who prefers that version of the pairing.

Rating: Teen

Words: 3,774

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Chrom ducks out of the medical tent, careful to ensure the flap swishes fully closed behind him. A biting chill has entombed their camp since the sun set; gray flurries diffuse through the air like dust motes and prickle where they land against his exposed skin. Beside the tent post, Robin waits restlessly—fists balled at his sides and his lip a raw red from being worried at. His head whips up at the sound of Chrom’s steps. 

“H-how are they?” he asks.

“Awake and stable,” Chrom replies, with a reassuring smile. “Maribelle’s already feeling well enough to boss the others around again.”

“And Lissa?” Robin urges.

“Much the same. Frederick and Miriel are attending to her as we speak.”

Robin’s shoulders slump with relief. “Good…that’s good,” he breathes. “Gods, I wasn’t sure if…”

A shiver ripples through him as he trails off. Clusters of half-melted snowflakes glimmer like miniature diamonds where they’re ensnared on his eyelashes and Chrom can’t help but wonder how long he’s been waiting outside the tent. 

“Why don’t we get you out of the cold,” he suggests. “Then we can discuss how to proceed.” 

Robin gives a tight nod and falls into step alongside him. Their footsteps crunch against the thin layer of frost that blankets the earth—the only sound breaking the silence as they walk. There’s still an odd rigidity about how Robin is carrying himself, and Chrom can’t tell if it’s from the temperature or something else. 

He leans closer, keeping his voice low. “Hey, are you alright? You’ve been quiet since we got back to camp.” 

Unthinkingly, he brings a hand to Robin’s waist in what’s meant to be an offer of reassurance, but the second his fingers brush against Robin’s side, he winces away. 

Chrom jerks his hand back, rebuking himself for the momentary slip. It’s ironic: despite finally knowing they hold the same affections for each other, they must be more careful about sharing touch than ever. Lingering hands were nothing to worry about when there was no hidden meaning attached. Now, every brush of their fingers comes with the risk of drumming up suspicion. 

“S-sorry,” he apologizes hurriedly. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine, Chrom,” Robin assures him, though his strained voice and gritted teeth leave Chrom less than convinced. He really needs to be more cognizant of their surroundings—no matter how distracting Robin’s nearness can be. 

They’ve made it to just outside Robin’s tent now, and he pauses in front of the entrance even as a gust of frigid air whips his hair against his cheeks. Chrom raises an eyebrow at him quizzically, unsure why he seems so hesitant to go in and take shelter from the cold.

Instead, Robin gives him a tiny smile. “Alright, what’s the first order of business, Captain?”

“Well, we’ll want to review the inventory sooner rather than later,” Chrom says, after a moment’s consideration.

“Right,” Robin agrees, “so we can stock up on supplies when we arrive in Ferox. What else?” 

“Nothing that’s pressing,” he replies. “With Lissa and Maribelle hurt, we won’t be marching tonight, so the route can wait until tomorrow. If you need a moment to warm up and rest—”

“I’m fine,” Robin interrupts. “I’d rather keep busy—you know, try and make myself useful.” He takes a long shaky breath before smiling at Chrom again. “I’ll be over to help with the inventory in a minute. I just want to change first.” 

“Alright,” Chrom agrees. “Do you want to walk over together?”

“No, no, I don’t want to hold you up. I’ll meet you there,” Robin assures him. He peels open the tent flap and hurriedly side-steps in, pulling it tight around him so only his face is peeking out. “You can just go on ahead.” 

“Okay, if you’re s–”

Robin disappears before Chrom finishes speaking. He blinks at the tent canvas, taken aback by the abrupt dismissal. Robin must be really eager to change out of his battle sullied clothing. 

Chrom is just turning to go when he remembers that the ledger for the inventory is still in Robin’s tent from the last time they reviewed the Shepherds’ expenditures together. Better for him to remind Robin now so neither of them will have to run back halfway across camp.

Chrom pokes his head into the tent. “Oh, and Robin; one more thing. Make sure you bring—”

Robin yelps sharply, severing the rest of Chrom’s sentence. His eyes catch up to his mouth, and a dozen thoughts crash into his head at once. 

Robin is sitting on his bed, his shirt pulled halfway over his head—just barely covering his chest. His coat lies discarded on the floor, and for a moment Chrom can’t manage anything but to be floored by his own thoughtlessness. Robin just told him he was going to change clothes and he still didn’t think to knock? Then Chrom’s eyes slide down Robin’s bare torso, and all of his embarrassment is swallowed by horror instead. Robin yanks his shirt back on, but it’s too late: Chrom has already seen the ribbon of weeping, scarlet skin wrapping from his ribs across his abdomen. 

“C-chrom! Get out of here!” he shouts, at the same time Chrom exclaims:

“You’re injured!” Immediately, Robin’s face crumples—guilt laden in every line. Chrom crosses the room in a few long strides and kneels beside him. “Let me see it.”

“I-it’s not as bad as it looks…” Robin mumbles.

“Robin.” Chrom’s tone brooks no argument. 

A sigh hisses out of him. With shaking hands, Robin curls his fingers around the hem of his shirt and lifts it to expose his stomach. Chrom inhales sharply as his eyes trace the wound’s path: it’s a brutal burn—furious crimson and already blistering. 

“What happened?” he asks, voice hoarse. Robin is his partner in battle—if he sustained an injury like this, he should have seen it. Unless it was when—

“...when the reinforcements showed up,” Robin says, answering Chrom’s unspoken thoughts, “and I sent you and the other infantry back to cover for our healers. There was still a small squadron of mages left to dispatch. My fault. I should have been able to handle it alone. But I was distracted and…” His voice breaks off suddenly and he shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

Chrom gapes at him. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter? How can you say that?” he demands. “You should have told me!”

He’s already berating himself for not noticing sooner. Robin wincing away from his touch before probably wasn’t motivated by a privacy concern at all—he was in pain. And if Chrom hadn’t barged in when he did, he might never have realized it.

“We’ve had other things to worry about,” Robin insists, a defensive edge creeping into his voice.

“Other things?” Chrom echoes. He can hardly believe what he’s hearing. “You mean the weapon inventory? Robin, you know injuries take priority over our damned camp supplies! You need to be treated for this right away, it—”

“By who, Chrom?” he snaps, voice warbling. “Neither of our healers are in any shape for that!”

Chrom’s eyes fly up to his—all his frustration snuffing out. “...Is that what this is about?”

“Well, am I wrong?” Robin counters, but he looks gutted. He drops his hold on his shirt, concealing his scorched skin again before slumping forward to hold his head in his hands. “We don’t have anyone to heal me…and I have no one to blame for that but myself.”

Chrom’s heart clenches tight. With a small sigh, he takes a seat beside Robin on the cot. “You are wrong, actually,” he says. 

Robin’s head snaps up to look at him, and he almost smiles from how obvious it is that Robin isn’t used to hearing those words. 

“There are things we can do to treat injuries even without Lissa or Maribelle’s help,” Chrom continues. “But even if there weren’t, that doesn’t mean you deserve to suffer through this, Robin. You can’t punish yourself for what happened to them.” 

“Why not?” Robin asks, voice wavering again. “It was my fault, Chrom. I’m the one who made the battle plans. I over-extended and left our healers without proper coverage. If we’d been spread any thinner, or if there were more reinforcements, th-they could have been—”

“But they weren’t,” Chrom interrupts, voice gentle but firm. “Lissa and Maribelle are recovering as we speak. This wasn’t a fatal mistake, Robin.”

Robin glares down at his own clenched fists. “But it could have been…” he mutters stubbornly.

“But it wasn’t,” Chrom emphasizes again, and this time he takes one of Robin’s balled fists and pries his fingers apart to weave them between his own. “But since you’re so concerned with hypotheticals, let me say this: even if it had been, the blame and guilt still wouldn’t be yours to bear alone.”

Robin shifts to look at him sidelong, and for once Chrom is glad that his face is such an open door to his heart: Robin won’t be able to ignore the sincerity there. Robin gives a shuddering sigh and grips Chrom’s hand more tightly.

“I just…I don’t understand why you’re not angry with me,” he admits quietly. “This is your sister we’re talking about, and one of your childhood friends. They were hurt because of my miscalculation. How could you not resent me for that?”

“Because they were also hurt on my orders,” Chrom says. “You may have made the plans, but it was my decision to enforce them. And that leaves me just as much at fault as you. I’d be lying if I said the weight from that isn’t overwhelming sometimes, but…” He runs his thumb over the familiar hills and valleys of Robin’s knuckles, soothing himself before he continues, “...but at the end of the day, I know I’m always trying to do right by the soldiers under my command—as are you. That’s all any of us can do.” 

Robin mulls on this silently, eyes fixed on where their fingers are wound together: as if their entwined hands are some riddle that needs solving. 

“What if my best isn’t good enough?” he asks suddenly. “What if the Shepherds would be better off without me altogether?”

Chrom chuckles before he can think better of it and immediately indignation flares on Robin’s face.

“Err, sorry, sorry! I’m not laughing at you,” Chrom apologizes quickly. “It’s just…you weren’t around to see what the Shepherds were like before we found you, and—” another wry chuckle slips out of him, “—believe me when I say there’s no comparison.”  

The hurt in Robin’s expression wanes into a watery smile. “Was it really that bad?” 

“I’ve seen bands of brigands with more coordination,” Chrom replies, grinning sheepishly back. “As much as I may be suited for battle, I hardly have your mind for tactics.” 

Though, to be fair to himself, he’s not sure if anyone in the world does. If Robin has a match when it comes to strategy, Chrom has certainly never seen it…and would not be eager to face them from the other side of a battlefield. Gods, sometimes he thinks finding Robin in that field when he did must have been some kind of divine intervention.

Robin huffs out a feeble laugh and scrubs at his eyes with the heel of his free hand—banishing the pin-prick beginnings of tears that had formed there. “Well, I suppose I’ve no choice but to take your word for it, do I?”

“You don’t,” Chrom agrees, squeezing his hand again. “We need you, Robin. And for much more than just your tactics. You’re the only reason I feel brave enough to face any of this.” 

Robin makes a tiny, strangled sound—a brilliant blush painting his cheeks. Chrom knows Robin finds his penchant for declaring his feelings so intensely to be overwhelming, but in truth, the cute way Robin flusters from it only leaves Chrom more eager to spill his heart to him.

Robin leans his head against Chrom’s shoulder, but for all the content in his eyes, there is still a strain to his smile. His body is contorted slightly to keep their sides from brushing—Chrom remembers all at once how much pain he must still be in. 

“Alright, enough talk,” he decides. “It’s past time we do something about that burn.”

Robin straightens up. “I was going to bandage it myself before you barreled in here,” he says, just a little petulant. 

“Well, now you don’t have to,” Chrom says. “I can do it instead.”

Robin blinks back at him, surprised enough to forget his own obstinance momentarily. “You’re going to?”

Chrom nods, moving to Robin’s trunk in search of the supplies he needs. Fortunately, most of their militia keeps at least a few bandages and concoctions on hand, and Robin is no exception. “When I first formed the Shepherds, Emm made me learn some basic first aid to use in a pinch. It won’t be elegant, but I should at least be able to keep the wound from getting infected until Lissa or Maribelle can look at it properly.” 

Robin flinches almost imperceptibly at the sound of their names. “I can manage it just fine on my own, you know.”

Chrom shakes his head as he settles back beside him on the cot, supplies now in hand. “I know you can, but you shouldn’t have to. And besides, I’ll be able to reach it more easily than you can.” Robin opens his mouth to protest, but Chrom cuts him off. “Please, love, let me do this for you.”

The term of endearment, still relatively new between them, slices right through any counterargument Robin could make. Relenting, he leans back on the bed to grant Chrom better access to the wound, and Chrom takes a breath to inspect it again. The edges are ragged and beaded with droplets of serous fluid. Despite being no stranger to injuries, his stomach roils: Robin must have immense pain tolerance to have concealed it as he did.

There’s just the matter of Chrom’s hands, then. His gloves are soiled with dirt, blood, and dried sweat from the battle—dressing Robin’s wound while wearing them would not be remotely sanitary. Chrom peels the first glove off, then tugs at the second with his teeth so as not to dirty his hand in the process. When he glances back at Robin’s face, he finds him biting down on his lip—eyes wide and fixed on Chrom’s now bare fingers with a breathless intensity. Chrom studiously makes a point of ignoring the flush it brings to his face: Robin’s injury is much more pressing, and he can’t afford to be distracted. 

With great care, he uncorks the concoction and empties the flask’s viscous contents onto the bandages.

“Alright,” Chrom says, keeping his voice steady and low—trying to inject in it a surety that Robin can ground himself to. “I’m going to put my hands on your sides to let you adjust.” 

Feather-light, Chrom ghosts his fingers against the edges of Robin’s toned abdomen, still some distance from the wound. He can hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears: he’s never touched Robin here before. Silk smooth skin glides beneath his finger pads, adorned with scars like copper cross-stitches. If only the circumstances were different perhaps Chrom could learn the path of each with his lips instead. 

Stop that! You’re getting ahead of yourself, he chides. If he doesn’t focus on tending to this burn properly, Robin could well be adding another scar to his collection. The thought sobers him, and Chrom shifts the bandage against his palm, aligning it nearer to the injury.

“It’s going to sting for a moment,” he warns him. “This first layer will be the worst.” 

Robin nods around gritted teeth. “Just do it.” 

“R-right. Okay…” Chrom takes a bracing breath. “Then here we go…”

As delicately as he can, Chrom lays the bandage across Robin’s scorched skin. There’s a faint sizzling sound as the concoction seeps in and accelerates his body’s natural healing process. Robin hisses in pain, fingers digging into the blankets of his cot, but he manages to hold still, and Chrom gets the first layer of bandages wrapped firmly in place. He’s trying desperately to be both gentle and efficient, but Robin whimpers, and he wants to curse his big, bumbling hands for not knowing how to make this easier on him. 

After a few more passes, though, Robin’s shallow panting eases to something steadier—a wash of calm settling over him. Chrom’s fingertips brush over the ridges of his ribs as he tucks the bandage edges down to lie flat and secure—tight enough to hold but not so tight as to be uncomfortable. He’s feeling pretty good about it…up until Robin shudders.

“Are you alright?” Chrom asks, immediately concerned. “You don’t feel sick, do you?” It can’t have been more than a handful of hours since the battle concluded. Surely Robin can’t have developed a fever already… 

“N-no, I’m fine…” he answers, but the wavering in his voice pulls Chrom’s eyes up to his face, and he finds it flushed nearly as bright as the seared skin he just bandaged. 

“You don’t look fine.” Chrom brushes a hand against his cheek and is alarmed to find heat pulsing off him in waves. “Gods, Robin, you’re burning up. We need to get you—”

“Chrom, trust me,” he interrupts, suddenly looking away. “I don’t have a fever. Or at least, if I’m feverish, it’s not because I’m sick.”

“What do you—oh.” Chrom breaks off as he registers how he’s leaning over him—one hand cupping Robin’s face while the other lingers against his bare waist. He sits up straighter and withdraws both hands, certain his cheeks must be burning just as brightly now. “S-sorry.” 

Robin waves his hand in dismissal. “It’s nothing you need to apologize for. It’s not like I didn’t—” he stops short, suddenly shy, but it’s easy for Chrom to fill in the rest of the thought.

“W-well, that’s good then,” he admits. “Because I’m actually not sorry at all.” 

Robin huffs out a laugh, and something fizzles in the air between them when their eyes meet. Chrom’s fingertips tingle at each point where they were touching his skin. 

“Robin, I wish—” he starts, but he cuts off just as suddenly. 

Chrom wishes he could stay with him—wishes he could spend the night at his side, combing his fingers through the sleek silver of Robin’s hair and murmuring soft assurances of all that he means to him. Wishes that he could love him so fiercely that Robin would never be able to doubt his worth again. The fact that he can’t is a wound all its own.

“I know,” Robin whispers, before his eyes fall—brought right back down to earth by the weight of their duty. “I do too.” 

Chrom’s heart kicks around in his chest; an electric current humming in his blood with every beat. Blazes, this war cannot end soon enough. 

Before he can do anything he really will regret, he cuts the tension by clearing his throat and rising from the cot. “I suppose now that you’re all patched up, I should see what other matters need tending to."

Robin’s face alights. “That’s right! I almost forgot. I still need to change so that I can help you with the inventory.”

He tries to sit up, but Chrom lays a hand on his shoulder, stopping him before he can stand. “You’ll do no such thing,” he tells him firmly. “You need your rest. I’ll take care of it.” 

Robin’s brows furrow, a protest budding on his lips. “But the burn is already healing. There’s no reason I can’t–”

“This isn’t up for debate,” Chrom interjects, before adding, more gently, “Rest, my love. The most important thing is to get you feeling better. I can’t do this without you, after all.” 

Robin’s eyes soften, warm as melted caramel. With a resigned sigh, he flops back onto his bed, sinking boneless into his pillow. “I guess a break wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world,” he concedes. 

“Then can I ask one more thing of you before I go?” Chrom requests. Robin hums in affirmation, so he presses on. “Promise me that the next time something like this happens, you won’t keep it from me.” 

A pause. Robin cranks an eye open to look at him and Chrom wonders if maybe he pushed his luck—braces himself to sit back down and argue through it if he must. He can see Robin mentally rattling off justifications for his behavior in the purse of his lips and the pinch of his brow. 

“...Alright,” he says finally. 

Chrom blinks at him. “Really?” 

“Yes, Chrom, really,” he says, attempting to stifle a laugh at Chrom’s obvious disbelief. “If the situations were reversed, I’d want you to do the same. So…you have my word: no more secrets or silent suffering. Consider me thoroughly chastised.” 

“Thank the gods,” Chrom sighs, and on a whim, he leans down to press his lips to Robin’s forehead—chaste but lingering.

Robin huffs, his face a pretty pink. “We’re not very good at this ‘waiting’ thing, are we?” 

“I think we can afford a brief lapse in protocol every now and then,” Chrom replies, attempting to smother his grin. “It’s important for a general and tactician to maintain morale.”

“Oh, really?” Robin sits up straighter. “Well, in that case…” 

His fingers wrap around Chrom’s collar, a coy smile curling his lips before he tugs him down and into a kiss. Robin’s lips burn against his, and a rosy warmth unfurls from Chrom’s chest all the way to his fingertips. He plants a hand on the pillow beside Robin, and threads the other hand through his hair, but just as he stoops to deepen the kiss, Robin pulls away from him, laughing.

“Easy there,” he teases, lightly shoving Chrom’s shoulder. “I’m still injured, remember? What happened to wanting me to rest?” 

The tips of Chrom’s ears blaze red. “Wh—you started it!”

“Yeah, but you were the one getting carried away,” Robin counters with a smirk. “Now go on, already: the inventory awaits.” 

Chrom grumbles and rolls his eyes fondly on the way out. He knows Robin well enough to realize he’s probably still not totally at peace with what happened in the battle—his commitment to bearing the blame for a failed plan is much too dogged for that. But if he’s poking fun at Chrom again, it must mean he’s feeling at least a little better. And Chrom will gladly endure a little teasing if it comes with the assurance that Robin is okay.

[bestshipsmackdown]

Can you tell us which ships have more votes so far or would you rather not ?

I’ll tell you the top ship submitted at the moment is Percy x Annabeth! Honestly there’s enough submissions for it on its own that it’s qualifying regardless of if it gets more submissions or not.

It’s been so long since I read PJO and I never finished the series because I was trying to read it around the time high school took away my love of reading physical books.

But honestly I think it’s really neat that that’s the one at the preliminary front of the pack!

[stobinesque]

I always forget when I finish editing something to post to AO3 that I have to do a whole other round of edits and proofreading because seeing it in the context of the site always makes me find some new problem. except that usually by that point I'm sick of looking at it for the day so then I don't

[spencerreidenjoyer]

guess | spencer reid x reader

wc: 2.3k, rating: explicit/18+

tags/warnings: slight exhibitionism/voyeurism, alcohol consumption (reader is not drunk during sex), lingerie, munch!spencer, cunnilingus, vaginal sex, unprotected sex

a/n: heavily inspired by guess by charli xcx ft. billie eilish, specifically billie's verse. yes the song dropped yesterday. yes i listened to the song once and decided to write a fic about it. i'm insane about s7/8 reid rn so :) (also posted on ao3!)

You swear you don’t mean to show off, but the miniskirt you’re in doesn’t help your case in the slightest.

Spencer had told you to join him at the bar for drinks with his coworkers, the bar just a couple blocks down from the club you were at with your friends. Your boyfriend had been away for most of this week and you really wanted to see him, so you don’t think twice about popping by to see Spencer. Besides, you hadn’t seen Penelope, JJ and Emily in a while either, and those girls treat you too kindly.

You realise how skimpily dressed you are when you walk into the bar, though, when you approach the very properly-dressed group of FBI agents at a booth in the corner. Your top is cropped and low-cut, revealing your cleavage, and you were wearing a little black miniskirt, the hem of which barely skirted the tops of your thighs.

Spencer has never commented on your fashion choices, often being the very satisfied recipient of your sometimes revealing outfits. But as you greet the BAU, his eyes are dark and hungry as they roam your figure. You smile at him with a whispered “Hi, baby,” before you kiss him chastely. The look on Spencer’s face is unreadable, other than the fact that you know he appreciates the view.

His gaze darts up at Derek from across the booth when he whistles at you.

“Looking good, mama.” Derek waggles his eyebrows at you, earning him a smack to the chest from Penelope and a hearty chuckle from Emily.

You lean over to hug JJ, Penelope and Emily in that order on the other side of the table, and you feel Spencer’s hand quickly snake across your waist, pulling you back to sit down. You glance over at him briefly, but he only keeps his gaze straight ahead.

“You are one lucky guy, Reid,” Emily laughs, and you feel Spencer’s arm curl around you tighter, pulling you in closer.

The rest of the night is pretty fun, cracking jokes and talking with Spencer’s team, but with the alcohol in your system from earlier, it only takes a few more drinks for you to get drunk. You’re extra giggly, half-sitting in Spencer’s lap, his hand not leaving your side. You feel the rumble in his chest when he speaks, saying, “I think we’re going to head home first. This one here seems a little drunk already.”

“I’m not drunk,” you lilt, rolling your eyes. You lay your head on Spencer’s shoulder, blinking hard before you meet Penelope’s gaze. You hear Emily defending you about how you aren’t drunk, but Penelope smiles at you and says, “I think boy genius is right.”

You frown deeply, almost comically so. “Penny! You’re supposed to back me up here!”

Penelope laughs, always so kind to you. “Come on, honey. Let Reid take you home.”

You huff, crossing your arms like a petulant child. You don’t notice the way Spencer’s gaze darts down to your chest shamelessly. Derek whistles, and you assume Spencer must glare at him because Derek is raising his hands in surrender, telling Spencer he doesn’t mean anything. What were they even talking about? You don’t know, but Spencer is murmuring in your ear about getting a taxi home, and after you say goodbye to all of his friends, you’re letting him guide you out of the bar and into the cool night.

You shiver, the very little fabric you have on not doing you any favours when the temperature drops. Spencer is quick to shrug off his jacket and help you put it on. His jacket is long enough on you, considering Spencer’s height, to cover your skirt.

“I swear alcohol’s supposed to warm you up,” you grumble, holding your arms close to your chest as you try to stay warm. “I’m fucking freezing.”

“You feel warmer for a bit because the alcohol is a vasodilator – it causes the blood vessels under your skin to dilate, increasing blood flow, which makes you feel warmer. If you drink more, the higher levels of alcohol actually work to shrink your blood vessels instead and make you feel cold. Do you have a headache?”

You shake your head, but take the chance to snuggle up to Spencer now. “You feel nice and warm.”

“Good,” Spencer says, holding you close. In no time, he flags down a taxi, and you two pile in and drive towards his apartment.

Spencer’s hand is drawing circles into the side of your thigh, mindless, but the touch is incredibly distracting. You ask him softly, “You’ve been touching me all night, Spence. Something on your mind?”

“You,” he whispers back. “Can’t stop thinking about your underwear.”

You squeak at his brazenness, smacking his chest. “You– Spencer!”

“I got a good look when you were practically bent over the table just now,” Spencer continues, his voice a low rumble in his throat. “Didn’t even give me a chance to guess.”

You gape at him like a fish, but Spencer smiles and murmurs in your ear, “You know how much I love when you wear that lacy black pair.”

You bite down on your lip, trying not to moan like a whore in the back of this taxi. You just look at him, silently wishing he’d do something. Spencer presses a kiss to your jaw, and you feel your cheeks heat.

Thankfully, the driver is quick to announce that you’re at your destination, and you and Spencer stumble out of the cab quicker than you’d like to admit. Spencer doesn’t even wait for his change before he slams the car door shut.

Spencer crowds you against the back of the elevator, an old, rickety thing with no camera, so you feel less bad when Spencer slips his hand under your skirt and past your panties, his finger sliding between your wet folds. “Spencer!”

“You’re so wet for me already,” Spencer groans, kissing down your neck desperately. His fingers are so tantalising, rubbing up against your clit, your hole. “You’re so sexy.”

“Spencer,” you whine. “Hurry up and fuck me.”

The elevator doors creak open on Spencer’s floor. “Let’s go, then.”

Spencer barely locks the door behind you before he’s kissing you, eager and sloppy and desperate. It’s so hot, his large hands on your waist pulling you closer to him, and you feel the growing problem in the front of his pants.

“Spencer,” you moan. You feel his hands push up your skirt, feel him wedge his leg between your thighs. You must be soaked through your underwear by now, and you shamelessly rut your hips forward to grind against his leg.

“You know I love your fashion sense, my love, but this is slutty even for you.” Spencer’s voice is dark when he says it, and you whimper. “You’re dressed like you want somebody else’s attention.”

Your eyes widen and you look up at him. “No!”

“Derek was eyeing you like a piece of meat earlier. Emily, too.” Spencer frowns.

“I only want you, baby,” you insist, holding onto Spencer’s arms. “Only want you to notice me.”

“I am the only one who knows the colour of your underwear,” Spencer hums, his fingers skirting the waistband of your panties. “And fuck, you look good in them.”

“Please, Spence,” you whine, your plea lilting off into a gasp as Spencer lifts you, getting you to wrap his legs around him. You’d seen how he looked when he was younger, so scrawny he looked like he’d get swept away if the wind blew too hard, but now, he’s got more meat on his bones. His body is a pleasure to look at, let alone feel under your hands, which you’re happy to do now.

You touch the firm lines of his body through his shirt, as Spencer carries you to his bedroom. You mumble, hands frisky, “You’re so hot.”

“Says you,” Spencer smiles. “I’m going to make you feel so good, baby.”

You grin as he lays you on his bed, gasping when he slides his palm over your wet cunt through your underwear. His thumb flicks over your clit through the lace, the material dulling the electrifying sensation. you whine, “Spencer, please.”

Spencer tsks, looking down at you. “Let me take my time with you, darling. You’ve been teasing me all evening.”

He presses his thumb against your clit a little harder, making you moan loudly. While he tends to tower over you in bed, you also deeply appreciate the view of him getting on his knees so he can make a home between your thighs. His hair is wild, unruly, and you run your hand through it, admiring it. Keeping your gaze, Spencer leans down to kiss your pussy.

You feel his warm breath on you, the scratch of his stubble on your skin, pinned down simply by his gaze as his tongue darts out to lick you over your underwear. You whimper, as Spencer wraps his arms around each of your thighs, using you as an anchor as he presses his face between your legs.

You sob, because what Spencer’s giving you just isn’t enough, not when you need to feel his tongue on your cunt. He thumbs at your hole through the fabric, dipping into your wetness in a cruel approximation of the pleasure he usually gives you.

“Fuck me,” you groan. “Take my panties off already.”

“Not yet,” Spencer hums. Instead, he pushes your panties to the side, lets his fingers slide over your cunt. You gasp at the sensation, his rough, calloused fingers sliding over your wetness, and then you feel the warmth of his tongue.

The sounds his mouth makes as he eats you out are filthy, obscene. His tongue flicks over your cunt with a practised precision, familiar with what makes you tick, the wet, slick sounds too overwhelming. Your toes are curling with how good Spencer makes you feel – legs trembling, breathing heavy. You can’t stop the whimpers that leave your lips, almost helpless in the way you moan for him.

“Please,” your voice is shaky as you cry out for Spencer. “I need you so bad, baby."

Spencer hums against your cunt, the vibrations sending shocks up your spine in your pleasure. “Okay, my darling.”

Finally, finally, he’s sitting up and pulling your panties down, your little skirt still pushed up to expose your cunt. You look up at him, silently wondering why he hasn’t taken it off. He plays with the soft fabric in his hands almost absentmindedly and says, “I think we should keep it on.”

You blink up at him, not coherent enough to say anything about it. Instead, you watch him take his shirt off – you whistle at the sight, while he just rolls his eyes. He unbuckles his belt and push his pants down, his cock bobbing up, hard and red and leaky. You bite your lip, thinking about how he’ll feel inside of you.

“Kiss me,” you whine, and Spencer smiles at you. He tastes of you when his lips press against yours, and he’s quick to deepen it, his tongue in your mouth, like he's close to devouring you whole.

While he kisses you hungrily, you feel his hand between your legs, moving to line himself up with your entrance. You moan as the blunt head of his cock presses up against your hole, the sensation you’ve been craving all evening. Cruelly, he rubs up against you just like that, sliding between your folds but not giving you the satisfaction you need. You’re close to biting his head off.

“Spencer–” you start, but Spencer decides to press his cock into you right at that moment, and you sob with the way his thick length splits you open. Every time he fucks you, you feel like he was made for you, filling you up in all the right ways, feeling so perfect on top of you, inside of you.

You meet his lips and kiss him lazily as he starts to thrust into you, at the perfect pace, just deep enough to hit all the right spots. It’s too good, Spencer knowing you and your pleasure like the back of his hand.

“Fuck,” Spencer groans against your mouth, finally showing some sign of his unravelling. “You’re so tight, darling.”

You gasp, groaning his name, legs wrapped around his waist to pull him closer, feeling like you could fuse into one person with how much you’re clinging onto him. You press your forehead to his shoulder, moans punched out of you with every one of Spencer’s thrusts.

“Feels– Feels so good, Spence, love you,” you cry.

“I love you too,” Spencer groans, voice low and rumbly in his chest. “You’re so perfect, my love.”

You sob as your orgasm hits you, crashing into you like a tidal wave. You shake as you come, feeling so positively overwhelmed with the way Spencer fucks you, the way he holds you, the way he kisses you. You can’t feel your legs as you come down from your high, head spinning with all the pleasure. “Spence…”

“I’m– Fuck–” Spencer’s tripping over his own words as he comes right alongside you, your clenched pussy sending him over the edge too. He blows his load deep inside you, sticky and hot and so satisfying. You can feel how hard he’s breathing as your mind clears, his arms trembling as he holds himself up so he doesn’t end up collapsing onto you.

“You’re perfect,” you hum in Spencer’s ear, soft and gentle as you kiss the side of his head. You pull him in close, letting him rest his weight onto you, and your hand goes to stroke his hair softly. “So good. I love you.”

“Thank you. I love you more,” Spencer groans, his voice a little raspy already. “I’m sorry if I was too possessive over you in front of my friends tonight."

“All is forgiven, especially since you were sexy as fuck,” you grin up at him. “You’re always sexy.”

“Says the girl in a miniskirt and black lace panties.” Spencer smiles.

“All the more I know what I’m talking about, then,” you giggle, before kissing him slow.

[aureatelys]

she lives in daydreams with me

pairing: aaron hotchner/fem!bau!reader rating: explicit w.c.: 7k.......

content warnings: 18+ please MDNI, fluff and smut, service kink sorta, mild d/s undertones, oral (f) receiving, vaginal fingering, semi public sex, age gap duh, employee/boss relationship duh, an excuse to write hotch eating pussy ngl

It all started with a cup of coffee. Or: You've had a crush on your boss for a long time, but you've recently started noticing him going out of his way to do things for you without you asking. Or or: Aaron Hotchner likes to do things for people. And by people, he means you.

read on ao3 or below <3

It all started with a cup of coffee.

You had just walked through the glass doors and into the bullpen, still waking up and desperately needing a cup of coffee, when JJ walks by you with a stack of folders in her arms. She gives you that look and motions towards the conference room.

You sigh and follow her, not even bothering to put your bag down at your desk. “That bad, huh?”

JJ grimaces. “Isn’t it always?”

You choose not to say anything, because she’s right. Lately, the cases have been getting more gruesome, more violent, and you’re wondering if it’s starting to affect you at all.

You pass by Hotch as he’s leaving his office and down the stairs, most likely going to make a coffee. You nod at him, giving him a small smile. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Hotch says, curt as always. He makes eye contact with you briefly, silently telling you that he is still waking up as well and that he’s not being curt on purpose, before looking away.  

Thankfully, it’s been a couple of months since you’ve joined the team, so now you know that Hotch doesn’t actually hate you like you suspected. In fact, he seems to have taken a liking to you based on the number of dry jokes and banter he’s participated in just this week. It definitely doesn’t help the tiny, miniscule crush you have on him.

You don’t know where it came from. Hotch has always been an objectively attractive man, but it’s not often you have a crush on a man who is your boss who is more than 20 years older than you.

Maybe it happened last month, when you were on the jet and he was placing files onto the table to run through theories, and you noticed just how large his hands were. Or maybe, it started when you had knocked before entering his office and he hadn’t noticed you because he was on the phone with who you assumed was Jack based on the excited whispers and soft smile on his face. Or, to your horror, maybe it started when you walked in for your interview, and you felt something stir in the pit of your stomach when he looked you up and down, his eyes lingering on the form-fitting pencil skirt you had worn.

A very tiny crush, you think to yourself as you situate yourself in the conference room, throwing your bag underneath the table.

It’s still dark outside, barely 6 in the morning, and the entire floor was quiet while JJ set up the files and photos. You yawn and you’re just about to get up and make your cup of coffee since there was still some time left before everyone showed up, when a mug is placed in front of you.

You stare at it, halfway out of your chair, before the wonderful smell of that bad yet addicting office coffee hits you and you sit down.

You look up to find Hotch sitting down at the head of the table with his own steaming mug. He looks at you, not smiling, but his eyes are soft. “I hope I got it right.”

You look back at your coffee. It’s the perfect color. He even used your designated mug you brought from home, plain and pink, and the image of him carrying it through the office makes you want to giggle.

You don’t giggle, and instead carefully pick it up and bring it to your lips to take a sip. It’s warm and absolutely delicious, sweetened the way you like, which is a lot. How does he know, you blink, a bit shocked that Hotch was able to make your coffee perfectly, more perfectly than you’re able to make sometimes.

So you tell him. “This is better than when I make it. Thank you,” you say sincerely, and chalk up the warmth sparking in your stomach to be from the coffee.

“Don’t mention it,” Hotch says, the corner of his mouth quirking up before turning back to his own mug and taking a sip.

You feel pleased that he thought of you, and then a little anxious because why is he thinking of you? He’s never made you coffee before and you wonder how he knew you like your coffee tasting more like sugar than the actual coffee. You blame it on the fact that he probably saw how tired you looked and knew you needed a little caffeine to start the day.

“Morning ladies,” Derek announces, striding in with too much energy this early in the morning, and making you jump a bit. He laughs at your reaction and then notices the man sitting at the table, looking up at him wordlessly. “And Hotch.”

“Morning,” he says flatly, raising his eyebrows at him.

Derek laughs and chooses to situate himself between you and Hotch. You silently try not to be annoyed by that as you take another gulp from your coffee, and then internally beat yourself up because why would you be annoyed, he’s doing you a favor.

You start reading up on the file that JJ placed in front of you when Morgan asks “Hey, where’s my cup of coffee?”

You glance at him, still holding onto your mug like a lifeline, to find him looking at you almost offended. You shrug. “I didn’t make it.”

Morgan whips his head around to look at Hotch, who acts as if he didn’t hear him. “Where’s my specially made Hotch coffee?”

He doesn’t even look up. “I only have two hands.”

You snort, almost choking, while JJ laughs and Morgan scoffs before he gets up to go downstairs to the break room.

You glance at Hotch to find him smiling to himself, mirth in his eyes, and feel the warmth in your chest again despite how tired you feel.

It’s probably the caffeine.

-

The next time it happens, it’s after you had gotten shot.

To be fair, you’ve been shot a handful of times already since being on the team, but still. You hate being shot at.

Luckily, this time it was your leg and not your stomach like last time, which absolutely fucking sucked. You had been on bedrest for weeks and was going crazy in your apartment despite Penelope visiting you every day, bringing takeout or a steamy romance novel.

You’re currently in a hospital in Texas, leg in a cast, and starting to get antsy. They told you you’re going to be able to discharge later today, but you’re ready now.

“Relax,” Hotch says where he’s sitting at your bedside, not even looking up. He’s finishing up some reports from the case they just finished, laptop on the bed providing a warm presence against your thigh. You try not to ogle at his hands. How is he even able to work with hands that big?

“I’m just ready to go home,” you say through gritted teeth. “I don’t know why we can’t just leave now, I’m fine.”

“You’re lucky the bullet didn’t hit a nerve,” Hotch says, now looking up at you. There’s a frown on his face and his eyes are tired. The bags underneath his are deeper, darker, and you ignore the pang in your chest when you remember the frantic shouts of him calling for an ambulance after you got shot, the warmth of his hands on your calf to press against the wound.

“I’m fine,” you say, rolling your eyes. “What I’m worried about is what I’m going to do the next case we get.”

If possible, his frown deepens. “You’re not coming with us on the next one.”

Something like irritability rises up your throat. “Yes, I am. I can still work in this stupid cast.”

“Yes, but the doctor said you need rest,” Hotch states, sitting up a little straighter after seeing the look on your face. He knows how stubborn you can get, and this time is no different.

“I can rest on the jet, at the precincts.” You cross your arms, raising an eyebrow defiantly at him. “I can still be helpful. I’m not useless.” Like hell you were going to go crazy in your apartment again, living off of frozen pizza and reality TV.

Hotch sighs, and whatever he’s about to say is interrupted by a nurse coming in to check your vitals one more time, your pain level, and then giving you the rundown to be careful, get some rest, blah blah blah.

Somehow Hotch is the one who is tasked with driving you to the airport after you get discharged, the rest of the team already on the jet. You hobble awkwardly through the parking lot with your crutches, and Hotch is right next to you with his hand on the small of your back in case you fall. His hand is warm, nearly setting your whole back on fire, and you shake that thought away as you stumble a bit into the passenger side of his car.

“Are you okay?” Hotch asks as he puts your crutches in the backseat. His eyebrows are furrowed as he looks at you with concern, his hands already out to catch you just in case.

You fight a blush and sit down with a grunt. “Yep, I got it.”

The drive to the jet is quiet besides the low hum of the radio. You stare out the window the whole time, just happy to finally feel the warmth of the sun on your face.

“Do you need me to stop for anything?” You turn your head to look at Hotch. He has some stubble forming on his cheeks, hair mussed, and he’s wearing that brown quarter zip-up you like. He has his eyes on the road and turns to look at you, eyebrow cocked. His lips are chapped.

You are struck with the thought of how insanely handsome he is.

You clear your throat. “Nothing I can think of.”

Hotch hums. “Let me know if there’s anything you’re needing.”

You nod silently, and five minutes later, you’re on the tarmac and stumbling up into the jet. Hotch’s hand is at your back again, barely grazing you, and making sure you don’t fall down the stairs. He’s holding onto your crutches despite your protests, and you try not to feel a little indignant.

“There she is,” Morgan singsongs as you plop down into a seat with a sigh. “How’re you feeling?”

“Ready to go home to my bed,” you say, immediately slouching down to get comfortable.

“I feel that,” Emily laughs, nodding, and then she’s patting you on the shoulder before she sits behind you.

Hotch sits across from you, and you try not to think about how this seating chart has become a normal occurrence. He doesn’t seem to mind, however, based on the small smile he gives you.

He’s setting up his laptop and takes out a couple of files from the bag. He then reaches in and places something on the table in front of you. A water bottle and a small bag of trail mix.

“Oh,” you say, caught off guard and not knowing what else to say.

Hotch clears his throat, averting his gaze. “I know you don’t really like hospital food. So.”

You’re suddenly reminded of the coffee incident, where he somehow knew how to make your coffee exactly the way you liked it and continued to do so almost every day since. You can feel Reid staring a hole into the side of your face from where he’s lying on the couch across the aisle.

Your stomach grumbles then, loudly, and you hear Emily laugh behind you. Hotch glances up at you from where he already has a file open. The corners of his mouth just barely quirk up, almost smug. As if he knew that was going to happen.

You wonder when he had the time to get you a snack. It didn’t come from the kitchenette in the jet, having been out of stock of snacks for weeks, and he hadn’t really left your side while you were in the hospital.

“Thanks,” you finally say. You reach forward to open the bag of trail mix. “You didn’t have to.”

Hotch’s eyes soften, his eyebrows relaxed, and there’s concern and something else in his eyes when he says “I wanted to.”

You smile before you can help yourself, ducking your head, and hoping no one else can hear how fast your heart was racing.

You’re hit with the fact that Hotch was thinking of you, planning ahead to get you a snack and make sure you were fed before you guys made it home. You notice the lack of snacks for the rest of the team and try to ignore the thrill that goes through you. It’s like he knows what you want before you know yourself.

Like he’s taking care of you.

You nearly choke on a cashew when the thought occurs to you. Hotch’s head shoots up at the sound, looking alarmed, and it looks like he’s about to get up and hit you on the back when you wave him off. He doesn’t look satisfied until you take a swig from your water bottle and give him a thumbs up. He goes back to tapping away at his laptop, but you can tell he’s still watching you out of the corner of his eye.

It makes sense now that you think about it. He’s made a habit of checking in with you at the end of the day, offering to drive you home if you stay at the office too late. Whenever you check out a location while on a case, he always goes first. He makes sure you’re getting enough sleep, reminding you that you can take time off whenever you want.

You’re not sure if you’re imagining it, but ever since The Coffee Incident, you feel another pair of eyes on you more often than usual. Sometimes you would look up and see Hotch staring fixatedly on a particular file or his phone, but you can’t deny the prickling feeling you get on the back of your neck. You’ve noticed your fingertips touching more, sharing looks when the rest of the team argue, knees and feet knocking together underneath tables.

You’ve noticed that not only is Aaron Hotchner, your boss, very handsome but extremely and undeniably hot.

His broad shoulders, his tall stature. His cologne, the way he fills out his suits. His deep voice that’s able to dominate and control an entire room and make you weak in the knees.

“Interesting,” you mumble to yourself. Hotch glances at you with that same concern etched in his face, a question forming on his lips. You smile at him innocently and knock your knees against his underneath the table. It’s easy to find him with the annoying cast on your leg.

He knocks his knees back, gentler than he needs to, and a corner of his mouth just barely lifts.

-

You are absolutely sure now that Aaron Hotchner has a… thing.

You don’t know what to call the… thing, but there is undoubtedly a thing.

It’s late and you’re the last one in the office. Well, besides Hotch of course, because he practically lives at the office.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to stay?” Emily asks, JJ on her arm. “I’m sure we can find something for us to do.”

You wave them away. “I’m almost done. Just got at least 2 more reports I need to finish my notes. Promise.”

Emily frowns, but you can see she’s slowly walking backwards to the exit. JJ looks like she’s trying not to tug at Emily’s arm to walk faster. “If you’re sure…”

You roll your eyes. “Go on and have fun with… whatever you guys are going to do. I don’t want to know.”

JJ gives you a wink over her shoulder and you watch as they head into the elevator, a skip in her step. And then they’re gone.

Even though you had just gotten back from the case, it takes you awhile to finish your notes hunching over your desk. It’s quiet in the building, silent besides the faint hum of the air conditioner and your pen scratching at the paper. Your hand cramps a bit and you seriously wonder why this has to be handwritten rather than being in the current century and use a laptop. You’re motivated by the thought of sleeping in tomorrow morning though, which means getting up at 9 instead of your normal 6.

You lean back into your chair, staring at your completed notes. You hear paper rustling from the office upstairs and look up to see Hotch’s door slightly ajar. You suddenly feel nervous being alone with him, as if you haven’ t been alone with him countless of times before. Recently, however, it’s been happening more, and you’re not quite sure how to feel.

You get up from your desk and stretch your back, groaning when you hear a pop. You take a deep breath, imagine your soft bed, gather your reports for the final signature, and head upstairs.

You knock, hear a faint “Come in,” and step inside Hotch’s office, closing the door behind you.

He has his desk lamp on, washing his office and his face with a warm golden glow. He hasn’t even looked up from where he’s writing his own reports, so you take the brief chance to stare.

He’s surrounded by piles of papers; messier than how he usually keeps his desk. His tie is loosened from around his neck and the top two buttons are undone. His sleeves are rolled up and you try not to stare at his thick forearms, the veins in his hands. He grabs a nearby mug to take a sip of coffee, no doubt already cold. Your eyes follow his mouth when he takes a drink, watch the way his tongue flicks out to lick his lips, and then to his face. Where he is watching you with a faint smirk tugging at his aforementioned mouth.

You clear your throat, fighting the blush that’s starting to crawl up your neck. You go to stand in front of his desk, files in hand. “I have the rest of my notes from the Florida case.”

Hotch’s face easily morphs back into his stern and professional look, but you can still see something dance around in his eyes. He takes the files wordlessly, opens one, and reads your notes for not even 5 seconds before he says “You have the names of the sisters mixed up.”

You blink, still trying to fight the nervousness you feel and the warmth pooling slowly at the pit of your stomach as you watch his hands. “Huh?”

Hotch points at the crooked paragraph you scribbled out. “The older sister is named Amanda, the younger sister is Cynthia. You have them mixed up.”

And suddenly the nervousness you felt from being in the same room as your boss, alone and in the middle of the night, is overtaken by sheer embarrassment. You must have been more tired than you thought. “I’m sorry.” You put your hand out for the file. “I can go fix it real quick.”

“It’s fine,” Hotch says, and somehow, you’re not surprised. “I got it.”

You think about the past couple of months and the small gestures he’s been doing for you. Even though you’ve known Hotch for a couple of months now, you can’t quite get a read on him. It’s confusing, he’s confusing. You hate to say that it feels like he’s giving you mixed signals. One second, he’s opening the car door for you when you’re on a case, the next he won’t even look at you when the team is at a bar for an evening. Now this? Offering to fix a mistake you made at work? Something indescribable crawls up your throat and you suddenly feel irritated, upset, and something else.

“No,” you say as professionally as you can despite the rush of blood you can hear in your ears. “I can fix it, Hotch.”

He looks at you then, something like surprise on his face. “It’s just a quick fix, I can do it.”

It’s just a little typo, why won’t he let you fix it, you think to yourself. Maybe it’s the stress from the case you just got back from, how late it was, or something else entirely, but you find yourself unable to stop yourself from saying “Why do you keep doing things for me?”

This time, it’s Hotch who blinks back at you. He puts his pen down and clasps his hands together, looking like he’s ready for a talk. “What do you mean?”

“This!” You wave your hand at him, now not sure exactly what to say. “You keep… doing things for me. Things that I am perfectly capable to do myself, you know.”

Now you realize what that nagging feeling in your throat was— anger. Has Hotch been doing this because of how old you were? Because you were a young and new agent, naïve and innocent and can’t do anything herself?

Hotch just looks at you blankly. You quickly try to read his face; he’s clenching his jaw, his hands where they were clasped are now clenched into almost fists, and his eyes are dark.

“You are perfectly capable,” Hotch says, slowly. “I do know that.”

You huff a bit. “That doesn’t really answer my question.”

Hotch is silent again before letting out a deep sigh. He closes his eyes, runs his hand over his face, and you’re starting to wonder if you’ve just ruined your friendship/professional relationship with your boss. You can almost see the wheels spinning in his head as he figures out what to say.

He smoothly gets up from his desk and is now standing in front of you, leaning against his desk. He’s close, nearly towering over you, and you can almost feel the heat of his body like this.

The close proximity makes you nervous, because this is different than sitting next to each other on the jet or in the car. It’s different because the entire floor of the building is empty and you’re alone in your boss’s office.

He finally opens his eyes, making sure to make eye contact with you. His hands open and then close, like he doesn’t know what to do with them. “I do these things because I like doing them. For you.”

You stare at him, not sure what to say and feeling overwhelmed at the onslaught of emotions you’re feeling. You feel pleased, shy, giddy, anxious, and overwhelmed.

It makes sense that Hotch likes to take care of people. He’s a leader, a father, and his whole life is about helping those who are in need. You’ve seen it in the way he checks in with everyone, the way he humors Reid with his ramblings or lending an ear to Rossi. You’ve seen it in the way he talks to children and the way he tries to make himself appear softer, almost smaller.

You see it in him now. If it was anyone, Hotch would look stoic or cold, however you can tell he’s just as nervous as you are with the way he’s clearly biting at the inside of his cheek, the tense jaw, and the concerned furrow of his brow.

You’re still not sure what to say, but you know what you want to do.

So, you close the several inches between you and him with one step, grabbing the collar of his pristine button-up, and kiss him.

You’ve clearly taken him by surprise, but he pretends to act otherwise as he gingerly places his hands on your hips and kisses you back.

His lips are soft, addictingly so, and he tastes like coffee when he swipes his tongue along your bottom lip. The feeling makes your knees weak and you think you let out a soft moan, but you’re unable to hear anything over the sound of blood in your ears. His hands, large and hot, roam from your hips and up your back, giving you shivers.

Hotch is the first one to pull away and you instinctively chase after him with your lips before he stops you with a hand on your shoulder. “Are you sure?”

You look up at him, not realizing you had to crane your neck so much to do so and feel that all-too-familiar feeling between your legs that makes you clench your thighs. His lips are already swollen, pretty and pink, the collar of his shirt wrinkled from where you were pawing at him, and his eyes boring into you like he’s going to eat you alive.

“Yes,” you breathe, looping your arms around his shoulders to pull him back in. Hotch goes willingly, almost eagerly.

Hotch kisses like he works—meticulous and focused, however his hands are needy with the way he runs them over your ass, your back again, and your breasts through your sweater. He still seems like he’s being careful, like he’s worried about breaking you. You weave your fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck and pull out of pure curiosity, marveling at the way Hotch lets out a groan deep in the back of his throat.

That seems to set him off because now he’s groping you a bit harder, mouth trailing down your neck and peppering kisses in a way that makes you breathless. You can tell he’s refraining from biting and leaving marks, instead making sure to pay extra attention to the spot underneath your ear that makes you gasp and grab at the back of his shirt. “Hotch…”

“Aaron,” he mumbles against your neck before bringing his face back up to yours, noses nearly touching. “Please call me Aaron.”

He’s looking at you like you hung the moon, like he can’t believe you’re in front of him. His face is relaxed, void of any stress, a faint redness on his face, and his hair is so effortlessly messy in a way it makes him look so young and devastatingly handsome.

You nod and move your hands up the nape of his neck again to touch his face, feeling the rough stubble on your palms. “What are you going to do to me, Aaron?”

He groans again and the sound goes straight between your thighs. He suddenly spins you both around until you have your back pressed up against the desk, nearly digging into you. Your breath is knocked out of you, from surprise or desire you don’t know, but then Aaron has his hands at the hem of your sweater. He looks at you, silently asking, and then quickly taking it off when you nod.

His hands immediately gravitate to your breasts, kneading them through the plain black bra you’re wearing. You’re almost embarrassed that it’s so plain, but clearly Aaron doesn’t mind from the way he’s staring at them, thumbs pressing with the lightest pressure against your nipples through the fabric. You feel them tighten, sighing at the soft beginnings of pleasure, and think surely he’s able to feel them even through your bra.

“Fuck,” Aaron curses, and you have never heard him curse and definitely not like this. For some reason, it makes you hotter, and you scramble to bring your hands behind you to unclasp your bra.

And then his mouth is immediately pressing hot open-mouthed kisses down your chest, between your breasts, and then onto your right nipple. You gasp and involuntarily arch your back to press closer to him, chasing his warm and wet mouth.

Aaron takes his time with you. He alternates between sucking hard to little kitten licks while his hand is rolling the other nipple between his fingers. You bite your lip in an effort to suppress your moans, trying to keep in mind that both of you are still technically at work. The thought of being caught during sex has never appealed to you, but for some reason, tonight it sends lightning down your spine. You could tell that you were already incredibly wet, probably soaking through your panties, and you spread your legs a bit to relieve some of the pressure. Aaron immediately steps in closer.

You suddenly feel the hot line of his hard cock against your leg through the several layers of clothing and it makes you moan even louder. “Please,” you gasp, nearly clawing at his back.

His mouth lets go of your nipple with an obscene noise and he’s back to pressing kisses against your neck now, soft and slow, as if giving you a second to catch your breath. “What do you want?” He murmurs, voice deep, and going straight to your wet pussy.

And there it is again— Aaron’s need to take of people. To take care of you.

You spread your legs more at the thought, feeling like you can’t breathe.

Aaron hums, stroking his hand along your thigh, and it feels like you’re burning through your slacks. “Is that you want?” The deep timbre of his voice makes you dizzy, especially when he talks to you like that; teasing, like he’s playing with you.

You nod, your words stuck in your throat. You feel the sweat start to gather at your forehead, your chest, and you can feel him staring while you’re trying to catch your breath.

“I want you to say it,” Aaron says before he’s lifting your hips up so you’re sitting at the edge of his desk. He then tucks his fingers in the waistband of your pants but makes no move to tug them down.

You glance helplessly at the door, thanking past you and the thought to close the door. You know there is a low chance of being heard since it’s almost midnight on a Friday, but again, the thought of being caught with your pants around your ankles and your bra off sends a shiver through you.

“Look at me.” And there’s a hand on your chin, pulling your attention back to the older man in front of you.

He looks absolutely wrecked despite all of his clothes being on. You didn’t notice his tie was gone, thrown somewhere in the office. Aaron is looking at you intently, eyes dark from how dilated his pupils were, and you can tell he’s just as affected by the way his chest is heaving up and down underneath his button-up.

“Tell me what you want,” Aaron whispers, his free hand running up and down your thighs. “And I’ll give it to you.”

Your throat clicks when you swallow, licking your lips, and you watch as Aaron’s eyes follow the movement. “Please eat me out,” you say breathlessly, and it almost feels stupid to say until Aaron is surging into you to press his hungry mouth against yours.

“That’s a good girl,” Aaron mumbles against your mouth and you want to melt into a puddle.

He finally pulls down your pants, helping you lift your hips up to take them off. He’s helping you take off your shoes and then suddenly, he’s kneeling on the floor in between your thighs.

You almost want to close them, suddenly feeling shy, until he has his hands on your knees to keep them apart. You can’t see his expressions from this angle, but you squirm when you feel his eyes and warm breath on your core, probably having soaked your panties right through. You wouldn’t be surprised if you soaked through your pants.

He lets go of your knee to trace your slit through your panties and you jump a bit in surprise, moaning nonetheless and grinding your hips up into his touch. You’re sensitive and have been teased for who knows how long, and secretly you’ve always liked getting dirty with some clothes being on. Blame Aaron and his penchant for suits.

 And then he’s leaning in and pressing his hot hot mouth against your cunt through your panties.

You gasp, loudly, and your hands fly to the top of his head. That’s all the permission Aaron needs, it seems, as he begins by swiping his flat tongue up you before dissolving into slow languid licks. He’s not exactly touching you where you need him most, but it’s enough for now. He’s messy and you’re starting to wonder if a mix of his spit and your wetness is dripping onto his desk, onto the floor, and the thought makes your thighs shake. You know he’s doing this on purpose to make your panties wetter, and it’s so hot in a way you didn’t know was possible.

You feel him hum against you and you squirm against his hands, mewling when you feel them tighten on your thighs. You secretly hope he leaves bruises.

“Please,” you whisper. As much as you love the thought of him so desperate to get a taste of you, him willing to take what he can get through the fabric, you need more. “Aaron, please…”

He groans, something masculine and guttural, and then he’s moving your panties aside from your wet pussy and delving back in again.

His mouth feels infinitely better like this, and you can feel his tongue swiping into your opening, gathering the wetness and completely avoiding your clit. You whine, grasping at his hair a little harder, and wonder if that’s his smile you can feel against your pussy. You grind against his face, almost involuntarily, and he lets you, even enjoying it based on how he moans and moves his tongue faster, exploring.

He finally moves his tongue to your clit and your eyes nearly roll back at the pleasure wracking your body. You gasp and tighten your hold on his hair. It feels so so good, and again the thought of Aaron being so hungry for you he’s willing to do this in the office, his office. Stern and cold, highly esteemed SSA Aaron Hotchner. Your boss.

“Fuck, Aaron,” you whimper and look down at him on his knees between your thighs. His eyes are closed, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, as if he’s just at his desk filling out paperwork or working on a case. Instead, he’s focused on eating you out so intensely, on making you feel so good, he’s so hot.

He opens his eyes at that, as if he could feel you watching him, and they’re a warm golden brown, pupils blown. His hands on your thighs tighten and he shifts from where’s kneeling on the floor. You could see he’s genuinely enjoying making you come apart with his pretty mouth as he flicks your clit ever so gently. You distantly wonder if he’s hard and leaving a stain through his own dress pants.

He gives a soft suck on your clit and your hips stutter, your breath catching in your chest as you feel that familiar pressure start building at the pit of your stomach. And it’s like he can immediately tell, because of course he can, and you suddenly feel one of his thick and long fingers enter you.

“Oh,” you gasp in surprise, eyes rolling back at the primal feeling of being filled. You wish it was his cock, God do you wish, but this is enough for now.

Aaron is still looking up at you and you can tell he’s about to move away to ask if this was okay, if you’re okay, but before he can, you put your leg on top of his shoulder and pull him in. You hope that that answers his question.

And because Aaron is Aaron and can somehow read your mind, he almost imperceptibly nods and puts his mouth on your clit again. His finger starts slow, despite how wet and open you are, as if he’s still teasing you. It’s almost enough for you; the steady sucking of your clit and something thick in your pussy, if he would only move a little faster.

“Harder, please, please,” you beg, unable to stop yourself, nearly babbling. It would be embarrassing if Aaron clearly didn’t like it based on the way he pushes his finger in deeper and harder, his sucking moving into hard licks to your clit.

It was good, so so good, and so intense that you wish you could swipe all of his files and folders off the desk and lay on your back to savor it. Instead, Aaron moves his tongue faster and that tidal wave is getting stronger. You instinctively push at Aaron’s head so you could catch your breath for at least a second because you don’t want this to be over just yet.

Aaron grunts and moves his free hand to your hip, grabbing you hard to keep you in your place. He inserts another finger, and it’s almost too much but it’s also just the right amount of fullness you want at the same time. He’s pumping them in and out of your wet pussy so fast, the lewd noises filling the office, maybe even carrying downstairs.

And then he’s curling his fingers just so, flicking your clit just so, and looking at you with eyes so dark and intense that you finally, finally come.

The shout of his name dies in your throat as you throw your head back, squeezing your eyes shut, and feeling that blissful white-hot pleasure all over. Your pussy clenches around Aaron’s fingers as he keeps his fingers curled inside you. You can feel your hips stuttering, unable to make your mind up on whether to chase the feeling with his mouth or away, but Aaron makes that decision for you as his hand grips impossibly tighter and laps at your clit gently to help you ride out your orgasm.  

You’re trying to catch your breath when you feel Aaron give a whisper of a kiss on your cunt, making you jump. He chuckles quietly and you blearily open your eyes to see him slowly standing up, hearing him groan when his knees pop. You don’t even have the mental capacity to make fun of him for it, especially when you see the look on his face as he steps closer between your shaking legs.

His hair is absolutely ruined thanks to your fingers and his eyes are soft with a touch of concern. There’s a near triumphant smug grin on his face, sweet dimples poking out, and the bottom half of his face is unquestionably glistening. He flicks a tongue out to lick his lips and you want him so bad.

You glance down and feel a shiver of pride and hunger when you see the line of his hard cock through his slacks, a wet spot barely visible.

“Are you okay?” he asks, and you nearly swoon at how low and deep his voice sounds. He uses his clean hand to swipe a strand of hair that’s fallen in front of your face and tuck it behind your ear. You can’t even imagine what a mess you look right now, face probably flushed and naked on his desk.

You nod, swallowing the dryness in your throat. His smile gets wider at that, if possible.

He leans in and gives you a gentle kiss and hums when you part your lips to taste yourself. The hand that’s migrated to cradle the back of your head trails down to the nape of your neck, gripping you in a way that was almost possessive. It’s hypnotizing and you feel breathless again at the thought of his hand around your throat.

You feel his cock pressing against your inner thigh, so close to where you need him the most, and you reach to fiddle with his loosened tie before trailing it down his chest. You can feel his muscles flexing, his stomach tensing, before passing his belt and pressing your palm against him. “Can I…?”

He groans against your mouth before pulling away, leaning his forehead against yours. You can imagine the veins in his throat popping as he tries not to cant his hips against you.

You’re marveling at the size of him as you run your hand up and down his length. You had a feeling he was going to be big but not this big. Your mouth waters at the thought of him between your lips, hot and heavy, or pulsating in your pussy as he comes inside of you, filling you up. You can imagine his biceps tensing, the veins in his forearms showing, and the way his eyes would close as he chased his own orgasm.

So, you’re shocked and maybe a little offended when you feel Aaron’s fingers circling your wrist to pull your hand away.

“It’s okay,” he whispers against your lips before you could say anything.

“But I want to—”

“Not here,” he says, now rubbing your wrist like an afterthought. “I wanted to take care of you first.”

You huff a laugh, starting to understand now. Something warm unfurls in your chest at that. Aaron Hotchner had always seemed like the type to want to make the woman come first, maybe even multiple times before his own release.

He steps away, adjusting himself in his pants and fixing the collar of his shirt. Your eyes follow the motions, fixated on his hands, and for some reason you’re feeling hot again.

You must have made a noise because Aaron’s head whips up at you, that smug grin that he’s not even trying to hide anymore getting wider. He leans down to pick up your pants and helps you wriggle your panties back up your legs and to your hips. His hands linger on your inner thighs as if he can’t help himself and you notice his breath getting deeper, his mouth parted.  

You’re just about to slide them off again, maybe even using your arm to finally slide all the papers on his desk off when he steps away again.

“My place?” He asks lowly. His gaze lingers on your thighs, your chest, and then back up to your face. The desire and want is plain as day on his face.

As if on cue, you hear the familiar sound of a custodial cart next door in Rossi’s office. Your heart leaps in your throat and you push off the desk to scramble and put your pants and sweater back on.

Aaron laughs at that, quietly again, as if they don’t work here and they’re about to get caught doing something they’re not supposed to be doing. Which, you guess, is somewhat true.

But then Aaron is on his knees again, your shoe in one hand and his fingers circling your ankle to lift up with the other as he looks up at you. His eyes are so sincere, sweet, as if he just didn’t give you the most mind-blowing orgasm of your life here in his office.

You smile at him, feeling the fondness grow impossibly larger in your chest, and let him help you put your shoes back.

You can return the favor in his bed.

[netherfeildren]

Busy, Dying. Part 1;

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader

Summary: In an in-between place called his life, Joel Miller is alone. In search of a cure. In need of a miracle. In want of God.

Can I interest you in a cure for loneliness? She'd asked him in a language without words. Taking it is the easy part. Letting her go is impossible.

-OR-

an a/b/o soulmates AU

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: No Outbreak AU, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Soulmates AU, Infidelity, Cheating, HEA!!!!!, Angst, Fluff & Smut, Mating Bites, Knotting, Heat Sex, Breeding Kink, Group Therapy, Social Experiments, Basically puppy training for unsocialized Alphas, And by God that man will be house trained by the time she’s done with him!, Complicated family dynamics, Discussions of self harm, Depression, Existential Angst, Author returns not with a whimper but with a KNOT, I wrote this in a very unserious state of mind beware 

A/N: Gray November, I've been down since July - but we're so back, baby. I’ve missed this so bad. I’ve missed you all, I won’t drone on and on. I hope you enjoy, and please talk to me in the comments. Update me on what I’ve missed, let me know how you’ve been and what’s happening in your life.

A great heartfelt thank you to all of my wonderful friends who so supportively cheered me on while I struggled to write this. Sincerely the best people I know. 

Love you all madly.

Word Count: 6.5K

Read on AO3

Part 1;

The old linoleum tiles are the most peculiar shade of puce, and Joel has realized that there is someone sitting at the back of the room who smells… strange. 

More brown than purple—an ugly color. There’s something about it that fascinates him.

The woman that is currently speaking tells of her husband; it’s the only tale she has to tell. She’s been doing it for weeks, and they all know it well by now. Older, omega, the woman, and at the latter and less comely stage of life. Most of them here can say the same. They usually give their names, those that get up to share—although it’s never a requirement when you attend, it is highly encouraged—the sharing, he means—but he never pays much mind to them—the names, that is. That’s not what he’s here for after all—to make friends. Although, he does see how that’d be the initial assumption. 

Joel Miller is here for something more specific.

Six weeks he’s been showing up to these things now, and he’s yet to take a turn. He tells himself he’s working up to it. 

What that specific thing is…he hasn’t quite figured out. He’s listening for it, though, and intently, even if he does skip over the names. It’s the details of what they’re telling that matter to him. The hows and intricate whys of what it is that brought them here today.  

Her youth had been spent on a drunk, the woman is saying—her husband—and he’d been cruel to her in those days when there was still currency to spend in the form of her vitality. Joel nods at the puce—yes, he thinks, that’s usually the way of it. But later, there’s more to the story she reminds her audience, he drank himself into a fit, and had never been right since. The cruelty had been taken away from the marriage after that, and she’d been put in charge. 

“But I wonder,” she says, “If sometimes I don’t miss it, the way he’d been,” —if the reason she was here now, with all of the rest of them that were just like her in their own unique ways, was that she’d been left lonely after her cruel husband had been exchanged for a sick one. 

Joel nods again and wonders what sort of face the woman wears as she confesses but doesn’t bother to check. No matter, he knows they’re the same. If not in designation, then in heart. 

It’s easy, that thing, he does it too, to wish for the bad. To want to hold on to it, the thing that hurts. Addictive, even, in some cases. Missing it is easy. 

It’s why he’s here. 

And it’s what they promise you. In their flyers and pamphlets, when they stand on the corners of streets talking people up wearing that look in their eye and that slouch in their step, when they smell it on you—or in the lack there of—a mate or a purpose.

Welcome to our meeting. We’re here to find the cure for loneliness. 

That’s what they promise you when you come here. 

It’d been that word: loneliness, actually, that had caught him. L-O-N-E-liness. There was something attractive about it to him. Not a label but a state. 

You see, it was like this: Joel had seen a therapist once, several years ago, against his will and at the behest of another, who’d said all the wrong things in all the wrong ways. 

“You sound depressed, Joel,” the therapist had told him. 

He’d worn horn rimmed glasses and had a shiny bald head he could see the reflection of the overhead lights in. And worse—the non-scent of a beta which told him they’d never understand each other in the ways Joel longed to be understood. He’d—not hated him, necessarily—but felt an immense apathy for the man; more so than the regular apathy he felt for most things in his life. 

“I don’t know what that means.” 

“Very, very sad,” was the official diagnosis.

Joel hadn’t liked the sound of the word. The label. He did not like that a word so succinct could be ascribed to him and all that had happened to him in his life. There was no word for it. It just was. 

But there was something different about a state of aloneness, which if attributed to himself, he could accept. He had been left alone, in ways. It was a tangible thing he could look around a room inside of himself and recognize. 

They’re meetings, is what this place is—encounter groups this coalition offers where lonely demi humans can come to congregate, discuss their aloneness, what had led them to such a state; their lack of attachments, connections, mates—alpha, omega. Held in the basement of the Emmanuel Episcopal Church on Newbury street, right between his shop and house, although they never talk about religion which he likes because he doesn’t believe in religion. 

God is still under review. 

He wonders if the Catholics wouldn’t have them. 

Sitting forward in his seat, the metal folding chair that always leaves his back aching something fierce, he presses his elbows into his knees to distract with alternative pressure. Focusing on his fingers woven together between his spread legs, he tries to pay attention to the man who’s stood up to speak now. Older than himself, late sixties, no children, no family, no nothin’; he’d run them all off. 

But Joel is distracted. 

The smell is stronger now. Stranger too. Something full bodied, but metallic like rust, astringent bleach, built in a way that forces saliva to pool heavy between his suddenly aching gums. A mask that sits atop something of a much different chemical architecture—that’s the strange part. 

Or—no. The back of his neck itches, and Joel lifts a palm to cup his nape, quell the sting, feel the tender mark. No. The strange part is not the illusion of the smell. What it is, actually, is that he’s fairly certain what he’s smelling is someone else's blockers. Something which he’s positive he’s never consciously noticed on another person in the thirty plus years since he’d presented as an alpha. 

He has, suddenly, the quite intense urge to peek over his shoulder, certain that he’ll be caught smelling things he has no business smelling. That there will be someone just there, breathing down the nape of his neck with accusation on their tongue—boo!

Silly. But he’d known today would not be a good day. 

It’d started off wrong. The milk had gone sour overnight, the check engine light had come on in his truck, all his socks were suddenly mismatched with not a single pair to be found, and his usual route to work had been waylaid by some freak accident. A tree split in half, one side into a house, the other into the road. Not a sign of lightning in the sky all night long. 

Perhaps he might be compelled to believe in God after all. 

Joel does not like it when things are out of order or out of the ordinary. His life was organized in a way that never caused him strife or excess. And it was not that he was stuck in his ways, only that he enjoyed his routine and disliked when things were not as they should be. And this—whatever it is he’s smelling, whoever—is not as it should be. 

The older gentleman, an Alpha too, is still speaking. He had a daughter, has, who no longer speaks to him. Won’t even take his money. He’d had a long career in government that’d filled him with greed and paranoia and a radical view of life that refused to align with the way young people saw the world now. Perhaps he’d tried to change at certain times, but he was old and set in his ways. Or maybe he hadn’t wanted to change as badly as he should have when he still had the chance to. Happily stuck in the past. His wife had died, and his daughter had gone away from him. Too tired of his mediocrity as a father to give him another chance. 

The man sounds like he feels sorry for himself. Like he thinks himself the victim, and this one, Joel does look up at. He looks old and worn down, heavy beer pouch and thinning hair and sagging jowls. A sad and lonely man. Joel wonders if that’s how he looks to the other people in this room, as well. 

“No man knows how bad he is until he has tried very hard to be good.” Joel blinks, looks at him more closely, tries very hard to find similarities between themselves. But no—not quite right, not the thing he’s looking for. Their plight is different. This man is not alone, he’s got his weakness to keep him company. 

The one thing Joel had fought like hell to keep out of his repertoire of issues. He’d run from even the possibility of it as soon as she was dead, left Texas straight for the Northeast and from thereafter, everything he’d done, he’d done with a staunchness of character. If at the end of it, that staunchness was made up of apathy or numbness or dissociative fury, well, then at least he wasn’t still that man who’d been too weak to save his daughter. 

That counted very much in Joel’s book. 

An overabundance of cold numbness, little anger, everything a static haze—an abstinent winter. That was his whole life. But then, look at him now, he was here, wasn’t he? He’d taken that brochure handed to him on that last warm Tuesday weeks ago as he’d headed back to the shop from lunch. 

Hello, sir. Could I interest you in a cure for loneliness? The young omega had said. 

It’d started like anything—an experiment or a desperate ploy. The monotony had been steady going the past few years, getting older, colder. He’d grown hard and solitary around his wound, loneliness spread like a fungus, and he’d longed for any sort of change. 

“A cure…how?” The terrible shrink had come to mind.

“Oh, nothing to fret over.” The young man had a nice smile, Joel remembers. Kind and straight toothed. Honest in the way that a stranger knocking on your door to sell you a Bible seems honest. “We call it an encounter group. People come, share, tell the tales of their designation and their lives. In the end, the result is different for different people. Some move on to a second step if they need more. Others find what they’re looking for just through the connection of sharing. But no matter the result, you’ll see, you’ll be cured. Promise.” He’d winked, smile deepening, giving him an appreciative once over at the end of his spiel. Joel had blinked back, surprised, confused, but curiosity peaked enough he’d obsessed over it for three short days before he’d found himself stepping into the molted incense smell of the belly of a church so dimly lit he was sure not even God peaked in this sad space any longer.

“It’s that easy?” Joel had asked, childlike in his throat-strangled hope.

“That easy.”

It seemed the smile had been honest enough to sell him the Bible. 

The scent insists upon itself as the older gentleman finishes up, and Joel’s nose tickles with whatever it is it’s whispering at him. He wants to get up and walk out, run away, but suddenly his gut is tight and hot, and he isn’t sure he can actually stand up without disgracing himself in front of all these people. A wash of agonized heat moves through him, confused at what’s suddenly happening to his body. 

“We have a newcomer today sharing for the first time,” Maria, the woman who leads the group, says at the front of the room. “Everyone give her a warm welcome, it’s her first day and already she’s brave enough to jump on up here.”

There’s the shuffling of bodies in their seats, a cleared throat, the man sitting behind Joel breathes so loudly he thinks he’s gotta have some sort of medical condition, the puce turns more hideous by the second, and his own heart is beating so hard in his ears the rush of blood is dizzying. He feels each thump of the thing against his breast bone in some sick imitation of a fist begging to be let out. 

The new voice begins as nothing but a murmur. 

An introduction—he misses the name. His breathing goes shallow, he’d tip over in his seat if he didn’t have both boots planted firmly against the puce. The voice gains strength and with it, Joel wishes he’d been paying attention from the start. He didn’t get to hear her name. 

It’s a girl.

She’d run away from home in the spring of her sixteenth year to join the opera, she tells them. Had come upon the city in roaring spring and thought the rest of her life would be exactly like that, pure novelty in bloom, nothing like what she’d left behind. And was deeply disappointed when the reality was nothing such. 

And Joel hears it, that disappointment in her voice at what she’d not been able to find after searching for it so religiously. This is what makes him look up at her. This, unlike all the others, he thinks he can relate to—just by the sound of her voice. The search for a thing lost which can never again be found. The fruitlessness of it all. 

At that first vulnerable, terrified glance, she’s already staring at him, eyes catching like hooks. 

He blinks once, twice—color—is sure he can hear the movement of his eyelashes passing through the air, the stick of his lids meeting—color—bright. This is it.

That wash of heat turns into a blaze, every single bead of sweat blooming on his brow is a tell evaporating into the ether. This is what he’d sensed from the start of the evening. Maybe even from the moment he’d seen that split maple. 

“My mother always said I needed to be stronger, bolder, not so sensitive.” She looks away from him now. “I grew up in an angry house where you had to fight tooth and nail not to be overrun. Because of this, I left it at a very young age, and it was the greatest fight I could muster, abandoning that house of anger. I found myself something to bring me what I thought would be joy, a job and a city, and for a time, it was enough. But starting your lonely life so young…it’s hard.” After a pause of breath, “It’s been hard.”

“And it’s made me never want to have to—exert myself,” she says, searching for the right words, smiling when she finds them, and Joel has the urgency to smile back. “Now, I never want to have to be strong. I never want to have to try. I want to only be the way that I am. If that’s weak or sensitive or whatever it might be at any given moment, I don’t care. I don’t want to have to fight. I never want to be in an angry house again. I want someone who’ll see this in me and understand and never make me work for it, that they would give it to me willingly, easily, without me having to ask. Do you understand?” She looks about the room, and he hopes her eyes will land on him again, and even though they don’t, he feels she’s speaking directly to him. He nods, the hook of her temptation cast beneath his chin. “This is a fantasy. And it makes for a lonely existence. This idea of how I need it to be for it to be right—love.” She looks down at her hands folded atop the podium where they go to stand at the front of the group and share, and he wills her gaze to find him amidst the crowd again. “It’s so difficult. And this might seem very bad to you, weak willed, but it’s not. It’s only very honest. Which can never be a bad way to be.” That’s why she’s here, she tells them.

Finally, she looks back at him, and it’s that loneliness of two people amidst a crowd, facing one another, knowing themselves mirrored against the other and yet still disparate. There’s something indecent about the way she looks at him in front of all these people, the way he, in turn, looks back. A little bit like finding your own face on a stranger's body in a crowded room. Color rises to his face, and she gives him that same elusive smile from before. 

He’s the one to look away this time. 

As the crowd disperses for coffee and pastries after the last of the speakers, he searches for her. He needs to ask her name, feels as if he’s some blighted creature without it, swears he’ll never forgo attention during a meeting again if he can fish it out of her.

He finds her at the dessert table, Maria at her side and a hand at her shoulder. Something of a thank you is being imparted between the two women. The girl is saying she’s grateful for the welcome, grateful that they’d found each other. 

Joel has things to be grateful to Maria for, too. His brother, mainly. It’d been pure chance that Joel had met her here, that she knew Tommy also. She’d met his brother on a summer trek to Wyoming where they’d become friends and had kept in touch afterwards. The woman has a thing about her that ingratiates people by sheer force of will. Perhaps it’s that she’s an alpha, too. Perhaps it’s just the charisma and wide smile. The fact that she has a countenance that takes no shit from anyone, that makes demands of a person whether they’ve got any give or not. But whatever the case, they’d realize their connection through Tommy, and she kept Joel updated on his brother whom he’d not spoken with in many years. 

Watching the two women stand together and share that easy thanks that Joel so urgently owes, and yet which he cannot voice, he feels, suddenly, so angry. So awkward. So humiliatingly inexperienced. So unable to grapple with the pain of human contact, the fascination of it, the humiliating necessity. 

That decade old anchor weighing him in place and the guilt of even thinking of it as such. 

I feel decrepitly alone and odd, he thinks. And how strange, no? He was a normal man. He has a normal job. He lives in a normal house. Unexceptional in every sense. Everything in his life had been ordinary up until that one great tragedy. And then, as if none of the before had ever existed, it was as if everything afterwards was one great landslide of wrongness. The filth of it slinging mud all over his life so that nothing had ever been right after her. 

So that now he cannot even approach this girl whose name he needs to know, and Maria, to whom he owes the last surviving connection to his brother. 

As Maria turns to go, she gives him an encouraging nod, sending him into an agony of shyness. She’d sensed him hovering. 

The girl remains at the dessert table, perusing the pastries. He can see her fingertips dancing over the golden, sugared confections, before she settles on a plain, glazed donut. He watches the bend of her elbow, bringing it to her mouth and thirty seconds later, the empty hand reaching for a napkin. He can’t help the huff of laughter it draws from him. 

Watching the unknown creature with her back turned, he peers down the length of himself. Wood stain marred t-shirt, old work jeans and scuffed boots, he’d come straight from the shop. Looking back at her, she seems perfectly packaged and pristine. The two of them, different as chalk and cheese. He tells himself he shouldn’t do it, turn around and go, leave her alone, as he steps up beside her at the table. 

Immediately, there’s the heat of her skin, the smell of her shampoo, and he realizes, and it’s silly because it should’ve been obvious from the get go, she’s an omega. The epiphany, not that she is one, but that he’d been too stupid and oblivious to notice, leaves him feeling vulnerable and angry. 

Any sort of hello that’d been coming alive on his tongue immediately dies. And he’s about to make a run for it once again when she speaks up from beside him, “Would you like a donut?” Her small fingers are dancing over the pastries, searching once again. “I haven’t had one yet,” she lies, “I can’t decide which looks best.” 

The dancing hand pauses over a golden brown puff pastry, seemingly coming to a decision, when she turns to look up at him. The scent of her isn’t just shampoo, not just the blockers he’d shockingly picked up on before, sharp, burning his nose. It’s her skin now, too. The dry sweat from hustling under her coat to make it to her first meeting on time salted along her limbs. Hot, sweet almonds. The shocking vermillion of the morning’s split maple comes to mind. He can smell her.

“A puff pastry?” She presses, quizzical crook to her brow at his silence and glower. “I think you really need something sweet. It’ll make you feel better.”

He wants to agree, to say he also thinks he needs something sweet. All he can manage is a short grunt because she smells…indescribable. Honeyed musk, something heady, like she herself had just got done baking, straight out of the oven and full of sugar into his waiting mouth. 

That earlier anger, it kicks up a notch. Why isn’t he fucking saying anything? 

She shrugs, as she lifts the puff pastry to her mouth he finally manages sound. 

“You stink.”

He doesn’t know when he became such a liar.

A pause, mouth open, straight, white teeth ready to bite into the fluffy sweet bread. He can see her small, pink tongue, and it makes him go a little woozy.

He might be losing his mind. 

She’s got elegant eyebrows that shoot straight up her smooth forehead. The look of her skin is glorious. “Excuse me?”

Now, there seem to be too many words spilling out of his mouth. “You need better meds or somethin’. Need to sort your shit out. Can’t go gallivanting about the world smellin’ like that.” Oh god, shut up. 

“Excuse me!” She takes a huge bite of the pastry. “I do not gallivant,” she shoots back, mouth full of sugar and Joel goes hot everywhere. “What is wrong with you?” she demands, the pursing of a prim little mouth as she chews, eyeing him maliciously. 

He hasn’t the damndest clue. 

She is not wary of him in the slightest, which in turn tells him he needs to be wary of her.

Another large bite, inexplicably she extends her free hand towards him—potentially going into shock and entirely out of his depth when he takes it, the vulnerability of tendon and muscle soft beneath his strength—offering him a firm shake. She gives him her name. 

In that moment, she has a look about her that tells him she’ll bite back if he isn’t careful, even if she hurts herself in the process. 

And now he knows you. 

-

“We might as well acquaint ourselves if you’re going to insult me. Don’t you think?” Peering up at him, he’s tall, well over six feet, and broad shouldered. Older, distinguished, but in a rough way, hewn oak, gray. “Are you typically this rude? Or is this a special occasion?”

Incredibly handsome. 

“I’m being serious.”

“I do not stink. No one has ever said that to me, and my blockers are quality. It must be a you problem.” The puff pastry really is very good. And this man really is very handsome. Coming here today was a good idea. 

One of the girls from the theater had suggested it, handing you a pamphlet with Looking for the Cure for Loneliness? emblazoned across the top, and even though she’d done it kindly, any other person would’ve taken the implication as an insult. Hey girl! No offense, but we all in the company think you’re super weird and have you heard about this support group for losers? Kind of like Omegas Anonymous!

Those hadn’t been her exact words, and you hadn’t taken offense. After the initial agony of embarrassment, you’d warmed to the idea. You’d heard of groups like these before. Congregations of demi humans where one could come to find community or connection. Be it socializing or support for people struggling with their designations and all that they implied, they served their purpose. And anyways, you weren’t in a position to be nitpicky. 

It’s true, you’re alone. 

So alone, in fact, that even the people around you could tell. Strangers, coworkers, your roommate and her girlfriend. Like some noxious cloud of loneliness following you around virtue signaling the desperate need for love and companionship and understanding you’re so in need of. 

You increasingly saw yourself as a dancer on her toes, trembling delicately all over, vying desperately to survive to the end of the song. A monster with too many heads. A Cerberus of the richest caliber. 

Two or three would’ve been acceptable—heads—but you'd long surpassed that and moved on to something unrecognizable and unpleasant. Desperately in need of a solution. 

“Maybe you’re the one that stinks. Maybe it’s your upper lip.” And voila, the monster makes her debut. 

“My—” The rude alpha, obvious, that one, lets out a choked sound, a deeper wash of color immediately flooding his cheeks. You dip your head sideways, appraising him as you polish off your second pastry. He has pretty bone structure, masculine, and after he’s done choking and spluttering, he can’t help but laugh a little bit. You see it. 

Beneath a mouth that looks forbidding, perhaps even a little cruel, you can sense that he is not an unkind man. 

Yet you’re not so green that you can’t recognize the gnawing hunger of loneliness in others. There’s always a reason people find themselves in places like these. His face, edged with the weariness of age, makes this obvious. He has good reason for subjecting himself to this. 

Reaching for the lovely eclair you’d been deciding between earlier, you take a large bite of it. Almond cream and a thick layer of icing on top, humming happily as you chew while he stares at you like the three headed dog. 

You hold the dessert out towards him, offering. Palm up, he shakes his head no, slightly disgusted look on his face. 

“So. You come here often?”

He blinks. “Really?” Patronizing look on his face now. 

“Why not? I am actually interested to know if this is worth my time.”

He rolls his eyes. Oh, he’s fun. “Yes, I come here often. Every Friday, for the past two months just about.”

“And you like it?”

“Is this the sort of place one likes?”

“Oh, come on. You never know what you might find.” He watches your mouth as you finish the eclair, swallowing hard. “Anyways, I think the world is kind of over out there. Don’t you? Might as well make the best of it in here.” 

Thumb pressed against the edge of the table, he looks down, suddenly awash with shyness once again. A shy alpha, who’d of thought. 

“What did you used to do?” He asks, motioning at the crowded room full of chatting alphas and omegas. You wonder how many of them will go home together for a fuck after this. 

“When?” You ask, sure he means in lieu of this group, if you’d ever had another form of demi human community. 

“Before this.”

“Before this? Nothing.” Smiling at him, certain he isn’t picking up on your teasing. 

“Nothing?”

“Nope. I’ve always been here.”

“But— Don’t you…I thought...” He’s cute, shaking his head like you’re just too confusing to sustain. “You sing, right?” He pivots. 

“Sing? Me? Whatever made you think such a thing?” The sly look on your face goes completely over his head and slides to the rest of the sweets. If he wasn’t watching, you’d have another. 

“You said. You said you’re in the opera,” he gruffs back, looking visibly aggravated now. 

Such fun. 

“I’m a supernumerary,” you concede as you turn, making your way to an old relic of a pew along the far wall, tragically abandoning the desserts. 

He follows as you go, sitting a respectful distance beside you. 

“I don’t know what that is.”

“We’re the actors that fill the stage at the opera.”

“No singing?”

You shake your head, flirting with him. “I’m a wench, I’m a courtesan,” You bat your lashes, fingertips pressed coquettishly beneath your chin, “Part of a harem. I’m every woman you’ve never known. It depends on the opera.”

“I’ve never heard of that before.”

“I started as a stagehand when I first got to Boston. Worked my way up.”

“How’s it work? Lines or somethin’?”

“No lines. No anything. I’m a background actor—an extra, basically. If anything, I’m given some simple choreography direction, laugh, sigh, show fear, horror, shock. Whatever. I’m playing pretend without actually having to do anything.”

“No working for it.”

Your smile melts to blandness. So he’d been listening, then. 

“Did you want to sing?”

“No. I wanted to be a supernumerary.”

“Strange. I’ve never heard of that,” he repeats.

“You did say, yes.” Now, the smile turns auspicious. Everyone’s here for something. “What do you do?” Perhaps this is it for him. 

You eye the rest of the congregation, at the far exit, there’s a large alpha helping an omega into his coat. 

“Got a shop, furniture, woodworking and such.”

“You make things?” He nods. “Ah, a man of creation.” 

Sitting back to take him in, he’s got the beginning insinuations of silver speckling the dark hair at his temples, a well groomed beard, and large, intimidating hands. 

His small huff of laughter is bashful, tinged with something disappointed. “No, nothin’ that grand.” And he’s got an accent heavy at the ends of his words, not Bostonian. Southern.

“But you know, I wanted to say…”

“Yes?” You press when he loses his courage, leaning towards him, inhaling deeply. 

“Well, that I know what you meant earlier. Sometimes I can be the angry house.”

You blink once. Sit back. “I see.” 

“It’s hard work. I have to try every day at it.” 

Hard work being the house, or not? Two opposite sides of the same coin. 

“How do you stop yourself?” You cast a line, fishing for his character.

“Don’t know. Keep myself cold, I think.”

“That’s no way to be.”

“No. It’s not.” He sounds amused. You want to bite him.

Everyone’s here for a reason. 

“Ah, well. Perhaps that’s what’s brought you here then,” you say, twisting the toe of your sneaker against a scuff on the old hardwood, leaning forward on your palms wrapped around the edge of the pew. 

“Maybe,” he says, but a sort of pained, exasperated sound follows it. Your hung head turns to peer at the handsome face, and he’s already looking at you. 

There’s something animal afoot. Perhaps in terms of designation, sure, of course, like the rest of the alphas and omegas here. Your designations weigh heavily in the air. But also intrinsic to your two personalities. You feel you know him. That the two of you might have the same sorts of problems, desires. And as you stare at him, you think you may be equally measuring each other’s character, finding that similarity in one another. 

His eyes move quickly between yours, over your face, and you can tell that prolonged eye contact isn’t his norm.

He has the most surprising set of bright hazel eyes like river stones. 

Suddenly, you feel desperate to pull out a flicker of sexuality in the man, hear it in his voice. Sure, that with him, the experience would be entirely different, exhilarating. Perhaps a challenge. He seems to be more quiet and more patient than any other man you’d ever come across, but also more stern—taking in that soft mouth held so firmly. Far more remote too, by the far away look in his gaze. You want to see how he could be moved and what the sight of it would look like. 

“Maybe not,” he finally continues. “I’m looking for something, I think.” 

“Something like what?”

“Someone like me.”

“An alpha?”

“No,” he looks away, cringing. The word out loud seems a shock to him. “Did you listen to the woman at the start—missing the bad thing? I struggle…with that. Holding on, not letting go even when I know I should.”

You’re at an age now which sometimes makes it hard to realize or accept that what you’re living is your life. That it’s been time to grow up. That you have to remember to move forward when it’s your turn in line. 

Which is to say, that you understand him—the difficulties of knowing when to hold on and when to give up.

“Sometimes you hurt yourself because you don’t have anything else to do. Sometimes, because the alternative is much worse.”

“Holding on ‘cause there’s nothing else to do?”

“Sure. Or you’re used to it.” You’ll be gentle with him, you decide. He’s in need of gentle handling despite the stern face; not a puzzle so arbitrarily solved. And those eyes are still so bright, he doesn’t seem like he needs any more hardship.

“Don’t know why I’m tellin’ you this,” he says, accent heavy. 

“Well you did come here for a reason. Didn’t you?” Discreetly, you slide closer to his side, but he doesn’t notice. Apparently lost in the realization that perhaps this was what he’d come here for, to talk to someone, to have someone listen and relate. You’re almost positive he’s never gotten up to share with the group before in all his time coming to the meetings; doesn’t look like the type.

“I came here because I’m going to take better care of myself,” you tell him. “I’m going to try harder.”

“Harder at what?” He blinks as if attempting to come out of a dream.

“Everything. I don’t want to end up like my parents; drunk, angry, alone. I’m scared of it. I’ve avoided at least two of them.”

“I’m afraid of getting older,” the dream moves in his eyes. “That I’ll forget,” he says, but you don’t ask what.

All of a sudden, he seems very real. The swells of grief and loneliness moving through him so similarly, so close to the surface. 

Springing up, you turn to face him and he follows to stand too. You can hear the crack of his knees unfolding, and when he lifts his left palm to stifle a gruff cough, the band of gold around his finger is paralyzing. 

All of a sudden, he’d seemed like what you’d been looking for here too. There’s laughter coming from the church rafters. 

“You’re a widower?” He wants to forget, he’d said he wants to let go. 

Hadn’t he?

But instead, “What? No.” You stare pointedly at the ring, and he looks down at it also. “No,” he repeats. 

“So’re you looking for a fuck, or what?” You try and hold back the bite it comes with, but you can’t.

“No. No. That’s not what I’m looking for.” 

You don’t understand, impaired by your youth, you forget you’d chosen to be gentle with him. “Maybe it’s what you need,” you tell him, turning towards the exit before you can watch him cringe.

He follows at your heels, grabbing his coat from the hook by the doors before he’s stepping out after you into the fall blister. It’s cold and wet and glorious out. 

“Don’t you have a coat?” He demands.

“Nope.” You start walking towards Arlington Street and the park. 

“Did you walk here? It’s freezing out.”

“I did,” you turn back towards him, still moving, and he starts to follow. 

“From where?”

“Downtown.”

“Where?” He scowls at your uncooperation, the married man. Alpha. The truth was that he’d smelt strange to you too. Like no one ever had before. As glorious and shocking as the cold. Like if snow had a scent. Disappointment churns in your gut alongside the excitement at the sight of him stalking after you. 

“I don’t think you know it.” Your backward walk is interrupted as a hurrying stranger bumps into you, sending you staggering. Watch it, the Boston snark spits. The alpha turns to scowl, heavy boot forward like he’s half a mind to follow after the person you’ve just inadvertently assaulted. 

And it occurs to you, “You didn’t tell me your name.” How silly of you. You’d been so distracted you’d forgotten to ask, and what if you never see him again after this? What if you can’t muster the courage to come back again next week? What if he can’t?

“It’s Joel.” 

You think it sounds right. 

“I might—know it.” Where you’re headed to. You smile at the dog with a bone. The disappointment pulses. “Is it far?” He presses. You shrug, looking over your shoulder. You’re going to lose yourself in the garden for a few hours, forget about him. “Why don’t you drive?”

“I like to walk,” you tell him, turning back. 

He looks at you like he doesn’t like the things you say much less the way you say them much less the way you’re grinning at him. Perhaps he can see the disappointment and is disturbed by the sight of it, but the possibility seems too altruistic. 

“You should try it sometime, Joel. You might like it too.”

His huge body seems to be shivering in the cold. 

“I think…” The look on his face has turned suspicious now. He takes a step towards you. “You’re very strange. And you’re very young. I don’t think we should be friends.”

Your heart gives a demanding thump. “We’re not going to be friends.” When you’d first spotted him in the crowd, the strangest feeling had come over you. A tug behind your belly button, a scalding heat at the back of your neck, at your wrists. Perhaps it’s merely imagination, the look of disappointment you think you see on his face right before you turn away from him to continue on walking. “And I’m not that young anymore.”

You’d known today was going to be a good day. Extra cinnamon in your latte, a late start to your morning, warm in bed, no rain in the sky despite the cloud cover. And your director, late for rehearsals after some freak accident had befallen the roof of his house.

“That’s what all young people say.”

Part 2;

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

Updates Blog

[iclarye]

Good Looking

pairing: opla!sanji x reader

summary: your plan was quick and simple. you would go to the kitchen, make some tea to ease your headache, and then return to your comfy bed. you weren't expecting to come across your crew's blonde cook barechested cutting carrots.

word count: 3.1k

warnings: 18+ content, smut, swearing, pet names, kitchen sex, oral sex (m and f receiving), fingering, cunnilingus, semi public sex, PIV

authors note: english is not my first language, sorry for any mistakes. read this fanfic on ao3: good looking. enjoy!

You are used to this. The utterly exhausted sensation after several hand-to-hand combats, so when the headache started when you finally lay down in bed, you just decided to ignore it; the sleep would catch up before it got.

Until the needed sleep never got you. So, after an hour or two of rubbing your temples and staring at the ceiling while feeling envy-induced annoyance for Nami’s peaceful breathing, you pushed yourself to stand up.

Even if the cool night air almost makes you wish you hadn't left your warm bed, you needed that green tea to stop the pounding headache in the back of your head. The kitchen lights shining through the window went undetected as your mind was busy figuring out how you could prepare the drink quickly so that the pain could cease as soon as possible.

“Oh, it’s you, darling. Is everything alright?” As you walked into the door and recognized Sanji's words, you snapped out of your thoughts and began to look over your surroundings. He was not wearing any type of shirt while he sliced carrots from behind the counter.

Barechested. Topless. Half naked.

“Y-yes, I mean, no. Just a headache.” You gaze the blonde in the eyes as you stumble through your sentences, you are merely vaguely aware that your face is beginning to turn red. “I just want that green tea; I know it's somewhere around here. I saw Nami storing it in the cabinets earlier.”

You felt foolish. You became used to seeing shirtless men given that you lived in the middle of the ocean and therefore often came across Luffy, Usopp, and even Zoro barechested. They would often walk around the deck that way on hot days. Sanji, however, always showed up in a suit or, at the very least, had a formal shirt rolled up to his elbows. Even so, there was no chance of seeing him dressed otherwise since he went to sleep after you and woke up before everyone.

“I can do it for you; it’s my job after all, taking care of my sweet girl.” He placed the knife down, threw the chopped carrots in a nearby pot, and proceeded to go through the cupboards. “Love, do you remember where she stored it? There are plenty of cabinets in this place.”

"What are you doing here?" You instantly regret your tone as you noted Sanji just froze in his search.

“I mean, sorry, the kitchen is your place, I know. I just never saw you here this hour, and me and Luffy go here to do midnight snacks sometimes”

“I could not sleep”

“Me too” Once again, an irrational remark. He was informed that you were having trouble falling asleep; that's why you were there. “Why the carrots?”

“The attack that happened today. I had hoped for more food, but I believe you are aware of how fucked our situation is.” He continued looking for the tea while chuckling flatly. “We don't know when we will receive more supplies; we right now have barely anything stocked. Even the carrot peels have been put to use in an effort to reduce waste, you know.”

You weren't sure how to respond. It was clear that everyone's mood was negatively affected by today's incident. The worry of what would happen in the next few days or weeks was filling your head since Usopp managed to escape the ship. His back was to you, so you were unable to see his facial expressions, but you couldn't help but notice his muscles.

You felt a little guilty since you couldn't take your focus away from it, despite him having just voiced some serious concern. Has he lately started working out, or has he always had muscles like that?

“Are you and Luffy close then?”

The sudden break in silence confused you as he turned toward you with the pot of tea in his hands and a pleased smile.

“I suppose so. After all, he was the one who invited me to join the crew, right?” You smirked at the thought. It wasn't much time—perhaps a few months—and you were losing track of time at sea. “I fearlessly agreed to become a pirate, although I had never spent more than two weeks on a boat.”

“I remember that. You were so naive”

Of course he remembers. When you joined the crew, it was very easy to have a conversation with Sanji; he was constantly complimenting you or flirting in a straightforward manner. You never took him seriously, hearing about the blonde's techniques from Nami from the first day, but it was often hard not to chuckle or blush when he was so…

“Not anymore.”

He grinned at you before returning his attention to the tea. It was impossible to look away from his bare chest. You were unable to rest your mind from imagining how his skin would feel on your hand now that he was in your line of sight. You are already aware that he's a good-looking man, but now seeing more of his body did things to you.

“All right, madam. Here is your tea.” He circles the counters until he's right next to you. Really close. His eyes twinkle with recklessness, and you know he caught you staring at his figure.

You ignore the tickle in your lower belly as you stand there, grab the mug in your hands, and sip while gazing at his face. He still has that typical smirk, and when you finally finish drinking your tea, he glances at your lips before returning to your eyes. Everything becomes fuzzy and hot then.

He's very close. His hand has been lying on the counter, his chest is nearly brushing your own, and you can't help but notice his modest, almost transparent blonde hair in there. Perhaps it's a sign for you to walk away, that this is going in a dangerous direction, but you can't.

“What dear? See something you lik-”

You interrupt him with a kiss; it's all very messy and quick, and he is unable to have time to handle everything. You come to an abrupt halt and stare at him with wide eyes, realizing what you have done.

“Sanji, fuck, I’m so sorry, I didn’t meant t-”

He didn't let you finish the apologies. His hand pulls your head back, bringing your lips together. The kiss looks right now. It begins carefully, with both sides cautious, but it quickly gets heated as he doesn't hesitate to push his tongue into your mouth.

You’re breathless when he finally pulls away, and his eyes are hungry. He didn't think twice before pressing his open mouth and tongue on your neck. A moan escapes from your lips.

His left hand shifts down to grab your hip, and you catch your breath. Your hands graze his nipples as you reach for his pecs, and he hisses at the fresh sensation in your throat.

“Gods Y/N, you’re going to kill me this way”

You chuckled, and he kissed you again, although this time you took charge, moving one of your hands to his blonde hair before tilting his head to grant you more access. You stop the action just to take a moment to recover and gaze into his dilated pupils. He looks so attractive like that that you can’t help but want to go down on him.

”Sanji,” You whisper breathlessly, enjoying the sensation of his name in your mouth, “let me taste you.”

He groans in response, which you take as encouragement as you lean down and proceed. You lick and kiss the trail that leads to his crotch, and he hisses softly, his abdomen tense beneath your hands and mouth. As you get down on your knees and look at his pants, you can see his erection, which seems big and marked.

You don't hesitate to pull down the waistband of his pants and boxers together, exposing his hard, leaking cock to your eyes. It's big. It's more than you expected. There's a buildup of cum at the head, and you reach forward and wrap your lips around it, licking gently just to tease.

You look up as you swirl your tongue over the tip and dip your tongue into the slit to see him biting his lower lips, his head thrown back. You wanted to see his face while sucking him. So you take him out of your mouth and cautiously wrap a hand around him, teasing him a little with your hand. Your movements are agonizingly slow as you lightly suck and lick the sensitive head until finally he looks down.

“Oh, darling, you’re so pretty like that.” Sanji whined above you, and then your mouth opened around the head of his cock, and he slid it into your mouth. “Fuck, fuck. So… so perfect.”

You can clearly see the blonde struggling to keep his composure, like how his knuckles are white while gripping the counter behind him. You relax your throat, take a long breath through your nose, and exhale slowly before swallowing him whole while gripping his inner thighs.

His penis is large, so the initial sensation isn't the most pleasant, but as he lets out a loud groan, you forget about everything. Something about hearing Sanji whine in the kitchen while you gagged on his cock made the aching between your legs unbearable.

"Oh yeah, Y/N. You are so good to me. Your mouth feels so good in me.”

You moaned softly at his words of praise, making vibrations around his penis, causing another moan from him. His left hand reached from the counter to your hair, and you didn't reject the help while bobbing your head up and down.

“My love, you are so perfec-“

A few tears occasionally escaped as you sucked him and he fucked your throat, sometimes only taking him out to run your tongue along his length. You started to see signs that he was close to cum. One of your hands left the thighs to rub his balls.

 “I… I'm going to cum, Y/N, dear... I" He gives you a chance to pull away from him, but you choose to continue and accept it all. You remove the entire length of his throat and leave just the head in your mouth.

He comes soon after, with a muffled groan, while you attempt to swallow as much as you can before it gets difficult, followed by a satisfied moan coming from you.

You felt his hand leave your hair, and for two or three minutes, you just remained there. He has his head back and is trying to catch his breath while you are on your knees, glancing at his chest and the beads of sweat gathering on his neck. It’s a perfect vision, honestly. You ponder whether he would notice if you began to masturbate right then.

“Come on, madam, let me help you up.” Sanji extends his hand to support you in getting up, and once you are upright, he grabs hold of your waist to keep you close to him.

He kisses you, tasting himself in your mouth. It's slow, and you realize he's still trying to emerge from his afterglow. When he breaks the kiss, that smile returns to his face, and you peck him once more just to get rid of it.

Sanji deepened the kiss again. And fuck, what else could you do but reply in the same aggressive way?

You're hoisted up by the hands on your hips and thrown onto the counter. The blonde is now between your legs, breaking the kiss, only to go straight to that specific spot on your neck that you're almost certain will leave a mark in the morning.

“Oh- Sanji,” You try to speak breathlessly as he licks your collarbone and his fingers brush the hem of your t-shirt, “You don’t h-have to do that.”

It wasn't that you didn't want Sanji. Since you entered that kitchen and spotted him without a shirt, you wanted this. Yet, you took the decision to give him an opportunity to back out, be thankful for the blowjob, and never bring up the matter again. Him taking you would be very personal.

“Please, my love,” You can hear the yearning in his voice as he whispers in your ear. “I just want to make you feel good too.”

You nod, and he attacks your mouth once again while his hands pull the hem of your t-shirt, exposing your chest, and you can't stop yourself from moaning at being so bare to him.

He doesn't think twice about placing his mouth on your breasts as he rolls the hard bud between his teeth and tongue and gives the other one a gentle stroke with his other hand. He bites your nipple as your head is flung back, and all you can do is pray that no one hears your loud scream.

He takes his mouth from your breasts and begins a trail down your stomach, and you can't stop whining due to the lack of warm sensation from his tongue in your niples, but you quickly figure out where he's headed as he lowers himself between your thighs.

He doesn't ask for permission as he aggressively rips off your shorts and, along with them, your underwear, revealing your pussy to him. He pulled your hips closer and dragged a finger down your folds, then placed it inside his mouth.

"Oh, you're so soaking wet, just for me, hm?" You are so stunned by the sight that you hardly pay attention to what the blonde is saying. “You taste so good, my darling.”

You stand on your elbows and glance at the man who is standing in between your legs. You can't help but gasp at the taunting as he starts giving you small small bites and kisses along your inner thighs. But you want him now.

“Oh Sanji, stop teasing for fuc-“

He didn't wait for you to finish the curse word before burying his face, pushing his tongue against your wet pussy, and licking a long, temptingly slow strip through your folds until he reached your sensitive bud.

In an attempt to create more friction, you thrust your hips into his mouth, and your left hand immediately settled on his blonde hair. Sanji found the ideal pattern to swirl his tongue over your clitoral region, leaving you panting for air.

He pushed two fingers deep within you, and you felt your walls clenching around them, sucking him in. His pace was fast, and he was still paying careful attention to your clit, leaving you close to the edge. You were a mess, and it wouldn't take long for you to cum. Yet you still needed him; you wanted more.

You sucked in a sharp breath and tried to block out the inappropriate sounds echoing through the kitchen.

“Sanji, p-please more”

"Use your words, my angel." You could see the glistening fluids from your pussy plastered on his chin when he pushed his head off of your thighs. “What do you want?”

“Fuck me, oh g-gods. I need you inside me." At your words, he groaned and took both of his fingers out to direct his cock at your entrance.

It wasn't difficult for him to enter since you were so soaked. At the feeling of it, you both simultaneously moaned. You felt completely filled; he just stood there for a while, waiting for you to get used to the size, until you signaled for him to start moving. It began off slow, but soon he started out moving his hips at a faster pace to satisfy both of you.

"You're perfect,” he moaned in two thrusts, and you had to put your hand over your mouth. “Look at you, taking my cock so well, oh darling.”

The hands on your hips let go and grabbed you under your right thigh, opening your legs and hitting you more deeply and faster. You thought you were seeing stars when he hit an exact spot inside your pussy that made you shout.

“Cum for me, my love. I know you want”

It didn't take long for your orgasm to hit you after that, your eyes rolled back and you let out a whine sound as you felt your walls squeeze his dick. He moaned along with you at the feeling and a few more thrusts and he came inside you.

Sanji's head fell directly to your shoulder, and you instinctively placed your palm in his blond locks. While the fluid was slowly dripping out of you, he continued to remain deep inside and breathe loudly.

He raised his head only to smile recklessly while glancing into your mouth. “So, do you still have a headache?”

Your hand reached out to push him, but you were helpless to suppress the giggles that came. He drew away from inside you but was still between your knees as he chuckled proudly.

“Do you think anyone heard?”

“I'm not sure, maybe when you let out that screa-" You slapped him on the shoulder to cut him off while embarrassed because of the probability. “Ok, ok my darling, next time we’ll find a more private place.”

“Next time, huh?

Sanji stood still with an anxious smile on his face; it was almost hilarious how someone so confident in themselves would respond in that manner. You wrapped his neck with both of your arms and gave him a quick kiss to reassure him that everything was fine.

"You should come to the kitchen more often, preferably alone.”

"And you should go shirtless more often too.”

"Only for you, my love.”

You gave him another kiss before leaving the counter, getting ready to go, and returning to the bedroom. Even though the night seemed to be becoming lighter, you were aware that there were still a few hours until sunrise. It was evident that there would be plenty of issues to address when you awoke, but for the time being, you were content, even though you were a little exhausted from the activities. As sleep came, all you could think of was Sanji and his smile.

© iclarye, 2023

[farfromstrange]

“What if the way you hold me is actually what’s holy?” | Matt Murdock x F!Reader

Masterlist

Pairing: Matt Murdock x F!Reader

Warnings: SMUT! (18+), shower setting, oral f!receiving, masturbation, fantasizing, beard appreciation (kink?), dirty talk, mentioned unprotected p in v, slight Dom!Matt, DDBA!Matt, improper thoughts about a certain crucifix necklace, (kind of) religious symbolism, mentions of choking, praise kink, pet names, “good girl”, not perfectly edited (shocker)

Summary: Fantasies about your late-working boyfriend take over your much needed self-care shower—until he’s suddenly (and unexpectedly) right in front of you when you are about to take care of the problem yourself.

A/n: So, the Born Again trailer brought me back from the dead and made me so fucking needy for this man. I thought this would be the best opportunity to rewatch Daredevil and practice writing Matt again because I’ve been a bit out of practice lately. Let’s just say the experiment was successful, but I definitely owe it to my hormone levels. The gif below inspired this fic (as it probably has done to many writers in the fandom these past two days). Anyway. If you want to listen to the song I was listening to while writing, it’s “Guilty As Sin?” By Taylor Swift, hence the title. Other than they, enjoy, and feedback is always appreciated!

Read Me On AO3!

The warm water from the shower head above runs down your clammy skin, seeping into your pores and aching muscles. You have been dreaming about this ever since you got home from work. 

The apartment is quiet, save for the little noise you make in the bathroom. Matt called you earlier, telling you he would be late and that you shouldn’t wait up for him; you expected as much after he and Foggy caught a high-profile case a couple of weeks ago. 

When he isn’t busy at work, he tries to fulfill his duty to protect the city. You’re not mad; you knew what you were signing up for when you fell in love with him, but that doesn’t change the fact that you miss him sometimes. Or rather, all the time. It doesn’t matter if he’s at work or wandering around in red leather, searching for a fight—you always miss him. 

There’s not a day that goes by that you’re not worried he might not come back to you. You can only hold on to the thought of him coming home in the middle of the night, crawling into bed beside you because he’s too tired to shower, wrapping his arms around you as though you are the only thing anchoring him to reality. It makes you appreciate what you have in him. 

The thing about Matt is that he feels he has to do penance for every little thing he has ever done, whether his actions hurt people or not; he loathes himself for who he is, which is absurd to you but to him, it makes sense. Perhaps it’s the catholic in him, or all those years of losing soulmates, or maybe it’s both.

His shampoo smells faintly of sandalwood and the rainforest, but only if you focus closely. You like that it makes your skin soft, and when you wrap yourself in his silk sheets at night, it’s almost like he’s all over you before he physically can be. 

You close your eyes and you focus on the feel of him, imagining your hands are his. You imagine his calloused fingers trailing over your heated skin, exploring every dip and every curve, even though he already knows the wonderland of your body inside and out. His lips on yours, traveling down your neck to your shoulder to your chest… a shiver runs down your spine, pooling in your core. You’re on fire, and he isn’t even with you. 

He’s at the office, sleeves probably rolled up, the first two buttons of his dress shirt undone, loosening his tie with that strained look he gets when he’s stressed. Or maybe he’s on his way to Fogwell’s Gym so he won’t disturb you before he puts the suit on, fists raining down on a sandbag as sweat drips down his body, and he grunts whenever he lands a hit. 

You were just trying to have a nice shower, but Matt always manages to invade your every thought like a burglar on a mission. 

It’s just not fair how he always looks so sinful when he’s at his wit’s end. Oh, you love that look he gets when he’s feral. And you suddenly remember how long it has been since you got to touch each other. Since he let the devil out on you. Since he came home in the middle of the night and fucked you into the mattress because he was still so full of adrenaline. 

It has been so long since you two got to have a nice dinner together and you last rode him on his leather couch until you were both sticking to it, not even thinking about stopping; since he devoured you for hours and hours and hours until you were almost severely dehydrated and overstimulated from the orgasms he tore from you. 

You bite your lip so you won’t moan into the void of the bathroom. If you touch yourself now, he will know when he comes home. For a moment, you consider it. You slide your hand from your chest down your stomach. The water is slowly starting to grow cold. You just need to take the edge off.  Lower, lower, and lower, and—

“Don’t,” Matt’s voice reverberates in your ear. His hand slides over yours, calloused fingers on the back of your hand. 

The veil of fantasy burns to the ground. Your heart stops, then picks up the pace at a million miles an hour. In an instant, you turn around to face him, a gasp dying on your lips.

He’s right there, clothes discarded on the floor before the shower, no doubt. The golden crucifix around his neck offers a sinful contrast to his milky skin. You have always wondered if he was made out of marble rather than skin and bone. How can one person be this beautiful—this close to perfection and still be human? 

Matt is close enough for you to feel his heartbeat against your own. His hands slide to your forearms to make sure you don’t slip. You can see your wrecked reflection in his hazel irises. 

His unfocused gaze is right on you, boring through your skull into your soul. Only he can read you like an open book, listen to your body, and know exactly what you want, what you crave. He thinks of himself as the devil, but all you see is an angel. He’s the sun. To you, at least, he’s everything. The moon, the sun, the stars, and the entire fucking universe.

He caught you when you were about to touch yourself, and he’s naked. Really fucking naked. This is not how you imagined tonight to go. 

His chest heaves with a deep inhale of your scent, forehead coming to rest against yours. 

“You’re home,” you whisper. 

His lips curl into a smile—not a smirk but a genuine smile. “Yeah.”

“But you said you guys had that case, and then you were gonna go out…”

Matt cuts you off, “I missed you,” he says. “Couldn’t go out without seeing you.”

He chose you over the city. You never doubted Daredevil meant more to him than you, but hearing it out loud almost brings tears to your eyes.

“I missed you too,” you answer. So much. Days, weeks, seconds, all the fucking time. 

He’s so smug about it, too, when he tells you, “I know.”

The water keeps falling around you, drowning out the noise of the city and pearling off his necklace. He should have taken it off. If he wanted to shower with you, he should have taken it off because the need for him that makes your cunt pulse in desperation feeds off of the mere thought of taking the cold metal into your mouth while he pounds into you like a madman. 

He doesn’t look agitated, not at all, but there is a dark shadow falling over Matt’s bearded face. It’s a calculated shadow rooted in a need for control, and who are you to deny him the only thing he can control?  

“Hey,” he grabs your chin, “Tell me. What were you doing in there, hm?” 

You bite your lip. “Just… showering.”

“Just showering?” He brushes his nose against yours. “You know I can hear your heartbeat…”

You nod. Your lips brush, but he doesn’t kiss you. Not yet. You can taste the remnants of his last coffee, the familiar warmth of his mouth on yours, but he refuses to give you the satisfaction. You crave him so much that fireworks have started erupting on your skin wherever his fingers dare to travel; it isn’t fair. He isn’t fair. 

Matt studied the science of driving you crazy, and now you are bordering on the edge of madness. Alone. 

“Mhm. So, I know you’re lying…” He moves to your cheek, his breath hot when he speaks, “And I know when you’re touching yourself. ‘Cause I can smell how fucking wet you are, sweetheart.” 

There he is. The relentless, feral animal you fantasized about before. The man driven by primal need and the sheer power of his senses rather than rational thought, and yet he knows exactly what he is doing. He’s a musician playing you like a delicate violin, pushing her to the breaking point but never fully destroying.

“Like I said,” you breathe, “I missed you.”

He presses his lips to your cheek, almost like a reward. “I know,” he says. “Probably been thinking about me, too, with your hand on your pussy…” 

You swallow a needy moan that would have been too embarrassing. It’s been a long few weeks. Neither of you will be able to resist for long, you know that, so you decide you have to be bold tonight. “And what’re you gonna do about it?” you ask.

Though stunned for a moment, the smirk on Matt’s face isn’t far out of reach. “That’s my girl.”

Your back hits the now warm tiles of the shower wall before you can string together another remark, and then, finally—fucking finally—his lips are on yours. Kissing you. Devouring you. Breathing air into your aching lungs. He tastes like paradise, the Garden of Eden, and the six circles of hell all at once. It’s all the same to you, anyway. 

As long as you’re with him, you don’t care where you end up. No amount of torture could take away the love you feel for him, and you know that with Matt, even weathering the stormy seas of hell would be worthwhile. It’s sick and twisted how far you would go for this man, but you can’t find a single bone in your body that cares.  

His tongue forces its way into your mouth, tasting you, and inhaling you like his sole source of life support. You don’t bother fighting for dominance; you’re all his. Your body is telling him to command you. Your mind is screaming for him to touch you in any way he pleases, so help him God, and the chain around his neck keeps sinfully dangling against his toned chest. You want to bite it. You’re going to bite it. But not yet. 

When it is time for you to swim to the surface for air, he pulls away. His lips move from yours to the corner of your mouth. He kisses there, taking his time to explore what he has explored many times before. But Matt Murdock is an addict, and you are his drug of choice, so why would he ever stop? 

He kisses your cheek, your eyes, and the bridge of your nose. That’s how he sees you. Either with his fingers or his mouth or both. Touching you. Listening to you. He wants to see you in his own way. In a way that is far more intimate than you admiring his objective beauty could ever be.

“So beautiful,” he whispers between kisses. When he says it, you know it has to be true, even when you don’t see yourself in the same light as him.

His beard is rough where he kisses you. He has grown it out quite a bit, not having the time to bother shaving. The specks of gray that have started appearing as he got older should be illegal, you think, staring at him through hazy eyes. It should be illegal to look this good.

You caress his face, palm covering the entirety of his cheek. So beautiful, you want to say, but you don’t have the words.

The confession of love tumbles against your skin, softly, breathlessly, and he dips his head into the crook of your neck. He seeks your pulse point to press his lips against the beat of your heart. Your head falls back against the tiles. He’s a fucking menace, but he’s gentle about it. So, so gentle.

The hands-on your hips pull you closer, as close as you can get. Your nipples brush his chest, and you can feel him growing hard against you. He’s hot, red, and flushed, and with his lips against your neck, sucking and biting and licking some more, the shower water isn’t the only thing running down your thighs. You’ve been wet just thinking about him; Matt is here now, and he has no intention of stopping until you’re screaming his name.

Your skin is raw from the way he’s moving his face against you, suctioning his lips right where he can feel your pulse reaching for him. Reacting to him.

“Matthew,” you moan, breathless. “Please.” 

He hums, fingers digging into your flesh to keep his composure. The sound of his name from your lips in such ecstasy makes his cock swell to the point all he wants is to sink into you and fuck you against the wet shower wall until you can’t walk anymore. He wants to wrap his hand around your throat, just holding you there as you take it like the good girl you are. God, he wants to do so many things to you. 

He wants to push all of your buttons and reward you for it. He wants to feel your nails running down his back until he’s bleeding. He wants to eat your pussy until you forget your name, and when he’s done with that, he wants to do even more because that is the kind of animal you turn him into. That is what you do to him. You consume him with your mere existence and your love you keep pouring into him like a glass about to overflow, a glass so full yet so fucking empty at the same time, and he has been neglecting you for far too long to hold back now—yes, the water bill be damned!

“I love it when you beg,” he growls, feeling his voice vibrate through your skin. Like he’s in your veins.

You whimper. Oh, that sound. That sweet, sweet sound. It seems to do him in. Matt sinks to his knees like he would in front of God in church—like Mary knelt in front of Jesus after he got crucified. But there are no stained windows, no crosses, and no confessional booth in sight; you’re his place of worship, and your body is the altar. You are the only constant in his world on fire. You always want him to set you on fire, too. 

Once on his knees in front of you, his cock straining high and mighty against his stomach, he grabs your thigh and places it over his shoulder. No rush. You can barely catch your breath. 

Burning along the inside of your thigh, Matt kisses his way toward where you need him most. Your core yearns for him. Your hand slips from his face, searching the tiles behind you for something to hold onto. 

He’s quick to bring your hands back to his hair. “Don’t let go,” he says. 

It’s almost embarrassing that the only sound you can make is a grunt, and when your brain finally catches up, it’s too late. He’s impatient. Desperate. And he places his lips in a gentle kiss against your clit. The sudden contact makes you jolt, but that is not nearly all of it. 

He tests the waters. Once, twice, even a third time, gently kissing along your slick folds. You instinctively tug at his hair, but that doesn’t deter him. Matt inhales your scent, tasting your essence on his tongue; he would bathe in it if he could. 

You cry out when he dives in. He parts your folds with his tongue, sucking and licking until his face is covered. The obscene noise of lips smacking against wet skin goes straight to your head. He can hear the wetness gushing out of you, every twitch of your muscles and hitch of your breath, and he sucks a little harder on your sensitive clit. You’re scared you might fall. 

“Fuck!” Your moans are as obscene as the sound of him eating you out. You grind against him, at first involuntarily, but then he moans against you, and you can’t help it; the vibrations he sends through you continue to pool in your cunt, tightening the coil that is waiting to snap. 

Matt prods your entrance with his tongue, the tip of his nose digging just right into that sensitive bundle of nerves he lost when your hips first jerked. He’s completely out of it, hooded eyes rolled back into his skull while you are almost splitting yours open on the dark tiles. The cross necklace is sticky with his saliva as he drinks from you like you are the spring fueling his ocean. He’s thrusting into his hand, pre-cum leaking from his cock, but his mouth never wavers. He has a job to do. 

Your walls clench around what little of his tongue is inside of you. There is nothing more arousing than the sight of him touching himself because the taste of you is bringing him to the brink of an inevitable orgasm. Because he wants to come with you. Because he’s desperate and he can only imagine being inside of you as he licks away at you. It’s a kind of dedication that makes you feral. No one has ever loved you quite like he has, and no one will ever eat your pussy as only he can. 

“Matt,” you choke out. “Fuck, I’m gonna—’m gonna come. Don’t stop. Don’t…”

As if he could. He flicks his tongue from left to right, painting shapes you have never felt before over every last of your nerve endings. You’re quivering. You’re shaking. You are turning the bathroom into a concert hall for the symphony of your pleasure. 

He doesn’t stop to tell you to come, that would be futile. You couldn’t possibly stop the wave headed for your shore. You can’t warn him. You can’t do anything other than let it happen. The coil snaps and your orgasm crashes into you at full force, shattering you into a million pieces. You grind against him until you’re sure he is branded into your skin forever. 

Matt holds you through it, working his tongue against you to prolong the electricity running through your veins. He gets lost in the echo of his name, stroking his cock harder and faster, and within seconds of you, he’s coming, too. He spurts into his hand and on your thigh, moaning deliciously into your pussy. For a moment, he’s stiff, though as you are starting to come back to him, he’s starting to come back to you. 

The aftermath of your orgasm is quiet. His lips slip from your swollen folds eventually, and he pulls away to rest his cheek against your inner thigh, the one resting over his shoulder. He’s still catching his breath, cock softening in his hands, but when you look down at him, he’s a wreck. For you. 

Slowly, he rises back to his feet. You look at him, unsteady now on both of your feet. He wraps his arms around you. “You okay?” he asks softly. 

You lean into his hand when he places it on your cheek. “Yeah,” you nod. “I’m…perfect.”

“You were so good for me. So good.” 

The distance between you dissipates, foreheads falling together in absolute exhaustion. He smells and tastes of you. You kiss him softer than you ever have. “I love you,” you whisper, and he smiles because he knows.

You don’t count the minutes you stay like that, kissing. It might have been an hour, not nearly enough. Matt reaches for the water when it starts getting cold, and he lifts you to wrap your legs around his waist. 

You frown. “Aren’t you going out tonight?” 

He shakes his head. “No, sweetheart,” he says, “I’m not done with you.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Gotta make sure you know how much I missed you.”

The giddy smile on your face when you kiss him again is involuntary, but not unnecessary. He giggles, too, before you finally shut him up.

Hell’s Kitchen can live without him for one night, that much is for sure. And when he finally thrusts into you and you bite down on the golden metal of that godforsaken crucifix to stifle your scream as he fucks you to hell and back in a way that is gentle yet possessive, you know this is the only place Matt needs to be tonight—for both of you.

[redtsundere-writes]

We need sukuna brutally murdering another servant because they put reader in a bad mood. ITS NOT A WANT ITS A NEED PLEASE

Blood Bath | Sukuna Ryomen

king!sukuna ryomen x femservant!reader

Sypnosis: The king needs to wash himself after defending his favorite servant. Contents: king x servant, kinda fluffy I guess, murder, a bit of humiliation, nudity. Word count: 2255 words. Author's note: Thanks for the request, anon! I was already writing this fic when I received your message, so it was a great add-in! Beginning. ← Previous | Next →

AO3/WATTPAD VERSION

Sukuna left the castle a week ago. He set out for distant lands to conquer villages, eat its people and spread the terror on his behalf. The absence of his presence was noticeable in the magnificent palace. Peace reigned in the spotless marble hallways, the quiet kitchen and the solitary great hall. Despite not having the pressure of everything being perfect, the servants were making sure the castle would shine for the king's return. The servants walked around at their leisure, pretending they owned the place. They ate at whatever time they wanted, lay down to rest on the lawn of the parade ground, and talked loudly about the rumors that have been surfacing about your relationship with the king.

Recently, it had come to your attention that you were Sukuna's favorite servant, but no one knew exactly why. The consensus had concluded that it was because you were his mistress. Sukuna used to lock himself in his room with you for hours at a time and always came out with a broad smile. The truth is that you didn't sleep with him, you just gave him massages, fixed his outfits and sometimes talked for hours. You tried several times to clear up the rumors, but no one believed you.

It was a rainy summer afternoon. You and a small group of servants were cleaning the great hall, the largest room in the castle. Surrounded by white concrete columns that rose to the ceiling, you sternly swept the red carpet that indicated the center. Diamond chandeliers softly lit the place, statues of the king stood tall and the beautiful hand-painted mural raised on the ceiling harmonized the entire room. The drops fell softly against the giant window in which the green outside could be admired.

“When do you think our king will return?” One servant asked the other as they cleaned the decorative torches that rested on steel bases around the perimeter.

“He won't be long, he has to come back to his mistress,” the other one joked. They both let out small, annoying laughs.

Those kinds of comments had become more recurrent as the days went by. You knew they did it on purpose. They raised their voices every time you entered the room or when you were about to go to sleep. None of the other servants seemed to want to intrude to keep what little peace they had. You slammed the broom down on the carpet hard to take out your frustration.

“How disgusting to be that monster's mistress, don't you think?” the other one asked. You could feel her piercing gaze on the back of your head, waiting for you to react to her uncalled-for comment.

“I know! I don't know how she can sleep with someone as creepy as our king,” she replied with disgust in her voice.

Those two had crossed the line. You firmly grabbed the broomstick to confront them about their lousy topic of conversation. You approached them at a steady pace, dragging the broomstick in case you needed it as a weapon to defend yours and your king’s honor.

“That's enough!” you scolded. “I don't sleep with our king! Besides, he may be a monster, but thanks to him, we can eat fresh food, sleep in comfortable beds and live in a magnificent palace! If I were you, I'd stop barking, bitches!” You exploded after such a long time of having to put up with their out-of-place comments.

“Shut up! You're only defending him because you're his favorite whore!” One of them exclaimed, throwing the feather duster in her face.

“Yeah, shut the fuck up, who-!”

A fine cut echoed throughout the great hall. A large splash of blood fell on your face, blinding you for a couple of seconds. The slight gasp of surprise from the other servants left you speechless. You dropped the broom to scrub your eyes. What had happened? You backed up in desperation until you ran into a wall that wasn't there before. After a crack, it all made sense. You looked up to see Sukuna's sharp jaw. Dried blood tainted his skin, his breath was cut short from exhaustion. He was back home after conquering another empire successfully. 

“Does anyone have anything else to say?” Sukuna asked the other servants, who were kneeling before him, giving him a warm welcome.

You knew you should kneel, but seeing the lifeless bodies of what used to be your gossiping companions made your body freeze. Their heads had been cut in half and the rest of their bodies were shattered. What used to be two women were now small pools of blood and bones. Sukuna had erased their existence with just a couple of his fingers. It was a scene you never thought your eyes would see in the flesh. That would be your fate if you did not obey your master's orders.

“This is a reminder that I can get rid of you just as quickly,” he threatened. His thick voice echoed off the walls. “If I hear that you even dare to speak blasphemies about me or one of your companions, I will not hesitate to kill you. Do you understand?” The servants, still kneeling, said, “Yes, my king,” in unison. 

Coming out of your state of shock, you turned around to kneel at his feet. Sukuna looked at your small figure compared to him. He had heard how you had defended his honor in the face of annoying accusations. He knew you were a good servant, but now you had proven to him that you were loyal. 

“Welcome home, my king,” you greeted in a trembling voice. Your body was still processing the murder your eyes had witnessed. 

“Draw me a bath,” he ordered, brushing past your greeting. 

“Yes, my king.”

You ran as fast as possible to his room to get there before him. Luckily, you had cleaned the bathroom thoroughly the day before, so everything was ready for the king to relax properly. You turned on the faucet to fill the tub with hot water, sprinkled scented bath salts, filled the water with bubbles and lit a few candles to romance the atmosphere. Sukuna soon arrived. Without a word, he began to undress as usual. Obediently, you stood in front of the wall to give her privacy.

“Since when?” He asked you as he untied the knots of his garments and let them fall to the floor. You could only hear the fabric sliding down his Herculean body.

“I don't understand the question, my king,” you answered confused, looking at the wall full of green tiles.

“How long have they been bothering you?” Sukuna completed the question while analyzing your figure from behind. He could tell you were nervous in his presence. It was the first time you saw him kill someone, it must have made quite an impression on you.

“Since a couple of months ago,” you answered.

“Why didn't you tell me?” Sukuna entered the bathtub, which was already bubbling. You closed the bath faucet and approached a stool to begin the most complicated task, washing his hair.

“I didn't want to waste your time.” You prepared the utensils: a sponge, a small wooden bowl and glass bottles filled with the hair products.

“You don't dictate what I do with my time,” he replied sternly.

Sukuna stepped into the tub so you could easily reach his head, drowning his torso into the soapy water. With the help of a soft sponge, you wet his pale pink hair, taking care that the water did not enter his ears. The king closed his eyes, letting himself be carried away by the pleasant sensation after a week of consecutive massacres. Untangling his short hair with a wooden comb, avoiding pulling too much so as not to hurt him. You placed the shampoo directly on his head and massaged the product into the roots.

Sukuna hummed happily every time your fingers gently stroked his scalp. You were so gentle with him even though he was the worst monster ever. You scratched, stroked and massaged his skull to your heart's content. While you let the product work, you focused on his broad shoulders. Your hands roamed his upper body calmly and patiently. The king was tired from having fought day after day and night after night to leave his name high as the greatest conqueror, you could tell by how tense his skin was.

“Answer me a question,” Sukuna asked with his eyes closed.

“As many as you wish, my king.”

“Are you loyal to me because you are afraid of me or because I am powerful?” He asked firmly.

“Both. I am afraid of you because you are powerful,” you replied as you took the bowl of water to rinse his hair.

Sukuna smiled in satisfaction with your answer. That's why you were his favorite servant. You are a perfectionist, shrewd and perceptive. You always managed to surprise him in a different way every time. Something no woman had ever managed to do before. Sukuna twisted his torso to face you. Your face and your white clothes were inked with the blood of your companions. He couldn't let you work like that, after all, it's his fault you were stained.

“Take off your clothes and come in,” he ordered.

“What?” You asked, shocked.

“You're dirty. Come in. I won't repeat myself,” Sukuna demanded.

You nodded and started to undress before his eyes. He had seen hundreds of women undress before. He knows what a pair of striking breasts, sexy hips and long legs look like, but even so, he was mesmerized as he watched you unfold before his eyes. Each garment slid down your body delicately, your hairs bristled from the change in temperature and your nipples stood erect at the lustfulness. No one but your mother had ever seen you naked. You had never been with a man, let alone a monster as imposing as he was.

Sukuna held out his hand to help you into the large tub. You sat in front of him and covered your breasts with the glistening bubbles that floated around you. He took one of the sponges and soaked it with soap to gently clean your face. The now dried blood came off easily. His black claws sometimes scratched your cheeks, but you could tell he was trying to be as gentle as possible with your beautiful face.

“It's not necessary, I can do it myself,” you asked, trying to take the sponge from him.

“I can wash my own hair too, but I prefer you to do it. Let me do it,” he replied before filling the bowl with water and wetting your hair.

He repeats the same process as you. The warm water, the closeness of your bodies and his hands taking care of your hair, transported you to fantasies where you had a relationship beyond king-servant. They were romantic ideas of a Sukuna you didn't quite know. A Sukuna who hugged you every time he saw you, who gave you head pats every time you did something right, and who sat you on his wide lap, demanding attention.

Someone knocked on the door, to which Sukuna allowed access. It was Uraume, who had just heard that the king had returned and what had happened with the reckless maids. What they did not expect was to see you in the bathtub next to his majesty, but even so, they decided not to ask details of how they had come to that situation.

“Welcome home, your majesty.” Uraume bowed from the doorway. “Dinner is ready. You must be hungry after the long journey.”

“I'll be there in a minute,” Sukuna answered. Uraume bowed again and left the room.

“They won't say anything,” Sukuna assured you before getting out of the tub. You were about to get out to give him his towel too, but he stopped you. “The water is still hot, it would be a shame to waste it,” he said before taking the towel and wrapping it around his waist.

“It's my job to do it,” you said.

“Your job is to obey me,” he dictated seriously. You sat back down in the tub and nodded. “Good girl,” he said with a satisfied smile before leaving the bathroom.

Sukuna returned to the bathroom and looked in his closet for what he would wear to dinner. He glanced into the bathroom from time to time to observe you. A small naked human wrapped in the ethereal steam of her innocence. He could have any woman in the world. Why was his mind obsessed with your beauty, your words, and your docility? He didn't know exactly, but he was sure you were completely his, so he didn’t have anything to worry about.

You stood alone with your thoughts in the elegant bath. You plunged your body into the water, submerging your head in the bubbles. Heads cut in half, his big hands stroking your hair, brains strewn across the carpet, his gentle touch as he washed your face. The quick, deep images made you feel confused. Your head went back up to the surface as you realized you were short of breath. You brushed your wet hair back to take a deep breath. What were you doing? Where were you? What kind of person were you serving? Sukuna confused you with his actions, and now you didn't know what to do with your poor heart beating a mile a minute for him.

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Masterlist.

[loveandpeaceanddoughnuts]

Nanami x Reader ~ Kento's Stress Toy

feat: fluff and smut, established relationship, body writing, rough sex, loving sex, praise, overstimulation, light bondage // wc: 4170 // [ao3]

Nanami was working overtime again. You both hated when it had to happen, and on a Friday after a particularly long week? Your poor husband would be coming home exhausted and cranky.

Not that he was ever mean to you, of course. In fact, sometimes you wished he would be just a little bit meaner. You fantasized about him taking out his frustration on you, using his chiseled body to fuck you like a pretty little toy.

It wasn’t your fault that he looked so goddamn sexy when he was mad. His brows would furrow, sharp cheekbones somehow even more prominent as he clenched his jaw. His broad hands, always so gentle with you, would curl into fists, and you couldn’t help imagining what it would feel like to have that fist in your hair, yanking your head back as he railed you…

Heat pooled in your belly as you indulged in the fantasy for the hundredth time. You wanted to see that side of Nanami, wanted to feel it. After all, he kept things so bottled up. It would do your husband good to work out some tension, right?

—

Nanami was exhausted and beyond tense when he finally came home. He couldn’t shed his work stress at the door as he usually did, his broad shoulders still hunched around his ears as he slowly loosened his tie and toed off his dress shoes.

“Honey, I’m home,” he called as he made his way through the kitchen, smiling tiredly as he saw that you’d put the kettle on for the two of you.

“I’m in here, Ken!” You called from the bathroom, frantically scribbling the last letters of your surprise in eyeliner. You eyed yourself approvingly in the mirror before slipping your clothes back on and heading out to meet him with a kiss.

“I missed you so much,” he murmured, pulling you into his arms. He relaxed just a fraction as he inhaled your scent, tucking his face into your neck. “I’ve had the longest day.”

You hummed. “I’m listening, baby. Tell me all about it.” He followed you into the kitchen, leaning against the counter as he watched you make tea. You pushed a mug into his hands before hopping onto the counter opposite him.

Nanami closed his eyes appreciatively as he sipped his tea. “Perfect as always, my dear.” He sighed, running a hand over his face. “I don’t know what they want from me at that damn office. Actually, I do know, and it’s ridiculous. The sales goals are impossible to meet for anyone with a conscience.”

“Oh?” You had heard this before, but sometimes marriage meant letting your husband repeat himself. And if he worked himself up, so much the better for your little plan.

“Yes. They are. And my boss berated me in front of the whole team for trying to be honest with a new hire about the way things work.” He shook his head, gaining steam. “It’s completely unfair. The whole goddamn system.” Nanami scowled into his mug.

“I’m so sorry, my love. That sounds awful.”

Nanami moved closer to you, nestling himself between your legs and leaning against your chest. Atop the kitchen counter was one of the few places you could be taller than your mountain of a husband, and you never wasted the opportunity. You ran your hand through his hair, scratching gently at his undercut.

“It’s the weekend, my love,” you murmured. “You don’t have to think about those bastards again for a few days. It’s just you and me.”

He softened a bit. “Just you and me, hm? Forgive me, dear. You know I hate bringing work home.”

“Nothing to forgive.” You bit your lip. This is where you’d make your move. “I just wish there was something I could do to help relax you.”

He had been with you long enough to recognize the suggestive lilt in your voice. “Oh, do you? You’re sweet, love. But there’s nothing to be done.”

“Nothing at all?” You ask, tugging at the buttons on his collar.

He tilted his head, wordlessly allowing you access to begin undoing them. You smooth your fingertips over the freckles at his neck, the collarbone constellations you love so much.

You’re halfway down his chest when he catches your wrists in one hand, an apologetic smile on his lips. “I adore you, but I don’t think I’m exactly in the mood to make love. I don’t want any thoughts of work to distract me from you.”

“Who said we had to make love?” You lean back to look him in the eyes as you offer the challenge, relishing the flush that crawls up his cheeks.

“Angel…”

“I mean it, Kento. I want you to use me.” Heat pools in your stomach at the vulnerable words. “Use me to fuck out all your tension, all the work bullshit. I’m all yours.”

Nanami’s wide eyes drink you in, his heart pounding. He couldn’t hide how much your words affected him, least of all how painfully hard he suddenly was, cock jumping against his slacks.

You pressed your hand against his growing bulge with a soft smile. You knew all his weaknesses. “Please, baby. I wanna make you feel good.”

He pressed his forehead against yours with a ragged sigh. “You undo me, you know that?”

You guided his hands to your waist, lifting your hips so he could pull off your shorts. He huffed a laugh against your neck. “Eager, are we?”

You bit your lip, hardly able to contain your excitement as he grew closer to unveiling your surprise. “Yes, take them off already…”

You felt him smile against your skin as he finally stripped them off, rubbing teasing circles against your cunt through your damp panties.

“Those too,” you whined, bucking your hips against his hand.

“Such a needy little thing,” he murmured, gently teasing as he slid them off. You watched his face, rewarded with the sight of your stoic husband’s mouth falling open. His fingers dug into your hips unconsciously, hard enough to bruise, and you loved it.

“M-my love,” he breathed, eyes locked on what you’d written in black eyeliner just above your cunt.

Kento’s Stress Toy.

He released one of your hips to trace the words with shaky fingers, his touch almost reverent. “What is this?”

You smiled up at him, cheeks burning with exhilaration. “It’s the truth. I’m your stress toy tonight, Ken.”

He closed his eyes and swore under his breath. “I…I don’t want to disrespect you, angel.”

“But I want you to,” you whispered. You pulled him closer by the speckled tie that still hung loose around his neck. “I know you love me. And I love you…all of you.” You let your hungry gaze fall on his tense muscles, the way his shirt strained at his shoulders. “I want to feel all of you. If you’ll give it to me.”

He watched as you slowly lifted your shirt, letting your breasts fall out. One was adorned with the word “fuck”, and the other with “doll”, your handwriting curling along the top of each tit.

Nanami groaned , the sound going straight to your aching cunt. He roughly palmed your breasts, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. “Oh, my dear …”

“Your doll ,” you correct, gently tugging his lip free with a smirk. “Will you play with me?”

“God yes.” Nanami scooped you off the counter and into his arms, heading straight for the bedroom as you clung to him and giggled.

You hadn’t even made it through the doorway when he crashed his lips into yours, rough and needy. His tongue swiped against your bottom lip impatiently, pushing into your mouth. “You taste perfect, my love,” he breathed, “but I need more…” 

He crossed the room and dropped you onto the bed, shoving a pillow underneath your hips as he rolled you onto your stomach. He settled himself behind you, his weight sagging the mattress so you were pulled even closer to him. He surveyed you with a low groan, drinking in the lewd sight of your ass up and your dripping, exposed cunt. 

“May I?” He always asked before he tasted you, but his voice was strained tonight, eyes locked on your glistening pussy. 

“ Please, ” you sighed, hardly able to draw a breath before Nanami was devouring you. He was messy , dragging his nose against your slit as he lapped up the slick that was already spiderwebbing between your thighs. When you tensed your legs reflexively he pulled away with a pout.

“Said you were gonna be my toy , hm love?” He held your thighs in a bruising grip and pried your legs apart. “Need to relieve my stress, right?” Your face was pressed against the bed but you could still feel the weight of his stare. He was practically panting for you, and you suddenly wondered if you’d be able to handle what you’d be wanting so badly.

With your legs held out of the way he dove back in, flattening his tongue against your lips in long, languid strokes before licking into your sopping cunt. “Be a good girl and keep these open,” he murmured as he gave your thigh a light smack, grinning as you trembled from the impact. 

He brushed the back of his hand against your lips, spreading them open and dipping his knuckles into you as he kept his tongue working. 

“Oh please, baby, fill me,” you babbled, but he was already there, sliding two thick fingers into your cunt effortlessly. He pulled his face away to look up at you adoringly. 

“Look how good you are for me. Needed me that bad?” His lips were glossed in your essence, a string of slick still connecting them to you as he pumped his fingers with a wet smacking sound. 

“Yes, hah-fuck- needed you…wan’ you to use me, angel…”

“I know love, I know.” He added a third finger, grinning at the gasp it tore from you as he sucked your clit into his mouth. “And I will, soon as you come on my face, okay?”

“This is…s’posed to be about you ,” you protested weakly, finding it hard to argue when he had you melting underneath him.

“I know, my darling. So sweet of you to offer yourself as a pretty little present for me. My naughty little wife, knowing I had such a long, hard day…” his eyes darkened, wanting to rail into you right then and there, but he caught himself with the superhuman restraint you so hated and admired. “But first I have to get you ready to take me, don’t I? Want you all warmed up so I can fuck you exactly how I want.” 

He pressed sloppy kisses to your cunt, sucking at your clit as he stretched your needy hole around his fingers. Scissoring them in and out of you, heavy-lidded eyes on the way you coated him with your arousal. He reached up to press his dripping fingers to your lips, shoving them against your tongue. “Clean your mess.”

You sucked at him eagerly, ignoring the strain in your neck as you twisted back to face him. He dragged his sharp jaw between your thighs, suckling and nipping at the sensitive skin. 

“Come for me, beautiful. Come so I can fuck my toy,” he purred, flicking his tongue against your clit faster and faster in the rhythm he knew you loved. 

“Ken, don’t stop, please, I’m…!!” You saw stars as you crumpled into the bed, your orgasm washing over you like a tidal wave. Your legs shook at the force of it, but Nanami didn’t slow his assault, still rolling his tongue over you as you bucked into his mouth. 

“ Ugh it’s too much, I can’t,” you protested weakly, struggling to your knees as you tried to crawl away from his greedy tongue. 

“Ah ah, beautiful. You’re all mine, remember?” He locked his strong forearms around your thighs, holding you down. “You’re not going anywhere.” He buried his face between your legs again, licking up higher and higher, lapping up every drop of your release. 

He pulled you tighter against him, your ass practically smothering him as you were forced to arch your back harder, grateful for the pillow he’d balanced you on. “Mmmm that’s it baby, grind on my tongue.”

Your face burned at the words, but he was already lifting you effortlessly, rocking you back against his face in a steady rhythm that had his tongue slipping deep into your cunt.

You hardly had a chance to breathe before your second orgasm was creeping up on you, an overwhelming intensity that you were helpless to escape from as Nanami held you to himself. He kept going even as you shuddered into another peak, his hands kneading into the fat of your hips and ass. 

Your vision went fuzzy as you scrabbled at the bedsheets, desperately trying to cling to something, anything to ground you. Overstimulated tears pooled in your eyes, every nerve ending on fire with the intensity of your pleasure. 

Hoarse, fucked-out moans were all you could manage in response to Nanami’s stream of praises, telling you how good you were, how pretty you looked gushing for him. He finally pulled away with one last soft kiss to your hole, making it clench around nothing. 

“You’re so perfect, love,” he sighed, smoothing his hands over your hair, your back, brushing his lips over your neck. “You’re not done yet, are you?” He pulled off his tie in one smooth motion, trailing the fabric down your spine to watch you squirm. “I’ve had such a very long day. I’ve been so tense , my dear.”

“Not done,” you panted, turning onto your back and reaching up to cup his cheek. He leaned into your touch, closing his eyes. You pulled his hand down to trace the words you had written on your skin again, reminding him of what you were. All his. 

“That’s my girl,” he murmured. He slipped his tie around your wrists, pulling them together in a loose hold. He slowly stretched your arms above your head, pinning your wrists easily with one hand. He trailed his mouth back down your arms, gentle kisses and nips at the soft skin until his face hovered over yours. 

“Are you ready, darling? I’m going to take you up on your very generous offer.” Your husband’s soft eyes glinted with something sharp as he freed himself from his slacks. 

You nodded, feeling your wrecked cunt start to throb again at the sight of his cock, achingly hard and drooling pre already. As much as he’d already done to you, though, you still had a few cards to play. 

You wriggled your wrists out of his grip, still bound by his tie, and reached down to stroke his cock. Lightly at first, watching through your eyelashes as he threw his head back, throat bared and jaw clenched. You gently pulled him closer, slotting his swollen head between your folds, just barely letting him press into you. 

Nanami hissed through his teeth, dark eyes desperate as you teased him. “My love, don’t, hah - don’t be mean , I need you too badly…”

Electricity surged up your spine at his neediness. This was exactly where you’d wanted him. “I won’t be mean, baby, that’s your job tonight. Why don’t you tell me about your day?”

“My day,” he huffed an impatient laugh. “You know how it was. It was shit.” He bucked his hips against you, trying to get deeper, but you held him back, still stroking his tip and nothing more. You were lying in a pool of your own slick now, torturing yourself as much as him. 

“Oh?” You rocked your hips forward suddenly, forcing his whole head into you, then went still again. 

Nanami whimpered . “What do you want me to say? Work is shit .” His hands were trembling, clenching and unclenching at his sides as he watched where you dragged him against yourself. 

“That’s it, baby. Aren’t you frustrated? Don’t you want to let your fuck doll make it all better?” Your words were calculated, flung at him with the most seductive look you had in your arsenal, lips pursed in an empty-headed little pout that you knew he had a guilty weakness for. If you knew your Kento, he wouldn’t be able to resist… there. 

Nanami surged forward, pushing your hands out of the way and back above your head, your back arching obscenely as he slammed himself to the hilt in your cunt. “This is what you wanted my dear, isn’t it? This is what you’ve been waiting for,” he growled, not needing an answer. He kneaded your tits, the fuck doll label smearing under his touch. 

He shoved your knees up to your ears, nearly folding you in half as he rutted into you with a force you’d never felt, hips smacking against yours with bruising strength. 

“Work.” “Was.” “Shit.”

He punctuated each word with a sharp spank to your ass. He roughly palmed the reddening skin, swallowing your cries with a messy, open-mouthed kiss. He buried his face in your neck as he kept up a punishing rhythm, heavy balls slapping against you with each mean thrust. 

“All fucking day I have to listen to idiots tell me what to do. All fucking day I have to sit in a cubicle, ripping people off…” he pulled out slowly, dragging his cock against your walls so you could feel every throbbing vein. 

“And you know what I think about all fucking day, my love?” He whispered the pet name into your ear, making you shiver. “What keeps me going?”

“This.” 

He slammed into you without warning, every inch bullying into you, the breath ripped from your lungs. When he bottomed out he held you there, grinding against you, making you clench and twitch against the sheer depth of him, filling you impossibly deep. 

“I think about this . About coming home to my pretty wife and fucking her senseless .” His whispers were harsh against your neck, his voice ragged. Your mouth was stretched in a scream, sure you’d wake the neighbors if not for your husband’s heavy hand coming down on your mouth. 

“You’re always so good for me, always so happy to see me…sometimes I wish I could show those fucks at the office exactly what I come home to, just to watch them burn with jealousy.” His kisses grew rougher, sucking and biting at your neck, laying claim to your skin. 

“Wish I could mark you up like this and have you come visit me the next day, wearing some tight, low-cut dress that shows them all exactly how you’re mine. How little anything else could possibly matter to me…” he shudders against you, his fantasy overwhelming. “Maybe have you crawl under my desk and take care of me right there, since you wanna be my little stress toy, hm?” 

Your mind is scattered, trying desperately to focus on his words and the increasingly difficult act of staying sane as he fucks you into oblivion. Your eyes roll back as another orgasm builds, his cock reaching a secret spot deep inside of you, sending you over the edge again. 

The new height of pleasure makes you stupid, babbling into his chest as he fucks you through it, gasping for air from the press of him folding you in half. “Yes, please Ken, I’d do it, wanna be your fuck doll, need this, need you, need… nnghhh! ” 

“That’s it gorgeous, my beautiful toy, my perfect love, come on my cock, come from me using you like this…” Nanami’s brows are knit together, his face twisted with concentration as he pumps into you again and again and again, his rhythm never faltering, he’s nothing if not consistent, ramming into your sweet spot over and over until you’re not sure where you start and he ends. 

The base of his cock is decorated with a soft white ring of the cream that’s still leaking out of you, and he moans at the sight. “God you’re such a mess for me, I don’t think I’ve ever felt you this wet, darling…” He smiles down at you, looking angelic even as he tries to break the bed in half. “And from writing such filthy things on your perfect body…you were soaked just waiting for me to come home and see this, weren’t you? Naughty little thing.” 

You moan helplessly in answer, unable to deny it. This was everything you’d wanted and more. Your eyes slide shut of their own volition, and he gently taps your cheek. “Oh no, my dear, not yet. Don’t worry, I won't break my toy.” He slows, just barely, letting you breathe. 

He traces his fingertips over the words between your hips again, reverent. “What does this say again, angel? What are you?”

“Kento’s stress toy…” you murmur. 

“Mmm, that’s right. And you’re being such a good one,” he praised. “My brilliant wife, with such wonderful ideas.” He kisses you softly on the lips, the tenderness almost shocking. “Can you be a good toy for a little bit longer?”

You nod your head eagerly, though you don’t think you can move much else. Your arms and legs feel like (well-fucked) jello, the tie around your wrists almost forgotten in the sea of other, stronger sensations. 

Nanami seems to remember it at the same moment, tsking apologetically as he slips it off of you and rubs your arms. “Are your wrists okay, my love?” 

You almost laugh at the sudden return of soft, protective Kento. “Yes, they’re fine. It’s all fine. I feel amazing.” 

“You are amazing,” he soothes. “In that case, can you hold on to me?” He drapes your arms over his neck, holding himself steady against your hips. 

“Just like that.” And he’s fucking you again, in the way only he can, fast and hard and precise. You’re grateful for the grip around his neck as he pulls you up and over his lap, lifting and dropping you onto his cock like you’re weightless. 

“Kento ohhhh!!” You dig your nails into his back instinctively, biting back a scream as you feel his cock jump inside of you in response. You don’t need to be told twice, raking your nails over his back as he uses you mercilessly. 

He’s back to muttered praises, his honey-silk voice adoring as his cock splits you in half. You’re drunk on the dichotomy, dizzy with lust and love for the man beneath you. 

He leans forward and tips you back onto the bed, his muscled arms caging you in as he continues pistoning into you. Sweat drips from his face to yours, and you dart your tongue out to lick the droplets away. Somehow, that of all things makes him blush, dark red dusting his cheeks as he watches the act. 

You reach a shaky hand up to brush back the strands of hair that have fallen into his eyes, and he catches your arm to press greedy kisses to the inside of your wrist. 

“Ken- Kento, I love you,” you moan, every stroke of his cock sending electricity down your limbs, your whole body tuned to him, undone and rewired in ecstasy. 

“I love you,” he groans, pressing his face into the crook of your neck, his powerful thrusts finally, finally stuttering as he nears his peak. “I love you, I love you, I love you, fuck I love you…” 

Nanami came with a broken cry, his cock pumping what seemed like an endless stream of hot, thick seed into the deepest part of you, his arms shaking from the effort of keeping himself up. You pulled him down onto you, stroking at his hair as he shuddered in the aftermath of his orgasm. 

You lay there in blissful quiet, sweat and slick sticking your skin together, feeling each other’s wild heartbeats begin to slow. Nanami reluctantly pulled out of you with an over-sensitive groan and curled into your side, his head on your chest. You ran your hands over his hair, his neck, his back, proud to feel the tension slowly leave his tired body. 

“Do you feel better, Kento?” You asked, happily exhausted. 

He laughed out loud, wrapping his arms around you and shifting to curl you into his side. “I’ve never been more relaxed in my life, my love. I can’t even remember what I do for work.” He kissed the top of your head and sighed contentedly. “You were incredible. Thank you, darling.” He pulled you closer. “I think I might be out sick on Monday, for that matter…”

You pressed a soft kiss to his lips. “I’ll always be your stress relief, my love.”

“And I’ll be yours,” he smiled. “What did you use to write this, anyway?” 

“Oh it’s an old eyeliner!” Your laugh turned into a yawn. 

“Mm, good to know. For when I return the favor,” Nanami said, but you were already fast asleep in his arms.