#if I hadn’t had that middle step i would fucking die

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

What you guys would be seeing if tumblr posted all my drafts tbh:

“Day three of my brother shouting at us because he saw something on the news over Christmas break”

But also

“If German is closer to English than English is to Norwegian then why is Norwegian so much easier to learn 🤨 things the government doesn’t want you to know about”

[reignpage]

College student!Sukuna

2:35am: late night cravings

you couldn’t sleep. 

there was an itch you were desperate to scratch, it made your mouth water, nails digging into your palms as you shuffled in bed, chewing on your bottom lip. you desperately wanted chinese takeaway. realising you hadn’t had it in a while, it was all you could think about. 

there was one near campus, a ten-minute drive away, that was open all night, much to the delight of all the students coming back from late night outs or pulling all-nighters, thank the university gods. 

of course, you could quell your urge by going out to get some chow mein and dim sum on your own, but if sukuna woke up to you out of bed and in the streets in the middle of night by yourself, again, he would actually kill you. 

and you couldn’t possibly wake your boyfriend up; sukuna was sleeping so soundly beside you, snoring by your ear in a way you took comfort in – it had become white noise for you. his arm is thrown over your waist, the weight pinning you to the bed. scared to wake him, you tried your best to stay still.

apparently, not well enough. 

“what’s wrong with you, you brat?”

his voice was groggy, crackled with sleep. despite the irritation in his words, you took no offence, after all, you had learnt very quickly after first meeting him that that was just simply how he spoke. always annoyed, so impatient, a barely constrained anger at the world that seemed to stem from nowhere. and you loved it so much. 

with a sheepish giggle, you traced the tattoos on his arm almost as an apology, soothing the sparks of ire within him. “sorry, kuna. just hungry.”

the moonlight beaming through the small gap in his curtains illuminated the space, helping your eyesight adjust to the darkness as you watched your boyfriend’s face crumple in complaint over being awoken. 

“yeah? well, go eat something then.”

you pouted, reaching your hand to brush a lock of hair out of his still-shut eyes, fingertips trailing on his forehead, smoothing out that furrow between his brows he always had. he never listened when you told him off about getting premature wrinkles, not now as his long-time girlfriend and certainly not as the friend he had pined for for months. 

“but kunaaaa, i want chinese. i’m gonna die if i don’t eat it.”

his fingers were drumming against your ribs as he huffed in amusement. he didn’t think he’d ever get used to your theatrics, and he’d definitely never tell you he loved them, it would just encourage you. 

“that’s unfortunate, but a sacrifice i’m willing to make.”

your gasp came without missing a beat and so did the slap against his back he had been expecting. it made the corner of his lips twitch before he rolled over, the warmth of his body disappearing as he stretched, back muscles rippling with the movement in that delectable way you wished you could capture and bury inside you. 

“alright, you spoiled brat. let’s fucking go.”

you squealed. “oh my god, really?”

he had stepped into the corner of his room that the moon’s reach didn’t graze, rustling through drawers to find a hoodie to throw over his bare torso. without needing to see his face you knew he was rolling his eyes; it was followed with that tsk noise he was known for. 

“yeah, well, unfortunately for me, my girl’s got a big appetite. if i don’t feed her, she might just eat me.”

[satorusugurugurl]

HOW WOULD SATORU/ SUGU / NANAMI/ CHOSO react ti reader being cheated on. My bf of 3 years just cheated on me w his dumbass coworker. And I want to die

Cheated

Summary: JJK men react to finding out you were cheated on!

Characters: Gojo Satoru, Geto Suguru, Nanami Kento, Choso Kamo, FAB!Reader

Word Count: 6,285

Warnings: Mentions of cheating, confessions, consensual photos, oral sex (female receiving), bathtub sex, public sex, chair sex, hot damn

A/N: Hi Nonnie Im so sorry that happened to you, cheaters are the worst!! Ah, I love this trope. There's nothing like getting sweet revenge and having a sexy new boyfriend to go with it!

Gojo Satoru:

When Gojo’s phone starts buzzing with your ringtone, he answers it instantly, turning his back to the first years, who are bickering over where they want to go for dinner, on his dime. He steps away, holding the ear up to his phone with a gentle smile.

“This is Gojo; how can I make your every dream come true?” The line is silent before he can hear a slight sniffle on the other line. All of the humor and playfulness leave his tone as he steps into an alleyway to keep things a bit more private. “Sweetheart, hey, what’s wrong? Who do I need to teleport to the middle of the ocean?

“M-My cheating scumbag of a boyfriend.” You manage to get out in between hiccups. Satpru grits his teeth. He never liked the asshole, never in the entirety of your one-year relationship. “I-I was going to shop for some supplies for Yaga, l-like yarn and shit. And his coworker sent me a video of them fucking..”

“Where are you?” He asked, hurrying back to the group of first years, tossing Megumi his card. “I’m coming to meet you right now.”

After sending Gojo your location, you hung up the phone just as he teleported right in front of you, scaring the ever-loving shit out of you. “Jesus Toru, you sca—” His arms are around you in an instant, holding you tight against his chest. The sudden affection leaves you speechless, but the warmth of his body and the sweet, musky smell of him comfort your broken heart. Smelling him, feeling his warmth, had tears flowing down your cheeks. You hugged him back, arms wrapping tightly tightly around his waist.

“I always hated that dick; he was a total scumbag, sweetie," Satoru whispered gently, rubbing his hands up and down your back. “You don’t deserve to be treated the way he treats you. You deserve someone who’ll give you the world.”

“If you find anyone like that, let me know.”

“Well, you're sort of hugging him right now.”

You blinked, eyes going wide as you pulled back, looking at the blindfolded man. "Wh-wait, what?” He chuckled, one hand remaining on your waist while the other reached up, rubbing at his undercut nervously.

“I'd treat you like royalty, sweetheart. God, I've liked you for years now."

"Years!? How long are we talking?!"

"Since we were third year.”

"Third year? Toru, why didn't you wait so long to tell me?!”

"Because you were already dating Jerks, you didn't seem interested whenever I flirted. Do I gave up and decided to stick to being your friend?”

Thinking back to the times he flirted, he had been so boisterous, and in your head, you thought he was joking with you. When it turns out he genuinely wanted to go out with you. If you hadn’t been so dense all these years, you would’ve realized that you would’ve said yes to going out with him in a heartbeat.

“Oh my god, all this time, I thought you were just joking around! I’m such an idiot.”

“Don’t say that; I probably should’ve been more straightforward.”

Satoru gently squeezed your hand before you interlaced your fingers together. He was feeling your hand in his hand, which made his heart sore. His eyes glanced down, confirming what he felt was real, before his cheeks flushed a deep red.

“Is it too late to acknowledge your flirting?”

“For you? Never.” He began leading you out to the street as you pulled out your phone, deleting the message from your exes mistress. “Say ~ what do ya’ think about dishing out some cold, brutal revenge?”

“I would say I like the way you think.”

“You still have that Polaroid camera?”

The smell of sex is thick in the air as Gojo fucks into you from behind. You're gripping the sheets as he holds the Polaroid camera above him, snap-shotting the perfect back shots he’s giving you. The camera spits out the photo, and he snatches it, shaking it violently before looking down at it. He smirked, grabbing a handful of your hair and yanking it, lifting you from the pillows.

“Look at this, fuck, you’re so pretty. I know we’re doing this for sweet, beautiful revenge, but I don’t know if I wanna show the world these pictures.” Hearing him being so possessive over you has you groaning and pleasure. “I think I want to keep these pictures all to myself, maybe take a couple with me so I have jerk-off material on missions.”

“Fuuuuck Toru!” you rock your hips and back against his hard cock that’s twitching inside your wet pussy. “Yeah, that them, keep them; I don’t want anyone else seeing me but you!”

The tone of your voice, the submissive words that leave your pretty fucking mouth, has Gojo pulling your hair harder as he keeps your head held up as he fucks into you harder. “Yeah, baby, do you want me to keep these pretty little pictures? Pretty pictures of you that my cock twitch and I’m still fucking inside you.” He pulls you up so you’re back is pressed firmly against his chest, both of you on your knees as he rams his cock into your g-spot.

“Gah! Fuck~oooh fuck Satoru~!” You reach a hand back, gripping the back of his head, pulling him down to your mouth so you can kiss the life out of him. “Yes~ yes~ keep them all~!”

“Mhmmmpm!” White eyebrows knit together as he kisses you back as hard as he can, lips bruising against yours, making them swell even more. “Fuck~ fuck sweetheart, you are so fucking hot.” He turns the camera so it’s facing the both of you and snaps a picture as he kisses your neck, nipping and sucking on it, marking you up so everyone will know you are his and he is yours.

The bed is covered, and Polaroid pictures depict your sexual debauchery over the last two hours. From you sucking him off to his head buried between your thighs, making you come so hard you experienced an out-of-body experience. The proof of your sexual encounter has your cunt throbbing, hugging his cock so hard it has him whining.

“Oh my god, you're so tight! Fuck!” Gojo’s jerking his hips up into you, hitting every spot that was a weak point for you. He’s a whimpering fucked up, pissy drunk off of you.”Nnngh baby~ baby sweetheart!” Hot breath fans against the crook of your neck as he nips at your skin.

“Toru! Toru! Oh my god! Ooooh, my fucking god, I'm going to cum! Oh fuck!”

“Oh please~ please cum on my cock~! Please! Fuck I wanted this for so long! God fuck!”

Satoru’s peace quickened as he slammed the head of his cock over and over into your g-spot. You squirt all over the bed and the polaroids that covered the sheets. Watching you come for the first time in real life and not in his fantasies had Gojo stealing his hips as his thick cum filled you. He weakly thrust in and out of your heat, leaking out with each time he slid out of you. He only stopped once he felt his balls unclench, and you both collapsed forward onto the bed.

“Oh my fuck.” Polaroid pictures moved across the bed under your conjoined heavy breathing. “Fuuuuck, I've dreamt about doing that for so long.” His lips pressed against your back with dozens of kisses, leaving you a giggling mess underneath him.

“Satoru~”

“Yeah, baby~?”

“Let’s go again.”

You could feel his softening cock twitch within your walls. “Again?” Satoru’s tone is thick as honey, excitement clear as day.

“Yeah~ we have ten years to make up for.”

You and Gojo made up for last time and then some, and while your ex never received any of the Polaroids you both took, he did receive the biggest fuck you when Gojo teleported all of his belongings into the Atlantic ocean. Dating the strongest sorcerer of the modern age came with several perks, a big dick, and scary dog privileges. As you lie in bed with him, you were never more grateful for receiving such a video of your ex cheating because you gained the best boyfriend in the entire world because of it.

Geto Suguru:

“I cannot wait to eat these cold soba noodles! It’s so hot outside. They’re gonna taste so good.” You looked up at your best friend as you exited the elevator. “Aren’t you excited, Suguru?”

“Ecstatic.”

“You know what would make these noodles taste ten times better? If my asshole boyfriend wasn’t at home.”

Suguru shook his head before heaving as you searched for your keys inside your purse. “I honestly don’t know why you won’t dump the dickhead.”

“Ya’ know, I’ve been asking myself the same question.” your asshole of a boyfriend had been blowing you off for weeks now. He complained about everything you do, and you were getting sick of it. “I should just dump him and date you instead!” your chicks burned as you stopped at him, a teasing smile over your lips.

When you met his eyes, you weren’t met with the soft grin he gave you whenever the two of you joked around. Instead, it was an earnest look; his eyes narrowed as he nodded before grabbing your shoulder and turning you to face him. Your mouth was suddenly very dry as he kept your cheek with his thumb.

“You should.”

“W-wait, seriously?”

“Yeah, I would treat you so much better than this asshole.”

You blink before opening your mouth to respond when a moan sounds from the other side of the door. That did not belong to your boyfriend. Suguru’s eyes were wide, his head jerking towards the door as you saw red. Flinging it, you rushed in, finding your boyfriend balls deep inside his coworker on your couch.

“You son of a bitch! That’s it. We are done!” Suguru gently took the bag of food from you, putting it on the counter, allowing you to throw your purse at your scumbag boyfriend. “Get out of my apartment!”

“Your apartment?” Your now ex-boyfriend asked as he and the bitch got dressed hastily. “Don't you mean our apartment? I live here, too!”

“Haha! Not any fucking more! I can't stand your ass!” You shriek, looking for something to throw at him. “You scumbag! God, you're both such terrible, horrible, nasty people! You deserve each other!” Having had enough of the conversation, you turned to storm out, and your ex scoffed smugly.

“Yeah?! Well, at least I have someone.”

That was it; you were going to jail. You turned to commit several crimes, but just before you could, Suguru stopped you. His lips crashed against yours. His lips moved feverishly against yours as he backed you up against the wall, slamming his hands on either side of your head. The initial shock of the unexpected knee-buckling kiss wears off, and you're like melted butter. You throw your arms around your best friend's neck, pulling him closer.

The fluidity of your kisses and moans would have had anyone assuming that you had done this countless times when, in fact, it was your first kiss. A kiss that was fueled by yes of pent-up desire. Suguru put everything into that kiss, ensuring you knew how he felt. You had never been kissed so passionately in your life. It was an array of tongues, the lingering taste of brown sugar milk tea, and pure lust. It made you want more, and for once in your life, you would be selfish.

You broke the kiss first, freeing yourself to stare at Suguru’s tan, flushed face as he panted roughly against your lips. A breathless giggle full of excitement and relief rose in your chest as Suguru kissed you again before turning to sneer at your ex while you trailed kisses down his neck.

“Ahhh~ fuck would you look at that.” His eyes rolled back as you nipped at his skin. “Looks like she does have someone~” Suguru picked you up by your thighs, lifting you to his hips. “Now, I’m going to give you ten seconds to get out of here before I start ducking my girl.”

“Why the fuck would I care?”

“Because I’m going to make her scream so loud you’re going to know what a real orgasm sounds like.”

“Suguru!” You squeak as he carries you to the kitchen table, tossing the placemats to the ground before laying you on top.

“W-What?! fuck you, Man-Bun. I’ve made her cum before!”

“Mhmm~” Suguru kisses down your neck, making you gasp. “Sure you did—just like this chick right who just sounded like some B-grade actress and a bad softcore porno.” His hands trail down your body, squeezing you gently.

You were so lost in the pleasure that you barely noticed the girl stuttering as she dressed. Your ex asks if she faked it as they hardly exited the apartment. The sound of shocked, angry yelling you in that she had faked it like you had done almost every time you had sex with him.

Suguru nipped at your collarbone before pulling back and looking at the door. “They’re gone.” He gasped as you yanked him back on top of you, kissing him deeply. The groan that left him as he rocked his hips against yours had your legs trembling in anticipation as you worked at his belt.

“So make me scream so loud they can hear it down the street.”

When you ask Geto to make you scream, he makes you cry. He fucked you on the table, his fat, thick cock, sliding in and out of your tight little hole, making you cum so hard you soaked his pants. Before he bends you over the couch and fuck you again, this time even harder, making you scream even louder. Before he dragged you into your bedroom, where he fucked you against the door.

The benefit of being one of the strongest sorcerers was that Geto had stamina. And even when his dick was limp and needed a break, his tongue did all the work for him. For a man’s curse technique was swallowing curses, he knew how to eat pussy like a champ.

“Oooh, what the fuck!?” You screamed as Geto Slid his tongue inside of your cunt, curling it expertly against your g-spot. “Wh-Whoa~! Fuck! Fuuuuuck me!”

Your hands dug into the dark raven strands of his hair, pulling on it roughly. Suguru growled, hands grabbing your hips and bringing you closer to his mouth. His nose rubbed up and down over your clit as he fucked you with his long tongue. Your upper body convulsed, shaking up and down as the pleasure rippled through every nerve in your body. Geto Suguru eats you out like you were his last meal on death row, from the tips of your toes to the top of your head.

“Mmmm~,” he hummed, “mmmhm~!” his eyebrows knitted and concentrated as he felt your sweet, tangy slick coating his tongue. he loved the way you tasted and how you withered against the bed as he pleased to deal with his mouth. He got off on getting you off. Tasting your dripping pussy, enough to have his sore dick rising to attention, ready for the fourth round of your insane sexual escapade.

“S-Sugu! Ooooh fuck yeah~ fuck oh my god!” Tugging his hair made him groan as you rocked against his nose. “Yes, yes!”

Suguru pulled back, panting like a madman; he used both hands, slamming back down against the mattress. “Stop—how can I enjoy my meal when you’re bucking against my face like that.” the sound of protest forms in the back of your throat., but Suguru is back between your legs, lapping at your wet folds. “By a good girl.” but being good was so hard when you were right on the edge of cumming. You wanted to know you needed it; you needed to cum all over his tongue.

“Plllease Sugu~! Please, I wanna cum~”

“Yeah, wanna cum all over my tongue, baby?”

“Yes! Please, please, I need it~!”

That single word had him melting. “Then,” he gripped your thighs, desperately flipping you both so you were straddling his face, “take what you need.” His tongue slid out of his mouth, resting flat against his chin.

Suguru had dreamed about you sitting on his face several times. He’d had countless a wet, wet dream about the scenario. For you to finally straddle his face and start humping his tongue while you played with your tits, Was almost enough to send him over the edge. Watching you use him, it was so fucking hot. You rocked and rolled your hips, fucking your face against his mouth as you gripped the sheets, grounding yourself as you fucking cummed all over his face.

The raven-haired man underneath you sucked all of your juices, willingly letting it fill his mouth as he groaned and whined at your taste. The taste alone, cock twitching once, then twice before a spurt of white-hot cum splattered against your back coding alone, cock twitching once, then twice before a spurt of cum hit your back. Feeling him cum untouched just from eating you out was enough to extend your orgasm, leaving you a trembling sloppy mess above him.

“Oooh fuck.” His voice muttered against your twitching pussy before you pulled back, laying down on his chest. “You are utterly insatiable. Do you know that?”

“Me? Good sir, you’re the one that just literally sucked the soul out of my pussy.”

“I’ve wanted to do it for so long I got excited.” his hands gently rubbed down the sides of your body. “You know, I’m not even sorry that we walked in on your ex cheating on you today.”

“Strangely, I couldn’t agree more with you.”

Suguru pushed her back out of your face, smiling as you nipped and kissed at his pecks. “The second I get the feeling back in my legs, I’m getting those soba noodles for us to eat in bed.”

“That sounds like heaven.”

“Mhmm, if you're here with me, it is.”

Nanami Kento:

Nanami stood outside your favorite restaurant, searching the sidewalk for any side of you. He was planning on treating you to a warm meal and a bottle of wine as a thank-you for your help on a recent mission together. You were running late and starting to wonder if you got caught up at the school before he could pull out his phone to call you; he heard you.

“Leave me alone!” you shrieked, running towards Nanami; while you’re moronic imbecile of a boyfriend was close behind.

“It was an accident, I swear!”

Without thinking, your best friend since high school rushed forward, and the second he saw tears flowing down your cheeks, he pulled you behind him, allowing him to face the man he knew as your boyfriend. Your hands gripped his suit jacket as your boyfriend tried to get around Nanami, but he would not allow him the chance.

“She has asked for you to leave her alone. Stop harassing her.” Nanami’s tone was cold and stern.

“Babe, it was an accident, I swear to God!”

You scoffed, your head around Nanami. “An accident?! you call fucking your coworker an accident?!” Nanami felt a vein pulse in his forehead; how could someone hurt you like that? “You expect me to believe that you accidentally tripped and your dick accidentally slid inside of her?!” when you rationally put it like your boyfriend didn’t know what to say.

“Babe, please—”

“No, we’re done. I will leave your shit in front of my door. Get the fuck away from me, delete my number, and never reach out to me again.”

“B-But—”

“You heard her. You should leave because you won’t like it if I get involved more than I already am.”

You watched your ex-boyfriend heading down the street, his head hung low. The instant he was out of sight, you pulled away from Nanami with a sigh. “Thank you, Kento.” a giant hand stroked some of your flyaways against your head.

“You're welcome. I know this question is foolish, but are you okay?”

“I'm fine—?” Now that you are away from your exes hustling, you can process your emotions. “I'm more angry than sad.”

“That's understandable and a very rational way to react.”

“It's been a long time. But—” A broken sigh left you, “him cheating on me was the final straw.”

Hearing you say your relationship was finished made Nanami happy. “Good, I never liked him. You deserve so much more than he was willing to give you..”

You smiled weekly, gripping at the sleeve of his jacket. “That's very sweet. Thank you, Kento. I’m sorry, but could we rain check on dinner? I need to go pack up his shit.” you released his jacket to head back towards your apartment. You weren’t able to step forward before Nanami grabbed your hand, preventing you from moving further.

“Let me help you take out the trash. We don’t need to go to a restaurant, but I can cook dinner.”

“Oh, you don't have to do that.”

“I know I don't, but I want to.”

Knowing Nanami, he wouldn’t take no for an answer, not when he knew how upset you were and that your heart had just been broken. You didn’t want to be alone. So that’s how you found yourself on the floor sipping wine as you ate the pasta Nanami had prepared. You both were having such a great time laughing and chatting with each other. No one would’ve guessed you had broken up with your boyfriend hours before.

Nanami Kento always made you happy. He was the best thing that happened to you in high school. You had a major crush on him, but he never seemed interested. That was a shame to you. Do anything to be with a genuinely great guy like him.

“Say, Ken,” You were leaning against his side. “If we’re both not married by the time we hit thirty. What do you say we just get married? We’re both good friends. I think it would be a good marriage part—”

“It’s so incredibly frustrating with how oblivious you are sometimes.”

His remark has you sitting up, turning to watch as he sips more wine. “I’m sorry, what?” the blonde snickers ran his hand through his hair.

“Have you ever stopped and asked yourself why I never liked your ex-boyfriends?” you’re too stunned to answer his question. “It’s because I like you, and I always have. It’s always been you.”

“Kento.”

“Seeing you in tears tonight being cheated on has me feeling a little more blunt.” His honesty has you breathing heavily as he puts his wine glass on the coffee table before he cups your face with both hands. “I don't want to wait until we’re thirty to be together. I want you now and forever.”

“N-Not like a one-night stand? This wouldn’t be a one-time thing?”

“No, this would be the beginning of a hopefully very long life together.”

There was no hesitation or second thoughts as you grabbed Kento’s face, kissing him hungry deeply. Your best friend hummed, pulling you onto his lap as his hands arrested on both of your hips, making you slowly rock against him. The sweet wine smell of his musk and plum made your head spin as you rocked faster. The pent-up desire finally allows you the courage to take what you want.

The sweet smell of your favorite bubble bath mix filled the air as water slowly spilled over the edge of the tub as you rocked up and down on Nanami’s cock. His head was tilted back as honey, brown eyes roamed over every inch of your bare, wet skin. A glow danced over your beautiful skin in the low flicker of candlelight, making you look like a goddess.

Nanami grunted, hissing through his teeth as his hands groped and gently massaged your breasts, his mouth coming up, latching onto one of your nipples. Your back arched as you gently guessed, leaning against him harder, pressing your breasts into his face, encouraging him to keep sucking. With each time you lifted your hips off his cock he’d suck the bud, and with each time you slammed yourself back down on him, he nibbled around your areola.

Although you have never been intimate, you move with a particular flow. You were like ice skaters who had been skating for decades. You knew each movement and how the other liked it. And perhaps that was because you had known each other for so long. You knew each other like the back of your hands. But there was something more between you. Something that was a more profound feeling, almost like the two of you were made for each other.

“Ah~ fuck honey.” Kento’s hot breath tickled your wet breasts. “Can I help you? Please, I want to be a little selfish.”

“Y-Yes Kento~ I want more! I need all of you.”

Sliding his hands off your breasts, Nanami reached down, grabbing your hips, holding them gently as he began thrusting up into you, slowly, sensually. The way his hips rocked into you was gentle, full of passion at the same time. The intensity of his slow thrusts had you gripping onto his broad, muscular shoulders for support as he began sliding down in time with his pace.

“You feel so good~I can't get enough of you.”

“Then consider me all yours.” You breathe out against his kiss, swollen lips. “Take me, Kento~ make me yours one million times over again.”

So that’s exactly what he did. Nanami pressed his lips firmly against yours, sighting his tongue into your mouth. You were both a tangled mess of limbs and tongues as you both fucked each other toward the edge of orgasmic pleasure. He moaned into your mouth, pulling away, resting his forehead against yours as he stared into your eyes.

“Look at me.” his voice was gruff and so deep. “Look at me when you cum on my cock.”

Gripping onto the blonde strands of hair on his head, he stared into his eyes as your walls were convulsing around him. “Kento~ Ken ~ ooooh fuck I'm cumming~ cum with me~!” he didn’t need to say anything for you to know that’s exactly what he did. Warmth spread through your body as he filled you, and you came together.

The intensity of the orgasm had you both shaking and trembling as if you were stuck in the snow. His lips move against yours, secret your hips with a satisfied snarl. “I could get used to this. Coming home to you, enjoying a hot meal and bathing together.” his hands gently groped your ass, squeezing it.

“Mmm~ As long as you’re cooking, I think we have a deal.”

“Mhmm, that’s fair; I’ll cook.” His hips jerked up into you, his cock still fully erect. “And you’ll be the dessert.”

Choso Kamo:

Choso walked with Yuuji to his class, eager to see you. The two of you had become best friends over the last few months. Telling each other everything, going to dinner, taking walks, and training together, you were inseparable. The only downside to being friends with you was that Choso longed for more. He didn’t want to be your friend. He wanted to be your boyfriend. But he would never make a move because of your current boyfriend.

He was a sorcerer and a scumbag who didn’t treat you the way you deserved. Choso had been so confused about why you wouldn’t break up with him, but his younger brother told him some people accept that sort of treatment. They feel like they can’t do any better, which is asinine because. Choso would love to treat you like a princess but wouldn’t push you to leave the man you were dating.

“Good Mornin’ teach—” Yuuji announced as he and Choso entered your classroom. Brown eyes met yours, and Choso felt like his heart would stop.

You were gently sitting at your desk; Geto and Shoko rubbed your back as tears streamed down your cheeks. For a second, both Cho and his younger brother thought something horrible had happened. Maybe someone had died, or you were hurt.

“Itadori, Kamo—” Geto straightened, shoving his hands into his pants pockets. “Gojo was supposed to catch you, too. He’s taking over your class, Itadori.”

“Oh! Yeah, we didn’t see him on our way here.”

“Yo Yuuji, Choso, let's get to the field!” Speaking of the devil, Gojo shredded forward, towering over Megumi and Nobara, who followed behind. “Your talisman class was canceled because your sweet teacher got her heart broken.” Heartbroken?

Choso’s head snapped in your direction. He'd experienced heartbreak himself after the deaths of his younger brothers. Was your heartbreak so bad that Shoko needed to heal you?

“Are you going to be all right? I know how painful a broken heart is.”

“Satoru!” Geto chastised as Choso rushed forward, gently examining your face, waiting for you to ensure you were okay.

“Cho—I’m okay—I just—”

“Hey, it’s not my fault. She got cheated on by a Playboy sorcerer who was notorious for sleeping around.”

Cheated? Like in a video game, it was possible to break your heart by cheating like that? The questions reeled, and Choso’s mind evaporated as you stood up, hissing as you tossed one of your talismans at Gojo. The glowing blue paper hit the white-haired sorcerer’s infinity and violently shook before exploding into blue cursed energy.

“Oh shit, I didn’t know she was still here!” Gojo grinned, pointing at your flailing talisman paper. “You seriously thought this would get through my infinity? That’s hilarious.”

“Fuck you, Gojo! It’s not your right to go around telling people what happened!”

“Sorry! Sorry! I'll leave you to wallow in self-pity. Yuuji, let’s get going.” Choso watched as the strongest sorcerer of the modern age grabbed his younger brother by the back of his hoodie and dragged him down the hall.

For a moment, Choso tried to think of what to say or what questions he could ask without coming off as insensitive. But those thoughts came to a heart as Geto cleared his throat and motioned towards the door at Shoko. The two friends left, heading off in the direction Satoru turned, leaving you and Choso alone.

Your dark-haired companion shut the sliding door to your classroom before strutting towards you. You were wiping useless tears when he threw his arms around you, hugging you. The sudden affection caught you off guard, making you stumble back against the wall as Choso squeezed you tight. His warmth and the sweet smell of spices were much more comforting than your friend's backrubs. So, of course, more tears fell from your eyes, staining Choso’s robes.

Seeing you in such a distraught state, the marks on Choso’s face shifted into the shape of arrows. You could hear him gritting his teeth as he clenched his jaw tight. His hand slowly stroked your hair back, and you sniffled into his clothes as he rested his chin on your head.

This was exactly what you needed.

For someone to hold you tight and let you cry into their chest. You didn’t need to hear about how you had made a mistake; you knew that. You just wanted a hug and were so glad it was Choso. He was always so good to you; he was perfect.

Pulling back, you sniffed at Choso’s thumbs and brushed tears away. “What happened?” he spoke softly as if he thought his words would break you.

“I found out my ex was cheating on me with several different girls.” You sighed, resting your chin against his sternum and looking into his eyes. “I saw all the messages and pictures; one of the girls found my account and messaged me. When I confronted him about it, he didn’t even deny it.” Choso’s hand twitched. “I asked him why he would cheat, and he claimed I was bad at having sex.”

“That’s ridiculous! A terrible excuse for a terrible human!” Choso’s brash anger made you blush. “Even if a person was bad at it, which I doubt is possible, it’s no excuse for breaking your heart.”

Your heart skipped a beat. “Cho—“

“I know I’ve been sealed, but that’s ridiculous! Even if someone was bad at it, I'm not saying that you are; there are so many more qualities to a person than just sex. How beautiful and smart you are, compassionate and open-minded you’ve been. Especially with me.”

“Choso.”

He gently stepped forward, slamming his hands on either side of your desk. “You are so incredible. I would never hurt you like that!” He inched closer to the smell of dragon blood spice wafted off him, making you dizzy. “Can I please show you how much you mean to me?” He stood firm and tall, waiting for your answer.

“I-I—yes, you may.” The second those words

The second the word yes leaves your mouth, Choso slams his lips against yours. You gasp as he presses you against the wall, your back against the window. His hands grab your wrists, pinning them above your head as he kisses you harder, his eyes shut tight as he groans against your mouth. The kiss has your eyes rolling as you kiss his back, and your tongue flicks at his bottom lip.

Your friends eyes open wide as the feeling of your tongue against his lip. He hesitantly opens his mouth, allowing your tongue to enter. He shudders, eyes rolling back as he tastes your favorite drink on his tongue as you massage it against his own. He kisses the sight of everything as he tilts his head, deepening the kiss, trying to match your pace.

You both pull back for air, gasping into each other's slightly parted mouths, a string of saliva connecting your lips. There was something in the kiss, how Choso’s gently held your wrists, that made you feral. He was so cute and sweet. God, he made you feel like you were going insane. There was always an attraction for him, but since you were dating someone else, you never acted on those feelings. Now that you were single, you could finally give in to the carnal desire screaming at you to act.

“Cho,” you pant, pulling your wrists free, resting your hands on his chest, “I want you, no, I need you.”

“I need you too.”

You grab his hand, pulling him towards your office. “Promise you’ll be honest if I suck at sex?”

Choso’s hair clings to his forehead an hour later as he bites his lip. He’s sitting in your chair, and you're straddling him, burying your face in his neck, breathing heavily as you ride him. He’s a whimpering mess, his arms wrapped around you, pressing your breasts against his chest as you thrust his hips up.

“Haaaaah~ haaah haaah.” He breathes heavily, digging his nails into your neck with a gasp. “Y-You’re so good~ sooo good! So wet, so tight, sooo good!”

“C-Choso~ Choso~” you’re littering hickeys all over his pale flushed skin.

“Y-You—fuuuck fuck!” He hisses out, throwing his head against your shoulder as he bucks up into you faster, whining, crying softly at the immense pleasure of you clamping down on his cock as he hits your cervix. “Y-You’re so good at sex! Oh my god, I love this. Can we do this again?! Please, I wanna do this all the time!”

Pulling your face away, it suddenly became evident. “Choso, you’re a virgin?” He nodded, his eyes rolling back into his head, and he shuddered at the feeling of gushing around him. “O-Oooh~ fuck Cho~!” You slam down on him faster; being the first woman he’s been inside of had you feeling absolutely feral. You wanted to ruin him for all other women; you wanted him to be yours and only yours. “W-We haaah, we can d-do this all the time!” Your sweet friend gripped onto your bare back tighter, gasping and gritting his teeth as his balls tightened.

“H-Honey! Honey, please, going to cum~! Gonna cum!”

“Yes~ yes, fill me up, Choso~ give it all to me!”

He shudders and slams up into you, dragging you over the edge with his. Your walls flutter around him as he kisses you deeply as he fills you with his cum. It’s hot and thick, coating your walls as you both hold onto each shaking from the intensity of your orgasms. You hum happily, your lips grazing his skin as he gently shifts, grunting softly.

“Honey,”

“Hmm?”

“You don’t suck at sex, you—you were like a goddess.” Pulling back, Choso cups some of your hair behind your ear. “I want to worship you.” His sweet, gentle voice has you leaning into the palm of his hand.

“You can, only on one condition.”

“Name your price, honey.”

You gently press your lips against his. “I get to worship you too.” Choso felt his smile widen as he kissed your lips over and over again.

“This is the best day of my life!” And you had to agree completely, because it was the best day of your life too.

Forever Tag List:

@darkstarlight82 @pandoness @nealeart @simp-plague @sugurubabe @chilichopsticks

[solarismoons]

Astronomy (prologue)

‘It’s astronomy, we’re two worlds apart’

Wally Clark x fem!reader

Summary: After suffering a near-fatal fall off the school roof, you started seeing things that weren’t actually there. Or- people who weren’t actually there.

Warnings: mentions of suicide, addiction, drugs, lots of angst.

✦•······················•✦•······················•✦

Your legs dangled off the roof, the moon's dim light illuminating the grass below. Tears filled your waterline and your eyebrows pulled together. Silent sobs filled the night air, getting lost in the whispers of the wind.

There was no sugarcoating it, no easy way to say it–Your life fucking sucked. Drugged out Dad, your Mom out of the picture, the whole nine yards. If your life were a shitty low-budget movie, you and Nicole would’ve laughed at the lazy plot of it all.

Nicole.

The poison of her name ran through your veins and tore a hole through your heart. You’d grown up with her, she was there through your worst moments, and you were there for hers. But when you hit middle school, it wasn’t you and her against the world. It was always Maddie.

Maddie. Maddie. Maddie.

You truly had nothing against her. You had nothing against her, or Simon, or even Xavier of all fucking people. But everything in the past few years was always about her. The two of you were simply friends by extension. Two separate people pushed into the same friend group. But still, it seemed like the whole world revolved around her.

Nicole always had an obsession with Maddie. What she ate, what she wore, how she decorated her locker…Down to how she fucking spoke. Nicole copied every. Single. Part of her. You never knew if she wanted her, or if she wanted to be her. Whatever it was, it drew you two apart. You slowly started losing your best friend.

The pain and loneliness was beginning to be too much. You felt so suffocatingly alone, the only person you could confide in being lost in a la-la land of infatuation.

So, you found yourself on top of the school roof at 2 in the morning. It wasn’t high enough to die. Maybe high enough to make you hurt. High enough so someone would actually care for you. The thought of jumping crossed your mind- just for a split second. It was a fleeting thought, soaring quickly through your head like a turbojet.

Tears began to spill harder, gushing out of your eyes like a fountain. Your sobs became louder. You grounded the meat of your palms into your eyes, desperate to stop the tsunami from streaming down your face.

Behind you, words faded in and out of the breeze, and heavy whispers echoed across the silent roof.

“Is… she…”

“I….do- know…”

It was bits and pieces of phrases you shouldn’t have been hearing. Phrases that broke through the barrier of life and death itself. You didn’t know it at the time, though. Still, you whipped your head around, your lip quivering just slightly. Shadows faded in and out across the roof, the air seemingly moving in the wrong direction.

Your sobbing quickly died down, and you squinted, your head beginning to swim with confusion. The shadows shifted in and out of reality, almost. You would not have noticed them if you hadn’t been looking so meticulously.

The phantom-like whispers snuck closer as if reaching out for you. Your heart began to pick up speed, beating against your chest painfully. Breath hitching in your throat, you hastily stood up. Palms slick with sweat, goosebumps bursting across your skin, legs trembling, you yelled out, begging them to stop.

You couldn’t comprehend the gravity of your situation, couldn’t comprehend what the hell you were seeing. You took a step back, your heel hooking on the lip of the roof. Gravity took control, yanking you down over the edge.

The last thing you saw was a large hand stretching out towards you.

────────────

Wally loomed over you, his head tilted. Eyebrows knitted together with concern, he glanced over to Rhonda and Charley, who seemed oddly standoffish.

“Is… Is she okay?” He questioned.

Rhonda rolled her cherry lollipop against her cheek, “I don’t know Moose, maybe she’s just sleeping?”

Wally narrowed his eyes at her. Why couldn't she understand the urgency of the situation? Here was a girl, lying half-dead on school property with a puddle of blood pooling beneath her head.

“What if she dies?” Wally slid his hands into his pockets, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth. His teeth sunk into the plush skin.

Charley frowned, wringing his hands together. “I mean… We can’t really do anything, Wally,” He reasoned. Wally knew he was right. If you died, you died. He couldn’t stop it. But it didn’t stop him from feeling any less awful. He felt… Drawn to you–in some incomprehensible way.

The group whipped their heads back down to you when you stirred. A soft groan escaped your lips. They watched with bated breath as you brought a shaky hand to the back of your head. You pulled your fingers back to your eye line, your pupils dilating at the smear of crimson.

The back of your skull throbbed with a searing, blinding pain that drew out another groan. You scrunched your eyelids together, fuzzy dots crowding your vision. At the same time, Wally crouched down next to you, fingers sprawled out on the soft grass.

Soft earth rustled beneath the soles of Rhonda’s boots as she turned on her heel. Charley glanced at you, then at Wally, then back at Rhonda. Confliction flashed across his soft features. As bad as he felt, there was nothing he could physically do.

“We should probably go,” Charley grumbled.

Still, Wally looked back down at you. He brought his fingers a feather’s touch away from your jaw before drawing them back. As much as he wanted to reach out to you, to help you, he couldn’t. He sat back on his haunches and took one last look at your pretty face.

Charley and Rhonda were halfway across the field when your eyes slowly cracked open. Wally’s eyes widened as you looked at him. Your eyes didn’t look through him. They looked at him. Your gaze pierced through the noise of the wind around you. It locked onto him with an intensity that sent a shiver down his spine. It wasn’t possible. You were living. Breathing. Your soul was still tied to the land of the living. You still had a fucking pulse, a heartbeat.

“What the fuck…” He whispered.

You don’t remember what happened next. Only that you scrambled up, despite the agony in your head and the strain in your bones, and found yourself at home just minutes later, shoes caked in mud.

You don’t know what the fuck you thought you saw. It was a hallucination. Your brain had conjured his image up, projected him in front of you. You fell off the roof, for fucks sake.

Still, your eyes glided over to a picture on the wall of your living room. In it, stood your dad and his high school best friend--Who died 40 years ago.

[invertedspearofseveneleven]

Morning Light - Soft!Sukuna x reader

Summary - You fall asleep with Yuji, but wake up with the cuddliest Sukana fucking ever???? (So fluffy it makes you sneeze)

A/N - This Sukana is NOTHINGGGG like canon Sukana lmao. This was also my first Sukana x reader fic hehe so it's kinda short

This was from a DM from @malvikareader

"That reader goes to sleep with Yuji but ends up cuddling sukuna (and he's a Lil softie just for her)"

Thanks for breaking up my writing slump, your idea encouraged me to make an ASK GAME so if you like this, please check that out as well <3

In the afternoon, when the blinds are opened all the way, the room still won’t feel well lit. That’s partially because of the way the dormitory faces down the hill. The afternoon sun will be at such an angle as not to reach well to your side of the building, and the window also already has trees in front of it. 

However, in the morning, the sun is blinding. Normally, you wouldn’t mind, but after a night out with Nobara, Megumi, and your sweet boyfriend, Yuji, the light pushing through the blinds is making your head pound. 

Moving an arm off your side, you climb from the bed quickly, trying to stay as asleep as possible. You close the blinds and slink backwards to get back EXACTLY to how you were lying. No warmth wasted. 

In the now darkened room, you sigh at the feeling of Yuji’s arm moving back over you. This was a perfect morning, quiet, warm, and spent with him. Nothing was better, well, nothing you could think of cuddled up against Yuji, safe and warm. 

The arm around your middle closed on your waist, and you felt yourself being pulled gently up. Eyes still closed, you felt a smile split across your face and you let yourself be rolled over, strong arms sliding under you and soft lips resting on your forehead. 

“G’morning darling.” 

A heavy, woody smell fills your nostrils, like a bonfire, as a baritone voice murmurs the greeting, so deep it rumbles in your chest like bass from last night. Your eyes shoot open, locking on a darkly tattooed pec in front of you. Yuji doesn’t have tattoos, much less ones that snake down his front. You suck in a breath.

Sukuna was in your bed. Worse, you were in his arms.

You had only seen Sukuna in combat, when Yuji would step aside to let him take over in dire situations. He was terrifying from far away, and you had yet to see his true form. You felt your heart speed up, and your breathing become shallow. You hadn’t even looked up at the speaker yet. Could you? This was the King of Curses for fuck's sake. Were you even capable, or allowed? It was Yuji right? Somewhere in there-

Your thoughts were interrupted by a hand beneath your chin. Hot skin burning against your racing pulse. The pressure of your head being tilted back softly and insistently was spellbinding. Yuji would never turn you so easily, make you move so persistently, you should have realized when you were turned around, moments ago.

But now, you were seeing him up close. It was Yuji’s face, obviously, but something else was holding it in control. The tattooed cheeks and chin, the messy morning hair, the soft eyes.

Wait. His eyes. 

“Y-Yuji?” you manage to squeak out. The eyes weren’t exactly his, but they were gazing at you like his.

“Hmm? Oh, no, sorry love. Not exactly.” Sukuna shifted to peck your cheek, rubbing his thumb against the spot before making eye contact again. 

“But you…you’re not…” The words die on your lips. It’s confusing, but you don’t feel afraid, however much you’ve stiffened and drawn your hands away from the toned chest in front of you. 

Sukuna tilts his head, brows furrowing. “Not what?”

“Not, I don’t know.” Your eyes flit back and forth between his, and he sees, not malice or fear, rather curiosity. “Not scaring me. Not like I thought you’d be.”

The wrinkle between his eyebrows smooths, and he smiles again. His hand starts to play with your soft hair.

“Yuji, foolish as he may be, has priorities outside of being a useful shell. I respect next to nothing, and that shouldn't change for my vessel.” He gives a low chuckle before he looks back into your eyes. “But there’s something about you. I see how you treat others, how you think with a beautiful mind, but also with a beautiful soul. Difficult for me to understand, but it’s visible to even me.”

Your arms relax and you feel Sukuna’s warm chest under your hands once more, earning a wide smile from him. He doesn’t let his eyes drop from yours, and he grows serious.

“This, well, this is the first time you’ve woken up with me at the controls. I’ve pulled you closer late at night, but never spoken with you, I realize. This must be strange.” He’s, gosh, he’s babbling. You watch his long fingers flip a strand of your hair absentmindedly, his chin held in his hand as his eyes dart around, finally breaking eye contact. He looks back.

“I’ll switch, if it means you’re more comfortable, if it makes you less…” two strong fingers press at the side of your neck, and you realize he’s noticed how fast your heart was beating. 

“...nervous.”

You stay still, and the only sound in the room is the shared breath between you. You realize he’s serious, that he must have seen you the way Yuji had for so long. Something about that had your attention. He had witnessed love so strong it had changed his otherwise calloused heart. You doubted anyone else would have woken up like you had, still cradled in his arms. Your decision has been made, even before he had finished that sentence. 

“No.”

Sukuna looks surprised. That was certainly not the answer he expected. But he feels a warmth fill him when he realizes you want him to stay. You move closer, resting your head against his chest, breathing in that wood burning smell, and you hear a soft laugh above you, feel another kiss at the top of your head, feel strong arms holding tight to you.

The birds chirp outside, and the sun rises higher, but in the darkened room, a King of Curses falls asleep with his weakness.

[daydreaming-en-pointe]

it’s nice to have a friend (pt. 1)

Pairing: Hobie Brown (Spider-Punk) x GN!Reader

Type: Mini Fic - Fluff-ish??

Word count: 1.6k

Warnings: Cursing, maybe a little bit ooc Hobie since it’s been months, a few halfhearted attempts at his accent and then I just gave up whoops

A/N: wrote this while having the worst cramps of my life last month and only finished it now 👍 idk I just felt like cussing out the world at that point so that might explain the excessive swearing 😭

Tap tap tap.

You were just about dropping off to sleep when you heard those light knocks on the window. Probably just a clumsy bird.

Tap tap tap tap.

The knocks grew more insistent, more familiar - a pattern of sorts. You heaved a long, mildly annoyed sigh and got up to open the window.

It was not, in fact, an annoying pigeon. It was Spider-Punk in the flesh. Or as you knew him, your absolute dumbass of a best friend.

“It’s 3am in the fucking morning,” You waved your hand at the pitch-darkness outside, giving him the most formidable glare you could muster. “What do you want?”

“Hello, sunshine!” Hobie hopped inside, pulled off his mask, and gave you a completely unfazed grin. “Nice to see you too. Stop glaring at me! What, I can’t see my best friend whenever I want?”

“It is 3am in the fucking morning,” You repeated, pointing helpfully at the clock on your bedside table, though you had to press your lips together to squash a smile. Good grief, did his little cross between a smirk and a smile have to be so contagious?

“But I can’t sleep, and clearly you can’t sleep, and I missed you, so let’s go!”

“You saw me barely six hours ago,” You deadpanned, already pulling yourself to your feet and grabbing your coat from where it lay thrown across the the bedside table. “Drama queen.”

“Me? A drama queen? Nah, I’ll show you drama.” He flopped melodramatically onto the floor, grabbing your ankle and pretending to die. He looked ridiculous, like a lanky stick-bug-fish hybrid that crawled onto land and starting flapping about.

“Hobie, get up!” You gave a little huff, reaching a hand down to yank him upwards. “Okay, fine, let’s go wherever it is you want to go.”

“Yay! Can we go to the roof?”

“Sure, we can take the fire esca- HOBIE WHAT THE FUCK NOT AGAIN!” Before you could even take a step towards your bedroom door, he had grabbed you around the middle and leaped out the window. Your stomach dropped as he let you both plummet almost to the ground before shooting a web to the railing that ran the length of the roof and extended a little bit over. You both shot up like a rocket and he angled you in such a way that your landing would be much gentler than his.

“The next time you do that I’m going to throw up on you,” You warned him once you got the air back in your lungs (after a little bit of wheezing).

“That’s what you said last time. Besides, ‘s like a free amusement park ride! Honestly, I’m so generous, you don’t even have to pay,” He chuckled softly, brushing past you to sit at the edge of the roof.

“Sometimes I don’t even know why I put up with you,” You muttered, carefully navigating around the looser tiles on the roof to go and sit next to him.

The atmosphere was silent, not peaceful exactly but just still for the moment. Factories in the distance were still chugging out thick smog that floated up to join the suffocating clumps in slowly strangling the city. The alleyways were dark save for a few slivers of moonlight that managed to cut through the pitch-blackness of the backstreets.

Perfect time for a philosophical conversation, right?

“Do you ever wish that that spider hadn’t bitten you?”

Hobie looked at you in surprise, his eyebrows raising slightly. He looked back over the city, leaning back on his palms. “Well… sometimes. What I mean is… sometimes I just wish I didn’t have to do this, y’know? But it’s better me than some pig. One of those bastards as Spider-Man would be a fuckin’ nightmare. For everyone who sees through Osborn’s bullshit.”

You nodded, satisfied with his answer. Truth be told, you didn’t understand much of what he said - it was 3am, it had been a long day, and the words just didn’t register in your tired brain. You closed your eyes for a few minutes, leaning on Hobie. It wasn’t very comfortable, since not only did you have to avoid impaling yourself on the small spikes on his vest, but his shoulder was also pretty bony under the fabric.

“Tired?” He turned his head to look down at you, eyes soft and sweet and filled with something you couldn’t quite put a name to right now, perhaps because of the state of your consciousness.

You rolled your eyes, having still not fully pushed away the remaining traces of grumpiness that lingered from your rude awakening. “Thanks to the dumbass who woke me up at some unholy hour.”

“Come on, you know you wouldn’t have slept anyway. At least this way you have some company.”

You opened your mouth to say something back but slowly shut it upon realising that he was right. Absolutely insufferable.

You just snorted and closed your eyes, savouring the moment as best as you can. You loved quiet moments like these, where you could ask anything and get an honest answer instead of having to mince your words — maybe you liked them more than you should, but it was fairly harmless, right?

Marriage could end in divorce, couples could break up, and young love really wasn’t a constant. You couldn’t expect something so intoxicating to retain its magic against the test of time.

So it was better to take that fierce rush of whatever it was that you were feeling and label it as platonic love. Because strong platonic love, when it was returned, was benign and beautiful and all-encompassing, all at once.

“Oi, don’t fall asleep here. Still with me?”

You felt a light touch of ridiculously cold fingers against your forehead and jolted fully awake.

“Asshole,” You complained, batting away his ice blocks for hands. “Have you been sitting and stewing in a fridge for a few hours?”

Hobie snickered at your annoyed frown and chose that moment to break into a grin, reaching into his pockets. “Oh, that reminds me, I made us matching bracelets!”

He held out two bracelets, ridiculously tiny in comparison to his fingers. They were both composed of random beads, staples, half-broken bottle caps and bits of coloured string threaded onto a loop of fishing twine. The loud, mismatched colours practically vibrated off of them in shockwaves like some sort of sonic boom of Hobie-ness.

In short, they were absolutely perfect. There was nothing that he could’ve given you that would remind you more of him. All sleepiness was momentarily forgotten as you took one of them, holding it up to examine it in whatever moonlight managed to cut through the clouds.

You gave him a smile, slipping it onto your wrist carefully. “It’s beautiful, Hobes. Thank you.”

“Ah, we’re back with the nicknames! There it is! Good to know I didn’t actually make a mistake waking you up.” His tone was lighthearted and teasing, but his smile had turned into one of affection as he watched your reaction to his gift.

There it was again. You’d seen it a few times recently, and it had been silently eating at you no matter how much you tried to dismiss it as simple friendship.

Nothing more than a tiny little flash of that puzzling something in his eyes, but something that made you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and not just in a way that someone would feel about their best friend. Something that gave you the courage to finally break free from the voice in your head whispering about everything that could go wrong — although that might have been because of your horrendous lack of sleep and the tiredness that was tinging each of your thoughts with just a little bit of delirium.

Screw keeping it platonic.

“Hobie,” You began, and something in your tone must have sounded different because he trained his eyes on you, his head cocking to the side slightly. You faltered slightly, trying to think of something to say. But before you could find a way to put your exhausted, confused mess of thoughts into words properly, he winced and his face scrunched up in the way it always did whenever his spider-sense went off.

“I’m sorry, I gotta…” Hobie gestured vaguely down at the alleyways, an apology practically written on his face. You nodded, ignoring the hollow pit of disappointment forming in your stomach.

“Yeah, you should go. I’ll… see you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” He agreed, already fishing through his vest pockets and digging out his mask. He paused to give you a cheeky grin before slipping the fabric over his face. “Don’t worry, I’ll pick a more pleasant time to drop in.”

“That’s what you said last time!” You called after him as he leaped off the building, disappearing down into the roads winding around, into and throughout the city. You stayed where you were, hugging your knees to your chest as you stared at the ever-shifting skyline. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Of course something came up right as you had finally mustered up the courage to say something… and yet, it felt as though he was almost expecting it. Like he wanted you to say it.

You scoffed at the absurdity of your train of thought, looping around and around hopefully like a broken clockwork toy. All wishful thinking, perhaps? Then again, maybe not. You pushed yourself to your feet, pushing open the fire escape and beginning to make your way back to your apartment. You almost missed the terrifying rush of adrenaline that accompanied one of Hobie’s daredevil manoeuvres in and out of windows on the fifth floors of buildings. Almost.

You got into bed again and switched off the light, pausing to look out of the still-open window. Oh, well...

You moved to close it, pulling down the pane of glass and latching it at the bottom.

Maybe next time.

@hobiebrownismygod @l0starl @therealloopylupin2099 (not sure if i’m missing anybody else, it’s been a while 😭)

[wonderfullyinlovewithlife]

of monsters and men (part i)

kai parker x reader

This work is part of a larger body of work that I am putting together. I'm thinking it will be a five-part story.

Warning: Dark Subject Matter Ahead. This is a serious warning. I am talking Dead Dove, do not eat. The threat of SA is constant throughout work, emotionally fried reader, a Kai Parker that is as canon as it gets. Murder of child (we watch them die). Men abusing women. I CAN NOT HIGHLIGHT THIS ENOUGH THE THREAT OF SA, but it's not kai that's the problem. Blood. Lots of it. Blood everywhere.

Read at your discretion. 

Also, please leave your comments below, I really appreciate them and would love to take requests. Because either you ask for what you want or I'm going to write and you're going to have to deal with it! So love!!

You kept running and running and running until the air you took in burnt your lungs. You couldn’t hear those other boys anymore; you felt they had dropped behind a few miles back, but you couldn’t be sure. They knew this place like the back of their hands, or that’s what they had told you. They had let you run into the woods. 

‘We’ll fucking get you.’ The smaller one had all but screamed as he pressed your head against the window of the truck, trying to shove you back into the car. He pulled you back by your hair then and smashed your face into the corner of the door. The skin on your forehead split, blood spurting out into your left eye. You had turned to spit on him then, right into his open mouth, and hit him in the eye. You felt your index finger connect with his eyeball before you bolted.

As you ran, you couldn’t help but think: Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! What were you thinking when you got into that truck? You should have just walked the 7 miles home. What had you supposed they would want, pulling over in front of you to stop you from walking down the dirt path? A thin branch scratched at your cheek as you continued to run. 

It was almost night now, and it was getting harder to see between the trees. Even as they were spaced out a little. You kept on running. It felt a little safer now. Like you could relax, almost, until it didn’t, you ran past a crumbled stone wall, and you could swear you felt the density of the air change. You were lightheaded suddenly, so sure that someone was watching you. You whipped the blood out of your face.  You got A prickling feeling at the back of your neck, alerting you that you were not alone.

This was what anxiety was for; you suddenly remembered your biology teacher explaining once. That fight or flight would kick in to help you notice all those things that went thump in the dark, like bears and killers and things that sorta lurked around. You hadn’t taken that seriously then. But now you were sure that if you stopped, you were going to be sick all over yourself. Many people would talk about this forest, and you had heard some stories—campfire shit. You tried to reason with yourself as you ran, hoping to keep up your momentum by dismissing this illogical sense of dread. You were alone—all those stories of witches, sabbats, and the devil were just created to keep kids out of the woods. 

But all alone in the forest it was hard to be so dismissive. So practically. You were sure that something was out there. And as it got darker, with each passing step, a strange cold voice, your self-preserving instinct perhaps, declared that you should have stayed in that truck and let them touch you. They would have hurt you, but it would be over. Maybe if you pretended to like it, they would drop you back home afterwards because that’s all you wanted now: home.  

Where was home in the middle of this forest? What was to become of you? There were bears here and poisonous snakes, and you were scared. You were so scared. And of what, you couldn’t even be sure. But you knew it was something out there. The general darkness began to fill up the space between the trees. 

You heard a gunshot go off suddenly. You turned back to look, thinking it was those boys, but tripping over your feet, you twisted your ankle, falling back into what could only be described as a large rabbit hole at the base of a rotting tree. It smelt like putrid fruit—an earthy, wet smell, like iron and salt. You tried to crawl back out, legs first. But something grabbed you. You felt thing figures curl around your arm. 

‘He’s out there.’ The small disembodied voice said. Its hand felt like a child’s. ‘You have to be quiet.’ 

You started to shake. You turned ever so slowly to see what it was. 

Pressing against the makeshift dirt wall was a small girl, not much more than six, covered in what looked like mud and blood.

‘Are you real?’ You whimpered. ‘Is this real? Am I dead?’ 

The little girl shook her head slowly,  tears coming to her eyes. Another gunshot went off. You could hear crows calling as they fluttered above you. You moved back up, right beside her. Worms stuck out of the wall and licked at the back of your arms. Looking back at the hole you fell through, you felt that whoever was out there wouldn’t be able to see you. Or perhaps they would, had they intended to kneel and crane their neck. You pulled your feet close to your chest.

‘Who’s out there?’ You turned to her. You couldn’t make out much about her face, but you did notice how her small hands held onto her stomach like she was cramping. 

‘My brother.’ 

‘Your brother?’ You closed your eyes, your brain short-circuiting,’ Is he trying to kill us?’ You had never heard yourself sound so afraid. 

‘Hm.’ She said.

‘W-why?’

The little girl took in a deep breath, looking down. ‘He’s upset with my mommy.’

‘But, why?’ You asked, frowning at her, trying to make sense of this all. 

‘I don’t understand.’

‘What? What don’t you understand?’

The little girl said nothing, but after a while, you felt her slowly slump into you. Her little hands fell from where she held her stomach, and you noticed the pink of her shirt was stained red with blood. There was a deep gash the size of your palm cutting up into her. How had you not noticed?

‘Hey!’ You shook her little shoulder. ‘Hey! Come on now! Wake up, please!’ You tried to whisper-shout, but her eyes remained shut. You notice then that her trousers are only dark because of the blood. How long had she been hiding here? Her brother had done this to her? You couldn’t understand. But a colder, cooler, more primitive voice took over. The one from before that had you retract your hands from her and shut up.  Stay here. You thought to yourself. If she could hide here long enough to bleed out with a gash like that, then it’s probably a safe place. 

You couldn’t believe it. But knew that crawling out of the hole would not be an option. You pushed yourself to the other side of the hole and decided to wait until sunrise, and then you would go, running out of the hole and to wherever your feet took you. 

[monsterswithimagines]

Idk if you do requests but if you do can you do a Nathan Young x reader thats angsty (maybe when he dies in series 1 episode 6) and then ends in fluff? if you dont do requests sorry for the bother!

Resurrection blues

Nathan Young x Reader

A/n: you want angst, anon? I'll give you angst. Draaaamaaaaaa. Wordcount: 1.8k-ish

Masterlist

~

When you’d started community service, you never could have imagined it would lead you here.

Digging up your friend’s grave in the middle of the day.

You didn’t want to be doing this–didn’t want to believe there could be any real purpose behind it. There may have been that note saying to come here, and Kelly may have thought she’d heard Nathan’s thoughts, but it simply wasn’t possible.

Nathan was dead. You’d watched him fall off the roof of the community center, had watched him get impaled on that fence. The others hadn’t seen it–not really. They’d all been under some kind of mind control but you… You’d been standing on the roof with him, earbuds in your ears to keep out that weird chick’s control.

You’d watched Nathan desperately try to cling on to Simon’s hand, had watched him fall, then his last twitches of life. You’d seen his lips struggle on a strangled gasp as he fought, impossibly, to stay alive against all odds, with Barbie Girl blasting in your ears, a great song forever ruined.

And then you’d seen the light leave his eyes.

You hadn’t been able to sleep since.

Nathan was gone. Digging him up was useless. It was a violation. But if the others were going to do it, you were sure as hell going to be here.

It seemed to take forever until Curtis’s shovel finally thumped against the casket, and it took all of your combined strength to lift said casket out of the reopened grave. It was a good thing the churchyard was empty today.

Curtis lifted the lid off the coffin, and then there he was.

Nathan.

He was pale. Sickly-looking. Pretty much what you imagined a corpse looked like before it started decomposing. He was wearing the jacket he always wore and one of his favorite T-shirts. One you’d seen him wear often.

You didn’t allow yourself to feel the heartbreak. Not all over again.

“He’s dead,” you pointed out, your voice sounding hollow even to your own ears.

“I heard ‘im,” Kelly insisted. “I think he was knocking one out.”

So now she was not only making you all desecrate Nathan’s grave, but she was also saying he was wanking inside his coffin. Which, okay, that did sound like him, but still.

“That does sound like him,” Simon said, as if he was the mind reader instead of Kelly.

“Maybe you just wanted to hear him,” Alisha said, sounding sympathetic. “But Kel, he’s gone.”

Kelly shook her head and leaned forward, frowning.

And then Nathan sat up and began to scream.

You screamed, too, grabbing onto Simon, who had gone stiff. Alisha was also yelling, and Curtis took several steps backward, exclaiming: “what the fuck!”

Needless to say, you were all well freaked out.

Nathan laughed, not quite managing to stop as he sputtered: “you should see the looks on your faces.” He took a deep breath, finally getting control of himself. “Classic!” He became serious suddenly, or faked it very well as he looked around at you all. “Hey, guess what? I’m immortal.” He grinned wide. “Can you believe this shit?”

He began to stand, which didn’t seem to be too easy for him.

“I told you all I had a power.”

Then, his eyes fell on you, and whatever words he’d wanted to add to his weird little revival monologue seemed to die on his lips.

You’d barely heard a word he’d said. You were gaping at him. Your heart was hammering in your throat.

This wasn’t possible. Nathan was dead. You had watched him die. You had– You had–

You bolted, never responding when your friends called your name.

-

You hadn’t really allowed yourself to cry since Nathan had died.

You’d cried when it happened, but since then your eyes had been bone dry. Instead, you’d turned your heartbreak–the one you’d realized right at the moment he had died was there because you loved him–into anger. Because he was a stupid bastard. Because he’d gone and made you feel things and then he’d died.

But now, as you slammed the front door of your flat closed behind you, you cried. Big, wailing sobs as you fell to your knees in the middle of your living room, wrapping your arms around yourself and rocking back and fort.

You didn’t even know what, exactly, you were crying about. Nathan was alive! Kelly had been right after all.

But you couldn’t stop.

You couldn’t stop picturing those last struggling twitches before he’d died, either.

You raked your hands through your hair, then pulled at it as if it would somehow get your brain to cease throwing those images at you.

You had no idea how long you sat there.

-

In hindsight, you’d probably begun to have feelings for Nathan on the very first day of community service, when he’d proudly declared he ‘was just done for eating some pick ‘n mix.’ Or maybe it had been sometime during the second or third week, when you’d been smoking together on your break and he’d nudged your shoulder lightly as he was making a joke–because even though it was about how your laugh was too loud, he wanted you to know he didn’t mean it and that you were in on the teasing.

But you hadn’t realised it then. You hadn’t realised it last week, either. Not even when you’d invited him around for tea and he had somehow managed to insult and compliment your cooking at the same time, then been weirdly nice to you all evening.

And then Nathan had gone and died, and all those feelings had crashed into you like a tidal wave.

Only now he was alive, and standing outside your front door at two am, because apparently the second thing he had thought to do after telling his mum that he was immortal was to come and check on you, or so he explained after you opened the door.

You blinked owlishly at him.

“Well?” Nathan asked. “Aren’t you going to let me in? It’s cold as balls out here.”

He was wearing different clothes, you noted. He looked like he’d showered. But he still looked tired and almost sick. You wondered whether that had more to do with dying, or with being inside a coffin for an entire weekend.

Oh, God, he’d been stuck in there an entire weekend.

“Okay,” Nathan said. “This is kinda awkward. Are ya just gonna keep staring at me?”

“Sorry,” you said, and stepped aside to let him through the door.

After you’d come home and had your little breakdown, you’d sat down on the couch and turned on the TV, but then you hadn’t really watched it. You hadn’t realised it had gotten so late, either. Not until there was a knock at your door.

It was the same way you’d been since the funeral, until going to community service this morning.

Nathan looked around.

“Wow, did you fire your cleanin’ lady?”

You didn’t respond. You weren’t in the mood for jokes.

You went to turn off the TV, then realised that made the room too dark and turned on the overhead light. Nathan shielded his eyes against the glare. But once his eyes adjusted, he looked at you once more.

You took a deep breath.

“You just ran off, earlier,” Nathan said before you could speak, sounding surprisingly earnest. “I was worried.”

You opened your mouth to answer. Closed it again.

“Aren’t you gonna say anything?” Nathan asked.

“Like what?” you managed to croak.

“Like, ‘oh, Nathan, I’m so glad you’re alive! Let’s go have a celebratory shag!’” He looked at you and frowned when you didn’t react. “No?”

“I thought you were dead.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t need to be all dramatic about that,” Nathan said, rolling his shoulders. “That’s the past, y’know?”

“I thought you–”

Oh, this was not good.

Nathan’s face crumpled as you began to cry, and he rushed into your space, attempting to wipe your tears away.

“Hey, no no no!” he rushed out. “We’re not doing any of that, okay? I’m here. I’m fine, see? You can even punch me if that makes you feel bette– Ow!”

No, punching him did not make you feel better, but you kept at it anyway.

“I thought you were dead, you fucking wanker!” you screamed, slamming your fists into his chest over and over in blind rage. Nathan attempted to catch your wrists and finally, you let him. “Never do that again,” you told him. “Never, ever–”

He kissed you.

Your brain short-circuited.

You didn’t kiss him back, but you didn’t move away either. Finally, when Nathan pulled back, you just looked up at him, waiting for him to say something.

“Did I just fuck up?” was what he settled on.

You shook your head.

“Down there in that coffin,” Nathan told you. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

“I…–” you began, but trailed off. You’d already said you’d thought he was dead several times. What else was there to say?

“I’m really tired,” Nathan said, letting go of your wrists and stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I should go.”

“You don’t have to,” you said before you could think about it.

Nathan seemed to hesitate.

“I mean, you can sleep here,” you clarified. “Instead of at the community centre. If you… want.”

Nathan seemed to think for a moment, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“Look, I’m no good at this…” he paused, “serious… girl… stuff and… feelings ‘n shit. I fancy you!” he blurted out this last bit.

For the first time in days, you actually sort of chuckled.

“Thanks,” you said. “Very romantic.”

“Oh, I’m an incredibly romantic man. Can’t you tell?”

You snorted. He smiled.

“That’s better. No more crying, okay?”

“Dickhead.”

“Ouch! You’re hurtin’ my feelings,” Nathan said, pressing a hand to his chest mockingly. “And on this, the day of my resurrection!”

“It’s, like, two am.”

“And on this, the day after my resurrection!”

You shook your head, smiling. But then, you pressed the palms of your hands against your eyes. You had a headache from all the crying, and you still couldn’t unsee Nathan impaled on that fence.

But…

You looked up at him again, and he smiled uncertainly at you.

He was here now. Alive.

“Will you stay?” you pressed.

“Okay. Sure,” Nathan said, almost sweetly. Almost. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is.”

Less than an hour later, after a lot of awkward hemming and hawing, you and Nathan lay in bed, both on your sides and facing each other.

And finally, after what felt like days of torture, you fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

[painsandconfusion]

Yours to Lose

Whumping the Whumpers - Part Forty

(tw: death mention, attempted murder, plotting murder, manhandling, victim blaming) [Previous | Masterpost | Next]

Ethan stumbled backward slightly at the force of Nate’s shove. The lingering bruise ached against his ribs, but did nothing in comparison to the ringing in his head. 

He immediately batted Nate’s hands away. “Get off of me!”

“What the FUCK were you thinking!?” Nate’s teeth were clenched as he stepped forward to push Ethan again - forcing him back into the wall this time. “Going down there alone in the middle of the fucking night- You could be dead if I weren’t awake! If I hadn’t happened to be there! If I wasn’t paying attention!”

Ethan’s chest clenched up, burning and twisting.

Stuck.

He felt stuck.

The pain that wrapped around him was colder than most cuffs he’d been in, and the little man in front of him seemed so much larger when his back was bruising against the drywall.

Ethan scoffed, shoving forward and knocking Nate out of the way. “I’d have figured it out. I always do.”

“No, you don’t- You get caught and fucked up again and again and again. He would have killed you - what part of that isn’t sticking?? Or is it just the concussion making you stupid?”

Ethan’s jaw set, eyes dead ahead as he strode toward the kitchen to wash the blood off of his neck. “Why do you even care?” 

He hoped Nate wouldn’t follow him. Of course, he did anyway.

“Why do I care!? Because you’re mine, that’s why!”

Ethan rounded on him, glaring enough it flared the throbbing in his skull. “You do not own me.” Each word precise. Spat over Nate in the dark kitchen.

Nate’s mouth immediately snapped open to retort, but he must have thought better of it. It closed again. He simply glared back for a long moment before trying again. “I don’t want you dead. I definitely don’t want him to kill you.”

Ethan raised a brow. “You want to be the one to do it, huh?”

Nate’s mouth pressed into a line. “..yes. I do.”

Ethan stepped closer, index finger pressed against Nate’s sternum. “And what if you’re not alive long enough to pull that off?”

Nate snorted - almost in amusement, but still too irritated to harbor his trademark smile. He batted Ethan’s hand away. “I know your angle. You know mine. If you had a problem with how I’m doing this, you’d have left.”

“No, I wouldn’t. I do have a problem with it, and I still won’t.”

Nate’s glare lasted almost long enough for the familiar fear to twist back through him. Luckily, anger kept it at bay long enough. “How many are left.”

“Some.”

Nate reached forward, shoving at Ethan’s chest again. “How many??” A harsh, whisper-shout that died on the wallpaper.

Ethan didn’t budge. Not that time. Nate could fall backwards if he wanted to push Ethan so damn bad. “I’m not telling you.”

“You don’t get to kill me the fucking second that I deliver the last person to you on a silver platter, you bastard-”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do, actually. Because you’re not gonna stop. You want them dead as much as I do.” Ethan found his hand drifting out, flicking a fallen lock of bang away from Nate’s brow.

Nate flinched.

He actually flinched.

A hand snapped Ethan’s away again.

“You don’t know what I want.”

“You want them to suffer.”

“Of course I w-” Nate’s teeth ground, eyes clicking to the side to think. “..do you like this?”

Ethan’s head turned slightly, eyeing Nate. “Like what?”

“Do you like getting fucked up?”

Now it was Ethan’s turn to shove Nate - hard enough the man stumbled backwards into the foyer again. “The fuck is wrong with you-??”

Nate sputtered a scoff, straightening his shirt again. “What the hell am I supposed to think, E?? You find who knows how many fuckers out there to mess you up, and even when you’re safe from two goddamn seconds, you go running off to the basement alone in the middle of the night and almost die.”

“I’m fine-!”

“YOU’RE NOT FINE.”

Air warbled and shifted, holding the words between them in silence for several echoing clicks of the farmhouse clock on the wall. 

“I just..” Nate rubbed at his eye, anger melting into frustration. “I didn’t know you were-... I thought you were dead. When I came in the workshop, you were bleeding and still and-...and I thought you ..I thought you were dead, E. I thought I’d lost you.”

Ethan’s ears were ringing, a hissing, electronic sting filling the muffled silence that settled in the wake of the words. 

Ethan stepped to the side, moving around Nate and toward the stairs. “I’m not yours to lose,” he muttered, rounding the banister. He needed a shower anyway.

He thought Nate might respond. Fight back or pull him down again.

Nothing happened. No words returned or refuted. Ethan just heard the front door open and close behind him as he moved up into the darkness with burning eyes and a throbbing skull.

[Previous | Masterpost | Next]

(tags: @prisonerwhump @whumpawink @wormwriting @distinctlywhumpthing @whump-cafe @jo-doe-seeking-inspo @azayta @batfacedliar-yetagain @there-will-always-be-blood @siren-of-agony @whumpworld @deltaxxk @whumpasaurus101 @pickywhumpreader @whumpberry-cookie @morning-star-whump @nailevislev @throwawaywhumper @the-mourning-star @d-cs @pigeonwhumps @suspicious-whumping-egg @snakebites-and-ink @whumpedydump @orphans-parent @whumplr-reader @rainbowsandwhumperflies @starfields08000 @sunnyesunny @crystallizedme @lumpofsand @taterswhump)

As always, lmk if you want to be added to the tag list!

[redahlia-writes]

practical magic. | javier peña x ofc

Abstract: Can love travel back in time and heal a broken heart?

There were some things, after all, that Helena Goode knew for certain:

Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Plant lavender for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.

Words: 12k

Content: original female character (helena goode); alternative universe, magic, death, ghosts, cursing, mentions of drugs, mentions of an abusive relationship, mildly suggestive language, inspo both from the movie and the book

A/N: it's still halloween, right? i'm sorry for the late late posting but, alas, shit happens. i hope you all enjoy this nevertheless &lt;3

reblogs and feedback are always greatly appreciated. you can send it here, too

also on AO3  - masterlist

He will hear my call a mile away. He will whistle my favorite song. He can ride a pony backwards. He can flip pancakes in the air. He'll be marvellously kind. And his favorite shape will be a star. And he’ll have eyes like chocolate, worthy of honesty.

Helena Goode often thought about the petals blowing in the air after her Amas Veritas, her true love. Years had gone by since then—she’d been just a kid, wishing on her true love, her perfect love. Thinking it could not exist—for how could it, when all those women came crying in her aunts’ kitchen in the middle of the night? She’d wished for what she thought could never come to her.

And then there had been Frankie—her love, definitely not perfect, but good, so good. And gone, gone forever, because she had loved him so much. Or so she had thought—maybe that hadn’t been real, maybe there was no such thing as real love, contrary to what her sister said. After all her aunts had played a part in her marriage, and for so long after Frankie’s death she’d tried to believe none of it had been real, so that it would hurt less. So that she would not die of a broken heart.

But, in spite of everything, in spite of her bitterness, in spite of her pain, in spite of the loss, she knew some things had been real. Like the coffee he made her in the morning before leaving for work, like the dinners she fixed before he came back, like the colour they picked to paint the walls of their house; like all the times she’d listened for his whistling as he came back from work; like his kisses, and like their two beautiful daughters; like the laughter during the day and the nights spent awake; like the normal life they’d began living, and the shop they’d dreamed of opening together that now belonged to her only.

Like the State Investigator who stood in front of her at the front door, asking after her sister’s boyfriend. A boyfriend she knew to be dead and buried right there in the backyard. Fuck, she kept thinking, looking at the man in front of her—his eyebrows arched, lips parted under a neatly trimmed moustache, eyes dark as chocolate, and—

“I’m sorry?” she asked, clearing her throat. Dry throat. Sweaty palms. Tongue-tied.

“Is your sister home?” She knew he’d asked that already, and he was being mighty patient about it. “I’d like to speak with her, ma’am,” and then, because she had not moved an inch, “nothing to worry about, really. Just routine questions.”

“Sure,” again Helena cleared her throat, and willed her legs to move. She stepped back, opening the door fully so that she could let him through. “Come on in, I’ll go get her.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck, over and over as the man nodded and stepped in, walking past her into the entrance—he smelled of coffee and tobacco, of the desert he came from. Helena closed the door and wiped her hands down the front of her shirt, which she suddenly realised belonged to one of her daughters, with rhinestones adorning the front. Fuck.

“Kitchen is just on your left, I’ll be right back.”

Phoebe Goode was trying her best. Each night she dreamed about James—his eyes, old and clear, staring at her—and each morning she tried to stop carrying him with her, to forget he ever existed, even though she could still see him on her face, in the bruises around her eye, in the split lip on the point of healing—thanks to her sister salve, the one that smelled of roses. She was trying her best, ignoring the awful fact she felt him still, knowing that the deepest relationship with a man of her whole life was with a dead man.

So she wore blue for protection, and had asked Emma, her niece, to lock her cigarettes away, and tried to sit in silence to meditate and push him away, out of her mind, out of her life for good. She was even back at the house, where she’d sworn she would never go back, because it was safer, because of her sister.

Her sister, running up the stairs, out of breath, in a shirt that did not belong to her and a skirt that must’ve been older than her, so dishevelled-looking Phoebe felt her heart drop for a moment, figured the next words out of her mouth would be James, and honestly anything after that could be awful, because he was. Had been.

“There’s a cop. Agent. Someone,” Helena was gasping, her voice an alarmed whisper. “He’s looking for you. And James—but he asked for you.”

“That’s fine, we can manage,” perhaps the meditation was working, because even after hearing his name she could still think without panic closing her throat. “I’ll tell him I haven’t seen him in days, and I came here because we’re done. And if he asks, you’ll just say—” she stopped, frowning at her sister as she shook her head. “What? You’ll just say you’ve never seen him.”

“Here’s the thing,” Helena reached for her chest, still shaking her head, still out of breath. Her head was spinning, and her heart—God, her heart—felt like it was about to explode. “I don’t think I can lie to him.”

“Of course you can,” Phoebe scoffed—but her sister was still having a hard time breathing, her eyes so wide she looked like a deer spooked half to death. “Get over yourself, Lena. It’s fine. You’re just having a panic attack.”

“I don’t think it’s that. I just—the way he looks at you,” she inhaled sharply, a strangled noise scratching her throat and making her sound like a wounded animal, then exhaled, breath stuttering. “I can’t sit there and just lie to him. I know I can’t.”

“You have to, Lena,” but her sister’s eyes darted around the attic, where Phoebe was staying in. She snapped her fingers in front of her face, making her recoil. “Listen to me, you have to. We know nothing, nothing happened.”

Helena and Phoebe had grown up knowing that something was real because they believed in it. That was what gave things power—magic, words, talismans. But what happened when two people believed two different things? How did the universe cope with that? Was James dead and buried in their backyard, under lilacs that were growing wildly out of season (girls in the neighbourhood had begun to whisper that if you kissed the boy you loved beneath the Goode’s lilacs he’d be yours forever, whether he wanted to be or not), or was he back in Laredo, or off somewhere else, left behind by his girlfriend?

Javier Peña was wondering the same as he stood in the odd kitchen of an odd house, there on Magnolia Street.

There were no clocks and no mirrors, in that house, and the floors creaked anywhere but where he stepped; light came pouring in from big, wide windows, showing an even bigger garden with lilacs out of season and more flowers and plants that he could recognise or count—rosemary and lavender, roses and daisies, carrots and an apple tree that reminded him strangely of home, but all seemed like a dream through the thick glass. Each piece of furniture inside seemed dusty, but when he ran his fingertip across the dark wooden surface of this table or that cabinet, no dust came away—no need for polishing anything in there. It smelled of cherrywood. It smelled familiar.

It was a familiarity Javier had not been ready to face—he touched the pocket of his jacket, felt the paper tucked in there crinkle at the touch, and a moment later, as if summoned by thought alone, Helena Goode came back down the stairs, slightly more dishevelled looking than before.

Helena had clearly been in the kitchen when he first knocked. He knew because he could almost see it, like a ghost moving around the stove, stirring a pot that had since been turned off, its content left forgotten on the back burden. He knew because she’d called Hold on at the third rattle of his knuckles across the door, matter-of-factly, as if she’d been expecting him. The mere sound of her voice had thrown him for a loop, the patio under his feet shifting unsteadily, and he could’ve followed the sound there with his eyes closed.

He thought then he could be in trouble—and when she’d opened the door, he’d known he would. Because he’d looked into crystal clear pools of grey and begun drowning, down and down without anything he could do about it. His father had once told him that witches caught you like that: with a look. If you ever meet a woman like that, you run the other way, no matter what, for your own good. There’s no cowardice in safety. But Javier had no intention of running—he’d rather drown, over and over, if it meant she looked at him like that a little longer.

She stood at the end of the stairs, perfectly still, with that ridiculous shirt with rhinestones across her chest and her dark hair down past her shoulder, brushing the sliver of uncovered skin at her waist. She was beautiful, Javier thought, so ridiculously beautiful he got a lump in his throat just looking at her. For a moment, before her Can I help you? at the door, he’d almost forgotten the reason he was there. He almost forgot it again when he saw her shake her head at the end of the stairs, and had to touch the letter tucked next to his heart again.

“Can I get you anything?” her voice sounded different as she strode into the kitchen. “My sister will be right down. Coffee?” she wasn’t looking at him, and Javier wished she’d just stop and turn to face him, if only to forget himself again in her eyes.

But Helena wouldn’t turn. She wouldn’t look at him. She woldn’t look at his face, and his neatly trimmed moustache, and his lovely dark eyes. She wouldn’t look at the lines on his face he was way too young to have, and the loneliness embedded in each of them she knew could be found in the silver strands of her hair, too. Helena figured he was not a man who hid things, just like he was not hiding the fact he was looking at her—she could feel his eyes burning on the back of her head, and she couldn’t believe the way he was staring at her. Looking at her like that.

It was how dark his eyes were, the problem. The way he could make someone—her—feel seen from the inside out.

“Coffee’s fine,” he said, forcing his gaze away. He looked outside, where in the distance, still filtered like a dream, he could see clouds gathering, a distant storm that seemed to have followed him there. Javier’s father had taught him to predict exactly when a storm would hit just by the location of lightning, so that he could prepare the ranch in time to brace for it.

He’d never been very good at it. He thought that lightning, like love, was never ruled by logic. Accidents happened, and they always would.

He looked at Helena again, her back still to him—she was watching the coffee brew, her arms crossed, fingers tapping nervously against her elbow. Javier looked at her and thought she was familiar to him—he’d thought that ever since getting her letter, the one tucked next to his heart, but to see her there in front of him, flesh and bones and long hair and clear eyes, really settled it for him.

He’d heard about it happening to other men—his friend Steve being one of them. Going about their business one minute and suddenly they found themselves without hope. They fell in love so hard they never got up off their knees again.

He’d never thought it would happen to him. Javier was all business—he always had been. It was his need to figure out the why of things, of people. Money, love, fury—those were the motivations he found usually, in his line of work. James Hawkins fell in the money category, of that he was sure, with perhaps a sprinkle of fury in the shape of his ring marked on the bodies.

Javier had been looking for that ring at Hawkins’ place—he’d seen it in pictures, read it in descriptions, remembered it from the few times his path had trailed along Hawkins’, because Laredo wasn’t that big of a place, and faces grew familiar over time—when the letter had arrived.

Crumpled and torn in one corner, the flap already opened, Javier had looked at it and thought he should’ve taken it directly to the office. But an open letter was hard to resist, even for someone like Javier, who had resisted a whole lot in his life. But that letter was something else, something tempting, and he gave into it.

He never regretted it.

He had just sat there, on the patio of the house of the man he was looking for, and read the letter Helena Goode had written to her sister. When he was done, he’d read it again. And again. And twice more midair, and then while he had his lunch, and once more when he’d settled in his hotel room. Even when the letter was folded back into its envelope and stored in the pocket of his jacket, the words came back to haunt him—whole sentences written by Helena forming in his mind.

Javier had been close to people, and while he didn’t have that many friends he was content—he’d even almost gotten married after high school, although that’s a topic no one ever brought up, not even himself. But he’d never once felt like he’d known anyone the way he felt he knew the woman who had written that letter. It felt like someone had ripped a piece of his soul out of him and formed into words. Words he was so taken by he wouldn’t have heard, seen, or felt a thing as long as he was reading them.

I have this dream of being whole. Of not going to sleep each night, wanting. But still, sometimes, when the wind is warm, or the crickets sing, I dream of a love that even time will lie down and be still for. I just want someone to love me. I want to be seen.

Javier wanted to tell her that he saw her. Right there in front of him, and even when she was not there, when he had not the faintest clue what she looked like, he saw her. He saw her standing, moving the coffee pot from the fire. He saw her pouring the coffee in three mismatched cups. He saw her hands shaking as she did so.

“Are you okay?” he asked, and she recoiled as if startled by his voice.

“I think I’m going to sit down,” Helena said, casually, as if she didn’t seem about to collapse.

Still she brought two of the cups over, almost spilling the contents of one, and collapsed onto the chair opposite Javi with a shuddering sigh, her cheeks flushed, her chest fluttering. She wondered if drinking coffee would be a good idea at that moment, still feeling as if her heart might explode, but needed something to keep herself busy, so she brought the cup to her mouth and gulped down the scalding drink, burning the roof of her mouth and her lips.

“Why are you here?” she asked then, bitterness coating her tongue. She was used to sugar in her coffee, most times a dash of milk. “I mean, I understood what you told me—about Phoebe’s boyfriend—but why here?”

She saw the man hesitate—he did not strike her as someone who hesitated in anything, but he was pondering her words and how to best respond to her, his lips shifting to draw in a breath, and then exhale. He reached for his jacket—he still hadn’t taken that off, and with the movement it hugged his shoulders tight, seams pulling uncomfortably—and, from one of the inner pockets, took a piece of paper that he handed to her.

“I mailed that to my sister ages ago,” Helena recognised it immediately—that letter she was so grateful had never reached Phoebe, but also wished it had a little earlier, so she wouldn’t be in that mess. There’s a halo around the moon tonight. I think trouble is coming. I wish you’d get out of there. Come back home. Alone. “You opened it,” she added then, a little baffled.

He hadn’t just opened it. He’d read it. The paper consumed from being folded over and over again, each line marked deeper where it bent, words slightly smudged as if someone had run their fingers over each and every of it.

“It was opened already,” he retorted, justifying. “It must have gotten lost at the post office.”

“But you read it,” the cup was burning her palm, the letter her other hand, her face was burning too under his gaze.

“Maybe a thousand times,” Javier admitted, his voice dropping.

“It was a very personal letter,” she whispered too, feeling the tightness inside her throat and belly and chest grow, and grow, and grow until it was choking her. That had to be what a heart attack felt like. Perhaps she was about to end up on the floor unconscious.

“I know,” the man said, and at last she looked at him.

He saw her but, Javier knew, she saw him too. She could’ve seen how Javier wasn’t sure how far he’d go to cover for someone—he’d never been in that position before, and he despised the way it felt. But he was there, sitting in her kitchen, drinking her coffee, a total stranger on a humid day, wondering if he was going to look the other way because of her. She could see all that—or at least, she hoped.

And then Phoebe came down. Noisy steps down the stairs, announcing her presence to the entire world—she always had that about her, always managed to bring the attention to her, with her lovely strawberry-blonde hair and her long lashes and full lips. Even with the bruises, even with the wounds, even with her fear embedded so deeply into her skin it was painful, Phoebe was beautiful.

Still, Javier focused on Helena, and it wasn’t until her sister stood at her side that he caught a glimpse of her. Night and day, that’s what the aunts called them. He didn’t know, but he would’ve agreed—so starkly different, yet seemingly in tune with each other.

“As I’ve said your sister, I won’t take up much of your time,” Javier cleared his throat, offered his hand to Phoebe as he stood. He missed the feeling of his letter against his body, but Helena was clutching it tight, pressing it against her stomach. “It’s just a couple of questions, routine checks.”

“Of course—agent, is it?” Phoebe’s voice was soft where Helena’s was strong. She took up space just by standing, her arms folded in front of her as she held the third cup that had been on the counter.

“Yes, ma’am—Agent Peña.” Only then did she take his hand, a delicate shake before turning his palm up towards her face, peering down with an interested hum.

“You’ve come a long way just for a couple of routine questions, Agent Peña.” Her thumb ran along one of the lines on his palm, tracing it with a feather-like touch. Her brows knitted for a moment, confusion locking on her features (eyes darting towards her sister) before she shook herself. “I see here it’ll be worth the trip,” she mused, tapping his palm.

“Right.” Again he cleared his throat, and pulled his hand back. “When was the last time you saw James Hawkins?”

“Ah, a man of action,” Phoebe scoffed lightly, then shrugged. “Couple of weeks, just before I came here. It just wasn’t working anymore.”

“Is he responsible for that?” he asked, gesturing towards her face, the bruises.

“As I’ve said, it wasn’t working anymore,” she tipped her chin up, leaned with her hip against Helena’s chair. “I have no idea where he might be. If a man hits me, he only does it once,” Helena’s breath hitched, her grip on both the cup and letter tightening.

“What about the car? The one with the Texas plate—it’s registered in his name,” Javier thought he might as well reveal all his cards from the beginning. Neither sister was stupid, but still Phoebe was lying—he knew she was. He had seen that look before, countless times: people who are guilty of something think they can hide it by not looking at you. Or looking at you too much.

Helena wasn’t looking at him anymore—again. Phoebe was staring him down. But Helena wasn’t looking at him, because she knew, she was certain, that could not lie to the man. She feared her eyes would betray her too, like her heart was doing, like she imagined her words would if she were to say anything more.

“I took it when I ran,” Phoebe said, sighing. “And I know that’s wrong, so you may take it right away—I just needed a way out. That was the fastest.”

She was good, Javier managed to think in that haze-like feeling he’d found himself in since he’d walked into the house. Since he’d seen Helena. Her eyes.

“And you have not heard from him since?” Phoebe shook her head, sipping on her coffee and grimacing—too bitter, too strong. But it helped keep her mind away from the times she had heard from James—in her dreams, nightmares, really; or when she was distracted, and his voice crept into her head; or when she looked in the mirror and his reflection stared back.

“I have not,” she smacked her lips, the taste of the coffee lingering on the tip of her tongue.

“Alright, well,” Javier picked his cup and drank most of the coffee that remained—he liked it that way, black and strong, it reminded him of his father—then went to the sink to rinse the cup. Helena watched him while his back was turned, and almost smiled at the way he let the water slosh from side to side enough to get any residue off before settling it upside down. “If anything comes to mind, I’ll be around a couple of days longer—I’m staying at the Hide-A-Way Motel.”

“Really?” was the first thing Helena said in what felt like ages. Javier turned around—he was just stalling then. He wanted to remain there, with her. He wanted to keep on looking into Helena’s eyes and drown, drown, drown for days. He saw nothing else but her eyes.

“Lady at the car rental desk suggested it—it isn’t half bad,” he shrugged, and smoothed his jacket down. He felt the absence of the letter when he ran his hand across his chest, and the paper did not crinkle under his touch. Helena curled her fingers around her words. “Nice area.”

“It is,” she should know—her shop was one street away from the motel. She’d picked the area with Frankie because of how nice it was, close enough to the park it gave the impression of being around nature, but not so far from town that nobody would walk by the shop.

Phoebe watched the agent and her sister look at each other and frowned—for a moment, what she’d seen on Peña’s palm flashed before her eyes again. A new beginning, a line cut through by something, someone he could not escape. It had been written on his skin since the beginning. Some fates were just guaranteed.

“If I happen to remember anything else, I’ll come around,” Phoebe said, cutting through the crackle of energy that passed from one to the other. It was as if she’d woken them up from a dream, a dream made of only looks and silence. “You can have the car taken away.”

“Great,” he cleared his throat, and forced himself to back away. He knew that if he lingered any longer, he’d never want to leave. It was hard enough already. “Thanks.”

Helena felt like she was losing her mind.

The night before, a ring had appeared around the moon. A halo around the moon was always a sign of disruption—but it was a double ring, all tangled up, anything could happen. Helena didn’t like the thought, and she hadn’t been able to sleep all night.

The sparrow that used to fly each midsummer’s eve into the house on Magnolia Street had come back, out of season, round and round the dining room—her daughters had counted each circle: three. Three meant trouble, it always had. She’d chased it out with her sister, both of them on edge.

And it rained. All night and through the morning, one of her daughters standing by the window looking at the lilacs being hit by drop after drop, tapping her fingers nervously. Emma was looking at the man in their backyard, who stared back at them like from a vision, a nightmare rather than a dream. She was hoping he would go away, but the bad weather did not bother him—he seemed to relish in the black skies and the wild wind, and the rain passed through him. Emma thought—she knew—it was his fault that things were going amiss in the house, even though she didn’t know the extent of it: pipes rusting and the tile floor of the basement turning to dust, nothing in the refrigerator would stay fresh.

Both sets of sisters fought, loud and mean and just like he wanted them to. Emma would’ve liked them all to stop. Helena thought of chopping the lilacs all night long, but had to go to work.

And then there was Javier. Agent Peña, who walked around town and talked to everyone and was always there when she turned around from the counter. Javier, with a cigarette hanging from his lips at every street corner. Always there, always there, always there.

“Fuck!” Helena exclaimed, when the jar she was trying to place on the shelf fell and shattered on the ground, shards of glass flying around her ankles and the contents—curled dried leaves—spilling across the clean floor. “God, give me a break.”

“Are you okay, Lena?” a voice called from the other side of the shop. Helena didn’t have many friends—it came with the Goode name, being shunned away. But Crystal was one of the few who did not shy away, besides being a good employee. “Let me help you.”

“It’s alright, I just haven’t been sleeping well,” she went to gather the glass and leaves, both crunching as she moved the broom across them. “But could you put the kettle on? Maybe some tea will do me good,” even though she craved coffee desperately.

She’d craved coffee ever since she’d met with the agent. Black and bitter. She could smell it in the air around her, no matter which room she walked in, or which street—along with tobacco and more. She’d never smoked a cigarette in her life but now felt her fingers itch as if reaching for one.

Crystal obliged without question—she’d learned early on that many things around Helena Goode just did not make sense, and there was no point in prying. It had been that way since they were children. Her mother liked the Goode aunts, said that it was not their fault for more than two hundred years their family had been blamed for everything that went wrong in town.

Some people are just different. Most people are just stupid to be afraid of it.

She remembered their classmates being terrified of the day a bunch of cats followed Helena to school—witchery, they called it. A witch and her familiars. Nasty, nasty creatures, the whole lot of them. But Crystal remembered Helena being kind and poised, she remembered her balanced lunches, and the way she always looked out for her sister. She still did. Why people would think Helena and Phoebe had any evil in them escaped her.

Goode women ignored convention; they were headstrong and willful, and meant to be that way.

“Thank you, Crystal,” Helena said from the kitchenette, throwing away the spoiled merchandise..

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather go home? I can look after the shop,” but even as she asked, Helena was shaking her head, lips trembling with her deep inhale. “Lena, did something happen?”

“It’s not—” a bell. The shop’s bell. Helena looked up from her mug, the smell of lavender easing her headache a little, and then turned. “I’ll get it.”

He was everywhere, always there, always there, in her shop, too. Helena stood frozen next to the counter and looked at the agent who was looking around—a feeble attempt at not immediately turning towards her, not falling into her eyes right away.

“Yes?” she managed to ask, her throat dry once again. Just by his mere presence.

“I’m afraid I forgot to bring enough toothpaste,” Javier lied. He’d thrown an almost full tube in the bin just that morning—still wasn’t sure why. Maybe because so many people had told him about Helena’s shop, just around the corner. How the woman was the way she was, but her products were amazing.

“You could’ve gone to the market,” she said, but placed her mug down and moved to the shelf anyway. Once she wasn’t looking at him, she managed to exhale again, but still his eyes burned on the back of her head, and she suddenly felt conscious of the fact she probably had forgotten to brush her hair in the morning.

“Yes,” he retorted, and didn’t add anything else. He knew he could’ve, but he didn’t want to. And he could’ve told her it was because so many people had recommended her stuff, or because the shop was closer to his motel. But he didn’t.

“Any allergies?” she asked, moving the stool closer to the shelf.

“No, ma’am.” She paused, one foot up the step as she bit her tongue—just a moment, then she climbed and grabbed a jar, the label scribbled so hurriedly it was unreadable, the dark paste inside a stark contrast with the white paper.

“Charcoal—whitens the teeth,” she moved back down, the counter between them as she handed the product to him—her eyes flickered towards the cigarette that he’d tucked over his ear, shaking her head lightly. “Nasty habit,” she muttered, lowering her gaze.

“I’m aware,” Javier chuckled—as he took the jar, he grazed her fingers. Helena pulled back as if she’d been burned, fingertips curling into her palm and pressing harshly. “Does this stuff actually work?” he cleared his throat, turning it in his palm to glance at the label again.

He knew her handwriting. He could read it like the back of his hand. I have this dream of being whole.

“It does,” Crystal called as she walked in from the kitchenette, and Helena leaned over the counter and reached for her mug—anything to keep her hands busy. “See for yourself. On the house.”

“He can’t accept it on the house, Crystal,” she said, moving back. “There’s an investigation ongoing—isn’t that right?” it looked as if she might turn to him while she addressed him, but didn’t. Again.

“That’s right,” Javier cleared his throat, shuffling a little. He was so close to the counter he could feel the edge of it dig into his stomach, and forced himself to look at the other woman. “But are you giving me your word? That it works.”

He was a charmer. Helena knew already—Crystal was just finding out. She wanted to ask what investigation Helena was talking about, what was happening at the house on Magnolia Street that she desperately did not want to go back, and what was happening with the agent so desperately trying to meet her eyes.

“Cross my heart,” she said instead, because she knew this would be another inexplicable moment. She’d made her peace with it. “Swear to God, this woman is a magician. Let me ring you up.”

Helena hid her face with the mug, the dwindling steam turning her cheeks a soft shade of red. At the same time, Javier scoffed lightly.

“Right,” he muttered, reaching for his wallet. “Heard that one before. Thanks.”

It took a moment for Helena to register his words—she was trying so hard to not hear him, to not focus on him, that she didn’t understand what he was saying until he was out of the door, an echo of the bell ringing in her mind.

“Wait, what?” she placed the mug down, looking up at his back behind the glass. “Hold on.”

She shouldn’t have gone after him. She should’ve known better. Helena spent her whole life being vigilant, she spent her whole life relying on logic and common sense, she’d taken care of everything from the moment her parents had died, and then again when Frankie had died—she thought about everything.

She had to, because otherwise how would her kids have made it to fourteen and fifteen?

She had to, because if she stopped thinking about everything, what exactly was she left with? Her thoughts and worries are the only reason she continued to exist, of that she was certain.

Never look back, never change direction, that’s what she had to tell herself. Don’t think about being alone in the dark, or storms or lightning and thunder, or the true love you won’t ever have. Life, she knew, was brushing her teeth and making breakfast for her kids and not letting her mind wander.

But that was a lie—from the beginning Helena had been lying to herself, telling herself she could handle anything: her parents dying, her sister relying on her, her aunts’ reputation, Frankie, Frankie’s death, the spell, the year where everything went grey, her children, and now this. She’d grown tired—she didn’t want to lie anymore. One more lie and she’d be lost. One more lie and she’d never find her way back through the woods.

And it’s all because of him.

“What did you mean?” she stopped abruptly when he did, taking a step back when he turned to look at her. She tugged her cardigan close, the wind whipping the ends around along with her hair, and tipped her chin up with her arms crossed, finally, finally looking back at him. “Heard that one before?” she echoed. “Is that why you were at my shop?”

“No,” he shook his head. “It’s because I needed toothpaste, and I’m just around the corner,” she scoffed lightly, shuffling her feet. “But actually, yes, I heard a bunch of stuff that doesn’t make sense at all, so I’d like to understand.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s my job,” he retorted. “Because, seriously, I have heard it all. A family of witches, a curse, your own husband—”

“Don’t,” she snapped, and for a moment Javier recoiled, saw the truth in the words of all the people who had warned him off Helena Goode. With her hair dancing in the wind, and her cheeks still red, and her eyes oh-so-clear, like a storm incoming, he understood. “Do not bring Frankie into this.”

“Hard not to, when it’s everything this town talks about,” he took a step forward, her whole body seizing up. “Do you have any idea how strange this all sounds to me? People tell me you’re here cooking up placenta bars, that you’re into devil worship.”

“You think I don’t know that?” her voice was lower, and pulled him closer. “All my life, this town—I know what they say about me, I know what everybody thinks.” She wanted to move away—she wanted to lean in. She remained still. “All my life I wanted nothing more than to be seen as normal, but that’s just not the way it is. I don’t have a ranch house or a white picket fence, I don’t have a husband that’s alive anymore, I don’t have—” she cut herself off, unsure as to why she was so ready to pour her heart out to a stranger in the middle of the street. “I don’t see how that’s my fault.”

“I never said it was,” Javier spoke softly, a gentleness that felt foreign on his tongue but rolled off easily when he looked at her.

“Then why are you here?” her chin was still up, but she was looking down at her nose, careful to avoid his gaze—it made him believe that she, too, felt that tug in the pit of her stomach. She was just better at controlling it.

Your letter, he almost said. You.

“James Hawkins,” he replied instead. “A guy like that doesn’t simply vanish.”

“And would that be such a big loss?” she scoffed, tightening her arms around herself. “A guy like that—wouldn’t it be so much better if he did just vanish?”

“Maybe,” he shrugged, and felt his hands move before he could control himself. “But I made a vow, and I have a job—” his fingertips grazed her arm, and at that she pulled back.

“As do I,” one hand moved to the point he’d brushed, holding the spot as if it hurt, tight against her chest. “So unless you have something you want to ask me, Agent Peña, I’d rather get back to it.”

“Are you or your sister hiding James Hawkins?”

“He’s not here, no.”

“Did you or your sister kill James Hawkins?” he asked, and her eyebrows arched.

“Oh, yeah. Couple of times,” Javier sighed, and forced himself back, his hand now itching for his cigarette. “Is that all?” he put it between his lips, ignoring the frown forming on her brow.

“Yeah, sure,” he didn’t light it up just yet, but reached for the lighter nevertheless—he missed the letter in his pocket whenever he touched it. “Bye, Helena.”

He watched her go back inside the shop with her shoulders pulled back tight, steps unsteady, and only when the door was closed, the echo of the bell ringing in his ears, did he light up the cigarette.

She watched him go away from inside the shop, with his steps matching the thundering of her heart.

“What is wrong with you?” Phoebe watched her sister kneel on the ground, pruning shears in hand and purple flowers all around her, on her. “What are you doing?”

“I’m tired of seeing these every time I look out of the window,” her breath was short—the flowers seemed endless, she cut and cut and cut and still they were there. “And the smell—I hate it. I can’t do it anymore.”

“Lena—Lena! It’s just flowers!” although Phoebe knew it was not entirely true. Mostly, she ignored the lilacs, and everything that was underneath it. Especially what was underneath it. “Stop it, before you hurt yourself.”

“Oh, now you’re thinking about that?” Helena dropped the shears and stood, the soil on her jeans already a stain she wouldn’t manage to remove. “Now that there’s a cop after us? Now you think I might hurt myself?”

“So what? We stick to our story. No body, no crime,” she gestured towards the lilacs. “There is not a single reason why he should think we’ve done something, unless you give him one.”

“But we did, Phoebe. You understand that, don’t you?” she hissed, walking up to her sister. “We fucked up, and somehow I’m still the one who’s cleaning up your messes,” Phoebe’s eyes widened, mouth set in a thin line. “I’m sick of this.”

“I never asked you to, I never—”

“Enough lies, Pheebs. Aren’t you tired?” Helena smelled like the lilacs, and her headache was back, stronger and stronger as the storm approached from the horizon. “I know I am. I’m so tired of lying.”

“What are you talking about?” Phoebe had lowered her voice, and was looking at her sister as if she could not recognise her. “Lena—you can’t do that,” even as she said it, Helena walked past her, brushing her hands down the front of her jeans. “You can’t go to him,” she said, following her. “We’ll both be sitting in jail if you do. What about the girls? Why are you even thinking about it now?”

Helena wasn’t sure why. She knew she’d woken up smelling cigarettes and coffee again, and the lilacs, and the nightmare still clinging to her eyelids, making her feel unrested as she had for the past days. Weeks. She wasn’t sure anymore. All she knew is that her throat hurt from all the lies she’d told Javier, and she wanted to come clean, to tell all—she wanted someone to listen to what she had to say and really hear her, the way no one ever had before. So she’d gone to work, and back home to cut the flowers, and as sundown approached she would go out for Javier.

“Don’t tell me about the girls now, when I spent half my life thinking only about them,” she said loudly, marching in and out of room after room of the house, grabbing things she wasn’t even sure she needed. “And you? You only ever thought about yourself. You left me here. You lived your life. And you dragged me back in just to save your ass.”

“Oh, that’s it, isn’t it?” Phoebe screamed too, from the middle of the house, following the noises of her sister as she stomped around. “I lived my life and you hate me for it!”

“I don’t hate you, Phoebe.”

“No, no, sure—you’re unbelievable. You spent all your life trying to be normal and fit in, but you never will! You know we’re different, and so are your girls,” Helena stopped abruptly to look at her.

“That’s twice now—you leave them out of this,” she said with a scowl so similar to that of their mother’s, if only either of them could remember her.

“All my life I’ve wished I had half your talent—you’re wasting yourself, Lena,” Phoebe cried, and for a moment she sounded just like the little girl who had just gotten to the aunts’ house. “And now you—what? You’re gonna turn yourself in? Or get down on your knees and beg for mercy?”

“If I’ll have to, yes,” Helena said without a second thought, fixing her sister with a look. “I’m done.”

They both measured themselves harshly, always had, as if they had never been anything but those two plain little girls, waiting at the airport for someone to claim them.

If you go against what you believe in, you’re nothing. That was another thing his father liked to say—and Javier knew he was right. So he was going to stick to his plan: fly back home and give up the case to the poor bastard who was supposed to get it from the beginning, had it not been for the letter. He was going to go back to work as usual, forget about the whole ordeal, forget about grey eyes and dark hair and his own heart.

Heart, heart, heart beating to the sound of the knocking on his door, that for a moment he’d thought to be rain pattering on the ground and the roof, such the strength of the storm was. But he heard it, and when he opened the door, Helena was there, shivering and looking up at him.

“You want a confession?”

In his line of work, Javier had been trained to notice things, but he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. Part of the reason was that he’d been imagining Helena everywhere he went. So maybe it was just an illusion, a desire of his heart turned into a vision.

“What?” he stepped aside and, water falling from her hair, Helena walked in, trailing mud behind.

“You want a confession, don’t you? It’s why you’re still here,” she was shaking, arms crossed over her chest with wet clothes clinging to her. “We killed James. Technically, I killed James. I used belladonna.”

“I know,” Helena frowned, moved the hair out of her face with trembling hands.

“You know?” she sniffled, part from the cold part from the smell attacking her nostrils—coffee and tobacco and, surprisingly, food.

“I found some in the car—saw the same thing in your shop and had it analyzed,” he closed the door, careful to not turn the lock, leaving her a way out as he moved back towards the kitchenette. “His ring was in there, too. There was blood on it. Have you had any dinner?”

“I—what is this, some sort of joke?” she asked, slightly out of breath, and stepped in his direction. Javier scoffed, his back to her as he shook his head a little.

“Far from it,” he muttered, turning the stove off. Still, he didn’t move to look at her—if he did, he wouldn’t be able to say what he had to. He could feel her shiver, just a few steps from him, and it took everything in him to not reach over and grab her and hold her close. “But I have no idea what to do from here. I can’t say that I’m sorry Hawkins is gone, and I can’t—”

“Javier—” he exhaled—it was the first time she said his name, and he gripped the counter with both hands as he closed his eyes. Through the rain, and the soil, and the smoke in his room, he could smell lilacs and that same scent that had clung to the letter, which had bled onto his fingers each time he reread it.

“I was gonna turn over the case,” she held her breath at his words—he heard the light hiccup as her lips sealed, and slowly turned, though his gaze remained lowered. “I can’t say I’m impartial anymore—I can pretend, but I’m not. I no longer can tell what’s right and what’s wrong and you—you came here, and what did you think would happen?”

“I don’t know,” her voice was small, and Javier knew she was looking at him—the roles had switched, he could feel her gaze burning across his skin. “That’s the thing, I don’t know. I’m tired—of lying, of hiding, of those fucking flowers,” she sniffled, and from the corner of his eyes he could see her rubbing her arms. “The thing is, I’m pretty sure it’s because of you, and I can’t stand it—because I know I’ll get hurt, and my sister will get hurt, and my children, too.”

“Then why,” his voice had dropped slightly, and he took one more step forward, looking up at last—they were standing so close now, heat radiating off of him and clinging to her chilling bones, “are you here, Helena?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, her hands seeking him before she could even realise. “Maybe this,” her letter was almost destroyed, wet and crumpled as she held it between them.

Fear or loneliness—she wasn’t sure she could distinguish them anymore. When the deathwatch beetle had started ticking for Frankie, then she’d been afraid. When she’d stopped speaking and seeing colours for a year, and her children had been by themselves, then she’d been afraid. When she was young, and she sneaked down the stairs with her sister to see what the aunts where up to, then she’d been afraid. In that moment, she was terrified.

And lonely. She’d never felt more alone or lonely before in her life. She wished she could’ve believed in love’s salvation, but truth was desire had been ruined for her. She wished she’d never spied on the aunts’ and seen their customers crying and begging and making fools of themselves. She’d become love-resistant because of that and, with her sister, sitting on the roof of the house, they’d wished to look up at the stars and not be afraid of it.

But, just like trouble, love came in unannounced and took over before she’d had a chance to reconsider or even think about it—Frankie first, and now—

Amas Veritas—she thought about it again, looking into Javier’s dark eyes. He will hear my call a mile away—she’d been just a child, so stupid, thinking that love was a toy, something easy and sweet, to play with. But real love, she’d learned, she was learning, was dangerous, it got you from inside and held on tight, and if you didn’t let go fast enough you might be willing to do anything for its sake.

She’d learned that with Frankie, and now—

“Oh, don’t,” she whispered when Javier’s hand brushed along her arms, foregoing the letter—and moved closer to him, pulled by gravity, by forces she couldn’t begin to control. “Javi—”

He believed he was going to cry—because she was saying his name again, soft and gentle and like she’d known it all her life, and his hands were tracing a path up her arms like he knew exactly the shape of her, and trying to learn it by memory all over again.

He wasn’t even sure that was not the case. Perhaps a part of him knew her already, always had.

He had stumbled into love, of that he was certain, and was stuck there. Javier was used to not getting what he wanted, he’d learned to deal with it, but with Helena in front of him he couldn’t help but wonder if that had only been because he’d never wanted anything too badly. He did now.

“I just do this,” he said, voice sad and deep and causing the hair at the nape of her neck to stand on edge as he leaned closer, towards the hand she was offering to him like in prayer, and she brushed his cheek as he sighed. “Pay no attention,” he said, but she did. How could she not?

He was there, and she shifted toward him as if to brush her hand along his face, but instead ended up with her arms looped around his neck, his own wrapped around her, holding her closer.

And Helena was terrified, because suddenly she wanted whatever he was promising her, with his lips so close and words so soft she told herself don’t listen, but she couldn’t, because whispers of I’ve been looking for you forever inched their way underneath her skin, warmed by his hands. She wanted to get lost—she, who couldn’t function without directions, needed it. Him.

Everything she did those days was so unlike her usual self that when she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window behind Javier’s shoulder, she couldn’t recognise herself. Looking back at her was a woman who could’ve fallen in love if she’d let herself, a woman who didn’t stop, not even when Javier moved her hair from her neck, the wet locks sending a shiver down her spine that only intensified as the man bowed his head a pressed his mouth to the hollow of her throat.

What good would it do her to get involved with someone like him? She wondered—because the last time she did, she loved so much she got hurt to the point a part of her had forever vanished. Or so she had thought, because with Javier’s lips brushing her skin, the light tickle from his moustache making her eyelids droop, she could’ve believed something had come back alive behind her ribs. She suddenly felt like she had to press a hand down against her chest to make sure her heart wouldn’t escape her body.

“Helena—” he whispered, his arms tight around her—the droplets of rain clung to his lips, the taste of her flooding his senses, overpowering everything else. She sighed again, a shudder running down her spine, unsure if it was from his voice or the cold settling in her bones.

Although, if she were to be honest with herself, she’d say she wasn’t cold. She was burning, really, Javier’s body so close she could memorise it by touch alone.

“Maybe I’m letting you do this so you’ll stop the investigation, even with my confession,” she said, his head straightening—his nose brushed along her jaw, her cheek, and her eyes remained closed. “Have you thought about that? Maybe I’m so desperate I’d fuck anyone, including you.”

There was a sour taste in her mouth with each cruel word, but she didn’t care—she forced herself to open her eyes, she knew she needed to see the wounded look on his face with each bitter word. She needed to stop it—whatever it was—before she no longer had the option to. Before the freedom she had longed for forever slipped through her fingers, and she was trapped again in pain, just like the women who used to come at the aunts’ back door.

“Helena,” Javier said again, mournful, and she could almost taste her own name falling from his lips. The tobacco, too. Her mouth parted on instinct, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw down towards her chin, brushing her bottom lip. “You’re not like that.”

“Really?” she scoffed lightly, the noise remaining trapped in her throat when she lifted her gaze to his eyes. “You don’t know me. You just think you do.”

“That’s right,” he nodded, and the tip of his nose brushed hers—one tilt of his chin, one tip of her head, and the agony would be over for both of them. But for the moment they were just suspended in time. “I think I do. I do.”

“Let go,” she told Javier, and it sounded almost like a plea. “Let go of me.”

He did. He would’ve done anything she asked of him. Let go, hold tighter, kneel, jump into a fire. All of it. So he let go of her, even if it hurt, both of them taking one step back—her arms immediately wrapped around her middle (an attempt to trap his warmth close to her skin), his hands tingling with the loss of her.

“Helena—” he said once more, her name more and more familiar on his tongue.

“You have your confession, and you have your proof,” each word felt like shreds of glass in her throat, while she looked away forcefully—in the window, her reflection was almost familiar again, still a little wild, but recognisable. “It’s up to you. You know where to find me, once you make a decision.”

“I do,” he repeated, somewhat stunned, his mind reeling. She took one step to the side, heading for the door. “It’s still pouring outside.”

“I know,” she only said, and went nevertheless.

For hours her perfume remained in the room, clinging to him for so long he didn’t even notice the smell of his burned dinner. So long the letter had dried on the floor where it had slipped, enough for him to reread it, again and again until he’d managed to fall asleep.

Helena couldn’t stop thinking about Javier. From the moment she’d walked out of the motel room, he had been all she could think about—on the drive home through the storm, in the warm bath to wash the cold away, doing the dishes, in bed, unable to sleep, dreaming about him while wide awake and in the few hours she’d managed to close her eyes, too. Haunted, just like her sister.

She dreamed of the desert, an apple tree in a yard that wasn’t hers and bloomed without water, and horses that ate apples from that tree and ran faster than all the others, and a man who was taking a bite from a pie she’d made, bound to be hers for life. She’d woken up smelling apple pie and cinnamon, coffee and tobacco.

So it was no surprise when Javier showed up that same morning. She almost heard him coming. Yet she couldn’t face him right away, so she hid inside, behind her sister, still skittish, behind her daughters, still confused, behind the pretence of making breakfast.

“He’s staying!” Sophia, the eldest of her daughters, announced, running from the garden to somewhere past the living room—Helena sighed, eyes closing. “Aunt Pheebs! He says he’s staying!”

Helena wondered if, without the feeling of Javier’s hands still on her, she would’ve wondered why Phoebe would care whether or not the man investigating them was staying at their place for breakfast. She wasn’t even sure whether she was glad he was staying or just nauseated.

“Can I help?” Emma, much quieter than her sister, stepped at her mother’s side and pointed at the stove, a half-burned pancake smoking on the pan. Helena threw the failed attempt away and nodded, forcing a smile onto her face—she knew the man was in the room with them, she could feel him watching the two of them from the entrance, could see him in her mind as he leaned against the doorway.

“Be careful,” she murmured, taking one step aside, then another, and more, her own steps echoed by Javier’s. They met halfway across the kitchen, her still not looking at him while his eyes never once left her.

“’Morning,” he hummed, shoulders brushing—Helena moved aside, ignoring the sharp pain in her hip when she bumped into the table.

“Good morning,” she cleared her throat, brushing her hands down the front of her shirt—and then lowered her voice. “Why are you here?”

“You told me I knew where to find you once I’d made my decision,” he replied, matching her tone.

“And have you?” her hands began going numb as she clenched them in fists at her sides. She could still feel Javier looking at her.

“I’m going back to Laredo,” her gaze snapped in his direction, so fast the whole room spun as she inhaled sharply, holding her breath. “I thought you should have this. After all, it belongs to you.”

It took her a moment to manage to focus on the paper he was handing her—her letter, now ruined, a half-destroyed piece of paper she’d poured her heart over, more than once. When she picked it up, their fingers brushed just like the first time, and Helena almost cried out in pain.

“Now, something smells like it’s burning,” she could see the strain in his neck as he turned away from her, looking at Emma. One more moment and then he walked ahead. “Need a hand?”

“I was trying to flip it,” Emma mumbled, a pout forming on her lips that made her look more like her mother. Javier chuckled, settling at her side. “Do you know how?” she asked suddenly, a hopeful note in her voice Helena hadn’t heard in a while. Her chest constricted, watching the man smirk and roll up his sleeves.

“I absolutely know how to,” he nodded with a theatrical gesture. “Step aside and observe.”

Amas Veritas, dancing in Helena’s head as she watched Javier, fitting so well in her kitchen, flip pancakes in the air and making the young girl laugh. It had been a while since Emma had laughed like that, and for a moment she was her soft-voiced and shy 14-year-old again, who liked to look at the stars and sleep with her head on Helena’s lap.

But then her shoulders tensed, her whole position shifting, taking one step away from Javier to turn towards her mother, even though her eyes went past her. Helena knew, without having to turn right away, that something was terribly wrong.

“Mom,” Sophia came running in, breathless, and immediately clung to her arm, tugging harshly. “Something’s wrong, mom,” the panic in her voice settled in Helena’s bones, mixing with her own, and she was quick to push her daughter behind her back, stepping away from the door. “It’s aunt Pheebs, she—”

“It’s not her,” Emma’s voice was grave, so unfitting for a young woman, and she inched closer to her mother, too. Which left Javier at the stove, looking at the three of them with confusion and alarm. “It’s him, it’s the man of the lilacs.”

“What?” perplexed, Javier took a step forward, only to be stopped by Helena’s extended arm, while she pushed all three of them behind her just as Phoebe walked into the kitchen. Accompanied. “What the hell—” Javier exhaled, reaching for his belt.

“Agent Peña!” James exclaimed, translucent as he came into the light. Javier’s head started spinning as he stared at him, then at Phoebe Goode, her arm trapped in his vice grip made of fingers of smoke, then back at him. “Long time no see. How’s Laredo? I think I’m starting to feel homesick.”

As James spoke, Helena had started stepping backwards, her gaze never leaving Phoebe—the two sisters were looking at each other, guilt and fear and resolution in their gazes that no one but the younger girls could notice, the familiarity an ache on the palms of their hands as they held each others’, keeping close, keeping behind their mother.

“Helena,” Javier called, his gaze unwavering as he took hold of his gun. “You said he was dead.”

“Yes,” she nodded, and for a split second, Phoebe’s eyes showed surprise.

“Doesn’t look like it,” he retorted, and James scoffed.

“You’ve all spent weeks pretending I’m not here—well, almost all,” he tilted his head, gaze settling onto Emma, and smiled. Helena pushed her daughter into her back, the girl hiding her face against her shoulder, clinging tighter onto her sister’s hand—Sophia held her chin high, squeezing back. “It’s gotten boring.”

“Then leave,” in Phoebe’s voice there was all the rage of the Goode women before her. But then James turned, his grip tighter on her arm, and Helena watched her sister’s legs tremble. “Just leave us alone,” she pleaded, eyes widening.

“No,” James chuckled, pulling her closer—Javier could see the strain in the woman’s shoulder, her face contorting in pain, and could not wrap his head around it. James Hawkins did not look real, or at least not real enough to hurt them. Still, he felt uneasy, even more so when he spoke again, his head lowered next to Phoebe’s. “I’m feeling very into sisters right now,” his gaze flickered towards Helena, too, a grin taking over his pale face.

Javier wasn’t looking at her, but he felt Helena straighten her back, look at him, and then turn. He heard her whisper to her daughters, possibly holding them closer, to run into their aunts’ room and be mindful of the salt. He heard two sets of steps backtrack, and watched James’ face shift into disappointment.

“Oh, Lena, Lena, Lena—you really do take the fun out of anything, don’t you?” he took one step forward, dragging Phoebe with him—the woman cried weakly, trying and failing to escape his hold.

“Hey,” only now that the kids weren’t in the room did Javier lift his gun—although he was sure it would do nothing to stop the man, and his widened grin only confirmed it. “Let go of her.”

“And you,” James groaned, even as Javier placed himself between him and Helena, “you never, ever learned when to just give up,” the two men looked at each other—Javier’s gun lifting, James’ hand reaching out for him. “You should let the adults—”

Before the sentence was over, James screamed, letting go of Phoebe. Helena ignored Javier’s surprised gasp in favour of her sister tumbling to the side, quick to reach her before she could even touch the floor.

The same floor where a star shimmered, catching the sunlight. Javier carried it with him everywhere he went, in remembrance of his father, the star-shaped badge he’d lived by for ages before retiring. Javier did not believe in luck, good or bad that it was, but he did believe in reminders: of doing the right thing, always. Of never losing sight of who he was.

He picked it up right as James straightened, a hole in his near-invisible hand that echoed its shape. Without thinking, without considering, Javier held it up right as the other man—or whatever was left of him—screamed in his direction, unintelligible words that probably would’ve resounded like threats, had Javier been able to hear a single one.

Instead, he stared as the figure vanished, with one longer scream and a curse, the air darkening in front of his eyes and then dissipated into nothing, leaving him to look at the corridor that brought to the stairs, a ringing in his ears.

“It’s okay, Pheebs,” Helena’s voice slowly brought him back, words repeated soothingly as she still held her sister. “It’s okay, it’s alright,” reassuring, in spite of her trembling voice. “I need you to call the aunts, Phoebe. I need you to tell them what happened. Can you do that?”

“I’m sorry,” Phoebe was still saying, her eyes unfocused though she looked up to Helena.

“I know, I know—but can you?” Javier could almost see it—nights spent with Helena reassuring her sister, hidden under thick blankets or on the rooftop of the house beneath a sky full of stars. “Please, I need to go to the girls.”

“Oh, the girls,” Phoebe exhaled, and released the grip on her arm. “Of course. Of course. I’m sorry.”

Helena didn’t wait, though she lingered enough to rest a kiss to Phoebe’s temple, before standing and walking out of the kitchen. It took Javier a moment to come to his senses, and then he went straight after her.

“What the hell was that?” he asked, his mind still reeling, forgetting for a moment the effect he had on her. “Was that him? Did I kill him?”

“Yes, and no—technically,” Helena didn’t stop, heading for the stairs she used to sit on when she was a kid to spy on the aunts. “It was his spirit, which you banished. But I told you, I killed him. And you can do whatever with this information after, but right now—”

“Hold on just a goddamn second, all right?” Javier grabbed her arm, pulling her right back against him. A split second in which they looked each other in the eyes, and all that had happened the night before came back, all that had been left unsaid before hit them square in the chest, and in that split second, they could’ve almost forgotten all else. “What are you talking about? His spirit? I came here to bring in the bad guy—generally, that’s what I do, and now you’re telling me about spirits?”

“Is that why you came here, Javier?” she stood her ground, her arm still in his hold. “Be honest.”

“Honesty,” he scoffed. “I thought I did—and then you were here, and your letter—maybe that’s what brought me here. Maybe it was you. And I’m all mixed-up about that.”

Helena was looking at him with that storm still brewing in her eyes, and Javier felt his knees threaten to give out underneath him. His hand fell from her upper arm, down her elbow and wrist, brushing the palm of her hand. She took a slow breath in, lips trembling.

“The reason you’re here and you don’t know why is because I sent for you,” she said, quietly.

“I know why—”

“You don’t,” she interrupted him. “When I was a little girl, I worked a spell so I would never fall in love. I asked for qualities in a man that I knew couldn’t possibly exist,” she shook her head, while his fingers wrapped around her limp hand. “But you do.”

“So,” he scoffed, “you’re saying that what I’m feeling is just one of your spells?”

“Yes, it’s not real,” it sounded like it pained her to say, even though Javier knew she was telling the truth. Or at least thought she was. “And if you stay, I wouldn’t know if it was because of the spell, and you wouldn’t know if it was because I don’t want to go to prison.”

“All relationships have problems,” he muttered, and she gave a small, unamused laugh.

“I thought I loved Frankie, but that was another spell too,” for a split second, she held his hand back, squeezing her fingers around his to the point it hurt. “Still, you don’t want to know what happens if you stay. We’re all cursed. You saw that,” and just like that, she let go of him.

“Curses only have power when you believe in them, Helena, and I don’t,” clenching his fists, Javier stepped back from her. “You know what? I wished for you too.”

Helena knew. He’d told her the night before, his lips etching each word onto her skin.

But she watched him go nevertheless, glad he managed to take the steps she couldn’t.

Helena was tired. She had been tired since lying on the floor next to her sister, watching as she was being consumed from inside. But all of that was over. She’d stared at the letter from Laredo for days after that, keeping it stored with the other one written in her own hand that carried the mark of both her touch and his.

She did her best to not think of him. It was near impossible.

James Hawkins’ cause of death was accidental, read the letter. His body was identified by jewellery in the ashes of a body found in Laredo, right by his property. The same ring he’d told her was in his car, the car she’d driven, the car she’d spilt belladonna in.

Sincerely, Javier Peña, special investigator.

“I don’t think you’ll find him there, Lena,” Phoebe said softly, when she caught her reading the letter once more. “But somewhere else, perhaps.”

For days, she let the words linger. Days turned into weeks turned into months, his absence like an emptiness into her chest. She’d almost convinced herself it would pass. That, with time, that too would pass—just another pain, just another absence. She could deal with it. She could.

And then Javier was there, in her backyard, or at least that was what she thought she was seeing, because it couldn’t be. How could he be there, when he was in her dreams just that night?

“What would you do, Pheebs?” she whispered, her heart beating so loud she wouldn’t be surprised if everybody else could hear.

“What wouldn’t I do, for the right man?” Phoebe whispered in return, gently pushing her forward with a wide smile. “This is not the aunts’, this is the two of you.”

All the while, Javier looked at them, standing perfectly still like a deer in headlights, unsure of what to do, one of his hands half-raised as if in greeting but without waving, the other buried deep within his pocket. He looked at them, and watched Phoebe quickly lead the girls away even when they tried to run to him, and then Helena walk in his direction.

“A love that even time will lie down and be still for,” he said as a way of greeting, once they were standing one in front of the other. “Ever since I went back, time hasn’t felt real, because you weren’t there. And maybe you still believe it’s for a spell you did as a child, or your aunts’ fault—”

“How do you know about the aunts?” it was hard not to smile when he fidgeted like that.

“Your sister told me,” he returned, softly. “Your sister called.”

“And you’re here,” she said, a half-step forward in his direction.

“I’m here,” he nodded, moving the hand out of his pocket and reaching for her tentatively. “I’m here because I know this is real. No gimmick, just—”

“Love?” she suggested, and the glint in her eyes reminded him of the moon itself.

“Love,” he repeated, their fingers interlocking. “Helena, I mean all of it. I’ll even quit smokin’ if—”

She kissed him, plain and simple. Pulled his hands so that he was stumbling forward and caught his lips with hers, gentle, slow. She kissed him, and as Javier held her, he felt like he’d finally gone home. She kissed him, and felt that empty space in her chest filling with the taste of coffee and tobacco.

Can love travel back in time and heal a broken heart?

There were some things, after all, that Helena Goode knew for certain:

Always throw spilled salt over your left shoulder. Add pepper to your mashed potatoes. Keep rosemary by your garden gate. Plant lavender for luck. Fall in love whenever you can.

[librivore42]

Do not go gentle into that good night

Behold! Another secret Withers gift, this time for @acrowsrockcollection! Ao3 link right here, and the fic text under the cut if you'd rather stay on tumblr. Do not go gentle into that dark night (1302 words) by Librivore42 Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Baldur's Gate (Video Games) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Gale/Karlach (Baldur's Gate), Gale & Karlach (Baldur's Gate) Characters: Gale (Baldur's Gate), Karlach (Baldur's Gate) Additional Tags: ruminations about death, this can be read as shippy or platonic, both are valid so I've tagged it as both Summary: Gale and Karlach both know they don't have much time, and the unfairness seems to hit all at once. Nobody else can understand, but they can at least comfort each other, can at least hug tight and rage and weep.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-Dylan Thomas

“So we’re both going to die.”

Gale hadn’t seen Karlach shake this hard since the so-called Paladins of Tyr. But that had been anger, dangerous certainly, but unstoppable, indomitable. This was a very different sort of anger, full of fear, despair, helplessness, her fire drowning in the unshed tears he could see in her eyes, clenched fists trembling.

“Karlach…” at least with her second upgrade he could touch her shoulder, a small blessing in the middle of everything. After Mystra. After Gortash. After their fates had been signed and sealed. She would not survive outside the Hells, and he could not survive the end of this quest.

Killing Gortash should have been cathartic. But she was just drained, exhausted, held up only by anguish.

“You have to die to kill the Absolute or whatever. Just so I can die after that. Or before. It’s not fair.” Her voice cracked as she shrugged him off and pinned him with a stare that sent a sharp crack of pain through his heart. “It’s not fucking fair!”

That had been him a year ago. Unfair, unfair, he had so much life left to live, so much world to see. Yet even as he’d started to accept the fact that he would die if he didn’t keep feeding the orb, there hadn’t been that… resignation that had crept up once Mystra had given him his orders. There had still been a chance to keep going.

“I-” He cut himself off from saying he understood, because he didn’t. This was hardly comparable. He’d done this to himself. Even his death would be of his own making. Karlach had never been given a choice from beginning to end.

“What’s the point?” she burst out, and he blinked, wondering if he’d missed a crucial part of the conversation while off in his own thoughts.

“Pardon?”

“What’s the point of saving the world, then? Neither of us are going to get to see it.”

He nearly flinched at her anger, though it wasn’t directed at him. “You don’t mean that.”

“Putting myself on the line for years, for years and all I get is-” she gestured helplessly at the sky. “Nothing. Doesn’t feel like there’s a point to do it again. I should just go get drunk. Stop myself from feeling until it… happens. Not like you’ll need me there, you’re off to go blow yourself up and that’ll fix everything, won’t it?”

“The blast will certainly have enough power to-” “Gods!” Her flames burned hotter, hot enough that he had to take a step back, and maybe the anger actually was directed at him this time. “You’re just going to lie down and take it, aren’t you! Any one of those gods could probably wave a hand and fix all of this. Mystra could just fix you, I bet she could, but she's as petty as Zariel.”

“If she could, I’m sure she wouldn’t-”

“Oh, oh! So she can suddenly stabilise it, right, which she didn’t do for a year but she can’t fix it? And Mister Full-of-Questions doesn’t even question that? We’re just things to them, Gale. Just toys to be played with and thrown away when our owners get bored of us.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath, and he wasn’t sure if it was resignation that made her flames dim, or whether she was making an effort to hold it together. She reached out and gripped his shoulders so tight they hurt.

“I hate that I have to die. But I think I hate it more that she’s telling you to kill yourself. And you’re just… going to do it.”

For a long moment, his ready responses failed him, rising and falling before they could even reach his lips. “This is the only way we can guarantee victory.”

“You’re not even going to try. You still have room to try.” Low. Bitter. Her voice should never have to sound like that. It was made for joy and hope. He felt his heart break just a little more, cracking slowly by degrees.

The pain in his left shoulder lessened to a dull throb as she moved her hand to rest against the orb peeking out from under his clothes. His own hand lifted as if by its own motion, resting on the skin that housed the furnace where her heart should be.

“I don’t want to die, Gale.” The tears started to fall, hot and helpless as she clenched the hand over his chest into a fist. He held it close as he nodded gently, thumbs soothing over the back of her hands as she sobbed. She needed a hug, though he was completely unsure if she’d accept one after she’d shook off the touch on her shoulder, so he simply took the contact she was willing to give. “I can’t pretend it’s not going to happen anymore, or that it’s too far away to worry about. And I can’t just… be resigned to it. I don’t. Want. To die.”

“Neither do I.” The admission felt like stepping over a cliff, and his breath caught in his throat. Any second now he was going to hit the ground, his heart was going shatter on impact, and he was going to weep. He couldn’t, he couldn’t. He had to be strong, this was Karlach’s time to mourn the choices she was never given, not his to pity himself for the ones he’d made.

She stared at him for a long moment before dragging him against her chest, strong arms encasing him, and after a shocked and endless few seconds, he clutched at her like a lifeline.

“Then don’t.”

“But-”

“None of it was your fault either.”

Shattering like ice, melting at the corners of his eyes.

“You don’t have to sacrifice yourself to be forgiven. Anyone who demands that doesn’t deserve you,” she said fiercely, voice still stained with tears. Tears dropping onto the top of his head, tears wetting her chest. “You have to live.”

“I wish I knew the magic to save you,” he whispered.

“Don’t say that. Say you already have a plan. You aren’t going to die, because you have a plan to save me and you need to see it through. Even if it’s a lie, just tell it to me so I can believe it until we- until we...”

The gods should have done something a long time ago. There was nobody less deserving of this death than she was, so full of life and kindness.

It wasn’t fair.

There was no wizard powerful enough to save her.

But perhaps a god could.

His mind flickered, briefly, to the book about the crown of Karsus in his bag. If he could get his hands on it, rather than dying, if he could reforge it and learn to control it-

And if he failed, he’d have doomed everyone. He pressed against her, feeling her shake as a strange sort of grim determination ran through him.

It was worth it. He extricated an arm from their embrace and took her cheek, pulling her face down to look him in the eye, all trace of tears gone in this new, terrifying sort of tightrope he’d found himself on, halfway down his freefall from that cliff of grief.

“I have a plan,” he said firmly. “A real one. And I’m going to live and see it through.”

The gods and devils had left this world to wither away as it will. But perhaps he could tip the scales, and make it more worthy for such a good heart to live a long and happy life in it.

[stevesjockstrap]

23 for Steddie please ❤️❤️

🫣 You’ve either under or overestimated what giving me free reign would inspire so I hope this is decent 😘

Eddie walked quickly into the library, wincing as his boots made loud sounds on the tile floor and echoed around him. He looked around briefly but didn’t let himself get distracted.

He saw a bay of computers along a wall and headed there. But after a lot of clicking and key smashes, he couldn’t get it to work. With a (louder than necessary) growl, he stood.

A man in a sweater and glasses wearing a lanyard was heading for him with a barely concealed scowl on his face. He found he was equally irritated and turned on by this.

“Could I help you with something, sir?” The man asked when he stopped a few feet away. The man pointedly took in his appearance, his big boots, his ripped jeans, the faded and torn band shirt that clung to him under the jean vest that was littered with pins and patches.

“Hopefully. I just need to print something from my email. But I can’t get in to-“

“Do you have a library card?”

Eddie grinned at the man now. He really did appreciate the no bullshit approach, and it was a fault of his for always falling for, well, bitchiness.

“I’m afraid I don’t, sugar.” He turned on his charm as he stepped closer to the man, pointedly looking him up and down. “I’m only in town for a few days so I’m not sure if I could accomplish that? You see, my band’s touring-”

The man, Eddie looked down at the end of his lanyard to see if he could spot a name tag or identifying information but came up dry, interrupted again, “Okay. We can just do a guest pass. Do you have change for printing?”

That did stump Eddie for a moment. “I’m sure I could go wrestle some up from the tour bus. Do I need that right now?”

Eddie chuckled when the man sighed and nodded at him, like he was the most insufferable person he’d ever had to deal with. “I promise I’m not trying to be a problem, love. We just got signed by a new record company and I need to look over the contract. And being on the road…” he shrugged.

“No problem. I’ll get you logged into the computer while you grab some money. It’s five cents a page.” He slid past him to begin typing on the computer.

Eddie jogged through the middle of the library, getting a glare from an older librarian at the front. As he came back in she watched him like a hawk. He grinned and gave her a little wave.

Approaching the bay of computers again, the hot librarian was nowhere to be found. He tried not to let it get to him. He logged into his email and hit print.

Nothing happened. He stood up again and looked around for brown waves and glasses. He finally walked around the corner in the back where he’d not been yet.

“Woah,” he breathed. He let out a low whistle as he approached a table set up with every manner of Dungeons and Dragons books, dice and memorabilia. He picked up the closest die and rolled it. “Fuck yeah. Plus six luck. Gunna need that, Munson.”

A throat cleared behind him and he grinned as he turned around. “Hey there, just who I need. I brought you a whole dollar in quarters. You don’t want to know what it cost me on the bus,” he winked. Jeff had made him promise to clean the bathroom. He shuddered to himself.

On the way back to the computers he continued trying to make conversation. “I dig the D&D table. You have a lot of nerds through here?”

He turned from the computer to face him with an unreadable look. “Yeah, my kids really enjoy it. We do a weekly campaign for the teens and a couple of them have wanted to start a younger group.”

“Y-your kids?”

Hot librarian smirked at him. “The kids in my teen group.”

“Ah,” Eddie nodded stupidly.

He stood up and walked over to a printer that Eddie hadn’t seen.

“Here you go,” he said has he handed over the pages. Eddie dropped the change in his open hand. “You owe me fifteen cents,” he looked up over his glasses at him.

“Oh fuck,” Eddie said too loudly. Kids behind him snickered and he turned to send a sheepish look at their grown up. “Uhh I can go grab some more… Maybe Gareth or Drew are back and their prices won’t be as steep.”

“What do you have to do with the contract after you look it over?”

“Huh?” Eddie asked eloquently.

“I would assume you have to send it back to someone? Fax it?”

“Oh. Maybe?”

The librarian shook his head, maybe affectionately. Eddie tilted his head and slid closer, dropping his voice. “All your librarian skills are so hot, you know?”

He huffed a laugh and Eddie grinned. “Well when you come back to fax it I’ll have to charge you again, so you can bring it then.”

“Ahh, so you’re already planning our next date, sweetheart? You should probably tell me your name first.”

“I’m Steve.” He actually held his hand out and looked up at him so he could see the blush across his freckled cheeks. Eddie was so done for.

Eddie shook his hand and didn’t let it go. “Eddie. Very good to meet you.”

🖤

Is 90s rockstar!Eddie and librarian!Steve a thing yet?

(The next day he comes in and Steve helps him fax the signed contract back and it gets brought up that Steve looked up his band.

“You checking me out, baby?”

“It’s one of my hot librarian skills, you know, research?”)

[spidey-x-male-reader]

Can you do one where Miguel begrudgingly gets help from male reader after a mission? Maybe a sprinkle of angst too if you’d like :]

Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x male!reader

Requested: yes / no

Warnings: swears

A/N: Okay this is pretty short. BUT I'm considering making a part 2. If people like this one of course. We'll see.

REQUESTS ARE OPEN

MASTERLIST

Miguel is hating every single moment of this. 

He had been on a usual mission. Finding a villain that accidentally crossed over into another universe. No big deal. He knew that it was your universe but he really didn’t bother you with this…he also just didn’t want to ask for it. 

But during the fight his travelling device had broken so now he was stranded. Of course he could wait until someone realised he hadn’t come back but it was faster if he just went to your place and borrowed yours.

When you hear a knock on your door, you frown slightly since it's the middle of the night but still go over and open it. “Miguel. Didn’t expect to see you here…in my universe…at my apartment. Did you miss me that much?” you grin, leaning against the door frame.

“I need your travelling device.” he simply says, not answering your question.

You want to ask why he would need it when he suddenly glitches, letting out a pained sound.

“Oh shit that’s why. Come in.” you pull him into your apartment, not listening to his reluctance. “Where did I put it…”

“Do not tell me you lost it.”

“I didn’t lose it…I just don’t know where exactly I put it right now.”

“(y/n) I swear to god…”

“Just sit down. And give me a minute” he sighs, letting himself fall on your couch while watching you leave to what is presumably the bedroom. 

Less than a minute later he hears a loud: “Got it!” followed by you coming back into the living room, throwing it over at him.

He puts it on and immediately feels like…he’s less likely to die right now. Just a little safer.

“So…you lost yours?”

“I didn’t lose it. It broke.”

“...sure sure.” you grin, leaning against a wall. 

“I’ll make sure it gets sent back to you as soon as possible” he says, already typing around on it, wanting to open a portal back to HQ.

“Oh come on, Miguel. You’re just gonna leave me? No thank you? I could make you some midnight coffee.”

He looks at you for a few seconds, almost looking like he considers it but then shakes his head. “I have some work to finish.”

“Do you need help?”

“No.” It's simple. But you feel like it doesn’t sound as harsh as usual.

“Alright…I’ll see you soon then?”

He opens the portal and then nods slowly. “...sure. See you soon” and with that he steps through it.

As soon as it closes again, you let out a deep sigh. Of course you had lost your fucking device when Miguel needed it. You really couldn’t have embarrassed yourself far more, huh?

At this point he would never like you. Even though…you feel like you got a step closer to it tonight.

[djmaliksmix]

Unknown Feelings

Characters: Carmy x Fem!reader, Richie, Sydney, and some of the other staff

Summary: Carmen and y/n both have feelings for each other and everybody on the bear staff knows it. They always say something but you guys kind of just laugh it off, this time, Carmy finally sits you down and talks to you about it.

Warnings: fluff, cursing

A/n: I’ve never done any like this ever lmaoo. I just love this show and these characters sm I decided to do a quick little fic. If you have any suggestions or give me any plots you want me to do pls lmk!💗

“Corner!” You echoed through the walls of the tight but sufficient kitchen. As soon as you put your pot of sauce down on the stove you turned on the heat and started stirring it. You were really proud of the sauce you made, you thought it turned out really good and just needed to be heated.

“Chef! How is that sauce comin’ along?” Carmy’s voice came from behind you and startled you a little but it was nice to hear his voice.

“It’s going good! I thought you were supposed to say “behind!” when one chef is behind another, chef Carmen.” You raised one brow while smiling. Carmy chuckled and made you laugh some more talking about something he saw last night.

Sydney and Richie made eye contact and pursed their lips. Richie clapped his hands loudly, “Hey hey hey! This is all fuckin sweet and amazing and I’m glad you two are having a good ole time over there but cousin we have work to do”

Carmy glared at Richie. “I’m just saying what all of us in this kitchen are thinking.” Richie said. You just laughed at it and touched Carmy’s shoulder to let him know to brush it off and to not get too mad. That always works temporarily because Richie and Carm always find a way to get under the each other’s skin.

“Unc!” Sugar said and you turned around, you beamed at the old man who you had known ever since you were a kid growing up with Mikey, Carmy, Richie, and Sugar. “Hey unc” you said as you went in for a hug. “Hey my dolls” , he said hugging you and sugar both with one in each arm.

Richie was blanking out and stood there in the middle of the kitchen. “Aye Richie! What the fuck are ya doing ya fuckin bum, I’m not payin all of ya especially you two,” as he points at Richie and Carmy, to sit on yalls asses all day.” You laughed at your uncle cursing out Richie and Carmy and so did Sugar and Sydney.

“Alright old man, Jesus!” Said Richie annoyed.

You continued your day like any other with cooking, making sure the orders are right, and cleaning up. You and Sydney had taste tested some of Marcus’ divine doughnuts and gave him his praise.

You were on family later that today which meant that you were going to be there for a while since so you were cooking for the staff.

You decided to step into Carmy’s office because that’s where the water dispenser was. You hadn’t noticed it but you became very dehydrated.

Carmy walked in, “hey y/n” “hey carm what’s up!” You smiled. He smiled back. He looked at your face and realized how beautiful you were even in the uniform. You were honestly the girl of his dreams.

Your curls falling down perfectly in place, your smile, your smell. You laughed nervously, “Are you okay?” Wondering why he was staring for so long. “Huh?” Oh yeah, I’m good.” “Y/n? Can we talk?” “Sure of course!” Kind of nervous what was going to come out of his mouth you sat down lump in your throat.

“Y/n have you ever felt soul connected to someone?” “Like you would do anything for them, even die for them. You were puzzled at first wondering why he was asking that question. You scooted closer to him, legs touching. “Of course, I mean I feel like that with you.”

His eyes widened, he’s had girlfriends and crushes before, sure, but nothing like this, you’re the type of person he would marry if he could like today right now.

He smiled. “Me too.” And before you knew it he grabbed your face slowly and pulled you in for a long kiss.

In these moments when you were kissing you felt like it was just you two, no one else in the world could break you from this kiss. You got up and took his shirt off. Your cold hands on his warm biceps and abs.

He didn’t flinch once at the touch of your cold hands.

“Hey cousin! Do you have-“ Sure enough, Richie walked in. You yelped and quickly let go of Carm. “Hey cousin get the fuck out!” Carm said “Oh shittt!” “Sydney! I called it!” Sydney came around the corner. “Oh shit!” Richie laughed.

A/n: yall ik this was super short and there was no fucking slow burn what so ever but this was my first ever fic and I wrote this months ago and was horrible at writing it needs a little work but yk LMK IF YALL WANNA SEE MORE STUFF LIKE THIS (IM ALSO WORKING ON A MIKEY FIC THAT IM EXCITED FOR YALL TO SEE :) PLS LMK IF U WANNA SEE A MIKEY FIC I NEED INPUT YALL LMAO

[rafebarrysmut]

Ride or Die

Pairing: Rafe Cameron x Barry

Summary: Barry knows exactly what Rafe wants when the Kook shows up at his doorstep one morning.

Warning: minors dni. Rafebarry smut. Dom!Barry x sub!Rafe. teasing, fingering, anal, some fluff. Explicit language, cursing, mention of drug use. Smut! Lots of it. I mean it, basically it’s just PWP.

“What you want, country club?” Knowing all too well what it was the Kook wanted showing up at his trailer’s door early one Sunday morning, Barry grinned. His eyes slowly took in the tall boy standing in front of him, wearing a baby blue polo shirt and light khaki shorts, surely expensive brands, but the clothes were rumpled and stained, and it looked like he had slept in them – or rather not slept at all. His disheveled hair and the dark bags under his eyes gave as much away.

Rafe looked down, scratched the back of his head, messing up that messed-up hair even more.

“I was hoping, like, I could get some, you know, coke?” He looked up, just with his eyes. Damn blue eyes. Bloodshot. He definitely hadn’t slept that night, and now prevented Barry from getting some more sleep himself.

“You was hoping. Is that so?”

Rafe shrugged, sniffed, then nodded.

“Got cash?”

“Yeah, I’m a bit low at the moment. I was hoping—”

“There you was hoping again!”

When Barry met the blond’s eyes, Rafe was smirking, that cocky boyish smirk.

“’Tis hopeful times,” Barry mumbled, couldn’t help but chuckle softly. Shaking his head, he got back inside, leaving the door open. He didn’t turn, didn’t need to, he knew Rafe would follow.

In his bedroom Barry went to a drawer, and took out a small plastic bag containing a white substance. Turning, he presented the coke to Rafe who immediately darted forwarded, but Barry, expecting as much, pulled the bag away, held it out of reach as he sat down on his bed, while Rafe remained standing in the middle of the room.

“Nah-ah. Not so fast, pretty boy,” he scolded Rafe. “Payment first.”

“Told you I got none!” Rafe actually pouted. It was unbearably adorable and made Barry grin.

Barry reclined on the bed, resting on his forearms. The tiny bag of coke next to his body.

He watched Rafe whose eyes were glued to that bag, while he was biting on the skin on his finger.

“Sure you can think of something.”

Rafe’s eyes darted towards Barry’s face, who grinned widely, flashing his gold tooth. His tongue flicked out, licking his lips as he saw Rafe’s gaze moving to his crotch, and Barry, leisurely placed his hand on his thigh.

As if caught, Rafe blushed, turned his head, looking at the door. He shook his head, mumbling something incoherent to himself, took a step towards the door.

“Rafe… It’s waiting just for you,” Barry cooed. And when Rafe turned again, Barry lifted the bag, shaking it teasingly, while his other hand rubbed over his bulge, very prominently revealing itself in his shorts.

He could see how the blond boy’s mind was racing. His eyes were wild as they darted from the bag to Barry’s crotch, to the bag, to his face, to his crotch again. All the while Barry was resting on the bed and watching the strange boy with a look of amused bewilderment. That boy was surely something.

Rafe finally stopped nibbling the skin on his thumb.

“But I’m not gonna swallow, alright?”

“Course not,” Barry chuckled in amusement, as Rafe finally stepped closer to the bed.

Those blue eyes were now focusing on the bulge in Barry’s shorts. He pressed his lips into a thin line, a frown was showing on his forehead, his nostrils were flaring. His perfect pretty face was distorted as he was clearly thinking with disgust about the task ahead. Rafe hated giving blowjobs. And he was very bad at it too. Barry knew that from the few times they had tried. Rafe had complained that it was too big, and he would choke, when he hadn’t even taken half of it. Barry knew he was just lazy, and a crybaby. That pretty mouth was perfect for getting fucked.

Rafe was rubbing his mouth with the back of his hand, inhaling deeply, mumbling something about needing something to drink first. That boy was clearly stalling.

Barry threw his head back, looking at the ceiling, exhaled and grunted in exasperation.

“Rafe.”

When he set his eyes on the boy again, Rafe still wasn’t kneeling, but standing there, biting on the skin of his forefinger.

Barry sat up.

“Rafe…” His tone clearly impatient. “You want the coke or not? Ain’t got all day.”

“I do. I want it. I—”

“Alright, babyboy. I’m gonna make it easy for you. You won’t have to suck it.”

Rafe’s eyes darted up at that, meeting Barry’s with that hopeful glimpse.

“You gonna ride it.”

“What?”

“Yeah, you heard me, cowboy. You gonna ride it, ride it good and you get your little treat.”

He lifted the bag again.

Rafe didn’t really relax at that prospect, but he seemed a good deal less tensed up.

“Okay,” he said.

And Barry smiled. “Good boy. Now strip. All of that.”

As always when Barry praised Rafe, no matter if it was in a mocking tone, something in Rafe’s face lit up. It was pathetic, really. And Barry loved it. And he loved how that little smile on Rafe’s lips made his own cock twitch. It had been half-hard since the moment that crazy boy had shown up on his doorstep minutes ago. And now as Rafe was taking off his shirt and pulling down his shorts and boxers, Barry’s cock was fully awake.

There was no denying it, Rafe Cameron was beautiful. Breathtakingly beautiful. Tall, very fit, very well-built. That cock was a beauty as well.

Rafe, having clearly noticed how Barry’s mouth was watering, grinned cheekily and touched his member provocatively.

“You wanna taste?”

“Shut up, country club, and come here,” Barry barked.

He pulled down his pants just enough to free his rock-hard cock. – And that look on Rafe’s face as he finally got closer, made him grin again.

“Don’t start that ‘uh, it’s not gonna fit’-bullshit, babe. You know it’s gonna fit.”

“But I don’t know how—”

“Shut it.” Losing the last of his seemingly endless patience with this crazy boy, Barry had pulled Rafe onto his lap, so that the blond boy straddled him, with his knees on the bed.

His hands on Barry’s shoulders, Rafe looked down at the other man.

Rafe was much taller than Barry, but in many ways he was such a baby. Just like now, when he was biting his lip, flushing, self-conscious as if suddenly aware that he was naked, sitting on the lap of his drug dealer.

Barry’s hands moved over Rafe’s thighs. Rough hands stroking smooth skin.

Those hands kneaded Rafe’s firm ass cheeks, and Barry felt the boy flinch and tense up immediately, his fingers digging into Barry’s shoulders, and Rafe made that soft whimpering sound, half-afraid, half-excited, that made Barry’s cock ache.

One hand found the back of Rafe’s neck and he gently rubbed it, pulling him a bit closer, as he whispered in Rafe’s ear.

“Relax, baby. It’s gonna fit. Gonna prepare you good. You trust me, baby, right?”

He moved his head back to look into blue eyes, studying that too pretty face. Rafe didn’t say a word, it was one of these rare occasions when he was completely quiet.

Barry’s fingers massaged the back of Rafe’s head as he held his gaze. Finally Rafe nodded, very softly, but clearly.

And then he bit his lip and that made Barry almost lose all his control. But just almost. That strange boy didn’t know what he was doing to him, and Barry preferred to keep it that way.

He reached for the lube on his nightstand. Then he pulled Rafe closer, so the boy’s face rested on his shoulder, while he could look over his shoulder and had a nice view of Rafe’s ass – well, once he had applied some pressure on Rafe’s lower back and made him arch his back nicely. God, he just loved that view. And he loved it how innocently awkward Rafe was at times. So damn precious.

The tip of his finger slowly trailed down Rafe’s spine. Feeling the bumps, feeling the sensitive soft skin. His finger wandered further, between those firm globes.

A muffled whimper escaped Rafe’s mouth as he pressed it against Barry’s shoulder.

“C’mon,” Barry chuckled, and his body vibrated, shaking Rafe’s along with it. “I haven’t even touched you yet.”

Rafe grumbled and Barry answered that complaint with a slap on his ass.

“I can easily give you a reason to whine. So shut it.”

Truth was, he didn’t want Rafe to shut it. He yearned for his soft whiny sounds, his whimpering and complaining.

Rafe, probably sulking now, seemed determined to remain silent – for as long as he could anyway.

While one hand grabbed a perfect butt cheek, not so subtly reminding Rafe to keep from moving, the index finger of Barry’s other hand circled that tender muscle, generously applying lube before dipping into that tight hole just with his fingertip.

Rafe couldn’t remain quiet after that.

The boy on Barry’s lap was panting and whimpering, when Barry shoved his finger inside.

Those walls immediately started clenching on it, as if unsure whether to push it out or keep it inside.

“Shhhh,” Barry purred, “It’s just one finger, baby. We gonna speed this up a bit or we’ll still be here by midday.”

Of course, Rafe tensed up at that. He even tried to sit up, as if that would help him move away from that seemingly unwelcome intruder. But Barry had put an arm around him, holding him closer, keeping him in place, and – ignoring his vocal complaints – he began fucking Rafe’s tight ass with his finger. Fucking him harder and deeper. Feeling how hard Rafe was for him, that beautiful cock pressing into his thigh, rubbing against it.

And his own cock – cruelly neglected – was literally achingly hard by now.

Barry thrust a second finger into Rafe’s ass, stretching him, preparing him.

Rafe had started moving on him, moving no longer away from the thrusts, but meeting them – and, as Barry had noticed, rubbing his cock on Barry’s thigh.

“You stop that. Have I allowed you to touch yourself?”

He grabbed Rafe’s hair at the back of his head and forced him to look at his face.

“Wasn’t touching myself,” Rafe had the nerve to talk back.

Barry arched an eyebrow.

“That so?”

“Yeah, not touching anything but you,” as if proving his point, Rafe held up both his hands in the air.

Barry chose that moment to thrust in a third finger, which made Rafe cry out and fall right back into him, burying his face at Barry’s neck, whining.

Though that tight ass was far from ready to receive his thick cock, Barry just couldn’t wait any longer.

He took the condom from the wrapper and pulled it over his wet cock. (Yeah, he still used a condom every time he fucked Rafe, even though that annoying little shit was the only one he’d been fucking for weeks now, and he knew for a fact that no one had fucked Rafe Cameron before or after he had first made him his. But not using a condom would be like putting a label on whatever this was.)

He used some more lube on Rafe’s ass, then helped the Kook sit upright.

He placed one hand on his hip, guiding him, and positioned his cock with his other hand.

As his tip brushed the throbbing entrance, he locked gazes with Rafe.

“Now’s your turn to earn that coke. Ride me, babyboy.”

Rafe was all flushed, his lips wet and swollen, from biting into Barry’s shoulder, and his fucking pretty face was wet with tears already. – Fucking hell. (Someone should definitely give that man a medal for not just pounding into that pathetic boy’s tight ass without restraint. Barry’s patience and control was other-worldly. Truly was.)

Slowly, painfully slowly Rafe lowered his ass onto him, taking in Barry’s cock, being stretched along the way.

“Breathe, baby,” Barry reminded him, stroking his back, encouraging him to keep going.

Rafe exhaled and with that loosened up a bit so that about two inches of Barry’s cock pushed inside, stretching that tight muscle to the extreme – judging from Rafe’s cry and that pained look on his beautiful face.

“Just keep moving, baby. Up and down, baby. Up and down.”

Barry had placed his hand round Rafe’s cock, his thumb gently rubbing the wet tip, before helping Rafe by dictating a rhythm for his own movements.

Rafe did move, slowly, strained, and not very efficiently. He didn’t manage to get all of Barry’s cock inside – to be honest, he didn’t get much past those first two inches. But, damn, he was so pretty while trying. Rafe couldn’t let go, couldn’t relax and wouldn’t let himself just fall down. The muscles in his thighs were shaking from exhaustion. His fingernails digging into Barry’s shoulders. His eyes were pressed shut – despite Barry’s constant reminder to open them and look at him. Rafe just couldn’t do it. Tears were streaming down his distorted face. Barry reached up to brush them away and he felt Rafe’s cheek nestling against his hand. And he just couldn’t take it anymore.

“That’s enough for a first rodeo,” he groaned, while turning sideways, throwing Rafe onto his back on the mattress. The blond opened his eyes in surprise and Barry knew he was about to utter a complaint, when he was already on top of him, spreading those long legs, placing one over his shoulder and thrusting into him, deep and hard and filling that tight little hole so completely, making Rafe arch his back on his own, opening up and finally, finally allowing Barry to claim what was his.

Rafe’s cries turned into a whimper, his beautiful body writhing beneath Barry, shaking with every hard thrust. Barry panted and groaned as he fucked his pretty Kook boy without restraint, relentlessly, giving that tight ass more cock than it could possibly take. And yet Barry knew this was exactly what Rafe needed. What they both needed.

Soon he felt Rafe tense up. His tight muscle pulsing around Barry’s hard cock, clenching violently. His whole body in rapture, convulsing, Rafe screamed at the top of his lungs.

Barry almost lost it himself, was almost pushed over the edge himself when he felt Rafe’s violent climax.

And that aftermath wasn’t any less violent. Barry kept fucking Rafe, while Rafe’s body was trembling and shaking and clinging to his so perfectly. He was looking down at Rafe who had turned his face yet again, his fist in his mouth biting down on it. Barry slapped it away, then grabbed Rafe’s chin, turning his face.

“Look at me,” he groaned. And this time Rafe opened his eyes, opened his mouth, panting and moaning. Teary eyes and flushed cheeks. The most beautiful creature Barry had ever seen. And all his. All his.

He kept his eyes fixed on that beautiful face as he grunted a “fuck” when he came, buried deep inside Rafe. Though his climax was not as vocal and violent as Rafe’s, it shattered him in other ways, for a second his whole body was in perfect rapture, for one moment he felt utter bliss, the purest high.

He rolled off of Rafe, lay on his back, chest heaving as he regained his senses.

He turned his head towards Rafe who looked completely spent. That boy was still shaking and panting and for a moment Barry was jealous as it seemed that that son of a bitch was still riding on his high.

Barry couldn’t help but smile. Rafe seemed to have forgotten about the coke completely when he eventually calmed down and sleepily moved closer to Barry, who just wrapped his arms around his sweaty body and pulled him onto his chest.

Yeah, Barry had known all along why Rafe had shown up at his door that morning.

A/N: My first actual rafebarry fic. Hope you enjoyed it. I might write more. In case you’ve noticed, they don’t kiss. That’s part of my headcanon.

[that-demigirl]

Born To Die- Chapter 7

Chapter summary: time to get ready for the mission

A/N: the boys might finally pull their heads out of their ass

Everyone stood in one room aboard the aircraft carrier. It was time for Pete to announce who would be flying with him. Tension blanketed the room, fear and excitement battling it out. It was a once in a lifetime kind of mission, but it was also a mission damn near guaranteed to get them all killed.

“It has been an honor flying with you,” Pete spoke to the group of pilots all standing in formation, “Each one of you represents the best of the best. This is a very specific mission. My choice is a reflection of that and nothing more.”

“Choose your two foxtrot teams,” Admiral Simpson instructed.

“Medusa and Tinkerbell, Phoenix and Bob,” Pete announced. The four all made eye contact, a bit surprised, a bit terrified, and maybe a bit excited.

“And your wingman?” Admiral Simpson asked.

“Rooster,” Pete responded, almost to the shock of everyone else. One stark thought came to Allison’s mind, ‘Thank god it’s not Jake’. It wasn’t cause she didn’t trust him, but Allison had been unconciously terrified at the thought of Jake flying this mission and not making it home.

“The rest of you will stand by on the carrier,” Admiral Bates instructed, “for any reserve role that’s required. Dismissed.”

They all filtered out of the room. Allison and Erin grouped up with Natasah and Robert, the four of them exchanging congratulations. A couple of the other members of their detachment fist bumped them on the way out. There was one more brief the next day that they all attended before it was time to fly their mission.

But the night before was their last chance to spend time as one detachment before the very real possibility of losing one of their own became a reality.

Erin hesitated for a moment before deciding to just say fuck it and knock on Bradley and Bob’s shared door. She knew Bob and Phoenix were in the mess hall but she hadn’t seen Bradley, which was best because she wanted to get him alone. No one to get in the middle of their business.

The door swung open to reveal the taller pilot, “Erin? What are you doing here?”

“Can you braid my hair? Like we used to do before my softball games?” Erin asked softly, trying no to show how afraid she was, “I know you and I haven’t talked much but… I could do with some calm right now.”

Bradley doesn’t respond, but he does open his door wider. A silent invitation for Erin to step in, which she takes gratefully, Without speaking, Bradley sits at the edge of his bunk and Erin perches herself on the floor but between his legs. She slips her hair tie off her wrist and passes it to Bradley. Bradley gently tilts her head back and begins the braid, twisting the strands over each other to form a neat french braid. Something Erin’s mom had taught him once when he had asked what she was doing with Erin’s hair one afternoon. Back before anything had ever gone wrong between them.

“Have you talked with Mav at all?” Erin decides to try her luck at getting Bradley to open up to her. Bradley’s hands paused, small pieces starting to slip. Before her braid can get too messy he regains his bearings and fixes it.

“No,” Bradley says, his voice barely loud enough for Erin to hear. She can feel the stubbornness coming off her childhood friend in waves. God knows him and Maverick were always too stubborn for their own good.

“Okay,” Erin says softly, deciding that pushing the issue wasn’t the way to go that night. They could talk more when they made it back from the mission… if they made it back from the mission.

“I’m sorry about Ice,” Bradley says after another minute of silence.

“Thanks,” Erin responds, tears pricking at her eyes at the thought of her uncle.

“I wish I could’ve… would’ve been there for you more,” Bradley admits, his hands shaking slightly as he braids her hair, “I can’t imagine the past years have been easy for you…”

“They really haven’t,” Erin responds, wiping away tears, “But I have Allie, and Neil, and Callie. They’ve been there through everything…”

“Everything I haven’t,” Bradley finishes her sentence, “I’m sorry, Erin. I should’ve reached out, should’ve answered your calls…”

“Bradley, stop,” Erin puts a hand up, “We can’t change the past and focusing on it won’t help us. When we get back from this mission we’ll talk, okay?”

“Okay,” Bradley agrees, tying the braid off with practiced ease. Erin took a chance and turned to hug Bradley. He seemed to be caught off guard, but hugged her back all the same. Everything would be okay, Erin felt sure of it.

—

The next morning after their briefing, Allison and Erin were walking out to their plane to do one last check. The girls were chatting quietly, trying to keep their minds off the impending mission. They were honored to be chosen, yet both terrified at the prospect of dying on this mission.

“Medusa,” the voice of Jake Seresin called after the two. Erin made eye contact with Allison who just gestured for her to continue to their plane while Allison turned to talk to Jake.

“Hangman,” Allison made eye contact, looking at him expectantly.

“Be safe up there,” Jake told her, “And…”

“What, Jake?” Allison asked, her expression softening.

“Just… give 'em hell, alright?” Jake responded. It was obvious that wasn’t what he wanted to say, but she didn’t have enough time to figure out what he really wanted.

“I will,” Allison told him, “Besides, I’ve got you on my six if anything goes wrong.”

“Don’t let it go wrong,” Jake looked serious, almost as if he was pleading with her to make it home safely. She just nodded and gave him one last smile before turning around and catching up with Erin.

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