#in case you're wondering who her uncle is | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

featherandferns · 2 months ago

Text

god's test (fic)

jj maybank x fem!reader | inspired by this song amongst others

content warning: abusive parents; allusions to s3xual abuse; drug use/misuse; sexual content (female and male receiving; p in v); unhealthy relationships; brief mentions/discussions of fertility | Some heavy themes in this so please feel free to message if you're unsure.

word count: 18k.

blurb: what if the Pogues never found El Dorado? Life in survival mode at the age of twenty-two sure had lost its shine. In that tarnish, JJ wonders if your relationship has too.

“To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, til' death do us part.”

JJ sits crossed legged on the floor of his living room. To his right is a half empty can of Coke and to his left is the plastic case for the VHS tape which is currently whirring in the player, displayed on the TV through grainy, wibbly lines. His bright blonde hair sticks every which way. The Goodwill sourced t-shirt is too big on his frame but his dad insisted he’d grow into it, and to stop his moaning and bitching. Be grateful, was his last warning. The shorts on his skinny legs seem to be getting smaller everyday, perhaps because JJ only seems to get taller. That slight discomfort is a lost thought right now. Instead, JJ is glued to the wedding video on the screen. Glued to the image of his mother, smiling up at his father, the two of them unaged and undamaged. The two of them are in love.

“I do,” JJ’s dad, Luke, says in an almost unrecognisable tone. Then, he leans forward at the officiant’s approval and kisses JJ’s mother. JJ misses her deeply. His heart squeezes at the sight of her smile, turning to the camera with a beam. He finds his own lips twitching up too as if her happiness is contagious. Then the tape cuts suddenly to the reception. It seems a small affair with only a handful of friends and family. JJ can place his uncle and aunt, who cradles his cousin Ricky in her arms, and a few more of his dad’s crowd of so-called friends. His mother can be seen in the background talking to her parents - JJ’s grandparents. They’d made themselves scarce after she walked out on JJ and his dad. Never once did JJ think he’d lose not only his mother but his grandparents too. Loneliness likes company, it seems.

Another sudden cut and it’s his parents dancing. Their first dance. The dark lighting of the hall messes with the low-quality cam-corder's exposure. They’re painted in rays of shadows and glow almost ethereal-like as they sway to the music. Luke whispers something in his new wife’s ear and she giggles, soundless as the crooning voice of Rod Stewart sings their wedding song: ‘Have I Told You Lately’. JJ grins. He decides then and there, at the big age of eight, that that’s what he wants. That sort of happiness. As if blinded by the cinema of it all, he forgets the reality. The mess that surrounds him in the neglected house; the absence of his mother and the recklessness of his father; the strange definition of love that’s been tied to the Maybank name.

So distracted by the tape, JJ doesn’t hear his dad rouse in the other room. He doesn’t hear the sound of the creaking door or the aching floorboards, and when he finally catches sight of Luke staggering down the hallway, it’s too late. His dad has caught sound of the song and it’s as if he’s intoxicated again, only now with rage. He glares at JJ and makes a b-line to the television screen, coming face to face with his hidden wedding tape. He had no idea JJ had found it and stashed it for his own safe keeping.

“What the damn hell do you think you’re doing?” he barks, turning to JJ. He grabs him by the shoulder with one hand and hoists him onto his feet. JJ’s tiny body floods with terror. His feet go numb and cold and his face burning hot. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, huh boy!?”

JJ flinches at his father’s tone. His lip quivers. “I…I only wanted–”

“You only wanted to what, huh? Stealing things like the no-good son-of-a-bitch you are, eh?” Luke hollers, spit flying from his mouth and onto JJ’s rosy skin.

“I just wanted to see mama,” JJ blubbers.

“You ain’t ever seein’ her again, you hear me?” Luke shouts. He tosses JJ back onto the floor. He lands on his backside with a smack, flinching at the feeling, and looks up to see his dad aggressively messing with the player. A new wave of panic comes over JJ as he jumps to his feet, darting forward for the tape before his dad can snap it in two. To JJ, it isn’t just a stupid VHS. It’s his mother.

“No! Gimme it!” JJ screeches, scratching and clawing at his father’s arms as he attempts to wrestle the tape from his hold. His small hand latches around it moments before Luke’s own smacks him clean across the cheek. The force sends him flying onto his side, reuniting with the floor. Sobbing, JJ clutches the tape close to his chest. His dad yells abuse at JJ, tumbling cuss words in casually amongst his berates. Keeping the tape close and safe to his stomach, JJ manages to his feet and faces up to his father. An anger that he’s never known before takes control. “I hate you!”

Before his dad can lunge for him again, JJ darts for the front door. He almost trips down the stairs in his hurry. The sound of his dad’s footsteps behind him sound like a giant’s, pounding against the floorboards. He chokes on his sobs as he sprints away from the house. I’m never coming back, he thinks to himself. That’ll show him. He doesn’t dare check to see if his dad is following. Not until he’s well away from the house, almost completely shot of breath, panting and heaving, no tears left to cry. Finally, he stops. He looks down at the tape with shaking hands to find it safe and intact. Luke and Marie’s Wedding Tape, it says in black sharpie across the front. He hugs it against him as if hugging his mother.

The moment of tranquillity is broken by a loud whoop and holler. His head flashes to the side to find a girl climbing on the old pier. It’s nearly completely decayed, broken down by a hurricane a few years back. Now it’s just pillars of wood, splintering and misaligned.

Some adult on the new pier is yelling at you. “I’ll tell your father, missy! You listenin’? You get down from there now!” Beside them are some friends, blissfully ignoring the warnings, cheering you on. You turn to them and JJ catches sight of your smile. It reminds him of his mother’s and a warm feeling sparks somewhere in his chest, as if lighting a match in a damp cave. The sun twinkles above your head and that’s when JJ notices the streak of hot pink in your hair. Woah - Cool. And then you’re falling - hurling yourself into the air and flying down into the water - out of sight. He takes a step forward, as if to do something, and waits anxiously with the others for you to re-emerge. You break to the surface with a cackle. Your friends erupt in cheers and you giggle, splashing water as if aiming for them despite being metres down below the pier. And then you look straight at JJ. It's just for a second, only a second, but a second was enough. Eight-year-old JJ Maybank was in love.

6 Years Later

Confidence is a powerful armour. It makes you almost untouchable. Nobody messes with the mouthy kid. The kid who gets in fights; the kid who makes the room laugh. JJ knew what it was like to be on the bottom of the food chain and he was never going to willingly put himself there. At school, he made himself a staple. A delinquent, known for his short fuse and reckless choices. It kept the bully’s off his scent and gave him a good outlet for the repressed anger and hatred he held towards his father. Though, the older he got (now fourteen), the more JJ fought back. His dad could no longer throw him to the ground as easily. Not now that JJ had taken up working out and picking fights in the school yard. Luke wasn’t the only one who knew how to throw a right-hook now. And the most important lesson JJ had learnt? Never let them see you cry.

The downsides? Cut lips, lingering bruises, and detention. So much detention.

“Nice of you to join us, Maybank,” the teacher mutters, not bothering to look up from his newspaper as JJ loiters into the classroom after school on Thursday.

“Happy to be back, sir,” JJ casually returns. He scribbles his name down on the sign up sheet, confirming his attendance, then scans the room.

There’s the regulars: Tommy Peach, who’s always doing time for selling whatever pills he can get his hands on in the parking lot; Ashley, who has a habit of smoking in the girl’s bathrooms; Colin, who got spotted with a gun in his backpack just the other day, supposedly just to ‘show it off’; and Pearl, who skipped three classes in one day (her record being four and a half). He catches her eye and winks - they’d made out behind the bike shed last week. You can spot the one-time offenders easily. They’re usually hanging their head at the very back, biting back tears, full of shame for letting down mommy and daddy. JJ had a certain distaste for them. He supposed it was because he knew his father could give less of a crap if JJ wound up in detention. If anything, JJ preferred it. Less time for him to be in his house and less risk of getting a beating for some slip-up. This time, the new offender is Patty Grayson - a goody-two-shoes smarty pants who had forgotten her homework. JJ’s surprised they didn’t let it slide given her track record. Finally, his eyes land on another new timer.

You’re not hanging your head as if praying for forgiveness, nor are you sobbing your apologies into the abyss. No: you look rather comfortable and - if anything - bored, as you lounge in your seat. A bottle of silver nail polish sits on the desk as you paint your nails. As if feeling his stare, you glance up and meet his gaze. You frown. Right, yeah, I’m being weird. JJ decides to take a seat next to you. He watches you in his peripheral vision for a while as you paint and paint. At one point, the teacher heads to the staff kitchen for dinner, giving a half-arsed warning about sneaking out. Pearl is happy to skip detention, probably addicted to the thrill, but everyone else stays sat. Suddenly, you look at JJ.

“Can I help you?”

“Huh?”

“You keep looking at me,” you say, irritated.

“I do?”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, y’know…” You quirk a brow, waiting for his reply, and JJ scrambles for one. “Your hair.”

You frown. “What?”

“Your hair,” JJ uselessly repeats.

“What about it?”

“It’s purple.”

“Yeah. I dye it. It’s not my natural colour, idiot,” you reply.

“It looks nice,” JJ tells you. You’re visibly taken back, blinking at him for a second.

“Oh,” you mumble, lifting a hand to pet it, “thanks.”

“You ain’t ever been to detention before, right?” JJ checks, finding it easier to converse now that you’ve calmed down.

You laugh. It sounds just the same as when you were little, from the first time JJ saw you, but only deeper. More mature. “Cause I’m good at not gettin’ caught, unlike you.”

“Oh, you been keepin’ tabs on me or somethin’?” JJ grins.

“You hold the record for the most detentions, Maybank. Sorta puts you on the map," you say with a roll of your eyes.

Holy shit, she knows my name.

“Maybe you’ll have to teach me your ways some time,” JJ smoothly quips.

Shaking your head, you turn your focus back to painting your nails. “I work alone.”

Like some dork, JJ watches you for a while. Something tells him you know he is as there’s this little smile on your lips. His eyes trail down from your face to your arms and soon to your hands. Your knuckles are bruised and scabbed over and JJ frowns, curious and concerned despite having only just officially met you. Ever since the day at the pier back when he was eight, JJ had been vaguely aware of your existence. You were in the year above at school and undeniably cool. He’d seen you skating in the parking lot, caught you getting lectured for shoplifting at the local grocery shop for a candy bar, noticed you helping (who he assumed was) your dad fish, and seen you from time to time in the halls. The only person who was aware of his infatuation was John B, who tortured JJ relentlessly for it. Over the years, your hair has undergone many changes. At one point it was buzzed completely off. He didn’t see you much that year, come to think. Now it hangs just past your shoulders, a deep, enticing purple. It caught him off guard because only last week it was royal blue. Not that he was keeping track or anything…

“Here.”

JJ snaps out of his daydream to find you holding out something to him. A thin, white stick, rolled rather wonky.

“You want some?”

“Won’t we get caught?” JJ reflexively asks.

“Boo. Pussy,” you teasingly return, retracting the offer. You briefly glance to the doorway before retrieving a lighter: bright, shiny silver and square. You light the end and take a drag. There’s a sweet, sickly smell that comes from it.

“I ain’t a pussy,” JJ counters. There’s a smirk on your face as he takes the joint from you, guiding it to his lips to inhale. It catches uncomfortably in his throat and chest, making him cough. Laughing, you consolingly pat his back. He clenches his eyes shut: so embarrassing.

“You good?” you giggle.

“Never better,” JJ manages out through his chokes, giving you a shaky thumbs up.

“First time?”

He shakes his head but you’re unconvinced. Smiling, you dig about in your pocket to retrieve a set of house keys. JJ watches as you scratch something into the metal of your lighter. He takes another hit of the joint as you do so, managing better this second time around. As he goes to hand it back, you trade him for your lighter.

“Here,” you say, passing it to him. He takes it and looks at your inscription. JJ. His lips twitch in a smile. Glancing to you, you light-heartedly explain, “your first stoner lighter.”

As you finish taking another drag, the teacher’s footsteps sound from down the hall. Cool as a cat, you put the joint out on the underside of your chair and slip it back into a little metal box decorated with Powerpuff Girls stickers. It slips safely into your bag just as the teacher rounds into the room. At first, JJ worries you’re caught, as the teacher’s finger singles you out. But then he tosses his thumb over his shoulder.

“Your dad’s here early to pick you up,” he tells you.

If you’re happy to be leaving early, you don’t show it. If JJ didn’t know better, he’d even say you’re reluctant as you pack up your stuff. Shucking your backpack over your shoulder, you flash JJ a smile, rising to your feet.

“Well, hopefully I’ll see you around, Maybank.”

“Yeah, same here,” JJ says, smiling.

You walk past the desk and head out the door. JJ’s sure it’s the effect of you rather than the weed that leaves him feeling more dazed than ever before in his life.

Two Years Later

What better way to lay-low than by throwing a kegger? JJ’s logic was undisputed. Not only had he encouraged the Pogues to hang onto the money and the gun that they'd found in the motel room, but he also got them to throw a last-minute gathering at the Boneyard. Honestly, his genius should be rewarded.

As he mingles through the ever growing crowd, the sun growing darker by the minutes, JJ peruses the options. Some tourons had shown up: clueless but eager as they got roped into drinking games and conversations, and hit on constantly by locals. The kooks were mostly keeping to themselves, happy to drink the beers and cans brought by the people on the cut. Typical. Pearl catches JJ’s eye and she tips her cup at him in greeting from across the way, a seductive glint in her eyes and a telling message in her smile. JJ lazily tosses a hand up in return. They’d hooked up a few times now but he wasn’t feeling it tonight.

As if guided by fate, you come perfectly into JJ’s line of sight. You’re drinking from a red solo cup, chatting with some of your friends, pretty in an oversized tee and shorts. Again, just as you had in detention two years prior, your eyes catch onto his. This time, you smile. Saying something to your friend before heading over to JJ (who’s half certain he hit his head earlier and might be hallucinating).

“Enjoying yourself?” JJ asks the minute you’re in front of him. He’s taller now. Ever growing in his confidence; sex does that to a guy. It makes them feel invincible.

“I’m guessing your group is the one to thank for this kegger then?”

JJ grins. “We know how to throw a good party.”

“I’ll say,” you smile. “I wish there was more music though.”

“You dance?”

“Sometimes. If I’m with the right person,” comes your sly response, smiling up at him. “You look different since detention.”

JJ would like to think so: that was two years ago. “Really? Different how?”

“Taller. Fitter.”

“Hotter?”

You laugh as you say, “you’re pretty sure of yourself, huh?”

“I was told confidence is sexy,” JJ returns. “What’d you think?”

You don’t say anything but JJ knows he isn’t crazy when you take a sip of your drink, your eyes scanning over his body leisurely as you do. You give a small hum.

“So, got tired of the purple?” JJ asks, gesturing to your hair. It’s long now and seemingly your natural hue again, like it was that day at the pier all those years ago. There’s now little strands of tinsel in it that reflect different colours in a silverish shine depending on how the light hits it. Your nose ring is new too, though JJ noticed that the minute you had that done. He noticed you a lot, even if he never spoke to you. You never did to him so he just assumed to stay clear. Besides, there was a rumour that you went out with Tommy Peach a few months back and JJ didn’t feel like getting his ass handed to him. JJ was good at fighting now, as unfortunate as that was to admit, and he was aware he was in good shape, but Tommy was feral and tall. God knows why you wanted to go out with a scumbag like that, but JJ supposed he wasn’t much of a step up either.

“My dad hated it,” you say. “And I wanted a change.”

“Shame. I liked the purple.”

“So you don’t like it like this?” you wonder. “Bummer. I was gonna try and shoot my shot with you but guess I’ve lost my chance…”

JJ’s eyes somehow don’t fall out of his head. He chuckles, almost nervously, and clears his throat. “Say what?”

You roll your eyes . “When a girl gives you her lighter and says she hopes she sees you around, JJ, it’s her way of saying ‘you’re cute, we should hang’.”

Oh.

Laughing, as if hearing his inner monologue, you shrug. “Guess I got tired of waiting for you to make the first move. Lucky for you, I’m two beers in and that seems like enough confidence to come over”

“Two beers? I don’t wanna be taking advantage of you,” JJ teases, making you laugh.

“Can’t believe you’re accusing me of being a lightweight when you nearly died after smoking your first joint.”

“Woah! Low blow!”

“I thought I’d murdered you! I was scared you were allergic or some shit,” you giggle.

JJ grins down at you and tries to retrace his steps to how he got here, stood on the beach, talking to you and having you actively hit on him. It feels like a wet dream he’d concoct on lonely nights. He stays in that borderline stupor as the two of you talk and talk. You’re funny, but JJ already knew that, and you’re an adrenaline junky too, but JJ knew that as well. The two of you like the same kind of music so that leads to a huge discussion which almost becomes an argument of who was better: Kid Cudi or J. Cole? The more the drinks flow, the more your hand finds solace on his thigh, and the more his on yours. Soon enough JJ's foot’s rubbing leisurely at your ankle, personal space a long disputed myth, and he’s fighting the urge to kiss you. He’s not sure why he’s dragging it out when you’re obviously into him. Maybe he just wants to keep the anticipation alive for a little bit longer. After all, he’s wanted this since he was eight years old.

The moment is interrupted by someone hollering your name. As you look up, JJ realises how dark it is. It’s officially night now with the moon high in the sky. A few people have pulled on sweaters as the evening has cooled, especially with the seafront breeze, but JJ feels burning hot. He spots someone waving at you and beside them is a girl crouched in the sand. You cuss and get up.

“That’s my friend. I better go help,” you hurriedly explain. You pass JJ your empty cup and give an apologetic smile. Then, you press a brief kiss to his lips. It's so brief that it barely feels real, and JJ doesn’t register it until you’re already walking away. “I’ll be back soon! Sorry!”

JJ watches as you hurry over and help out your vomiting buddy. Sighing, bummed, he looks around and tries to track down his friends. The alcohol hits him when he stands, flooding from his brain, down to his body like ice cold water. He staggers for only a moment in the direction of John B, filling up the cups in his hands on the way as if willingly ignoring his body’s messages. He whistles out to catch his best friend’s attention, offering him one of the cup’s of beer. But Sarah Cameron and her douchebag boyfriend Topper make their way past, and something inside of JJ seeks mayhem. He offers it out to her instead but Topper tries to lay claim.

“That’s nice of you man, but I didn’t ask you,” JJ returns. “If you said ‘pretty please’, maybe. But you didn’t.”

“Oh! Pretty please!” a squiffy Topper checks.

“Yeah,” JJ replies. “So, Sarah, I promise–”

The beer hits JJ’s face in a non-refreshing wake-up. His anger tips quick like a nuclear bomb. His hands come up to Topper’s shirt, grabbing him before shoving him back. John B’s hand comes up to JJ’s chest, firmly trying to hold him back.

“You’re so funny man!” JJ sarcastically urges. Before he can push it further, Topper says something that has John B lurching at him and soon enough, a full on fist fight begins. Pope is quick to intervene with JJ, holding him back, and no matter how much the latter struggles, he can’t seem to get to his best friend. Concerning seeps into the anger as he watches Topper lay into John B, kicking him into the water. And then pride when John B starts to fight back. “Give it to him, man!”

The night feels as though it’s split into two as JJ loses himself in watching the fight. His conversation with you might have happened years ago as his attention homes in on the flying fists and chants of the watchers. And then it all turns sour. Topper holds John B down into the water, face smushed into the sand, and all he can hear is Sarah begging for him to stop. JJ fidgets nervously, eager to do something, unsure of what. Then, another genius idea.

It feels out of body as he retrieves the gun and checks the safety. As he makes his way over to the water and presses it against Topper’s head. It doesn’t feel like he’s in control of his body when JJ clicks the safety off. Topper stills beneath him.

“Yeah, you know what that is,” he warns through clenched teeth. “Your move, broski.”

Nothing but the waves. Nothing but his heartbeat. Nothing but John B’s choked breathes in the water.

“Put the gun down!”

“Did you say something, princess?” JJ asks Sarah, focus on Topper’s hands. Eventually, they lift off John B’s weak body. The rich asshole repeats that they’re good and JJ shoves him down. But he’s still so angry. He’s always so angry. The mentality comes back from when he first started school. Never be the weak one. Never let them get the upper hand. Assert your dominance. He raises the gun into the air and turns to the dying crowd. “Okay, everyone, listen up! Get the hell off our side of the island!”

The gun fires twice, the recoil minimal. It cracks in the silence of the night. A few people scream, alarmed, and then they start to run.

JJ comes back to his body when Kiara shoves him. An argument breaks out between himself, Pope and Kie, and as the two others rush to help John B (who collapses back into the waves), JJ finally remembers the night. The whole night. He remembers you. As he looks out into the mass of bodies rushing away from the scene of the almost crime, he spots you. You look conflicted, for only a second, and then you leave too.

Shit.

The next day, JJ kills the time in the mid-morning with target practice in the back yard. The cops had swung by earlier and he thought it right to celebrate keeping the gun. Your whistle sounds like a birdcall. JJ’s head whips around at the sound, startled, and it seems to amuse you. He lowers his gun and frowns, confused at the sight of you.

“How d’you know I live here?”

“I have my sources,” you smile, tapping the side of your nose. You wander leisurely into his back yard toward him as if you’ve been there thousands of times before. Nodding to the gun in his hand, you quirk a brow. “So, they didn’t take it off you?”

“Let me off with a warning,” JJ shrugs. “They couldn’t find the gun and have no proof that I kept it…”

“Ah. Loopholes,” you hum.

When you come to a pause beside him, JJ awkwardly scratches the back of his neck. “Look, I’m real sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

“Freak me out how?” you frown.

“With the whole…gun…thing.”

Laughing, you shake your head. “That ain’t why I left JJ.”

“It ain’t?”

“No! I mean, Topper looked as though he wasn’t gonna let up, so,” you say, shrugging in agreement with JJ’s previous actions. “I just can’t go back to prison anytime soon. My dad’ll kill me.”

“Back to prison?” JJ says. He shouldn’t be as impressed (or turned on) by that as he is.

“Ooo, the big scary place, I know,” you grin, teasing, before randomly making a grab for the gun. JJ barks out a laugh, holding it up and out of reach. “Come on! Lemme have a go!”

“You ever shoot before?” JJ asks, eyeing you up.

Rolling your eyes, you nod. “We have a BB in our house that I fire around all the time. I wanna see how this one feels.”

“I don’t know. I shouldn’t give a weapon to a known criminal, right?” JJ says, tone almost flirtatious.

“Come on. You can do the whole ‘let me show you’ thing.”

Lowering the gun, JJ chuckles, befuddled. “The what?”

“You know! When guys wanna feel a girl up they pretend to teach them how to do stuff. Like a tennis instructor or something. They’re all like ‘let me show you’.”

“You tellin’ me you got a tennis instructor?”

“Yeah, and a mansion with three yachts - now come on!”

Shaking his head, laughing, JJ relents. He hands you the gun, safety on, and partly to follow along with your joke, but mostly to feel your body close to his, JJ stands almost fully behind you. He checks which is your dominant hand and guides your arms up into position. He shifts the position of your fingers. Your hair catches slightly in the wind and the smell of fruit and herbs dulls his senses. When he speaks again, you giggle.

“Your breath tickles,” you mutter.

“It does?” JJ checks, purposefully speaking even closer against the skin of your neck. You squirm and laugh and JJ has no idea how any of this happened, but he sure as hell isn’t complaining. “You gotta keep still.”

As if to coax you to do so, JJ plants one of his hands on the side of your waist. Your breathing seems to catch with that, all giggles dead on your tongue, and JJ struggles to bite back his smirk. His chin rests comfortably on your shoulder as he follows your line of vision. You click the safety off under his instruction and then fire. He feels the power of the gun run down your arms, the recoil making your body jilt only slightly. Clicking the safety on again, you lower the gun and turn your head. Eyes half-hooded, you look up from his lips into his eyes. JJ notices a small, relatively fresh cut under your eye. Was that there last night? That train of thought derails when your tongue peaks out, dampening your lips. JJ loses all patience. His lips are on yours, kissing you, hand tightening just so on your side. You carelessly drop the gun to the floor and turn in his hold. Hands on his face, on his shoulders, around his neck, in his hair…JJ kisses you until he’s not sure what his name is anymore. Even then, he kisses you still.

From there, the two of you were intertwined in one another’s lives. There was no other way to put it: JJ adored you. It was as if you constantly shared a common thought: JJ had never met someone so like himself. Two sides of the same stone. The Pogues noticed it easily. You didn’t exactly have to ask to join the gang. The fact that JJ trusted you enough to bring you around spoke volumes to his friends. They’d never met one of his previous situationships or flings before, and from that they could recognise this was something different. Seeing the two of you together just drove that point home faster. Birds of a feather. When the wild goose chase surrounding the Royal Merchant cropped up, you joined that too. Pope joked that there was something wrong with your amygdala, which upon explanation meant that you seemed to have a pretty low fear factor. It came after you literally wrestled Barry for the gun when they got held at gunpoint. All you’d done was shrug and said that you’d known “true fear” and that wasn’t it. Nobody knew what that meant, including JJ, but he had a feeling that he might after he dropped you home one time.

The Chateau had become almost as familiar to you as it was to JJ. The pair of you had claimed the porch as your go-to smoking spot. One Tuesday afternoon, you sit sprawled in the armchair: head on one armrest and legs swung over the other. Your now lilac highlighted hair dangles in two braids. JJ is keeping himself entertained by tracing his eyes up and down your legs, over your stomach and chest, up to your dozed out face, and back again. The two of you were smoking hash, passing it back and forth leisurely, sharing mindless musings about life and the world and what things might be like if you actually found the gold.

“I’d buy a house,” you say.

“Lame.”

“A big house,” you continue, ignoring him and gesturing in front of you as if visualising it. “It’d be pastel blue with big white shutter-style windows and a wrap-around porch. There’d be one of those porch swings sat out front. Oh! And flowers. A shit ton of flowers.”

“You can’t even keep a cactus alive,” JJ snorts.

“I’d hire a gardener. Duh,” you say, rolling your eyes.

“Anything else?” JJ wonders. He keeps a mental checklist: blue house; white shutters…

“A dog,” you smile. “And a cat.”

“Alright then.” Maybe it’s the manner that he says it that has you looking at him, amused. “I’ll do it.”

“You’ll ‘do it’?” you chuckle, raising your brows.

“Yeah. When we find the gold–”

“If we find the gold–”

“When,” JJ insists, making you laugh, “I’ll get you your house and your dog.”

“Don’t forget the cat,” you warn, pointing at him.

“Christ, lady! And your cat.”

“Good,” you smile.

You look back to the ceiling and slip your eyes shut, sighing contentedly. JJ chuckles, shaking his head, gazing at you as if you sculpted the planets and personally hung them in the solar system. It’s short lived bliss, however, because your phone pings. Then again, and again, until it’s nothing but an ongoing buzz of noise. JJ frowns at it and you quickly reach over to the window ledge where it’s precariously sat. The moment your eyes scan the screen, you sit up. Everything about your demeanour shifts. JJ sees the second you switch to panic.

“I gotta go,” you mumble. You swing your legs off the sofa and stand. JJ’s quick to follow.

“Everything okay?”

“I just gotta go home right now,” you reply, already making your way down the porch steps. JJ ditches the spoon pipe on the coffee table and catches up.

“I’ll take you on my bike,” he says, grabbing your hand and guiding you to it. You don’t argue and he doesn’t ask for an explanation for the urgency. Wordlessly, the two of you climb on - your arms tethering around his middle - and JJ starts the engine. Speed limits become a pleasantry rather than a courtesy as JJ speeds to your house. Your phone doesn’t let up the whole journey and with every ping, JJ bumps it up by another mile per hour. It’s a skidding halt when he stops outside your house. He’d only been there a handful of times before, usually to pick you up. Similarly to JJ, you didn’t like going home all that much. You’re climbing off the bike before JJ shuts the engine off. Seemingly at the sound of the engine, your dad emerges in the front door. You turn to JJ. He doesn’t recognise the look on your face.

It terrifies him.

“JJ, you have to leave - now,” you tell him.

He frowns, brows tugging together. “What’re you–”

“Just leave. Go. Please, JJ,” you push, glancing between him and your approaching father. Something softens in your tone, akin to desperation. “Please.”

JJ looks to your dad just as he passes the threshold of the porch, then looks to you once more as if needing approval. You nod as if understanding. The same thought, always shared. Then JJ’s turning tightly in the makeshift drive of your house and starting off down the road before your dad reaches you. He acutely registers the funny feeling, tight in his chest as if something was squeezing his heart and lungs in a vice. It was the same feeling JJ got whenever he went home.

The same feeling JJ got whenever he saw his own father.

As the months went on, the relationship you and JJ shared was soaked in marjuana and sweat. Smoking in the morning and fucking through the night. Not only did you encourage JJ’s idiocy, but you joined it. It was as if you were there to enable the other. Shoplifting beers, pier jumping in the thick of night, skinny dipping before dusk, pulling crazy stunts with the others that nearly wound up getting you killed more times to count. But just like JJ, you were loyal. It was as if the minute you became a Pogue, you wore it like a military title, nothing short of honoured. You’d lay your life down for the group and for the hunt for gold.

JJ wasn’t sure who said I love you first. He’s not even sure if either of you ever said it. You don’t have to say I love you to say I love you. Besides, two avoidant, daddy issue riddled teenagers didn’t make for the most textbook healthy relationship. The two of you would fight and it was bad when you did. But it was a rarity. There was little time for blow-out arguments when you were running from one place to another, chasing lead after lead. Hell, even when you seemed to have time to breathe, something else always came up.

“I never make good grades in school. When I get out, I act like a fool. I come in the party and cause a commotion. Yeah, I’m smooth they call me lotion.”

JJ cracks up with the others, breaking his beatboxing rhythm, as Pope loses his verse. He has a more than comfortable buzz going: energised by the beer and mellowed out by the weed. JJ thought he could handle his stuff well until he met you. This was the first time in a long time the two of you had properly partied together, outside of sharing a joint or doing edibles on an evening. You were about seven cans deep, one joint smoked and two lines of coke snorted. Your hair, now red, was damp from the hot tub; your nose ring sparkling in the disco ball’s reflecting light. JJ tried to keep his attention on the gang but no matter what, his eyes kept running back to you. The bikini top you’re wearing is truly a cruel design. Whoever invented it hated anybody who admired the female figure: they designed it to torture them. The liquor certainly didn’t help the situation, nor did your knowing glances and sly smiles.

"Think Kanye might have some serious competition there," you sardonically quip.

“Alright, alright, let’s hear it then,” Pope challenges, turning the focus to you. Everyone ooo’s dramatically as you laugh. You take a hit of your freshly rolled joint and shrug. As you rise out of the water, moving to sit on the outer edge of the hot tub, the gang erupts into cheers. JJ's mesmerised by the way the droplets of water race down over your tits, trickling down your chest.

“Okay, alright, well someone gimme a beat, at least,” you say.

JJ’s happy to indulge. Laughing, you bop your head along and try to follow.

“I failed the first grade in school, but my teacher told me I’m a cool dude. The kids in the playground scattered, cause my bars would leave them battered–”

The gang whoops and you crack up, trying desperately to stay on track. JJ’s trying desperately not to stare at your chest and lose track of his makeshift beat.

“When I fuck they call me lewd, cause I get freaky when I’m in the wrong mood. My boy never seems to complain, but his dick might be in some pain.”

JJ practically chokes on his laughter. There’s a symphony of cheers and jests and (in Pope’s case) groans from the others, and you throw your hands up in surrender.

“Y’all asked for it! I’m jus’ saying!” you giggle, sinking back into the water. You take another hit of your joint and wink across to JJ. His dick twitches uselessly in his swim shorts as you do so. Such a fucking tease.

“You two were made for each other, Goddamn,” Kiara chuckles.

The pair of you laugh it off but JJ feels his heart stir at the notion. Maybe it’s the weed talking or the alcohol intoxicating his thoughts, but the more time JJ spends with you, the more he’s certain that you two were meant to find each other. There’s no other explanation for it. You were an entire world in one small human being, filled with stories and secrets, some of which he might never know, but most he’d spend his life wanting to.

As the night stretches on and the drinks continue to flow, the mood simmers down from a bubbly celebration to an almost sentimental reunion. The hot tub has been abandoned as the mosquitos began to gather and the air began to cool, and JJ was sick of hearing you and Sarah drop hints about how you were “turning pruney.” So now you sit in the deck chairs with Kiara and Sarah and John B, watching JJ and Pope wrestle. Grappling on Pope’s upper arms, JJ tries to get the upper leg.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, go for the leg,” he lightly encourages his lesser violent friend. With that, Pope tackles JJ onto the floor. He hits the ground with a gentle smack. “You got a new technique now, huh?”

Pope rises in victory, pretty drunk, arms in the air. JJ laughs, sitting up to notice a beer extended out to him in offer from you. He takes it with a grin, having two large swigs.

“I’m done. I’m out of here,” Pope announces to nobody in particular, walking away from the campfire.

“You want a round two?”

“Yeah, I think I’ll take my losses,” Pope replies. JJ begins wandering back over to you with a shrug just as Kiara suddenly gets up from her seat. She flashes Sarah some kind of look that girls must track better than boys, as Sarah and yourself gape at her.

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. Way to be discreet!” JJ hollers after them. When he steals Kiara’s chair, sitting beside you, you’re still giggling.

“Okay, am I just oblivious or did nobody else notice them vibing on each other?” you wonder, looking to the others.

“Dude. Seriously?” JJ sniggers.

“I didn’t notice!”

“How could you not– You know what? It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. Only one of us needs to be the love expert here,” JJ reassures, stretching his arm out over the back of your chair in what he thinks is a rather suave manner. You snort, gently brushing it off.

“Love expert? Uh-huh. Sure, kiddo.”

“Kiddo,” John B mutters, amused.

JJ scoffs, grinning at you. “Oh really?”

“Yep,” you return, not quite sure what you’re arguing over now. JJ decides to put an end to it by squeezing the sides of your exposed stomach, tickling your skin and causing you to squirm. As he does so, John B mumbles something about being out of beer. Sarah follows him and leaves you and JJ in the company of the music, the cicadas and chickens.

“Thought you danced,” JJ says, referring to the music, thinking back to the night at the kegger.

“I might do later.”

JJ just nods and the two of you smile at one another, the playfulness of the moment easing away the same way the arousal had earlier in the hottub.

“You’re so handsome,” you quietly tell him. "My good looking boy, huh?"

JJ chuckles, looking down, bashful whenever you threw compliments like that at him. He could handle ‘sexy’ or ‘hot’ rather well, took them in stride, but words like handsome were like flakes of gold being sprinkled in his hair. They felt valuable, especially when they came from your mouth. Not always the best with words, JJ thanks the self-medication for what falls out of his mouth next.

“You’re the prettiest Goddamn thing on this planet.”

You’re visibly stunned and JJ wants to high-five himself. Giving him a coy smile, you lean your head back against your seat, staring into the star scattered sky.

“God, I could just stay here forever,” you sigh.

JJ mimics your actions. He traces the stars and tries to see if he can make constellations of your face. He glances at you and notices how they reflect on your eyes, as if scattering diamonds into your irises to make them shimmer. Your skin is kissed amber by the fairy lights strung in the branches above. Everything just makes you glow: ethereal. A foot kicking his own snaps JJ out of his lovesick stupor. A rather amused John B smirks knowingly down at him.

“It’s creepy to stare, man,” John B joshingly berates.

“He does it all the time,” you mumble. “That’s why I asked him out.”

Sarah laughs at that and you crack up too, but before another conversation can begin, your laughter dies down and your brows furrow.

“What was that?” John B asks, as if reading your mind.

“Your chickens?” JJ wonders, having heard nothing but the incessant clucking of the birds.

“It sounded like a car door,” you mumble. JJ, distracted, begins to cluck like a chicken, hoping to lighten the mood, more drunk than he thought he was, but your hand presses over his mouth to silence him. You rise to your feet slowly and JJ decides to follow. He squints into the distance.

“I think someone’s here,” John B mutters.

“Up the trees. Quickly” you instruct, fast to take action.

You shut off the music as Sarah hurries to put out the fire. JJ decides to help her, tossing handfuls of sand atop of the flames. He looks to the tree to find you already a decent way up. He stands by the bottom of the other tree with John B to help give Sarah a boost, aware of the fragility of her stitches, and then lets John B go up before himself. He settles on the same branch as you, a hand protectively settling on your waist. You’d already taken a rather reckless course of action in Charleston with Renfield, trying to tackle the taser from his hands to buy all of you more time to run. In case you felt the urge to drop from the trees in some surprise attack, JJ could now hold you back.

Sure enough, only a couple of minutes later, Rafe and Barry creep into the backyard. JJ feels you stiffen and he tightens his grip just slightly in reassurance. They didn’t know you were in the trees. God bless your quick thinking. Barry makes his way into the house, gun raised and ready, whilst Rafe studies the spots you’d all been relaxing in only moments prior.

“Where the hell are you?” he mumbles to himself.

None of you speak. None of you dare breathe let alone move. JJ looks to John B and Sarah, who look just as troubled as he feels. Rafe was unpredictable. Unstrung. And it was easy to assume that JJ was not on Barry’s nice list, that was for sure. As they sit and lie in wait, praying not to be spotted, Barry and Rafe seem to decide that nobody’s home. As he’s about to take a sigh of relief, Rafe fires the gun up into the trees. His heart jumps and his chest heaves. The bullet ricochets off the trunk of the tree near his back. You flinch in JJ’s hold at the gunshots and the shock nearly has you losing your balance. JJ quickly shifts his hand higher up your side, leaning as close to you as physically possible to whisper in your ear.

“I got you,” he reassures.

Barry thankfully ushers Rafe away at that point but none of you dare move until you the car is long out of sight. Sighing, you relax against JJ and him against you. It was ironic how the two of you were no strangers to violence and yet, the same spark of fear was alight anytime either of you were faced with it.

You see, the same way ‘I love you’ didn’t need an explanation, neither did yours and JJ’s homelives. JJ never intended to introduce you to his father and he never met yours. More times than not, you’d meet and hang and sleep at the Chateau. If you spent time at one of your two house’s, it was when it was empty. The cuts and bruises that would appear on either of your bodies never came with questioning. Somehow, someway, the two of you knew how and where. You’d soundlessly clean them and console the other and the whole thing would be as forgotten as a terrorist attack: over, in the back of the mind, but never fully erased. The anger JJ felt whenever he saw you after you’d had a run-in with your father was different to that which he felt when he had a run-in with his own. Deeper, darker, more vengeful. One night, it reached its crux.

JJ wakes up with a start. At first he isn’t sure what snapped him out of sleep. Then, he hears it again. A faint creaking in the floorboards from the main body of his house. His house that he now lives in alone. What if his dad came back? JJ gets out of bed dressed in nothing but a pair of sweatpant shorts. He slowly picks up a spanner that’s laying on his bedroom floor, ditched after a day trying to switch out the deck of his skateboard, and pushes his door open carefully. He slowly inches down the almost pitch-black hallway. The only light is that from the window: moonbeams that shine through the glass.

At the sight of your silhouette, JJ lets out a heavy sigh. The spanner falls to the ground with an echoing thud.

“Jesus Christ, you scared the crap outta me,” JJ says with a relieved laugh. He makes his way across the room to you but his smile fades when he notices how stiff you are. “You a’right?”

This close, he can begin to make out your face through the dark. It’s haunting.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” JJ breathes, horrified.

Dark bags sit under your eyes which are hollowed out as if you’d been lost at sea, a vacant stare that almost looks past him. Your lip is quivering. Small, shaky, shallow breaths come in and out of your mouth. The worst part? The blood.

His hands fly up toward your face and your eyes clamp shut quickly as preparing for a hit. JJ freezes before he touches your skin, slowing his movements, trying to ease his own panic. His eyes scan your features, counting the injuries, trying to see the damage beneath the gore.

“What the fuck happened?”

You don’t talk. Nothing but that same ominous silence. You’re in shock. JJ’s seen it before from when he pulled over at a motorcycle crash. It’s as if the mind retreats in on itself and guards from the unpredictable. JJ swallows and clenches his jaw, trying to steal himself.

“A’right, we, uh, we gotta clean you up,” he manages. He carefully links his fingers through yours and feels your barely tangible grip. Then he guides you into the bathroom. Lowers you gently onto the toilet seat. In his peripheral vision, he sees no sign of movement or acknowledgement as he retrieves the beloved first aid kit from the bathroom cupboard. It balances precariously on the edge of the sink as he digs about for cleaning supplies.

JJ starts with your face. Your upper lip is busted at the edge, coated in dry blood but already beginning to scab. When you get in as many bruise ups as JJ, you learn to have a strange appreciation and fascination with the human body in how it heals. The antiseptic must sting but you don’t even blink. You just stare past him. Even before, you’d never been this detached. You might be angry or frustrated or even upset, but never absent. Never this. The blood around your eye comes from a gash just across your right brow. There’s an impressive bruise on the apple of your left cheek and a telling pink handprint that refuses to fade on your right. The fury begins to chip at JJ’s resolve.

Following your bizarre routine, JJ moves to unbutton your shirt, to check for any signs of internal bleeding, broken ribs, open cuts or ugly bruises across your upper body. The minute his fingers brush your sternum, your hands fly up. He’s not even sure how he winds up on the floor and it takes a moment to piece together the seconds and register that it was you. Frowning, thoroughly alarmed, JJ’s head shoots up to find your chest heaving. You make a noise as if you’re crying but no tears fall. His lips part in horror and his mind scrambles for any explanation other than the obvious.

“Woah, woah, woah, hey,” JJ hurries, rocking onto his knees and planting his hands reassuringly on yours. Your whole body is shaking. “It’s a’right, yeah? Jus’ me. I ain’t gonna hurt ya.”

Your eyes clamp shut and the tears begin to fall.

"You're safe now."

After a trembling inhale, you begin to sob. Heartbroken, hideous, harrowing sobs. JJ feels tears swirl in his waterline at the sight and sound. He knew you better than anyone - better than the Lord himself - and to see you so far from who you are was like seeing someone’s body turn inside out. Unsure of what to do, he wraps his arms around you in a tight embrace and lets you fall into him.

You just cry.

Later, JJ sits outside the bathroom. His back is pressed against the door. Inside, he can hear the slosh of the bath water from time to time when you shift. He meddles with the rings on his fingers. His teeth gnaw on his lower lip. JJ assesses his options. He knows the “right” thing to do and he knows the “wrong” thing to do, and he knows the one he prefers out of the two, even if he shouldn't. His eyes flit over to the pile of your clothes that he’d taken out the room with him, back turned to give you privacy when you changed (as if you hadn’t given your body to him countless times before). The blood stained shirt. The shorts that had a telling rip at the crotch, the zip practically shattered. The missing panties. His throat turns thick and his eyes clench shut, forehead falling down against his clenched fists. He tries desperately to breathe through the anger. Before he can reach any sort of conclusion, he hears you get out of the bathtub. A few minutes later, the twisting doorknob prompts him to stand. You stand dressed in his clothes and offer him a small smile, and JJ feels his whole body sigh with relief.

“How you feelin’?” JJ asks.

You shrug, wrapping your arms around yourself. “Exhausted.”

“Anything hurting still?”

“No,” you say. You walk past him and into his bedroom and he follows. Climbing onto his bed, you wrap yourself up on his side in the blankets. JJ heads to the kitchen to grab some water and pain meds before coming back and joining you, sitting against the headrest, unsure whether to touch you or not. You seem to answer the question for him. You cuddle into his side and nestle your head against his upper chest. His hands coil safely around your body, holding you close, and he plants a kiss on top of your head. Then he finally speaks.

“We need to go to the cops.”

You sigh and close your eyes. “JJ, no–”

“You don’t even gotta press charges but they have to know.”

“I don’t want to do that.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because you know how it is, JJ,” you argue, sitting up to face him. “It’s my word against his and he never technically did anything. They’ll take one look at him and listen to my story, and then probably get me to recount it a million times over to a million other strangers. To a million other men. It’s humiliating and it’s pointless and I don’t want to do it.”

“It ain’t pointless and there’s nothing humiliating about it,” JJ insists. “You’re the victim here–”

“Don’t call me that,” you snap, glaring at him.

Sighing, JJ closes his eyes and clenches the bridge of his nose, trying to keep his cool. The last thing you need tonight is another fight. Besides, it’s not as if you’re wrong. JJ trusted the police as far as he could throw them; he didn’t doubt that they’d be useless. But the thought of you going back to your dad and for him to get away with what he did…JJ didn’t know what other option you really had. Your fingers gently wrap around JJ’s hand, easing it away from his face, coaxing his eyes to meet yours.

“Two more months, JJ.”

He sighs again but you’re quick to continue.

“Two more months and I’m eighteen and he isn’t my legal guardian anymore! I don’t have to deal with the whole rigged court system or with a foster home - I can just be rid of him for good.”

“Two more months? You think I’m gonna let you go back there for two more months after this?” JJ scoffs, eyeing up your injuries. His stomach churns and jaw ticks at the thought of what could’ve happened if you hadn’t managed to get the upper hand. You sigh and look away.

“I don’t know…Maybe he won’t do it again.”

“If he does it once, he’ll do it again,” JJ mutters. He remembers having the same thought the first time his dad hit him. It was an accident. He apologised. He didn’t mean it. By the end, JJ was on cloud nine if he went a week without a smack. But your situation was somehow even heavier than that. His stomach churns again.

“I don’t know,” you repeat, sounding nothing short of defeated.

JJ just tugs you back against his chest. You trace a finger over his chest in swirling patterns as if personifying the state of his mind. Maybe you could live with JJ. I mean, you practically already did. The two of you were rarely away from the Chateau these days, and once you were eighteen - just as you said - your dad had no hold on you. Maybe if the Pogues could get the cross then JJ could finally afford that big pastel blue house for you, with the wrap around porch, and guard dogs to sick ‘em anytime your dad came within a fifty mile radius of you. Maybe–

JJ’s eyes widen. It hits him. His best idea to date.

“Marry me.”

JJ isn’t sure he actually said it for a while because you don’t speak. You don’t even move.

“What did you just say?”

“Marry me.”

You immediately start to laugh. You shake your head against his chest. “Jesus Christ. Did you slip and hit your bed whilst I was in the bathtub?”

“I’m serious. Marry me,” JJ says. Maybe it’s his tone that cuts off your hysterics. You quickly break out of his hold again and look at him, studying his expression. Your eyes widen.

“Holy shit, you really are serious,” you mumble.

“Marry me,” JJ repeats as if those are the only words he knows how to say.

You laugh, bewildered, “JJ, we’re seventeen.”

“So.”

“So? So…We’re seventeen!” you cackle. “We can’t get married JJ.”

“Who says?” JJ shrugs, beginning to smile. You haven’t said no.

“Um let’s see,” you mumble, lifting your fingers to count. “The court…The law…Our parents.”

“We don’t have parents.”

“Maybe not good or present ones, but we still have legal guardians, JJ.”

“Those are all technicals–”

“-Technicalities-”

“-Whatever. Point is, those are irrelevant,” JJ says, wafting it away. His hands grab yourself in a tight clutch. Your mouth remains perfectly parted, slightly upturned at the corners. It only pushes his smile. “I know you’re it for me. I ain’t good at all the sappy-dappy-love-crap, but I’ve been in love with you since I was a kid–”

“--JJ–”

“--And I don’t want anybody else! Ever. We’re a team, ain’t we? Hunt for gold together, spend our life together.” When you study him in silence for a while, JJ tags on, “I mean, I’m gonna do it eventually so I might as well do it now.”

“That is insane reasoning to propose, JJ,” you laugh, shaking your head at him. Even if your face is half beaten beyond recognition, JJ knows you’re the most beautiful girl on the planet. The moment he knew he shared the same earth as you, JJ wanted you to be in his life. And you still haven’t said no.

“I love you,” JJ says, plain and simple. Shaking his head slightly, he grins. “P4L, right? I mean, we really got nothing to lose here.”

You stare at him and scoff, quiet and underbreath, almost fascinated. Your eyes slip shut and JJ begins to grin because he knows. A deep, heavy sigh, and you laugh again.

“God help me, I must have gone crazy,” you mutter. Your eyes open into his. Then you smile the prettiest smile the world has ever seen. “Yes. I’ll marry you, JJ Maybank.”

JJ wastes no time in connecting his lips with yours. You giggle against them, wrapping your arms around his shoulders, holding him closer and closer. When you break apart, barely a hair’s width between your damp lips, you smile as you speak.

“My good looking boy.”

Five Years Later

Whiskey isn’t quite caramel. No, it’s more tawny. More gingerbread coloured, especially in this hue, illuminated by the crappy bar lighting hanging above JJ’s head. His knuckles knock against the side of the cool glass, mesmerised by the sound of his metal rings clinking, distracted in his drunken haze by the bobbing of the three ice cubes in the liquor.

“JJ.”

His head sluggishly lifts at the sound of his name. He comes face to face with the long-time bartender, Corbin.

“It’s last orders, man. You wanting a refill?” Corbin asks.

JJ sighs and shakes his head. “Nah, I better not. What time is it?”

“It’s nearly one,” Corbin replies.

JJ nods then repeats, “nah, I better not.”

“You wanting to settle up for that now?” he wonders, glancing down at JJ’s half full drink.

JJ swallows and rubs tiredly at his eyes. “I, uh…Just put it on my tab for now, a’right?”

Corbin sighs. “Look, JJ. I’ve known you a long time so I’ve been letting it slide but this tab’s starting to stack up. You gotta pay it sometime.”

JJ shoots him a glare; his emotions twisted by the alcohol. “And I’m gonna. I just…Things are a lil’ tight right now so I can’t settle it just yet.”

Corbin decides not to push the topic. He does as he’s asked and adds JJ’s three whiskey on ice beverages to his resume-like tab. When he leaves to square things away at some other end of the bar, JJ glances around the room.

Corbin’s bar, Grub Bucket, hadn’t changed in anybody’s lifetime. JJ could recall coming out here as a kid on the hunt for his dad and sneaking past the intimidating bikers out front, weaving through the drunken fools of Kildare to find his dad almost paralytic near the pool tables. The smell was the same too: musty and beer drenched and tired. JJ wonders if he finds the smell comforting - nostalgic maybe. At the sight of several patrons leaving through the door into the pitch-black night, JJ remembers himself and the time, and he downs the last of his drink. The bitter sting is soothing on his tongue and eases the ache, and it goes down easy like a crisp, cool apple juice back in grade school.

He staggers out the bar and stumbles the familiar route home. It’s as engraved in his mind as the journey to the shops or the docks. Home appears through thick overgrowth. It’s a piece of shit trailer, obvious even in this lighting, that’s discoloured and dirty on the exterior. There are weeds that protrude from below the body of the home and gas canisters lined beside overflowing trash cans and countless fishing, surf and mechanic crap. The recycling bin is always full of empty wine bottles and cans of beer.

The stairs creak in concern as he makes his way up them. The third is broken in the middle and even intoxicated, he has the sense to avoid it. A squeaky door that needs the entirety of his body weight to open, his shoulder slamming into the upper left, and the instant smell of damp desperately trying to be combated with some cheap candle from Goodwill.

There’s few rooms in the trailer. A kitchen with about one empty counter to cook, that shares the same area as a living space. A couch that JJ found abandoned on a roadside sits before a crackly television, divided by a thrifted coffee table. The World Atlas was proving useful keeping the latter piece of furniture upheld on the far right leg. The area is littered with belongings, tight on space and storage. Trash takes up a lot of space too, as much as he hates to admit it. A strategically placed poster-print conceals a concerning dent in the wall that may signify rats at one time had made this trailer their home. That could explain the steal that JJ got it for.

The bathroom is where JJ’s legs take him next. Here, with the door closed, he can turn on the light. It takes three flicks of the switch and the buzz that it generates might remind a war veteran of a looming grenade. The shower is permanently discoloured and runs warm perhaps once a year, so JJ skips that stage. Instead he looks into the dirty mirror. His exhausted face greets him through blurry vision and speckles of toothpaste. A well-used toothbrush is rushed around his mouth and he spits into a dusty sink that drains frustratingly slowly. A quick piss and JJ is all washed up.

He’s careful not to turn on the light when he makes his way into the bedroom. By now, it must nearly be two in the morning. The boots come off first, followed by his shorts, socks and shirt. Clad in only boxers, JJ can make out the bed through the dark and slides under the covers. His eyes slip shut and his body tries to relax.

“It’s late.”

His eyes clench shut. Shit.

“I, uh, didn’t know you’d still be awake.”

“I was waiting up for you to come home,” comes your mumbled response. JJ looks over to you: your back facing him as he lies on his.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Hard not to when your husband’s out until two in the morning without texting or calling.”

JJ’s brows knit together. “My phone died,” he mutters.

“Convenient.”

Sighing, JJ runs a hand along his forehead and rubs tiredly at his eyes. “Look, I’m really fuckin’ tired, a’right? It’s been a long day and I just wanna–”

“You’re tired?” you hiss, turning over and sitting up. Fuck. “You’re fucking tired, JJ? Where the hell where you!?”

“Out!”

"Oh! Out! God, I don't know why I didn't think to check there!" you tunefully say.

JJ grits his teeth. The exhaustion and booze make a sticky concoction, flammable to the smallest fuse. “I don’t have to fucking give you a play by play of what I’m doing. I’m my own fucking person.”

“Okay, sure, JJ. You can finish work at five in the Goddamn afternoon and not reappear until two in the Goddamn morning without a text or call. I mean, what a fucking evil wife I am for worrying about you being - oh, I don’t know - dead in a ditch somewhere or sat in a fucking cell. I mean, I’m just bitter to the bone.”

At your spiel, JJ sits up in bed, propping himself up with his elbows. “Yeah, it’s such a fucking Goddamn surprise that I’m in no rush to come home when this is the fucking greeting I get!”

“Don’t come home at two in the morning and you won’t get this type of greeting!” you screech back.

The two of you meet eyes through the dark. Your faces are contorted in anger: brows tugged close together, lips downturned in ugly frowns, tired eyes narrowed at one another.

“Jesus Christ - what? You need me to give you a text every two minutes or some shit? Tell you where I am every two seconds?”

“Right, yeah, that’s what I said, JJ,” you argue, gesturing violently with your words. “I said, ‘send me a text every time you take a breath of air’. No, no, you’re right: I said, ‘put a tracker in your fucking penis and then maybe I know where it’s going’.”

He studies your face a moment and scoffs, shaking his head. “I don’t know what you’re try’na incinerate there but–”

“It’s insinuate - you fucking idiot - and I think you know damn well what I’m referring to,” you spit. Your voice sounds almost as bitter as the liquor JJ was drinking peacefully only an hour ago. Maybe he should have just stayed at the bar.

“Go on, then. Say it with your fucking chest, then,” JJ urges, sitting up in bed too.

You glower at him. “Pearl.”

“Oh my fuckin’...” JJ can’t help but laugh right in your face. It’s ludicrous! It only seems to worsen your rage, not that JJ could care at this moment. “You really think I’m out hooking up with someone? Is that seriously what you’re accusing me of?”

“Wouldn’t be surprised,” is your all-to-quick reply. “You spend all night in a bar and come home smelling like booze. Wouldn’t be surprised if you were hooking up with her, or some other whore. I mean, who else would want you?”

JJ can’t think clearly through the blinding rage. His vision goes blurry and this time, it isn’t from the alcohol. There’s the distant fear that he might crack a tooth from how tightly he’s clenching his jaw. He feels his fist close up around the sheets.

“You better think really fucking hard about what you just said to me,” he lowly says.

Your brows raise. “Is that a threat?”

JJ doesn’t reply. Decides it might be best not to. It’s hard to side with that thought process though because a smirk slowly but surely begins to sneak onto your face. There’s this viciousness in your eyes that JJ used to be unable to recognise, before El Dorado. Before life got somehow all the more real.

“Starting to sound like your dad now, huh, Maybank?”

Don’t say anything. Don’t say anything. Don’t say–

JJ leans in close to your face. Can feel your heavy breath on his cheeks. See the emotions swirling like a thunderstorm in your eyes. The thin veil of tears in your waterline. He hardly recognises his own voice.

“I wish I was fucking some whore. Anything’s better than being in this bed with you.”

Your whole demeanour shifts. It’s palpable. The room is hot and suffocating. The words hang in the air and JJ hates himself for not being sure if he even wants to take them back, even if he doesn’t mean it. He just wanted you to hurt. And what an awful thing to want.

JJ hates this. He hates how the two of you know just the right buttons to press and just the right things to say to make the other furious. To break one another down. When two people fall in love, you learn everything about the other. It’s not just the intimate details - how somebody looks naked, the way they react to every touch, every kiss, their favourite song, the way they talk when they’re drunk - but also the sensitive stuff. The traumas and the skeletons and the insecurities.

“Get out,” you spit.

“Get out?” JJ laughs incredulously.

“Get out! Get the fuck out of this bed now,” you seeth. JJ doesn’t move. As if possessed, you grab at your pillow and toss it at him. “Get out!” Toss your book too.

JJ dodges them, bats them away. “You’re fucking psycho! Do you fucking see yourself!” he shouts.

“Get out! Get out, get out, get out!” you scream.

But JJ doesn’t. He should. In fact, he should go for a walk and let the two of you calm down, and then discuss it in the morning with a civilised conversation, just as you would do when you were both younger. But JJ was never the one to make the right decision. Instead, he feels himself smile. Then, he settles leisurely on his back, snuggling into the sheets like a child returning home after a long day out. His body aches from a hard day’s labour at the docks, stomach empty save for the booze. Even with his eyes closed, JJ can see your glare. It’s ice cold and sends shivers along his spine.

“Fuck you, JJ,” you mutter.

Another rustle of the sheets, the mattress dips, heavy footsteps, a slamming door, and you’re out of the room. The door shivers in the rickety frame and the noise seems to echo around the room. JJ slowly opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling. He runs a hand along his jawline as he sighs, feeling the ever growing stubble that he can’t find the motivation to shave. He used to, wanting to keep up appearances for the job market, but it seemed futile now. Pointless. The feeling of satisfaction that came from winning the fight was fleeting, passing as quick as a poppers-buzz. Now, the ugly emotions seep in as JJ wallows in the lonely silence. The emotions JJ usually wards off with whiskey and beer and weed and cocaine. The guilt and the shame and the self-loathing. The sympathy and the heartache. The awful things he said to you bounce around in his head like a ping pong ball. The awful things you said to him bury deep in his heart. When he closes his eyes again, trying to mellow out his breathing and drift off, he can hear your sniffles through the door.

You never used to hide your tears from him.

Sighing, JJ clamps his hands over his face and fights the urge to scream. Why does he do this? Why does it keep happening? Why can’t you both just stop?

After thirty minutes, sleep is nowhere to be seen. The sniffling has stopped in the other room but JJ doubts you’re asleep either. Soon enough, he can’t stand the internal struggle anymore. He gets to his feet and makes his way into the living room before he can lose his nerve.

You’re lying on your side on the sofa, bundled up with a moth-nibbled blanket. JJ can’t see your face from here but he knows you’re awake. Dating you for five years meant he learnt to pick up on things like that. Walking over, he comes to the back of the sofa and reaches over to gently place his hand on your shoulder.

“You awake?” he rasps.

A pause, and then, “yes.”

“Come to bed.”

“Why?”

“Because you’ve got that stupid interview tomorrow and you’re going to hate yourself for sleeping on this fucking thing in the morning.”

And I can’t fall asleep unless you’re next to me.

“You remembered I have an interview?” you mumble.

“Course,” JJ mumbles back, as if embarrassed that he remembers something his wife told him. “So come to bed.”

You don’t say anything else. JJ has a million things he could say. They’re things that he should say and that he wants to but it’s like his mouth is soldered shut. He can’t let them pass as if they might incriminate him. Oh no! She’ll know I care about her! Instead, he swallows and removes his hand, sighing as he turns to return to the bedroom.

“Well, I’m going to bed,” he says. Again, there’s no response.

Only after JJ has closed the bedroom door does he hear movement from the sofa. By the time you reappear, he’s already in bed, curled up on his side, facing the wall. You make your way to the right of the bed. There’s the thud of the blanket joining the floor before you sneak under the sheets and shuffle about until you’re settled.

The two of you don’t cuddle that night just like you don’t most nights. Neither of you apologise. Neither of you say a word. But just as JJ’s about to drift off, he feels the faintest press of your lips to the back of his bare shoulder.

When JJ wakes up in the morning, you’ve already left. His head hurts the moment he opens his eyes. Groaning, he tosses the sheets off and sits up on the edge of his bed. JJ’s aching back was a common companion to his life since El Dorado. He’d fallen funny on the adventure and seemingly fucked it up for life. Lifting heavy cargo at the docks probably didn’t help much but what choice did he have? You both needed the money desperately.

The hunt for the gold went sour. Not only did Ward Cameron steal it and use it, but Rafe stole the cross and melted the timeless relic down into chunks. At first they thought El Dorado - the timeless mystery - was a possibility. JJ believed it too. In trying to get himself and John B there, he’d got himself in pretty hot water back in Kildare. That and the eviction notice plastered to his dad’s house meant that coming back home, empty handed, meant tough living. At first, the two of you persevered. You took the loss as best you could and started out on your life together. A courthouse wedding marked the beginning of your new life, gold-less but not loveless. The Pogues threw a party at the Chateau afterwards. JJ sent out an invitation to his dad at his last known address but he never showed. You never invited yours and thankfully he stayed away. Not long after was he arrested. That was a good day. You’d sold your father’s house and used that money to buy the trailer you and JJ now resided in. It was supposed to be a temporary spot but you fell on rough times. That was almost four years ago.

The day at work dragged on like any other. After missing one shift at the local grocers, JJ was fired and had to take the next available job to let the two of you meet rent. Now he spends his hours (nearly seven days a week) fixing up old fishing rigs. It was gruelling work: lifting and slamming and hammering and loading. Even in the September air, the summer less stifling than before, JJ works up a sweat. He doesn’t have enough food to spare for things like pack dinners so he goes off an apple during his breaks. Sometimes Pope would offer JJ some food if they crossed paths but JJ didn’t want to be a charity case. He was aware how frail the two of you looked though: having about one semi-decent meal a day. Just as the day begins to wrap to a close - the amber sun low in the sky - does Billy, his employer, come over to JJ as he’s scrubbing his hands.

“Goddamn oil, swear to God,” he mutters under breath, scratching tirelessly at the skin.

“Hey, JJ, we gotta talk,” Billy sighs.

JJ looks up and wipes his hands dry on his shirt. “What’s up?”

“Look, uh…” The moment Billy clears his throat, JJ knows what’s coming. “I hate to do this, man, but I gotta let you go.”

“Dude, seriously?” JJ sighs.

“Look, it ain’t your fault, Jay. I just…The business is going under and I can’t keep all you guys on anymore. I hate to do this to you, I really do, man. I've got your last paycheck here but you, uh, don’t gotta come in on Monday,” Billy not-so-delicately tells him, digging in his pocket and retrieving a white envelope. As he hands it over, he adds, “sorry.”

“Yeah, well,” JJ sighs, taking the money, “sorry don’t pay the bills, does it?”

Before Billy can reply, JJ pockets the paycheck and sets off from the docks towards his truck. He had to trade in his bike a few years back when the two of you married: a truck seemed more practical, especially for the plans you had. The anxiety seeps in as he starts his engine and only rises the closer he gets to home like a flood caused by a running tap in a home. Rubbing at his heart, trying to alleviate the nerves, JJ takes a breath and turns up the drive. He never used to feel this way when coming home to you. In fact, it used to be the highlight of his day. Now he just prays that he can get through the door without the two of you falling into an argument.

You’re standing at the stove, steam billowing up from the pan that you’re stirring, and at the sound of JJ shoving his way through the entrance, you turn and offer a small smile. It seems like an olive branch for last night.

“Hey,” you say.

“Yo,” JJ hums, closing the door. He heads for the pile of envelopes on the cluttered breakfast bar and flicks through them. Every FINAL NOTICE makes him cringe. One is already open and he slips the letter out, but you speak before he has a chance to read a word.

“We got a week until they shut the gas off,” you tell him.

“Well, I got the solution to that.”

JJ tries his best to smile as he holds the envelope up. Gasping, you abandon the stove and grin, taking it from him and scanning over the amount. He’s ashamed by his surprise when you wrap your arms around his neck, hugging him. He doesn’t have a chance to respond; you’re back at the stove, stirring dinner, within seconds.

“Yeah, well, that’s the good news,” JJ says.

Frowning, concerned, you look over your shoulder to him. “There’s bad news?”

JJ can’t meet your gaze as he tells you, “I got let go.”

“What? But I thought–”

“Yeah, me too,” JJ sighs, shaking his head. He leans against the fridge and feels it shudder at his weight. The bottles of cheap wine clink together tellingly and JJ tries not to cringe. “Anyway, how’d your interview go?”

You shake your head, looking back to the pan. “They said they’d let me know in three or so days but I don’t know…They were hard to read.”

He watches you in the artificial light, your now naturally coloured hair looking almost unrecognisable in the glow. You’d stopped dying it a couple years ago because you thought it might make finding work easier. It didn’t. Two ex-convicts, one of which had arguably the worst reputation in Kildare, who disappeared for several months at a time as teenagers. No high school degree, no college degree, no qualifications or former training, and no reputable name to fall back on. JJ contemplates coming over to you and wrapping his arms around your middle, pulling you against him. He wants to dance with you in the kitchen to non-existent music and then cuddle up on the couch, sharing a joint and putting the world to right. But he doesn’t. Instead, JJ stays by the fridge.

“I’m sure you’ll get it.”

“Maybe. You going back to the job centre tomorrow?”

“Maybe,” JJ echos. He should. It’s hard though. It feels as though every time one of you picks yourself up and dusts yourself off, you get kicked to the dirt again. Jobs felt as unstable and unpromising as a rebound relationship. If either of you can hold down a job in the shaky economy that was the Cut on Kildare, then something in the house needs replacing, and you’re somehow still as broke as you were to start.

Neither of you bring up the argument from last night even though you should. Instead, you eat your dinner in mostly silence as the radio drones on in the background about the weather and the news. JJ’s apology lingers on his tongue but with every mouthful of his grits, it gets brushed away. It stays that way as the evening drags on. One glass of cheap red wine turns into two and three. Somewhere in the tipsy haze, the two of you find one another, naked under the sheets. His bare chest brushes against yours as he kisses desperately at your neck, thrusting into you. As his hands caress along your familiar figure, it feels as though you’re miles away. Or maybe it’s him. Maybe he isn’t the one that’s present, as if standing across the room, watching it all unfold. Your heavy breaths in his ear don’t excite him as they did before. The feeling of your walls squeezing around him doesn’t send him spiralling the same way it used to. It feels as if he’s just going through the motions. Chasing the brief wave of euphoria and distracting himself from the maelstrom of anxiety that is his mind lately. No job, no family, no future.

“Harder, JJ,” you sigh against his shoulder, your breath warm on his damp skin.

He hardly registers your words and only responds when one of your hands coaxes his hips deeper. Something about the new angle hits JJ just right. His eyes slip shut, a groan falling past his lips as he shudders against your body. He comes rather quickly: the white hot pleasure fast as it passes through him. He lingers inside of you a moment. You lay stone still underneath him.

“Did you just come?” you ask.

“Yeah, I just came,” JJ sighs, pulling out of you. Sighing, chest heaving, he flops onto his back beside you. He can feel your stare the same way he did last night. As if trying to escape it, his eyes slip shut.

“Are you fucking serious, JJ?”

“You know your body better anyway. Go to town,” JJ mumbles. He’s aware of how douchey he sounds but he feels a thousand miles away. He’d only disappoint you anyway. It feels like all he does is disappoint you.

“Fuck you,” you mutter, climbing out of bed and heading presumably to the bathroom to piss. The door slams the same as it did last night. More arguments and JJ will have to replace the hinges. Just another thing in the house that’ll be added to the list of repairs, with the thing at the top being your relationship. As JJ works through the list in his mind, he drifts off to sleep. He isn’t sure if you ever came back to bed. You’re gone when he wakes up in the morning.

“I don’t understand man,” John B says. “Why don’t you two just get a divorce?”

JJ’s head snaps to face his best friend. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m just saying–”

“--John B–”

“--You guys are miserable,” he finishes, not letting JJ cut him off. Groaning, JJ shakes his head and paces away. “It’s not like divorce is frowned upon in your family! Your parents did it, hers did it - hell, mine did it too!”

“I don’t wanna divorce her,” JJ says, turning around. He takes his cap from his head and runs his fingers through his hair. It’s damp with sweat from the humid heat of the day. He’d been at his lifelong best friend’s house since eight in the morning, helping to clear up the yard and fix the jetty. Whilst unemployed, JJ may as well keep himself busy. As always, the conversation had veered into relationship territory: John B and Sarah, and JJ and you. The fight was two weeks in the past. You hadn’t let JJ have sex with you since. JJ wasn’t sure if he even wanted to. It just made him feel more confused and disconnected. He didn’t like being the reason you were upset.

“There’s no shame in it,” John B assures. “You guys were a good fit when we were teenagers but now you’ve grown up and life’s gotten hard. That’s okay.”

“She’s it for me, JB,” JJ states. He wanders over and lovingly pats him on the back, making his way to the cooler for another beer. “I ain’t giving up on us.”

“Cool. So, you’ll just stay stuck in a loveless marriage for the rest of your life then. Awesome,” comes John B’s sardonic response.

“It’s not loveless. It’s just…going through a rough patch.”

“A two year long rough patch?”

“It’s not as simple as ‘divorce her’,” JJ sighs. The crisp crack of the beer sounds like heaven’s gates opening. “She’s the girl of my literal childhood dreams. And things have been hard for her too. We don’t mean to fight, we just…do.”

“Denial is a six-letter word my friend. You know what else is?”

“Don’t say it–”

“Trauma.”

“JB–”

“I get it! Your dad was shitty and you’re trying to break the cycle! But maybe you can’t! Maybe there isn’t a cycle! Maybe that’s just life!”

“Look, I don’t therapise you so how about you don’t therapise me,” JJ suggests. He tosses a beer to the brown haired man. His face isn’t all that different from when they were young. The crows feet around his eyes are deeper set, as are the laughter and frown lines along his forehead. The stubble on his beard challenges JJ’s. “I’m not gonna give up on us. We just need to reconnect. I feel like we’re always at odds.”

Sighing, John B relents. He clinks his can against JJ’s in an informal cheers. “Well, I hope you’re right and you guys can figure it out. I just want you happy, man.”

Happy. JJ hardly knew the meaning of the word these days.

He lingers at John B’s house until sunset, when Sarah returns from the hospital. She’d managed to get a spot on a nursing course and was blazing through it. She’d tried to get both you and JJ employed there too but the criminal check killed any chance. She offers for JJ to stay for dinner but he declines, saying that he should head home. The walk back is filled with unnecessary diversions. He goes to the pier where he saw you jump as a kid. He goes by the grocery store that the two of you used to shoplift beers from. He wanders along the coastline where you used to skinny dip in the dead of night. Somehow, JJ ends up outside what used to be his home. Nobody had bought it after the bank repossessed it. Sitting in dilapidation, nature reclaims the isolated structure. It’s barely recognisable to JJ. Seeing it in such a way makes JJ question if his childhood was even real. The traumatic memories feel as though they don’t fit well on this canvas: it’s too peaceful and serene. He leans down and grabs a large rock from the floor and hurls it towards one of the windows. It shatters through the glass and thuds as it lands on the floorboards inside. A small smile pushes onto JJ’s ageing face. That’s better. He continues to walk home.

It’s pitch black outside by the time JJ makes it back. He wonders if you might have gone to bed as he walks up the porch steps, dodging the broken one, reminding himself to fix it. The house is cast in a warm glow from the living room floor lamp when JJ walks in. The kitchen has been cleaned up and for once seems almost homely. His eyes are immediately drawn to your frame, sat crossed legged on the sofa. A large shoebox sits on the coffee table, the lid off, and a stack of old VHS tapes sit in a pile to its right. There’s a bottle of open red wine and a half filled glass too. You’re looking down at something.

“Hey,” he says, closing the door behind him.

“Hey.”

“What’re you doing?”

You finally look up. You’d put your nose ring back in and it shines under the gentle glare of the lamp. A smile blesses your features. “I was going through the closet to see if I could sell some old clothes and found the picture box. Remember how we were gonna hang some up when we first moved here? I think we still should.”

JJ grabs a glass for himself and joins you on the sofa. You smell like soap and shea butter. He pours himself a glass of wine.

“Look,” you say, holding the picture out for him to see. He places down in his glass on the table and takes the photo from you. JJ chuckles quietly under breath. It’s of John B and JJ when they were younger; they sit on their surfboards, legs submerged in the water, hair damp, smiles brimming and big. “Cute, huh?”

“Very cute,” JJ agrees. He places it amongst the pile of scattered pictures strewn across the table and picks another out. It’s of Kiara, pulling a stupid face as she lounges outside the Chateau. Sarah throwing up peace signs. A candid of Pope and John B playing cards one afternoon. You, dangling upside down from the slats of the jetty, lilac hair barely scraping the surface of the water.

“I like this one.”

JJ leans into you to see the picture in your hands. He smiles at the sight. One of the Pogues must have taken it. You both look about eighteen. You’re sat on one of the deckchairs that resided outside of the Chateau, talking vivaciously, hands gesturing wildly and smiling wide. JJ’s just staring at you, a lovesick smile on his young face, chin resting on his fist. For a while, the two of you sit in the drip-drip-drip of the kitchen sink, staring at the picture as if in a trance.

“You used to adore me,” you whisper.

JJ’s brows knit together. He looks down at you. “I still do.”

Your laugh is sad. Your eyes remained trained on the moment frozen in time. “Not like you used to. Not like before.”

“Before what?” JJ mumbles, heart suddenly heavy.

You look up and meet his gaze. Whatever emotion is on your face makes JJ want to cry. “You know what.”

He shakes his head, his lips quivering. “That’s not true.”

“Everything changed after that.”

“It’s not true,” he says again. His hand slips up, cupping your cheek, and his body sings when you lean into his hold. “That weren’t your fault. It never was and never will be.”

“But would you still have married me,” you begin to ask, voice turning thick as the tears start to build, “if you knew? If I knew before.”

“Yes,” JJ swiftly answers.

“JJ–”

“--You’re it for me,” he says. His forehead gently falls forward, resting against yours, needing to be closer. “Girl of my dreams.”

“Even if…” You take in a shaky breath, trying desperately not to cry. “Even if I can’t give you a family.”

“You are my family. I got everything I need right here.”

Something between a sob and laugh shakes your body. You sniff and nod fervently against him. JJ sweeps his calloused finger across your cheek. He feels the warmth that radiates from your skin. Inhales the soothing smell that is you. Counts the smattering of blemishes and freckles and scars that decorate your skin like cracks in an antique painting. They don’t take from your beauty - they just speak to the value.

“I’m sorry,” he hears himself say.

It’s your turn to frown now. Opening your eyes, they shimmer with unshed tears. “What’d you mean?”

“I’m so sorry I let you marry me,” he says in brutal honesty. “This ain’t the life you deserve.”

“JJ–”

“You deserve so much more than this. More than all this scrimping and saving. You deserve your house. Your pastel blue house, with those white shutters and the porch - that damn wrap around porch - and your cats and dogs.”

You chuckle, shaking your head. Your own hands come up, cradling his face just as he has your own, and you smile dotingly up at him. For the first time in months, JJ feels as though he recognises you. JJ feels as though he recognises himself.

“I don’t need all that, JJ,” you tell him. “That’s just stuff. Things. You said it best: I have everything I’ve ever needed right here.”

“You don’t gotta say that,” JJ gently argues. “This trailer isn’t a house, baby.”

“No, it ain’t,” you agree. “It’s a home. It’s our home.”

“Baby,” JJ sighs. His eyes slip shut, unable to look at you, feeling nothing less than a failure.

“You remember our wedding day?” you ask him. JJ can’t help but snort.

“Course I do.”

“Remember our vows?”

His lips can’t help but upturn as he follows your train of thought. He was always good at following your mind.

“For richer–”

“--for poor,” JJ finishes.

The caress of your finger along his jawline has JJ close to tears.

“We’re gonna be okay,” you tell him softly. “We're gonna get through all this. It’s just God’s test, that's all, and we’re gonna pass it, and it’ll be okay again. I promise.”

JJ manages to open his eyes and face you. You’re smiling up at him, gazing as if he was the entire solar system laid before you, and the anxiety slips away as suddenly as winter changes to spring.

“My good looking boy,” you whisper.

JJ’s never been good with his words. But sometimes words aren’t needed.

His lips find yours like a bird migrating home. You immediately hold him close to you, tilting his face with yours to deepen the kiss. His tongue brushes against yours. The taste of red wine is strangely erotic and it spurs JJ on. He sighs against you, pushing deeper as if to consume you. Your fingers slip into his hair; nails teasing at his scalp, combing through the sea salt treated strands. JJ’s hands sink away from your face, tracing along your arms, down to your waist. You sink into the cushions of the sofa on your back as JJ climbs atop. His lips map across your cheeks, along your jaw, find home on your neck and collarbones.

“I missed you so much,” he confesses in a breath against your sensitive skin.

The removal of clothes is like a ritual: each piece commemorated with kisses and love bites and praises. Your hands explore one another’s naked bodies as if it were your first time. Like a blind man regaining sight, JJ is in awe of your effortless beauty. The way your back arches at the trace of his finger along your sternum, down to your weeping cunt. You clench helplessly around his digits as he fingers you, slow and sensual, savouring every moan and whine.

“Missed you so fucking much, baby,” JJ sighs against your thigh. Presses kisses against the stretch mark decorated skin, like watering tree roots. “So fucking pretty.”

“JayJ,” you croon, eyes clenched shut, a balled up fist rubbing helplessly at your forehead.

His tongue laps at your clit, suckles at the wet, driven by the feel of your fingers knotting in his hair. You climax with a gasp, soaking his fingers and lips, overstimulated until you’re gently pushing him away and pulling him up to you. He’s painfully hard as he kisses you. When your hand softly takes hold of him, he sighs against your mouth.

“I missed you,” you tell him between kisses. Your hand rubs at him in long, meaningful strokes, thumb occasionally teasing over the tip. JJ groans against your chest, eyes pressed shut, trying to revel in the feeling of having you so close, having you jacking him off, whilst trying desperately not to come. But you know him better than anybody else. You know when to guide him to your entrance, coating him in your slick. JJ kisses at your nipple as he sinks into you. He doesn’t feel miles away this time as he fucks you into the sofa. Doesn’t feel like he’s stranded across the room as he makes love to you for the first time in months, maybe even years.

Your begs and pleas and praises are like words from the lord being spoken into JJ’s ears in your breathy whimpers. Harder, deeper, feels so fuckin’ good, faster. JJ’s no better, slurring anything that slips into his mind as he sinks in and out of you. So fuckin’ wet, prettiest fuckin’ pussy in the world, tell me how bad you need it. His hand holds an almost mean grip on your hip whilst his other finds your left. JJ intertwines your fingers as the two of you chase your highs, the digits slick with sweat, slipping in the hold but never letting go.

"I'm s'close," you whine, hooking your legs over his hips, driving him deeper.

"Fuck, feels so fuckin' good," JJ grunts, ploughing into you. "So fuckin' good for me."

"Please, JJ," you gasp. You're so close. JJ fucks you hard and fast. "Please, please, please..."

You come first, gasping and panting against JJ’s ear, and he follows, moaning desperately against your clammy skin. His eyes slip shut as he rests atop of you.

JJ blinks awake, somewhat disorientated. For the first time in forever, his aching back isn’t the first thing he registers. Instead, it’s the steady rise and fall of the warm body underneath him. He slowly lifts his head to find you, sleeping soundly, still naked. He’s soft inside of you and gently slips out with a small shudder. You stir only slightly but soon drift back off to sleep. JJ gets up carefully so as to not disturb your slumber. The bathroom doesn’t feel as grimy when he goes inside to pee, and his face looks younger, lighter, refreshed, when he checks the mirror as he washes his hands. After tugging on a pair of boxers and an old t-shirt, he returns to the living room. You’ve curled up on your side, snoring quietly, and JJ smiles. How could he forget how beautiful you are? He lays a blanket over your body and plants a kiss to your hair. Then, he begins to tidy away some of the pictures. As you requested, he leaves out some that he thinks you might like to be framed, one of which is from your wedding day: the two of you laughing as you smush cake against one another’s mouths. His eyes fall on the tapes and he picks them up, flicking through them. He takes pause at one. Luke and Marie’s Wedding Tape. He stares at it like the box of Jumangi, both terrified and enticed.

JJ powers up the TV, ensuring it’s on silent, and turns on the old tape player. By some miracle, it still works. He slips the tape in and swallows the lump in his throat, and sits on the sofa beside where your head rests. You’re still dead to the world, snuggled up cosy in your blanket cocoon, and JJ’s weirdly grateful for your company as the tape kicks to life. It’s grainy at first, the picture wobbly, but soon enough the image comes to life. His dad who JJ hasn’t seen in years stands young and stupid at the altar. His mother who JJ wouldn’t know if she passed him in the street stands young and forgiving opposite. They’re speaking soundless words, smiling. JJ isn’t aware that he’s started crying until a teardrop lands on his hand. He wipes his cheek absently, eyes fixated on the screen. He watches as they dance: giggling, graceful, giddy. Just as you were the day JJ laid his eyes on you.

Maybe John B was right. Maybe JJ did want to break the pattern. It wasn't either of your faults that you both reacted to adversity the way you did. Years of built-up anger and rage and pain with nowhere to go but within was like a boiling over crockpot of disaster. Two borderline-abandoned, abused teenagers married at eighteen? Of course you didn't have the blueprint for how to be a functional couple. Neither of you knew the definition of compromise, or backing down, or making peace. All you knew was pain and betrayal and self-defence. But that could change. It would take time and patience, but it could. JJ wanted it to. He was sick of working against you. You were a team before and you would be a team again. JJ never wanted to go to war against you, not when you were the best soldier on his team. JJ had always feared love because he feared what it would make him. Would he be like his father or his mother: resent or retreat?

As JJ's eyes sweep down to your sleeping self, he decides what he'll be. He'll be neither. He'll be himself. He'll be resilient.

One of JJ's hands raises and his fingers lovingly stroke at your hair. You don’t wake, just shift a little, and a barely there smile slinks onto your face.

“Don’t give up on me, baby,” JJ mumbles, petting the strands of your ever changing hair. His good looking girl. “These times are hard and they’re makin’ us go crazy, but don’t give up on me. Cause I meant every word.”

For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish…

"Til' death do us part."

450 notes · View notes

surftrips · 11 months ago

Note

Maybe you could do single dad jj maybank he’s in college and has to do a project with the reader and has to bring the baby with them and they bond and start to hang out a lot then they start to date also maybe she’s a single mom I feel like that would be like a unique thing

thank you so much for this request! i hope you don't mind that i switched it up a bit (and got carried away lol) but reader is the single mom here and her and jj have known each other their whole lives :)

when you know, you know

pairing: jj maybank x reader

summary: y/n needs a babysitter and jj is the only person available.

word count: 3.5k

"Okay, I understand. Thanks, anyway," you sighed, running your hands through your hair and hanging up the phone. Your babysitter had just canceled on you, and the timing could not have been worse.

You had been planning this night for months. Between your classes, a part-time job, and taking care of your 2-year-old Margo, it was nearly impossible to schedule anything. But you desperately needed a night out and your friend Emma had so kindly offered to set you up on a blind date.

You scrolled through your contacts list, looking for anyone that was sober on a Friday night, a seemingly impossible task. Glancing at the time, you realized that you only had an hour left to find a babysitter and get ready.

As panic set in, you received a text from the P4L groupchat.

JJ: Wtw tonight?

Not now JJ, you thought.

Y/N: Trying to find a babysitter, mine just canceled :/

Kie: Oh no, Y/N!! I'm so sorry :(

Cleo: Sorry babes, I totally wouldd but I already lost count of how many drnks I've had 2nite xxx

JJ: Wait, you guys went out already?

Sarah: JJ, we told you it's a girls night.

JJ: In that case, Y/N, I'll watch Margo!

Absolutely not, was your first thought. JJ Maybank was probably the last person you wanted to take care of your child, he was practically one himself.

Besides, since you had Margo, he was always acting weird around you. Before, you two would hang out all the time, but now he only saw you if there was another person there as a buffer. He hardly visited or called, but you were so preoccupied with raising a baby on your own that you hadn't had a chance to talk to him about it.

In the beginning, people assumed it was his baby you were pregnant with, but you never crossed that line because your friendship meant the world to each other. He was the first person you told when you found out you were going to be a mother, and you remember how excited he was for you. It was hard to believe how distant he had become, and you wondered why he had volunteered himself tonight.

You assessed the situation: you hadn't gone out in nearly two years, and who knew when the next opportunity would be? You sighed, hardly believing the words you were about to type on your phone.

Y/N: Ok. How soon can you be here?

Y/N: You better be sober, JJ.

You turned your phone off before the others could protest, knowing that half of them were drunk anyway.

"Uncle JJ is going to come over and watch you tonight, okay? Mommy is going to be gone for just a few hours," you said to your daughter, picking her up and placing her in your eye line so you could do your makeup.

"Jay Jay?" she repeated.

"Yes, honey," you smiled, trying to reassure her, or yourself. Out of all the pogues, Kiara and Sarah babysat Margo the most. She had probably only met JJ a handful of times and you worried about how well she would do with him alone.

As if he could read your mind, your phone began ringing and you looked over to see his face on your screen.

"JJ, please don't tell me you're canceling too."

"What? Oh, no, it's not that. I was just wondering if you needed me to bring anything for Margo?"

"Oh," you relaxed. "Hmmm, I think we have everything we need here. But thank you for asking, JJ."

"Of course," you could hear him smiling on the other line. "You know, thanks for letting me watch Margo. I've been meaning to visit her more."

"JJ, you know you're weren't my first choice," you teased. "But yeah, of course. Thanks, I owe you."

You hung up the phone, thoughts from earlier creeping back into your mind. You always assumed that the baby scared JJ away, but sometimes you couldn't help but wonder if there was something more going on.

However, now was not the time for you to be thinking about this, considering that you now had 30 minutes left until your date showed up and you had yet to pick out a dress.

"Hmmmm, let's see. Any suggestions, Margo?" you asked your daughter, combing through your closet for something appropriate. You settled on a short black dress with a boat neck, and black knee high boots to go along with it.

"What do we think, sweetie?" you smiled at Margo.

"Pretty!" she clapped her small hands together.

"Why, thank you, baby. Come on, let's go see if Uncle JJ is here yet," you picked her up and checked your phone for any notifications.

Blind Date: Be there in 5! :)

Crap, you thought. Where is JJ?

You shot back a confirmation for your date and looked out the window for any sign of JJ. You weren't sure if he was biking over or he had borrowed the Twinkie, but there was no sign of anyone outside.

Growing anxious, you gathered Margo's favorite toys and books into the living room and tidied up your apartment to pass the time.

Exactly 5 minutes later, the doorbell rang. You smoothed down your dress and checked your hair in the mirror one last time. Putting on your best smile, you went to open the door.

"Hi–" you started. "Oh, it's you."

"Come on, that's what I get for dropping everything and saving your ass?" JJ responded.

"Sorry, weren't you the one with no plans on a Friday?"

"You know, I can just turn around right now-"

"Stop!" you pleaded. "Okay, sorry, I've been anxious about this all day and I just want to get back to Margo as fast as I can."

"Relax, Y/N. I'm here now," he took in your appearance. "You look great, by the way."

The last time he saw you remotely dressed up like this was prom night.

You couldn't help but blush, looking around for Margo to hide your face. "Margo, look who it is!"

"Jay Jay!" she babbled.

"Oh my god, she knows my name!" JJ replied, looking a little perplexed.

"You know what, I'm surprised too considering she's only met you, like, four times," you said.

"Alright, you're no fun," he looked at you as you traded your daughter over to his arms. "Miss Margo and I here are going to have the time of our lives. Aren't we?"

He tickled her, causing her to giggle. She seemed so comfortable in his arms, you wondered why you were ever worried in the first place.

"Thanks again for doing this, I know we haven't talked in a while-" you started.

"So, where's the lucky guy?" he interrupted you.

"Uhh," you looked over at the clock. "He said he would be here by now."

"Late to the first date? That's a red flag, Y/N."

"As if you're not a walking red flag, JJ. What did you get here on? Your bike?"

"Hey! I refurbished that bike all on my own! It takes a lot of skill to do that."

Just then, the doorbell rang. You rushed to open the door, a smile plastered on your face again.

"Hey! You must be Emma's friend! I'm Tom." he greeted you with a hug and a bouquet of flowers. "I'm sorry for being late, I went to get these flowers for you and was distracted by the girl scouts selling cookies outside. I had to support them, you know?"

"Oh, no worries! Yes, how can you say no to them?" you laughed softly. You took the flowers from him and went to place them on the table closest to you, beckoning him to come in.

"Tom, this is one of my friends, JJ. He's babysitting my daughter, Margo, while we're gone," you said.

"Ah! What a pleasure," Tom went over to shake JJ's hand and politely wave at your daughter. "I promise not to keep your mom out too late tonight."

"That's right, need her back before midnight," JJ remarked.

You playfully pushed him in response, grabbing your keys. "Alright, you have my number so please call me if you need anything. Bye Margo, mommy loves you!"

With that, you and Tom headed outside and into his car.

On the drive over to the restaurant, you learned that Tom was a psychologist, he liked to cook, and reality TV shows were his guilty pleasure. At the restaurant, which was a higher-end place near the water, he pulled out your chair for you.

"I hope this place is okay, I wasn't sure what kind of food you liked so I thought somewhere nicer would be safe," he said.

"Oh, this is perfect. Don't even worry about it," you smiled. "I haven't had a proper night out in so long, I wouldn't have minded if you took me to a burger joint."

He laughed, "Margo is adorable, by the way. How old is she?"

"She's 2," you said. Then, feeling the need to clarify, "I had her when I was 20, at the beginning of my junior year in college."

"I see, how was that? How did you manage classes?" You were surprised at his demeanor, half-expecting him to judge you or run in the opposite direction any second now, but his inquisition was genuine.

"Well, I could still go to classes during the first trimester, but it got more difficult after that so I took a leave of absence. I'm taking night classes now because I work in the mornings."

"Oh nice, what degree are you going for?"

"English, I want to be a teacher," you explained.

"My mom was a teacher," he smiled. "What age do you want to teach?"

"Oh no way! I want to teach elementary school kids. Everyone always tells me how hard it will be, but raising Margo... I don't love anything more than that."

"That's really sweet, are you close with your family?"

You paused, trying to figure out how to answer the question. "Depends on who you consider my family, I guess," you laughed awkwardly. "I'm not close with my parents, but my friends? Those are the most important people in my life."

He smiled, "I understand. I'm glad you have a support system, being a single mother can be hard."

"Yeah, I'm super grateful. Actually, my babysitter for tonight canceled last-minute and JJ came to the rescue. I don't know what I would've done without him."

Tom's smile faltered for an unnoticeable second. "How long have you known him for?"

"JJ? My whole life, probably. I can't imagine a time when he wasn't by my side. He was there for me throughout my entire pregnancy, but after..." you trailed off.

"After...?"

"Afterwards," you hesitated, not wanting to bad-mouth your friend. "I guess he started to distance himself more, I think Margo scared him away honestly."

"You think it was Margo and nothing else?"

"What do you mean?"

"I just mean," he sighed. "Do you think there could be any other reason why he would be so supportive of you before and not after you had Margo?"

"I-I'm not sure. I haven't had much time to think about it, I guess."

"You want my opinion?" Tom asked. You searched his face for any sign of spitefulness, but came up empty.

"I saw the way he looked at you and Margo, earlier. That boy is not scared of either of you. In fact, all I saw was love. Did you ever think he’s grappling with those feelings?”

"His feelings? For me?" It was not the first time you thought about it, but it was the first time you heard it verbalized.

"Yes, I know I sound crazy, but seriously, Y/N, what other reason could there be to explain his behavior?"

You racked your brain for all the possible explanations. Tom had a point, if JJ had feelings for you at some point in your friendship, or still does, he might feel the need to distance himself to protect you.

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"I told you, I'm a psychologist. I notice these things," he smiled.

"Is this how all of your first dates go?" you laughed.

"Not all of them, but I’ll admit, a few are like this. But tell me, am I wrong to assume there was something more going on between you two before you got pregnant?"

You sighed, "No, you're not wrong. Our feelings for each other were a truth that neither of us wanted to confront. We were young, we didn't want to be tied down, it was college. But he was always there, by my side, through everything. Of course, I loved him."

"Well, there you go. There's your answer."

Tom dropped you off around midnight. You assured him that there was no need to walk you to your door, you both knew that you needed to have a conversation with JJ.

"Thank you again for tonight, we seriously need to meet up again," you said, before shutting your door.

"Absolutely, I'll give you the address to my office," he joked.

You turned the key into your door as quietly as possible, in case JJ was also asleep with Margo. Inside, the lights were off and you pulled out your phone flashlight to search for him.

You went into Margo's room first, seeing that she was fast asleep in her crib. "Hi baby," you whispered. "Where's Uncle JJ?"

After making sure she was tucked in properly, you turned to go into your bedroom. Sure enough, there was JJ, fast asleep in your bed.

You couldn't help but smile, recalling memories from high school when you two would have sleepovers. Being sure to keep quiet, you changed into your pajamas and got ready for bed.

Trying your best to not wake up JJ, you pulled open the blanket on your side of the bed and slipped in next to him.

"Goodnight, JJ," you whispered.

—

In the morning, you woke up to the smell of pancakes in the kitchen. For a second, you weren't sure you were even in your apartment, remembering that you live alone with Margo and surely, you weren't asleep long enough for her to know her way around the kitchen.

But then you remembered that JJ was babysitting last night and had fallen asleep in your bed before you got home.

After a long stretch, you got up and went into the kitchen.

"There she is, good morning pretty," JJ smiled at you.

"Morning... When did you learn how to cook?" you questioned.

"What do you mean? I've always known how to make pancakes."

"Okay, that is just a straight up lie. In high school you would have chips for breakfast."

JJ put his hand to his chest, taking mock offense. "If you must know, I started teaching myself how to cook last year when I moved off-campus."

"Wow, I must say, I am impressed, Mr. Maybank."

"Please, that's my father. You can call me JJ," he said, causing you both to laugh.

Were his eyes always this blue? You thought, as you admired his features in the morning light.

After a moment, you broke the silence. "Uh- I better go check on Margo. How was she last night, by the way?"

"Oh, amazing. Best kid ever."

"Really? She didn't give you a hard time at all?"

"Nope, must have remembered me from when she was in the womb."

You smiled, turning around to your daughter's room.

Sure enough, Margo was sleeping like the baby she was. You checked the clock, she wouldn't be up for at least another hour.

"Margo's still in one piece?" JJ asked when you reentered the kitchen.

"Yes, somehow,” you mused.

"Good, want to try these pancakes now?"

"Yes, please, I'm starving," you sat down across from JJ.

"Starving? Your date didn't feed you last night?"

"Very funny, if you want to know about my date, you can just ask."

"Okay, how was your date?" he relented.

"He's a psychologist."

"Cool, anything else?" JJ looked slightly confused.

"He was very normal and nice," you added.

“I would hope so.”

“Yes, and he likes to cook too.”

“That’s great, how was the date itself?”

“Oh the date itself…” you trailed off.

"Y/N, why are you acting weird?"

"Weird? Me? I'm just telling you about my date."

"You're talking about him like he's your therapist."

"Well, in a way, it was like a therapy session."

"So the date went bad?"

"No, it was really nice."

JJ looked around the kitchen, "Did I accidentally put something in the pancake batter to make you act like this or...?"

"These are great, by the way," you said, pointing to the pancakes with your fork.

"Thanks, but can we get back to the date?"

"Oh, yeah, well, basically," you started.

"Y/N." JJ was rarely ever serious, but he was starting to look concerned with you.

"Okay, fine. It started off really well, we got to know each other. Then, he was asking about Margo and my family, and I told him about my parents, you know. Then he asked about you, and I told him I've known you forever, but after Margo, you started distancing yourself and we haven't seen or talked to each other in a while, and then-" you rambled.

"Then what?"

"And then, he told me, or rather he made me realize, that maybe we need to address the feelings we may or may not have had for each other before I got pregnant," you finished in a rush.

JJ was silent, you weren't sure if the expression on his face was scared or bemused.

"JJ, please say something."

"Was that all?"

"More or less."

He sighed, "Y/N, I think one of the reasons why our friendship worked so well was because we both knew that at any moment, we could pursue something more, but we didn't. We both knew that doing that would ruin our friendship, something we've had for nearly twenty years. I thought college was going to be four years of partying and distractions, but instead, I had to face reality”

“Distractions?”

“Everyone that wasn’t you was a distraction, in case that wasn’t clear.”

“Uh, no. It wasn't, actually. JJ, you kept telling me you were trying to meet ‘the one!’”

“Well, I was lying! Okay? You were always the one for me. I just didn’t feel like I was the one for you. So I was stupid and I decided we would be better off as friends, but when you got pregnant…”

“When I got pregnant…?”

“When you told me about Margo, I panicked. I knew you were strong enough to do this on your own, but you shouldn’t have had to. I told myself that I was going to be there for you every step of the way, and I was, until you gave birth. I saw Margo for the first time, and I-I’m sorry. I just couldn’t do it.”

“Do what, JJ? You know I never needed you to be her father.”

“I know, I know. I saw her and I couldn’t imagine hurting her. I didn’t want her to know me, because to know me is to be disappointed by me,” he sighed.

“JJ,” you stood up now to wrap your arms around him. “Are you kidding me? I was never, never disappointed by you. I was just worried, babe, that’s all. You stopped talking to me after that.”

JJ allowed himself to fall into your arms. “I’m sorry, it just felt like too much at the time. I loved- love you and Margo so much, that I didn’t know what to do with all of it. So I thought it was best to give you some space, until I was better.”

You chuckled, “Is that why you taught yourself how to cook?”

“Stop, I was actually starving and had no choice.”

“And are you better now?”

“When I heard you were going on a date, do you want to know what I thought?”

“What?”

“I thought, I let her go again. I let you go a million times in college, and here I am, letting you go again.”

When you didn’t say anything, he continued, “You’re the one for me, Y/N. I came over here tonight to show you that. I’m ready for whatever this is going to be, whatever this friendship evolves into. I spent too much time denying the truth, and I think you have too.”

There were not enough words to describe how you were feeling, so you leaned in to kiss your best friend. JJ held your face with such gentleness, you wondered if this was all in your imagination.

Eventually, you pulled away. “I’m done lying, to myself and to each other. This is real, yes?” you asked.

“Yes, I love you, really.”

“I love you too, Maybank.”

You leaned in for a second time, but not before you heard the familiar cries of Margo in the other room.

“Don’t worry, I got it,” he smiled with that boyish grin of his that you loved so much. That you have always loved.

#jj maybank #jj maybank x reader #jj x reader #jj maybank imagine #obx #outer banks #obx x reader #obx imagine #rudy pankow #rudy pankow x reader #jj maybank x you

846 notes · View notes

luvfy0dor · 7 months ago

Note

Helloo! I love your blog smm! could I request fyodor with a child reader that’s very curious about things and often ask him about lots of things and do often run from his sight cause they saw something that peaks their interests? ^^ so sorry that this request was kinda long 😭

“But Satisfaction Brought It Back ♡⁠˖” Dad!Fyodor w/ Child! Reader ੈ✩‧₊˚

Warnings; none

Description; Fyodor brings curious child!reader to the park, but after being essentially exiled from the playground by some randos, reader sees something moving in the grass and chooses to investigate

A/n: I'M SO SORRY THIS TOOK ME SO LONG I FEEL AWFIL, I HIPW ITS ACCEPTABLE AT LEAST </3 THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE COMPLIMENTS

Headcannons;

★ Fyodor loves that you're curious, but sometimes the amount of questions you ask makes him wonder if your jaw ever gets tired from moving so much. He knows you didn't get that trait from him.

★ If you run away from him, he's walking after you at the fastest speed possible for him. He warns you not to go far because his stamina doesn't allow him to chase after you, but you still do it and it gets on his nerves a little. He knows you don't mean to, but it stresses him out like no other.

★ He often lets Nikolai tag along when he brings you to do fun stuff just in case he ends up needing the extra hand, and Nikolais ability is always great to bring you back to them.

Scenario;

You had one hand in Nikolais and one in Fyodors, happily walking along with them through a park near your home on a beautiful spring afternoon. They decided to have tea together earlier and figured it was a nice day for an outing. They picked you up and brought you to the park and sat on a bench next to one another while you ran off to climb on the playground. It didn't take long for you to socialize, immediately interacting with a girl your age. "Hey, you! Yeah, you with the blue shirt. You're not allowed up here, you don't have the password." You looked at the girl with confusion, grimacing and crossing your arms. "Well it's not your playground, I'm allowed up here if I want to! My papa brought me to play and that's what I'm gonna do." You reply, your eyebrows furrowed and a visible pout on your face.

"That's too bad! Scurry along, you peasant!" She sneered. It made you want to cry a little, but you bit your lip and stormed off. A small group of kids who seemed to be apart of her posse watched. You huffed and went to sit with your papa and uncle, plopping down on the bench. Fyodor and Nikolai instantly picked up on your sad demeanor. "Aw, what's wrong, Malyshka? Are you alright?" He asked, a hand rubbing your back sweetly. You nodde d and leaned into him, making him frown. "C'mon, kiddo, I'll play with ya if you'd like! We're those other brats mean to you?" He asks, bending down to your level. You shook your head and rubbed the oncoming tears out of your eyes. "No, they weren't..I'll go play again in a second, I just fell." Nikolai stands back up and rubs your head. "Alright, if that's what you'd like." He returns to Fyodors side, resuming their conversation. Fyodors comforting hand remained on your shouder for awhile before you decided to get back up. "M'going to play again, papa." You declared, humbly walking back over to the playground and settling for the swings. You sat down and started swinging your legs back and forth, watching the nature around you. You weren't too high in the air before you saw a something moving through the grass across the park. You dragged your feet to come to a halt and walked away from the swing set.

The closer you got, you could tell that the moving thing was actually a large, brown rabbit. Your eyes widened with excitement and you approached it further, following it through a patch of brush. The rabbit noticed you and jumped further into the woods, over logs and rocks. You followed it continuously, stumbling over the aforementioned obstacles trying to reach it. It was about this time where Fyodor noticed that the swing was sitting nearly perfectly still without you on it and his eyes immediately darted around the playground. When he couldn't find you, he called out your name, drawing the attention of the attention of the other kids. "I think I saw someone go down there." The girl from earlier pointed towards the woods. Fyodor cursed under his breath and made his way towards the forest as quickly as possible with Nikolai. "Y/n! Come back here!" He called out for you, worried and annoyed all at once. You had successfully pounced on the bunny, holding it in your arms and heading towards Nikolai and your papa again. You had now been satisfied in catching the rodent, an innocent expression on your face when your papa came into view. The rabbit was squirming in your grasp, but you held him out to your father.

"Papa, Uncle Nikolai, look what I caught!" Fyodor let's out a sigh of relief but places a hand on your back and guides you back to the playground. "Let that filthy animal go, sweetheart, it's probably diseased, and you cannot keep running off like that! I was worried sick, don't do that ever again." He says, a hand over his heart. You reluctantly let the rabbit go, turning to watch it dash off. "I'm sorry papa.." you mumble, grabbing at his cape. He sighs. "It's not fine, but I'm more happy that I found you than I am angry at you." He says, Nikolai nods in agreement. You sigh in relief and go to sit down on the bench, but Fyodor pulls you right back up by your shirt, like a kitten by the scruff. "No, you're going home to wash those rodent germs off of your hands, and then you're gonna pick up your bedroom while your at it." He says. You groan and accept the light punishment he gave. "Yes papa..." You weren't to upset about it all in all, because he could have been harsher on you, especially since you've repeatedly done this, but instead he only wanted you to clean your room; leaving the park and those mean kids behind isnt a loss in the slightest.

A/n; again I'm so sorry if this is bad, I feel horrible for it being so late but I'm locking in on my reqs now yall istg

328 notes · View notes

contentloadingandstuff · 7 months ago

Text

Discovering Your Past - Eula & Keqing x Male!Reader

In which they find out you were abused by your ex.

CW: Mentions of past trauma - physical abuse and SA. Modern AU. A/N: My fics are getting longer recently. I wonder if you guys mind?

Injuries are a natural part of life.

A scraped knee, a concussion, a sprained or broken limb - all creatures will have to endure these hardships one way or another. And, as the saying goes, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Each wound leaves a scar, each fight or accident is a lesson for the future on what to do or avoid.

What about those on the other end? Most feel regret about hurting others, are forced to do it or are convinced of their actions' justified nature. Yet among those are some starkly different cases. People who enjoy causing pain, be it physical or mental. And, undoubtedly, she was one of them.

Fate had it that your heart longed for her. She was a beauty, benign and friendly, whose charms worked on you without fail. She pushed, she pulled, slowly dragging you into her web. Your mind was too clouded with feelings to notice just how badly she trapped you. Like a spider she wrapped you in silky touches and words of affection like in a cocoon, and you were completely oblivious to your situation. And that she was - an apex predator, an effortless liar and natural manipulator. She stoked the flames of family conflicts, estranging you from your loved ones. Friends? She gave you a simple choice - it's me or them. You were coaxed into signing off your house under her name, as she encouraged you to do with many of your belongings, until you had nothing. Time and time again she pulled your strings through your heart, backing you into a corner. Alone. Unable to escape. Without anyone to turn to, anywhere to get away.

When your eyes opened at last, nobody was there to hear you scream.

Years. It took you two whole years to escape her clutches, two years of cruelty hidden behind a veil of love. With only the clothes on your back and some Mora in your pocket, you set off to another nation. There, you found a new home, and a new love. Sweet, caring and warm.

But wounds of the past cannot be hidden forever.

You push the door behind you, closing it with an accidently loud thud. Eula kicks off her high heels and enters the hall, placing down her bag and taking her jacket off. You put yours on the hanger and move to take hers, but she sends you a sharp look and walks past you, doing it herself.

The silence is tense. You know what you did.

“Honey, listen. I know I shouldn't have started that discussion-” You try to speak, but she turns around and cuts you off.

“Yes, you shouldn't have.”

Her eyes send daggers towards you. Your heart aches at the sight of your lover so full of anger, all because of you. Her family wasn't easy to interact with. Her choice of career made her the pariah of the line, but after she married you, the relations seemingly normalized enough to make them liveable. Seemingly.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn't have. I mustn't do that ever again. I promise I won't.” You raise your open hands, as if showing you're unarmed. What was supposed to calm her down just irritates her.

She scoffs and approaches you. “I say you are an intelligent man, but times like these are when I doubt it. What's so hard to understand in ‘my family isn't normal and the less you interact with them the better’?”

She's right. Eula has told you time and time again that the opinions her father, mother, grandparents, uncles and aunts hold are final. Nothing will change them, they won't ever back down. They are egomaniacal with a tendency to bring those around them down to elevate themselves. And yet, there's something drawing you to them, something natural that tells you that they can be a source of warmth.

Because that's how things are supposed to be. A family should love each other, be united and supportive instead of polarized and hateful. Something in your soul doesn't seem to understand that you can't find any support in her side of the family.

“I know, Eula. I try to-”

“Then your ‘trying’ is not enough!” Her voice elevates further. There is something building in your chest. The pressure crawls from your heart up through your throat, rotting itself inside your neck. A choking feeling.

“Y/N, you shouldn't talk to them! Never, ever. You know how it ends, don't you? They bring you down, they hurt and belittle you. And you know that, don't you?”

Her eyes are narrowed. She speaks louder now, her words coming from a place of compassion and love rather than hostility. Your mind, however, is focused on something else.

Something familiar.

Her tone picks up, and so does your heartbeat. She's almost screaming now.

“Sorry, dear, but are you masochistic? Or just stupid?! I will have vengeance!”

Your hyper focused eyes spot movement. Her hand goes upwards, your chest sinking. Body stiffening, you turn your head down and sideways, exposing your cheek.

Just as she taught you.

Fighting back was pointless.

You deserve it.

You hold your breath.

Silence.

The blow doesn't connect. You hear the sounds of a barefoot step. You crack your eyes open. You see Eula has taken a step back, her eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. She blinks a few times and pulls her hand back towards her body.

“Not t-that kind of vengeance.” Eula barely mumbles the words out in pure confusion. She shakes her head in disbelief, her gaze leaving you and dropping to the floor. “Never. I w-would never-”

You spring back to life, as if a grave threat or danger just vanished.

“No no no, it's alright, honey. I just got a little scared of you, haha. It's fine, really!” You smile sheepishly, shame crawling under your skin. On reflex or out of habit, you rub your cheek. “Maybe I really am stupid, for being scared and all, you know?”

She takes a slow step closer. Her voice is far quieter than mere seconds ago, now down from a scream to a whisper.

“No. Don't call yourself that. My… My emotions got the better of me, honey. I’m sorry.” Eula’s voice composes, worry furrowing her brow as she stretches out her arm towards you, this time taking care to do it slowly. “May I…?”

You smile and nod, letting the palm of her hand connect to your cheek. Her touch is gentle, fingers tracing your skin with utmost care.

Your skin is so soft, so smooth, familiar. Her heart clenches, her mind holding no doubt about your reaction. You are not someone easily scared, nor are you particularly fearful of harm. Something, somebody…

“Who was it?” Her hand trails down smoothly, coming to rest on your shoulder. “Who hurt you?”

You shake your head. “What? What do you mean? Nobody, I’m fine-”

“I said…” She huffs and crosses her arms over her chest. “... who hurt you?”

At an instant, the thoughts in your mind already form into a rebuttal, a measly attempt to cover the truth. But you know better than that. Eula isn't that stupid.

You sigh, trying to figure out what to say. Seeing your hesitation, she places both of her arms on your shoulders, her eyes focusing on yours. Within her beautiful irises fading from deep purple to light yellow you find a steadiness worthy of a captain, but also a lover.

“You don't have to talk about it if it makes you uncomfortable, honey.” She speaks softly, stroking your skin in calming circles. “I just need to know if justice has been served, or some additional, very particular and very severe vengeance needs to be added to my to-do list.”

“My ex-girlfriend is… She’s no longer a threat, alright?” You close the distance between you and Eula and embrace her. Your lover secures her arms around you right away, providing you with just the comfort you seek. “I just don’t want to go back to those days. They’re over and I just want to focus on you… On somebody that actually loves me. Somebody that doesn’t scream at me for no reason, belittles and insults me, and…”

Your voice trails off. Images and sensations rush through your memory. Every insult, every impact weighs on your voice, trapping it beneath the torrent of nightmarish memories. Eua squeezes you tighter.

“Shh. Don’t think about it now, sweetie. You're here, safe in my arms. I promise to be your shield. However…”

Eula's characteristic pout forms on her face.

“For not telling me about this, I will have vengeance.”

“That was a little shameful for me-” She cuts you off.

“Silence. My retribution is nigh. For your transgression, I shall cuddle you and feed you ice cream while subjecting you to the terror of your favorite movie.” She narrows her eyes theatrically before gently, but firmly grabbing a hold of your wrist. “You cannot escape now.”

You smile in horror.

The screen flashes with a jump scare as a curtain is moved aside. A disfigured monstrosity covered in black goo and rags opens its jaw to reveal a set of sharp, but surprisingly pristine teeth.

“Brains!” Its voice is clearly augmented in some way, deep and a little echoing.

The punk screams at this sight but before he can do anything, the zombie grabs his head with its skeletal hands and bites down. The rest of the group squeals. The man's head is cracked open like an egg, filling the undead's mouth with fake blood and flesh-like props.

“Oh my…” Keqing can't help but gasp a little, her arms tightening around your chest slightly. “That's a lot of jaw force…”

As the zombie digs into the man's brain, a joke comes to your mind.

“He's not going to extract a lot of brain from him, is he?”

In response, Keqing chuckles a little. “Yeah. But at least he is also quite brave. If not for him, that girl would have been the meal instead.”

“True, true.”

The movie continues. The female lead escapes the locker she was trapped in moments ago as her friend is being devoured. Another character throws an empty bucket of paint at the creature, making it fall back, before raising up and exclaiming joyously:

“More brains!”

The kids scream and run away. Keqing, as much as she finds the movie interesting, can't help but recall one scene in particular.

A smirk settles on her delicate features. “So… How's the movie? Do you like it?”

You nod vigorously. “Of course! It's a classic that I wanted to watch for a long time now, but never got around to that. And I can confidently say that I regret not watching it earlier. It's a lot of fun.”

Keqing hums in understanding. Her fingers, one of them brandishing a beautiful and intricate golden ring, slowly move up onto your leg.

“Did you enjoy any scene in particular, honey?” Your eyes follow her hand as it moves up, each finger making a slow, deliberate step.

Just a glance at her slight blush and sly smirk is enough to make you catch on, making your cheeks heat up as well. You gulp.

“Well…” You start, but Keqing places a finger on your lips, silencing you.

“Aw, sweetie~ I know full well how you were eyeing that girl. Your thoughts were betrayed by much more than just your stare.”

Her hands move up, sliding underneath your shirt and caressing your exposed chest. You feel her desire through her movements, careful, seductive, yet impatient at the same time. A little shiver of excitement crawls through your body.

“Honestly, Y/N, I can't blame you. That redhead was quite a beauty, after all. ”

Her hands clench over your body as she rolls to sit on your lap, her eyes, twinkling with desire, pointed right at you. Keqing sends you a wink. Your hands settle on her buttocks.

“But you see, my dear, you got me just a little too jealous to resist showing this handsome guy which girl his attention should be on~” Her hands shift to meet yours, fingers wrapping around your wrists. “So relax and let me have the spotlight~”

Your eyes widen as she hoists your arms off her and pins them to the wall above your head. You try to struggle away, but her grip is iron thanks to the additional strength provided by her Vision. An attempt to release your body from underneath hers fails as well. You're nervous - this never happened before.

“Keqing, you're-” You start to say, but are interrupted by her right hand locking onto your throat.

Your hands clench, eyes growing wide. You choke, any words of protest dying in your restricted windpipe. You look at Keqing, who smiles mischievously, completely oblivious to your discomfort.

“What did I say? Bad boy!” She uses her other hand to pry yours off her choking arm. You relent, shocked and increasingly scared at her sudden roughness. “Now stay still, or you'll regret it~”

Tears form in your eyes as she leans and begins kissing and licking your cheek, adding small bites here and there. You close your eyes, not wanting to see what happens next. The feeling of her genuine affection recalls different images in your mind. The past and the present melt into one in your mind.

As you lay helpless, Keqing continues loving you until her tongue hits an unusual note of salt on your skin. She pulls back and, upon seeing you crying, lets go of you right away. Her hands go to cover her mouth in an expression of pure horror.

“I’m sorry! I’m… Oh Gods, I didn't mean to-!”

You squirm away and, in response, Keqing jumps off of you. She reaches towards you, but ultimately stops herself. Shame, guilt and sadness light up her face, hidden behind her small hands.

You wipe your eyes with your sleeve. By now your senses have returned. Her reaction brought you back at an instant. You get up and approach her.

“Keqing, I'm sorry, nothing-”

You're interrupted as she dashes past you. You can only call out to her as she runs to the bathroom and slams the door behind her. The sound of a lock turning halts your movements.

You sigh and drop back down on the couch. The movie is still playing. Your ears pick up the sounds of soft sobbing from behind the bathroom doors. The heart tells you to get up, to talk to her, to knock down the door if need be, but the brain speaks with reason. She needs time, and you know it. It's better to let her calm down on her own. If you were to approach her now, she likely wouldn't speak to you, let alone open the door.

Tears return to the corners of your eyes. Your heart aches at the sound of her pain. You can tell what she's thinking. That she's awful, dangerous, creepy, abusive. That it's all her fault.

But the truth? She's not the problem. You are.

The TV's noise irritates you. You turn it off and throw the remote across the room. Your head falls into your hands.

How could you have done this to her?

Why can't you just let go?

Why are you so weak?

A shaky sentence manages to make its way out of your lips.

“It's all my fault.”

—

Deafening silence was all that filled the following hour when her crying died down. You went through every possibility of what would happen when the bathroom door would open. You planned what to tell her and how, you anticipated all of her possible reactions. You knew you couldn't fail again. You couldn't leave her in the dark and risk another incident like this.

She shouldn't suffer because of me, you thought. It was your obligation to be transparent with your wife. Not like you weren't dying to apologize, to comfort her, to let her know it isn't her fault. But you were patient.

When the door finally opened, Keqing looked abysmal. Her make-up was completely gone, first made running with tears, then washed away along with them. Her hair was a mess, not a trace of her usual prim and proper style left. Her eyes were red and barely open.

You spoke gently. You hugged her, asking for a chance to explain yourself. She nodded wordlessly and you sat with her by the table. There, you told her everything. You told Keqing about your previous partner and about exactly what you suffered at her hands. Your wife was very quiet, but still nodded every now and then. From the shakiness of her voice when she spoke the few words in your conversation, you could tell she was stopping herself from bursting into tears again. Nonetheless, you continued until the story was told.

“As such, Keqing, my wife, my love, the sun to my moon, none of what happened is your fault.” You continue, following the script you prepared in your mind. “It was my weakness and my inability to move on that caused all of this in the first place. For that, I’m… sorry. I truly am.”

She nods. Her eyes are focused on her hands, fingers fiddling with each other. Keqing slowly lifts her eyes to meet yours. You spot tears gathering on her features.

“Why… I don't understand…” She starts, but upon realizing her instability, she sniffles and swallows the sadness weighing on her chest. “Why would you ever say that you're weak?”

You sigh. “I should have moved on by now, but instead, I kept it with myself and now it hurt you as well. It is my pain and thus my responsibility to handle it.”

“No, n-no that's… How… How could someone such as you be weak?” She shakes her head. “You survived so much. So much pain, so much fear, so much hurt… And yet here you are, Y/N. Not only trusting another woman, a woman whom you not only married, but also allowed into your bed. I can't imagine myself doing something like that so quickly. You've moved on, honey. You regained the strength to trust and to love again. How can this be called anything but strong?”

You open your mouth to challenge her on this, but she acts first.

Keqing breaches the gap between you and falls into your arms. Her body wraps around yours, holding onto you tightly. One of her hands travels to your cheek.

“Y/N, you're strong. For having endured it, for having moved on, trusted again.”

You drop your gaze. Perhaps she is right. Keqing gently lifts your cheek to direct your attention back at her. She smiles, her tearful eyes shining with boundless affection.

“You're the strongest man I've ever known.”

Thanks for reading!

244 notes · View notes

noroi1000 · 1 year ago

Text

First Sight

Paring: Gojo x f.reader (op) arranged marriage

Warnings: nsfw, death, toxic family, perverted virgin Gojo

Words:10k

Summary: Your fiancé never wanted to be alone. He fell in love with you at first sight. you loved him. You were the strongest. And everything is always thrown on the shoulders of the strongest.

When blue eyes met (e/c) eyes, he felt his heart beat louder.

It's not about what he just saw.

Maybe a little...

You were beautiful. Your kimono fit your body very well. colors. He liked it.

The first meeting, the first seeing of another person is always a look at appearance.

However, he too was staring at the cursed energy.

Yours was so mysterious. There was so much. Less than his, but much more than his disciples.

But your energy was soft as water. At the same time tough.

The water may be soft. But also tough. The water cuts through the rocks, destroys them.

That's why he certainly couldn't say that you're a woman who has nothing but softness in her life.

He wasn't happy when his parents, grandparents and uncles told him that he was going to meet his fiancée today.

He's never even known a woman like (y/n) (l/n).

He hasn't heard much about the family (l/n).

Your family doesn't even reveal what your innate technique is.

But apparently you were born with it.

With developed technique. Not like your Father, who imbues the water with cursed energy and can send a wave at his opponent.

No wonder the streams of water in your estate are surrounded by cursed energy...

What you were born with is far more powerful than making a wave for a surfer.

That's why it's a secret.

Because supposedly no one can so your technique.

Or rather, no one can get close to you while you're using this.

Because every time someone has had it in the past, bystanders have died, accidentally.

People consider this technique to be monster power.

Because no sorcerer could do that. Not that way.

Your technique rips people's flesh apart to give you weapons.

Or your technique allows you to make a man into a puppet on strings.

As a sorcerer, you're supposed to protect people, not use them as weapons.

You are absolutely forbidden to use an upgrade of this technique.

You are only allowed to use water manipulation.

Avoiding something that is lethal to people.

You've been banned from all the elders. From all the superiors of the Jujutsu world.

You can't use your strongest weapon.

Because it's too dangerous for people around you.

Therefore, no one can know about your secret technique enhancement.

They were something your family had been fighting for centuries.

Even if you were often mistaken for the Kamo family.

But now that has changed.

Now you are a family whose technique is forbidden and secret.

You can only use it in emergencies when you know death is certain. Your death.

Then you get permission to use a secret technique, even at the cost of other people's lives.

For them it is only death.

It doesn't have to be that way.

You can only take a little strength from people.

Besides, the only place you'd be powerless to the desert.

There's no water there.

But you never go on missions in dry lands.

Because the elders know your weaknesses.

That's why you never became stronger than Gojo Satoru. And you never will.

Because using techniques, your energy drains very quickly. Because in order to lift water, you must surround each drop of water with cursed energy. Every atom. All H2O molecules that are in a given tank.

And that drains your energy very quickly. Because the more water you want to use, the more energy you lose.

However, once you can control a given number of gallons of water, you can use it without wasting your energy until the entire envelope of your energy on the water is broken.

That's why you always have a bottle of water with you that is already covered with energy. To use this in case of emergency.

You were classified as special grade last year. However, you are in last place when it comes to strength ranking.

This is because, according to sorcerers, you should be able to control hectoliters of water without any problems, and also not waste energy.

However, those were the limitations of your technique.

But using water from the life of other creatures or plants, you get the ability to absorb their energy.

But taking water away from plants and animals is death for them.

That's why you can't do it.

If only curses had a body, it would be so much easier for you.

That's why you know your secret technique would be more effective against a curse user.

However, you've never met anyone like that.

And from birth, when all the water from the flower was seen flowing to you, you were forbidden to use it because the family had trouble with it.

This part of the technique was to be eliminated.

It was secret and forbidden.

And also your parents wanted you to father a son with a very strong man who would be able to exorcise this "monster power" from your family. Because such a fight was considered shameful. Even if it was so powerful.

They wanted your son to have your technique as well as his father's technique.

They clearly tell you that you are to have a son.

Frankly, you don't care about ruling your clan since you'd never have a vote anyway. As a woman...

You'd rather marry someone who won't take orders as much and also has emotions and feelings of her own. And then merge your clans.

Your husband will be the head of the clan, but maybe he will listen to you too?

You hoped so.

Because you didn't know when, but you already had a fiancé for a month, whose name you won't know until a month before the wedding!

You didn't want to be like this!

Once again, your parents with the elders chose something that suits them, not you!

The first time you saw a tall figure in a yukata walk into your house's meeting room, you thought you were being told to marry an old man...

White hair? Only later did you see that some of them had fair hair that could be mistaken for the gray hair of an old man.

Especially since there was only one old man among them. The elder of their family.

The white-haired one you saw was really young. At least that's what he looked like.

Like someone young.

You were afraid they'd give you an old man or a kid.

You didn't know many sorcerers because your parents took away your childhood. That's why you haven't had any contact with people your age.

But when you heard the name Gojo, something in you lit up.

It's right that your parents wanted the best sorcerer for you as a husband.

To get rid of the taint of this technique that has been reborn in you.

Better you give birth to all your children with their father's technique than with your damn shit.

That day you were supposed to find out that your husband is Gojo Satoru. Your fiancé and husband in a month.

You are to be an incubator for him. That was your role.

You are to be the person who will rid your family of this curse, passed down as a forbidden Jujutsu technique.

With all your skills, you were as strong as he was.

Without it, or rather forgetting to have the ability to take life's weapons for you, you were weaker.

You didn't want to follow the rules they gave you.

you don't want it.

Nobody would like to be forced to do that.

You don't like your secret technique because you hurt your mother when you were little.

It is very powerful but also dangerous.

You don't want it, but you got it. So you don't want to lose it.

Because you know that at some point in your life you will need this secret, cruel power that your ancestors gave you.

"This is (y/n) (l/n). Satoru, she will be your wife."

"I didn't know I'd ever proposed to anyone..." he said ignorantly as he sat on a cushion in front of a low table. In front of you.

He seemed very unhappy.

Just like you.

Nobody wants to get married out of necessity.

However, your husband is quite handsome... or rather your fiancé...

You hope he won't be the complete boor like your ex was...

You looked at him, suddenly connecting your eyes with each other.

It was the first sight.

You saw his eyes sparkle like a child seeing a magic trick.

Behind his black sunglasses were shining blue eyes that didn't want you to break your first eye contact.

You know what this man is capable of. A sorcerer who single-handedly could destroy the world...

Someone without whom the world may fall.

That's why they want to keep him on their side at all costs.

Even though he doesn't listen to anyone anyway and has his own morals.

But you felt like he was looking at you like a child. A man with an inner child. Full of hurt and pain.

His childhood was probably as terrible as yours. Or even worse.

"Your wedding is in a month's time." Your smile said with a small smile. "You have this month to get to know each other. Gojo-san insisted."

"I don't want my son to marry someone unfaithful and insufficient. If you ever hear of any betrayal, please let me know. My son will not get anything lower quality."

"Nobody wants to hear your complaints. Old man..." groaned the younger Gojo.

"Satoru –."

"I hate being controlled. And what you're doing pisses me off so much..."

His clan feared him.

He could do anything. All. The strongest sorcerer alive.

An anomaly that cannot be killed...

He was very much against this marriage.

However, his family is very good at playing on his psyche and feelings.

He didn't want to be lonely anymore, and that's what his family told him.

Because of him, all will stray from their paths and die alone. And it will all be his fault.

They were perfectly able to choose the words to hit his aching heart.

Reminding him only of the suffering he caused someone. And then his death...

The person he loved inside was left alone...

Because of his family, he felt as if his psyche was returning to the moment when it all happened.

Everything hurt so much, it was as if the painful lava in his psyche had never hardened. Only as if it was still overflowing, burning him from the inside out.

So did your family who used your skills to get ahead. But they also kept you from managing them.

Because as a woman you have no right.

They insulted you. They humiliated you. They said that your mother's illness was your fault... that it was because of you, because you hurt her years ago. It was accidental.

Besides, it wasn't your fault she got cancer...

She's in treatment.... So most likely everything will be fine. But that doesn't stop others in your family from insulting you and saying it's all your fault.

Suddenly he got up. You didn't know what he was doing, but you continued to stare at him as well as he kept making eye contact with you.

"I don't expect your permission. And I won't wait for it because it's my life."

Suddenly, he offered you his hand, standing next to you as you knelt on your pillow.

Despite the coldness of his words, you felt the warmth of his eyes.

When he still wanted so much to leave the impressions of the first eye contact.

Could you really have a different life?

Without your family controlling you?

Not that they want so much to bring you down to being soldiers who fight against curses, but only listen to them.

You grabbed his outstretched hand, and then he pulled you up.

Still holding your hand, he started walking towards the exit.

Since you have no choice anyway, you can at least not listen to how much they want to use you.

"Why did we leave here?" you asked suddenly. "Sir -."

"Satoru." He said smiling kindly at you.

"Satoru-san. My name is (y/n) (l/n). We–"

"It bothers you too, doesn't it?"

"Hmm?"

"That they're using us." He said sitting on a fairly high wall that stood in the garden.

"Satoru-san, why did we come out here so suddenly?"

"Would you rather sit there?" He asked, resting his hands on the stones of the wall. "Oh. Sorry."

He suddenly jumped and walked over to you.

Putting his hands on your waist, he suddenly lifted you up with a short sound like a humming.

He sat you down on the wall, making sure you didn't fall.

Only then did he jump in, sitting down next to you.

"Would you like to go on a date with me tonight?"

"A date?"

"You've never been?"

"I was... But–."

"You hate me because I'm going to be your forced husband, right?"

"I do not hate you. I don't know you... Satoru-san..."

Suddenly he took your hands in both of his.

"Then let's get to know each other."

You saw the same sparkle in his eyes that you had seen since the beginning of this meeting.

Those were the eyes of a man who had fallen in love.

The eyes of a man who is happy.

....

"Oh fuck..." he muttered, covering his mouth with his hand.

He saw his ears and cheeks turn slightly red.

His rectangular glasses on his nose matched nicely with the classic suit he was wearing. White shirt, dark blue jacket and trousers. Black shoes.

In his hand was a bouquet of flowers.

It looked like he couldn't decide what he should choose because the bouquet was big and had a lot of different colors and flowers.

But it was really well composed.

"What's wrong?" You asked as he stood there and looked at you intently.

You clenched your hands gently on your red dress.

He thought he was going to faint when he saw you.

You looked so beautiful.

Your dress was chosen by your mother.

Juicy red color.

To make you look attractive to your fiancé.

Because maybe if he doesn't want you, maybe he'll at least like your body, they thought.

They didn't know that already he was deeply in love with you, and nothing could keep him away from you.

He already fell in love with you even more during your first conversation.

However, he didn't want your relationship to blossom very quickly.

What if he gets attached to you and you leave because of him? What if he ruins everything again?

What if he makes you lonely?

What if all your hurts are his fault and he loses the person he loved again?

You were supposed to be his first girlfriend.

Because he couldn't trust anyone. That's why he needed a very long time to see if anyone was able to give him time.

Nobody could give it to him.

He needed time to accept who he had become. You need time for someone to accept him.

It may be strange, but he had no one close to him.

He didn't want anyone to play with his feelings.

He didn't want his family to hit him with threats that they would do something to his loved one.

He wanted to be alone.

He didn't want anyone to hurt him or his loved one.

But his virgin mind just couldn't stop thinking about how beautiful you looked in that dress.

Who would have thought that a virgin like him, who learned to cum very late using toys, would look at a woman who would be with him for the rest of his life. You will be his wife.

You will always be with him...

And he won't leave you as long as you accept him...

He doesn't want you to be lonely because of him...

He doesn't want you hurt.

Not now that he's in love with you!

You've been dating for so long.

He was getting more and more open, but it still wasn't what it could have been.

Every time he got closer, someone was dying. Someone was leaving him.

His best friend.

His mother...

She left him with his father, who does everything to ensure the well-being of the clan. Not to leave him in power, so that he can't do something that won't please his superiors.

A father knows his son's weaknesses...

He takes advantage of his weaknesses.

Satoru hates being alone. He hates being the strongest alone... Because the partner they were the strongest with was taken away from him.

And his father, despite being afraid of his own son, used his pain and wounded heart to control him.

So that he can't rule the clan like he should.

It kept traumatizing him. Cause it will never go away.

He didn't want anyone by his side if it meant he would never lose someone he loved again...

He's a little more serious on dates. He doesn't laugh the way you saw him at the school where he teaches.

You felt bad that he probably didn't trust you enough to show you his true side.

He is careful.

And how many times have you heard about how carefree and playful he is.

That he doesn't listen to anyone. That he can turn anything into a joke.

That he doesn't take anything seriously because there's nothing he can't do.

But there was one thing only love could fix.

He was lonely. And he was afraid of loneliness. He didn't want to be lonely.

And he was afraid of the loss that might be his fault.

This is why...

That's why he didn't show this page to anyone.

The hurt side that will never come out of him.

The side of his soul that always hurts.

The side of the soul and heart that will never grow up and will still remain that hurt teenager who experienced as much pain as few adult people.

Nobody knew what he felt. Nobody could understand.

And because he was the strongest, everyone could blame everything on him. Because he should have taken better care of the people who were supposed to stay with him.

The real one is very childish, sometimes scary. Everyone knows his true side. Everyone who has known him for years.

His students know his laid-back, grown-up side.

His friends from school know him from both sides. A free adult, as well as a wounded teenager on whose shoulders the responsibility for the whole world was pushed.

You haven't met any of these sites...

Not completely.

Your wedding is next week...

You hoped you at least wouldn't be so formal to each other.

But what if that's what he wants?

Maybe he just wants you to be a married couple on paper?

Maybe that's what he means...

Maybe there's never going to be anything like a real wife and husband between you two?

However, you at least wanted to try to make him show you what he wants...

You grabbed his cheeks as you sat at his house sipping your favorite drinks while watching a random movie.

Everything was so official.

You prefer that he tell you what kind of marriage he wants from you.

You go on missions together, you help him out so you can spend time together when you get back.

You've been wanting to meet him all month.

But he wouldn't let you go any deeper into his feelings.

He still looks at you with those eyes full of love.

But he doesn't tell you that it is.

You fell in love with him... Yes...

But you don't want to think that you're in love with him and he doesn't want your love marriage.

Maybe he just wants to do your duty, impregnate you, and just raise your children?

You are able to accept it.

Or at least you were able to when you first met...

Now, you can't think that's all he wants.

You don't want him to leave you like this.

Is this the second time someone has betrayed your feelings?

You wanted his arms to hug you and hold you for the rest of your life.

You wanted to help him be the strongest. You will take all these negative emotions from him, and give him everything he can replace so as not to be sad and tired.

You want him to pour out his negative emotions on you, and you will trade it for love. Making negative emotions completely disappear from his life...

But you can't give it to him if he doesn't want it...

Your energy with him is like a calm stream of water. So soft.

You are able to support him.

But you don't know if he wants support.

You're still hoping because his eyes are still on you like that first shight.

"Satoru..." You groaned as you sat down very close to him, your hands on his cheeks. "We'll be married next month..."

"I know." He said looking at you carefully.

"...What do you want our marriage to look like?" you asked.

"What do you mean?"

"You want me to just bear you children? Want me to be your sex partner? You want me to be your housewife? You want us to live our lives as we always do, knowing each other, and just be officially married? Do you want us to be married but live as before?"

He looked at you with questioning eyes.

He never seemed to be interested in your relationship.

As if he didn't show love.

That's why you never asked if he wanted a real marriage.

Because since he only cared about your feelings and didn't show or talk about his at all, he doesn't care about love...

At least you thought so.

He has pleased you for as long as you can remember. But you want him to make that decision now.

Before, he always did everything to make you fall in love with him, which is why he pleased you at all costs. When you truly love him, you will never leave him alone.

You said his name so sweet...

"Do you want us to be separated of our own free will? Would you like to live without me? As a married couple only on papers? Would you like to be alone?"

When you said that, he looked at you with wide eyes.

Oh, no no! He didn't want to be alone! He never wanted to!

That he had to be alone was not his choice! He put his hands on yours as his eyes looked at you sadly.

"I don't wanna be alone... I don't wanna be without you... I don't wanna be like this...

"Satoru...?"

You saw small tears in his eyes as he smiled.

He was annoying at times, but he was never selfish as they called him.

Because according to people who want to destroy him from the inside out, it's his selfishness that makes everyone suffer...

But he didn't want to be selfish for you...

He did everything to make you happy

So for once, let him be selfish... and do what he wants.

"(y/n)... I don't want you to leave me alone... I want you to be my wife... A true relationship... Because I love you... I don't want you to run away from me..." he said more quietly.

On his lips still a smile that said only that he can connect his sides. The side of the real him and the side of the wounded.

He smiled with furrowed brows, and looked at your face.

He couldn't read anything from your face...

He might have scared you, which can only mean he'll be alone again...

"I know arranged marriage sucks. I know it's impossible to love someone in such a short time. And I understand that I'm not someone who has been able to win your heart."

"Shut up you idiot!"

His eyes looked very surprised at those words.

You couldn't say he was hurt very much, but there was definitely something about those words that hurt him.

"Don't talk so much..."

You groaned suddenly, and pulled his neck down, causing him to bend over. So that you can put your lips on his, joining you in your first kiss.

And his eyes sparkled like they did when he first saw you.

He fell in love with the first sight.

The ceremony wasn't what you wanted it to be...

It was boring and serious.

Not like the weddings of people who have normal lives.

Plus, a tradition your grandmother wants to carry on.

You must be a virgin so your husband can take your virginity.

Who would have expected that of the two of you, you would take his virginity?

"Wait... You've never been with a woman?"

"I dated sometimes, but never had a girlfriend." He said straight away, as if he wasn't ashamed.

He was shameless because from the week you know about his feelings and he knows about yours everything has changed.

You know he hasn't shown his true self to you before.

Now you know him more.

As other people call it.

Arrogant, doesn't take much seriously.

Shameless...

He walked around you in his underwear and didn't care.

He came into the bathroom when you wanted to take a bath.

And all this happened one week before an important wedding.

Now you are married.

For several hours.

You didn't expect this.

"We're supposed to have sex now, right? Because your grandmother won't let you rest." He said taking off his shirt with a smile.

"W-We don't have to if you don't want to." You said blushing. Especially seeing his muscular torso.

"Someone said I don't want to? The only question is do you want to... After that, we're supposed to show your grandmother a sheet that has a blood stain on it? Isn't that too old-fashioned?"

"There is... But Satoru...

"Do not worry about me. I learned a lot. Besides, I won't cum right after I get inside your pussy like you probably think." He crossed his arms over his chest..

"It's not that... I'm just not... a Virgin..." You said softly.

Will he react like his father?

Doubt his father would approve...

"And?"

"You're not mad?" you asked.

"Why would I?"

"I had an ex who would kill me if I wasn't a virgin. And he took my virginity. And he also left me because he got bored of me."

"Whenever he shows up and tries to do something to you, I'll kill him." He winked at you. "If he's a total asshole."

"He is. He started texting me when he found out I was getting married."

"Can I kill the bastard?" he asked with a smile hiding his murderous intent.

"He got suspended as a sorcerer anyway, and almost became a curse user because he got pissed off by the thighs he was supposed to save. Only he didn't give a shit about a mission, left a curse, and beat one guy to death."

He remembered something about the words "curse user"

However, it showed what an asshole your ex was. Because even Suguru didn't kill back people because he was annoyed by their behavior.

Suguru killed them all because he was acting to do something about how sorcerers are treated.

"Let's get off the subject of your ex. I don't think any guy wants to hear about his woman's ex."

"Fine."

"We were talking about sex... Shall I undress you or will you undress yourself?" He smiled.

"How can you say such a thing even as a virgin?! Satoru!"

"You yourself said I'm shameless~."

"But! You should be blushing, not me..."

"I've been watching too much porn to be ashamed of, baby. Besides, I'm not a virgin without experience, so I can't cum right after you touch me. You're going to have to put in some effort because I have a late ejaculation~."

You covered your face with your hand.

This is supposed to be a virgin guy who's never had a woman in bed before?

"I have toys in a cardboard box if you're wondering how life has been over the years. If I hadn't come, my balls would have exploded!"

"Shut up! I don't want to hear about your toys!"

Suddenly he appeared in front of you.

"So instead of a toy, let me fuck your sweet pussy. I know you're so much better than some silicone." He said into your ear.

His dirty words sent sparks to your core.

He doesn't act like a virgin...

But he sure is.

Especially when he took off his pants and threw it still on the floor.

A clean, pale cock hung between his thighs.

Closely trimmed, short pubic hair above its base.

"Join whenever you want~. If you don't want me to undress you~. only you know... If you want to save your clothes, tell me because I'm horny for a real pussy I can go in~." He licked his lips, giving you a cocky smirk.

I reached into your shirt involuntarily, and stared at his tall, muscular and sexy body.

"Besides, I have to take my wife's virginity~."

"I am not a virgin."

"My dick is probably bigger than your ex's."

You looked at his crotch out of curiosity.

In fact... It was hard for you to admit it, but Satoru's penis was a little bigger than your ex's. And Satoru wasn't even hard yet!

"You won't do anything to make blood appear." You pointed your finger at him and then looked at the water bottle in the corner of the room.

He knew your technique was water manipulation. And he also knew a thing or two about you having a secret, forbidden technique.

He was curious what it was...

But first he really wanted to get inside your warm pussy. To feel you stretching around him. Feel the heat he never felt.

Hear you moan under it.

He was sick of hearing the moaning sounds from adult movies...

The longer he knew you, the more he wondered what your voice would sound like when you moaned his name while he fucked you.

"Somehow we'll make sure there's a bloodstain~."

You looked at him scared.

"What do you mean?"

"You have such sweet, soft thighs, don't you? I want to squeeze and bite them~."

"My grandmother will kill me... Wouldn't it be better if I cut my arm? A few drops on the sheet and you're done."

"They won't smell blood on the sheets. It's disgusting... I won't let you play with the knife."

"Then what -."

"I want to mark you."

You saw his eyes darken with lust.

You couldn't help but look down as his cock hardened, slowly coming to attention, pulling away from his body.

"But you're curious if my dick is bigger, right?"

He suddenly placed his hands on your face, pulling you into a kiss.

His cock rubbing against your clothes as you stood in front of him fully clothed.

"You'll find out when you let me touch that pussy~."

He suddenly sat up on the bed, looking at you with a slight blush on his cheeks, but still smiling.

You grabbed your clothes, taking off your shirt.

And you saw his breath catch in his throat for a moment.

You turned your back on him, showing yourself unhooking your bra, and suddenly dropped your top underwear to the floor.

You immediately saw your nipples harden.

And then, wanting to tease him, you grabbed your pants and, bending down, pulled it down along with your panties.

Showing him a perfect view of your ass.

His cock twitched.

He was hard so fast.

The atmosphere of sex worked on him.

He wanted you to come over now and sit on his cock.

But he also wanted some foreplay.

He smiled, and with a pink face, he got up and quickly walked over to you while you were still flexing.

He leaned down and placed a kiss on your buttock, slapping the other one lightly.

Causing you to let out a soft moan.

The cute voice that made him so very hard...

"Satoru..." you moaned placing your hand on his forearm as he wrapped his arms around your hips.

He suddenly lifted you by your hips, causing your back to arch as he held your hips up.

You were practically hanging in his arms.

And he suddenly put his mouth on your thighs. Before he dived between them, meeting your pussy with his lips.

Your ass still visible to him when his mouth was between your thighs.

And he held your thighs so that you were with his face as he stood.

His muscles flexed hard to hold your weight in that position.

So that you don't fall, and also that you constantly give him the pleasure of putting his tongue between your folds.

It was better than he thought.

As your torso hung down as he held only your thighs and hips, you saw his cock stand upright, its tip furiously red and its veins throbbing.

That big cock was begging to be licked on that hot, hard shaft.

And suddenly he walked over to the bed with you, gently placing you on your stomach.

He leaned down and kissed your lower back before slapping your ass.

"So soft" he thought, pressing his fingers into the soft flesh of your buttock.

You suddenly turned around and held his hair and kissed him.

"Toru..."

Smiling, he lowered himself, shoving his face between your thighs.

Where he abused your clitoris and entrance.

Still thinking it's so much better than a fake pussy.

So soft and warm. This taste...

The trembling reactions of your body.

Even if he had no experience, his chaotic movements were so good... It wasn't coordinated in your body. But even the way he did everything with ignorance was so enjoyable.

As you drifted away, letting him please you, you suddenly felt a sharp stab in your thigh.

You stood up quickly, and saw his teeth sinking hard into your soft flesh.

You grimaced, purring as his tongue reappeared inside your walls, slithering over your sensitive spots.

A tiny trickle of blood dripped onto the white sheet.

"We're done with your virginity." He laughed as he lifted your thigh and showed strong teeth marks, which made blood where the fangs had been.

As the drops splashed onto the sheet, he licked it off, cleaning your thigh.

And then he started biting your skin again with a smile.

You giggled as you felt his lips pressing against your skin.

And without warning, he put his fingers inside you.

Pulling you quite deep.

You knew his fingers were longer than yours and also quite thick.

But that was good about you.

He stretched you with two fingers the way you stretched with three.

You jerked your hips wanting more. But you didn't want to give him the satisfaction.

So, lifting your hips, you moved so that his fingers were pulled from your walls.

His face flushed as he wrapped his juice-covered fingers around his shaft, stroking himself.

You turned to him, sticking your ass out for him. Pushing your hips into his.

Causing its length to rub against your thighs.

His hands played with your buttocks.

He loved your ass and thighs so much?

He leaned down and pulled your head to the side.

He kissed you as he guided his tip into your hole.

Inserting the tip into you gently, then began to push deeper and deeper.

Until finally his hips meet yours. he was panting. His hips twitched with pleasure. Your scorching walls greedily sucked him in.

That's why he was pushing his hips into yours to feel more of that feeling.

His balls moved to your clitoris, sliding over the slippery bump.

"I don't want to stop.... More.... Longer..." he moaned as he started to bang his hips against yours. ...

"Wait a minute... I want more... Give me a minute... I'm going to be hard... I'll just calm down..." he said choking as his soft cock lay against your stomach, the last drops of cum oozing out of the tip.

He really liked it.

Also, he was no ordinary virgin...

He came later than you...

But he wanted even more.

As he sat on the bed, calming his breathing, you sat next to him, resting your head smiling against his chest.

"Do you know about my family's forbidden secret technique?" You asked suddenly.

"Why are you asking now? I want to have sex with you and you're talking about technique?" he laughed, kissing your head.

"Because I'm going to show you something that can perfectly show what this secret technique is all about."

"Wait... you got it?"

"Yeah..."

"What is this? You're so strong... It's because of that?"

"I can't use it because it kills. But I can show you something innocently."

Your hand moved to his crotch, and you placed your fingertips on the vein protruding from his lower abdomen.

You placed your fingers on its base.

And suddenly you used a technique.

To innocently show him what your technique is all about.

"The human body is made up mostly of water... Ordinary water, blood, any fluid in the body. My family's ancestors learned to control the water coming from the human body. To direct the blood which is liquid tissue. That's why they were mistaken for Kamo. However, my family controls the water. So over the blood. Out of body. in the body. Belonging to me or someone else. Stop circulation, burst the body from the inside out. Withdrawal of fluids from the body causing death. A secret technique no one can know about."

He suddenly felt his blood flow change, and looked to see that your fingers were now resting on his completely hard erection.

"Your secret technique is to make guys get erections?" he laughed. "I thought you just got naked in front of me and I was horny."

"I'm serious..."

"Hey, I know." he said and suddenly kissed the side of your head.

"You didn't have to show it to me... But it... It was really innocent to show it to me... Almost..."

"I wanted to show you so you don't get scared when you see it... After all... Someday something may happen that will force me to use this..."

"Don't worry. I am the strongest. I've seen worse things. And you are my wife. You are wonderful in every way. And I don't want anything to ever happen to you." ...

"We go on missions together, we live in the same house. We live together. That means we're a couple, right? Why are you asking if we're a couple? I'm your wife." You said, laughing softly.

He really liked to hear you say you love him.

But it was a little different...

He sounded so sad.

He asked you to tell him that you are with him.

That you're not going to leave. That you love him.

That you are together.

"I love you. I'll be home soon. I'm on my way back." You said with a small smile.

"I'm home now. I'll wait for you..." he said calmly.

You heard his voice soft.

"See you." you said with a small smile.

Anyway, you think your husband needs home warmth today. And you give it to him.

Maybe you will spend a nice evening?

You want to give him something nice. He always works so hard after all.

And now he still seemed very depressed.

You asked Nitta to drive you home faster.

She of course agreed.

Grabbing the doorknob of your house, you entered, taking off your shoes and top.

It was always warm in the house, so you didn't even need a hoodie.

"Satoru! I'm back!" you screamed.

Most of the time, when you came home later than he did, he would attack you and keep hugging you.

Without end. He was laughing and smiling as he wouldn't let go, teasing you.

But now he was gone.

Maybe he fell asleep?

Was he so tired?

You went to your bedroom to see that the bed was simple. There's no one on the mattress. Nobody sleeps there.

You walked down the stairs looking into the living room. Also no one.

Then the kitchen. Satoru wasn't looting the fridge for a cake.

He wasn't in the bathroom either.

He was nowhere to be seen.

In any room you have at home.

He couldn't be outside because it was so late.

Until sometimes you regret that you have to go on such missions that make you come back so late at night.

You really don't want to go there and leave Satoru at home alone.

You didn't even get the chance to have a proper honeymoon...

Would you like to give him something like this someday...

After all, since you're together, you don't spend that much time on missions.

You have more time for yourself. You work together, so your moments are a bit more.

But Satoru deserves a marriage where he has more time.

More love.

He doesn't have long moments during which he can rest.

It just isn't there.

Such is the fate of being the strongest Jujutsu sorcerer.

However, you did everything so that you could carry this burden together.

You called him. But his phone was ringing in the bedroom.

The device was on the nightstand.

Which means he's at home because he'd never leave without his phone because a lot of people call him.

"Satoru?"

You called again, hoping maybe he was here.

You start to worry about him more and more.

Until suddenly I heard a knocking in the attic. You went there quickly, opening the door to see a room lit only by the moon.

And by the window, white hair that was very visible in the moonlight.

"Satoru?"

Before you could approach him, you saw his shoulders tremble slightly. The object that hit you when you heard it was an old telephone (?).

The display was on.

Do you remember having a similar one when you were a teenager?

Is this his old phone?

Did he still keep it here?

This room has a lot of stuff lying around here.

The attic was like a storage room for you. But it could also be used as an extra bedroom. That's why there was a futon next to the window that you sometimes used to spend time here.

You watched a movie in the dark, you slept here, you had sex.

But you've never seen Satoru here alone before...

Also, something's not right here...

You walked over to him and placed your hand on his shoulder.

"Satoru, are you okay?"

You saw and felt his shoulders jump harder.

Like he has the hiccups.

"Toru..."

You knelt next to him.

His hands were clenched in the fabric of the futon as he knelt with his back to you.

And when you were kneeling next to him, you only saw how the tears on his cheeks glistened from the light that fell on him through the window.

"What happened?" he asked quickly, and placed his hands on his cheeks. He closed his eyes.

"Satoru... What happened?"

His eyes were closed as tears flowed.

His jaw clenched. Brows furrowed.

"Satoru?"

"Will you leave me too?" he murmured very quietly. "It's all my fault, isn't it?"

"Satoru... Calm down..." you said pressing his head into your chest. "I'm here... I'm not going anywhere..."

He wrapped his arms around your body, hugging you.

"What happened?" You asked after a while.

"...Everyone shows me that everyone who is important to me is leaving because of me... They love to torment me so much... They tell me it's all my fault... and that the people who are with me will leave anyway because I'm the strongest and I must be alone... Because I will destroy everything anyway... I don't have the strength to listen to this... I don't want to be alone... I don't want to lose you... If this is how it's supposed to be, I don't want to be the strongest!"

You patted his head reassuringly.

You looked at the open phone on the floor, an old picture of him and his friend, right?

His friend...

The person who left but everyone blames Satoru...

"It's not your fault... You don't have to be alone. I am with you. I am not going anywhere. I understand what you are going through with your family... Don't listen to them... You're the head of the clan. You are the strongest. You will never be alone. I'll never leave you. I will always be with you. Since the first time we met, I haven't left you, and I'm not going to leave you... I'll help you be the strongest."

He looked at you with tears in his eyes.

He's really just a kid who couldn't live like a kid. He being an adult reenacts his childhood.

He lost so much too quickly. He watched his loved ones die too quickly.

His family dumps too much on him.

He reminds him of every mistake.

Just like when they were little... And his mother was dying.

"You are to be the strongest! Then why can't you even save your mother?! She died because of you! You can't do anything! You can try as much as you want, but you will always be alone! Because by your strength you bring death to people... That's why you will always be lonely. And everyone who is next to you will leave."

That night, your husband fell asleep in your arms.

Stroking his face gently, all you could think about was that he was the last person who could deserve such a life.

Nobody deserves to be lonely.

Especially him, who has been doing everything to keep people safe for years, sacrificing what he may need...

People like him need the protection of others.

Or at least an assurance that someone will be with them.

Someone to help them with things he doesn't have the strength to do.

Satoru may be the most powerful man alive, but he also needs support.

He doesn't need help fighting.

But his family exploits his weaknesses. The hole in his psyche.

Nothing can break him. But when the blade hits that one point, how can it be avoided?

How can you stop a man who wants to rip your skin off, and he's aiming for a cut on your body?

It's easier to tear the flesh when you pull the wound.

His family does.

It rips his psyche by pulling at the holes that have been created in him.

They cannot win against him in a fight. So they hit something that hurts even more.

Into the heart.

You didn't want to move that night. You just lay next to him on a very soft and large futon, letting him cuddle up to you.

"I will protect you from them." You said as you stared into his peaceful sleep next to you.

"We had a hard time getting you here. Were you busy?" said his father, setting a cup of tea next to you

"None of your business. I won't take extra missions. That's why we spend time at home."

"You are a Jujutsu sorcerer. The head of our clan. That's why you should ride as many missions as you can."

"I'm not going to do everything for others."

"Why doesn't anyone in your family go on missions other than Satoru? Nobody but him does anything. Plus, you're forcing him to bend his hours." You said sharply.

"As my son's wife, you shouldn't be talking. I am talking with him. And you're here as his partner. The rules of etiquette say you should keep quiet until you are asked to speak."

"You really think you can lecture my wife? An old man who can't see beyond his own nose." Satoru growled at him.

"Son, you're getting arrogant with your elders. And also... Don't you think you're being too selfish?"

You glared at the older Gojo.

"You don't want to go on missions because you don't want to? What are people supposed to say when you say it and they die? Their relatives. They are left alone, at the mercy of fate. And then death comes after them."

You felt what he was getting at.

But when you were about to say something, he slammed his mug on the table, causing the glass to shatter.

The tea began to spill.

"You're not trying to save more and more people. You're not trying to take any more missions. You're not trying to keep them alive. If you tried, you could save everyone. Everyone you've always wanted to save. If you'd kept trying instead of just once, HE would still be alive."

You felt his energy change.

His father was now stabbing him in the bleeding wound.

A flaming knife.

That he was putting so much pressure on your husband pissed you off.

Your husband's only weakness... His best friend he lost...

You fill some of that void for him, but you'll never be him.

Even though he loves you, you are not Geto Suguru.

But even so, you fill that void in part, making it never grow. As long as you are there.

"How dare you say that to Him..." you growled, the tea on the table suddenly rising.

With your emotions, the water has become hard. So the streak of water that was in front of his father was sharp.

"Someone who is so selfish can't be head of the clan. Commands are not obeyed. Plus, he can't teach his own wife that women have a place, and they don't interfere when men are talking."

"He will not be your puppet! Is this how sorcerers fight?! Taking advantage of man's only weakness?! How can a father tear apart his own son's psyche?! It's not his fault! He can't save everyone! He is only one and none of you help him!

"So why does he still have the last name Gojo?"

You widened your eyes when you heard that.

"If he can't, why is his last name Gojo? Why is he the strongest? His power is deserved because he comes from our family."

"He is to rule you. He is to know what is good. What is good for you. What is good for him."

You moved your hand.

You wanted so much to catch the connection of your technique with his blood right now, and wring his neck with his own body.

But... You don't want to be the monster that the users of this technique think are...

If anyone finds out, you'll be a sorcerer monster.

"Just try to do anything to my Satoru and I won't stop myself from killing every wretched member of this clan!"

The tea in front of him flew past his cheek quickly, brushing against his wrinkled skin. Then it flowed into the teapot which the maid was holding.

As the elder's skin began to drip blood, you suddenly disappeared.

You showed up at the Jujutsu school's ground.

It wasn't until later that you realized it was Satoru who transferred you.

"You didn't have to do that..."

You looked into his slightly sad eyes and reached up to kiss him.

"I promised I would protect you from them." You said with a smile. And only then did you notice that your eyes were small tears.

"Sensei! Shall we start training?!"

You looked back to see a group of people walking towards you.

"If you feel like it now.” Your husband said. Suddenly he was smiling.

"We're leaving later, so now." Said the girl who was standing next to the pink haired one.

"wait a minute! I'll be right back." He said clapping his hands.

"Where are you going?" you asked.

The students looked at you.

"I need to get something from the office."

"Can I train them? Just a minute."

He smiled seeing your eyes.

"Let's start training!" He said cheerfully. "Welcome your new trainer, Gojo (y/n)!"

"Gojo?"

"My wife!"

...

You didn't know that teenagers would like your technique so much.

Especially the few who got hit by the water tentacles because they were hot and the water was cool.

They avoided it.

And the longer it was, the more they wanted to be helped by the cool water bands.

Until at the end you created a large but flat drop of water for them to use as a swimming pool.

Satoru didn't come for half an hour.

But he did give you the message that the Principal wants to kill him.

But there was something wrong...

You felt a familiar energy.

That's why you glanced at the pavement to see a familiar rather tall figure.

You stood up as the man approached you.

Could this day get any worse?

"I didn't expect to see you with children. (y/n). Especially since the first children you were supposed to teach would be mine."

you snorted.

The teenagers looked at you.

They didn't know this man.

Nothing unusual. Nobody would work with a sorcerer who was suspended for murder.

"What do you want?"

"Can't I say hello to my ex-girlfriend? Besides, I wanted to visit you. Especially since you didn't invite me to your wedding." he laughed.

Your face hasn't changed. You continued to stare at him with hostility.

"Guys, we go. I'm buying you dinner." You said to the kids behind you, and waited for them to come out of the water to dissipate your energy so that the drop would melt.

They got things together quickly.

You started walking away, walking alongside Maki and Kugisaki.

But he suddenly grabbed your arm.

"You won't invite me?"

You weren't the only one who felt he was acting hostile.

The girl's exercise stick was placed against his forehead.

People like him need to be exterminated.

Especially since he reminded the girl of one of her family.

"Should I be afraid of some kid's stick?" He laughed.

Suddenly, the stick moved at dizzying speed, hitting his side hard. Causing him to curl up in pain.

"Let's go." you said to them.

You followed them, but his hand gripped your ankle as he knelt on one knee, one hand on his side.

You kicked his arm but he quickly got up and grabbed your arms.

"I know those eyes!" He said delighted. "That's how you looked at me when you beat me when you broke up with me!"

You kneed him in the stomach, but he didn't move away.

He grabbed your jaw.

Borrowing water from the grass and earth beneath you, thick ropes of water appeared around his legs.

"I'm your boyfriend. You were supposed to live with me, remember? So don't be stupid and come back to me. Or I will kill your husband. Come back to me and I won't tell everyone that you are descended from a sorcerer monster and have inherited this secret technique. Unless you want everyone to be afraid of you. Make everyone hate you."

Your hand trembled.

"Come on. Do it, and show that your technique is not as innocent as water. Show that you can kill a man by dissolving his body through blood. Show how bloody your technique is. I'm sure your little disciples will forgive you. You didn't kill me in front of them. come on. Do it. Show that we fit together. Kill when something pissed you off."

His wrist was caught by a hand.

"Let go."

You looked at Itadori who was standing next to him and was squeezing his wrist very painfully.

"You're sending kids after me because you can't fight alone? Show them what you really can do. And then we'll be together again, won't we?"

Suddenly, his body was thrown to the ground with great force.

Causing him to cough.

"You stupid brat!" He groaned as he sat on the grass.

"I won't let someone I don't even know hurt (y/n)-san! If she doesn't want you to approach her, then don't!"

"Itadori-kun..."

He smiled slightly at you.

"You think you can beat a grade 1 sorcerer, brat?!"

"I can. I think so. (Y/n)-san is as strong as Gojo-sensei. But even I would win against someone like you. Attacking a woman is not something you can do with impunity."

You heard Kugisaki's soft cheer as he said it.

"Yeah... Especially when it's my woman."

You looked at a very tall man who appeared behind your ex.

Before he could turn around, you saw your husband's hand stick out, and his two fingers point towards the forest.

And as suddenly as he appeared, the man in front of him was thrown into the trees, giving him the perfect passage to you.

"Well said Yuji-kun!" He smiled at his student.

"Sensei!" His eyes glittered.

"Next time that asshole shows up here, don't hesitate to kick his ass. He is walking a very thin line. One move too far and he's a curse user. I won't hesitate to kill him the second time I see him." He placed his fingers on your cheek. With a dark smile.

"What he did?" asked his red-haired student.

"He's always been an asshole. Until finally his stupidity went through the ceiling. And because he got pissed, he killed people on a mission. And the elders thought it was an accident during the fight." You said.

"Satoru..."

"I said I won't hesitate to kill him the second time I meet him..." he said wiping the blood from his cheek.

In his hand was your ex's head. Blood dripping from his head and face.

"He wanted to kill me. He wanted to follow you. He wanted you." He said low. "He told me about a secret technique you have, even though I already know it..."

His clean hand brushed his hair to the side.

"The only thing that wanted to take you away from me. That's the shit." He lifted his head higher. His bloodied body sliding across the floor.

You had to quickly scrub the floor of the blood...

"I was very upset that he touched you... I have to admit it. I never thought I'd have to kill him. But I don't give a shit. People who want me to be lonely will end up like this. You are all I have left for me. Don't run away from me, okay? Don't leave me alone... I did it for you."

You smiled slightly at him.

"I will not run away. Thank you."

You walked over to him, hugging his chest. His clean clothes, not stained with blood thanks to the infinity on his body.

You release yourself from anything that can separate you.

You protect each other.

Long black hair flowed with the movement of the man who stood in front of the kneeling Satoru.

You knew the features of this face from the pictures Satoru had.

Your water snakes disintegrated as soon as they touched this man.

"I appreciate your attempts. Child of the Water Manipulation Technique." He suddenly smiled. "Or rather... Child of the Secret Blood Technique of the family (l/n)."

You widened eyes and took a step back. Curses have no body...

And you no longer have water from the tanks on your belt...

"(y/n)...! Run!"

You looked at your husband's face as he looked at you.

Screaming for you to run away?

You were supposed to protect each other...

"You'd be so much more powerful if you used the blood technique. Relying only on water, you can't do anything. Killing in a second, using the human body as a fighting toy. Isn't that more powerful than wasting energy attacking with water that can be dispersed? The blood in the body is closed in a single circuit." He took a few steps towards you. "You can kill me with a flick of your finger."

he whispered.

you felt it. You felt like you could move his blood into his heart and then burst him from the inside out.

But...

Satoru looked at you with such hope...

He made Satoru kneel.... It's unforgivable!

It's awful. A man like him cannot be humiliated.

He wanted you to run away.

Suddenly, the black-haired man felt a tightness in his heart. He couldn't feel his legs or arms. But he was still standing. As blood rushed to one spot in his body. To burst his heart.

"(y/n)!"

"Don't listen to your husband. Become like him. Like your ancestor. Become a sorcerer monster who used the blood technique to kill anyone who was nearby. Kill the heart of your husband who believes that you are not like your families. Show that, just like them, you will do anything for power and victory."

Your hand was lowered as you fell to your knees exhausted.

You didn't see the smile of the man in front of you.

"Prison Realm, Gate."

He pointed at you, and then a piece of the passage stuck to you. And you were pushed into your husband's body.

"I'll see you in the new world. Two of the strongest sorcerers."

"Sorry..."

"What matters is that you're okay."

"I don't want to be a monster..."

"(y/n) calm down. Nothing happened. What matters is that you are whole..."

"Satoru... I'm so tired..."

"Huh?"

He suddenly grabbed you as you lay down with your eyes closed on him. He was sitting in one place.

"Hey... What's going on? Honey..."

"I don't feel any energy..."

"I don't feel the cursed energy either... We're locked in here..."

"I don't feel any energy in my body at all..."

He widened his eyes.

Your technique is water.

Your energy is like water.

By taking away your cursed energy, you are like a man in a desert without water.

Even though you're not dying of thirst, you're so tired. You want to go to sleep. You want relief..

"Don't fall asleep, please don't leave me here..." he moaned.

"Can I at least get some sleep?"

"And if you don't wake up... (y/n)!"

"I'm still here. I'm not leaving you. I'll only sleep for a moment." ...

"How long does she sleep?"

"Since we were locked up in the prison Realm. She fell asleep there."

"She should wake up soon. Thanks to her being with you, at least she's alive. If only she had been locked up there, she would certainly not have been cared for when she got out. Anyway, she's just sleeping. So don't cry anymore, Gojo."

...

"How can I not cry when I thought I was alone again?"

....

When you open your eyes, he was lying next to you in bed.

"Good morning Baby."

You were hugged by him as soon as you looked at him.

He started kissing and hugging you.

Even if I didn't know what it was about.

"You finally woke up..."

"How much have I been sleeping.... Toru..."

He looked at you with a childish smile.

"Soon..."

He wasn't telling you the truth because for you, that time was like a while. But he didn't know if it was minutes or hours. Or days.

That's why it was soon.

You lay on his shoulder while he was nestled in your hair, sometimes kissing your forehead.

They all came to you.

Lots of people who you don't know...

But they were still nice.

"How do you feel?"

"Very good." you said to your husband when he asked.

Then he hugged you again.

Then you looked at the people around you.

"Where's Kugisaki?" You asked calmly.

Nobody answered you.

you understood...

"And Megumi?"

You looked at Satoru who was looking at you seriously.

"Honey... I'd like to ask you for help... To get Megumi back..."

"To get back?"

"We must destroy Sukuna to get him back..."

Suddenly he turned around.

"It doesn't make sense... I won't put you at risk." he said looking at you with the same eyes you've seen before.

The ones you saw when he killed your ex.

Caring but dark.

You got up and cupped his cheeks.

"You protect me, I protect you. It's been that way since first sight, and it will be. Even if we may die. If so, we will die together. Neither of us will be lonely."

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk #gojo x reader #gojo x y/n #gojo satoru #jujustu kaisen #jjk x you #jjk x reader #gojo #gojo fanfic #gojo saturo #gojo smut #gojo satoru x reader #gojo x you #jujutsu kaisen x reader

797 notes · View notes

sheisjoeschateau · 9 months ago

Text

"Oh, so we DO love Steve..." | PART III

⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆ SERIES MASTERLIST ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾⋆⁺₊⋆

Steve Harrington x Bauman!fem!reader enemies to lovers, heavy angst, hurt/comfort, upside down mayhem, S2-S4, post S4 universe hot-take, end-of-the-world / dystopian setting, ugly fights turned smut (...but with hella plot). 18+

CHAPTER WARNINGS: mega plot-driven smut ahead in this part of the story. you've been warned. MINORS, DNI. 18+

***

Despite everything, you and Steve both get through battling Vecna. You both grin and bear it. You both set aside your differences when the moment calls for it.

Just like you have before. Many times.

And in the midst of it all, you can't help but wonder about your uncle. How he's doing. If he's somewhere in his bunker still, hopefully drinking less (ideally, not at all) and keeping up his phone calls with Joyce. You'd told her to keep tabs on him, and you also told your uncle to keep tabs on her. They needed each other. You had the kids and the teens, but they needed each other. And sure, your uncle has you. Always. But you have to work, and babysit, and hang around a guy who hates your guts because the circumstances won't permit otherwise.

Eddie and Robin really stick up for you. They do. They really like you. Steve can’t stand it.

Even Nancy doesn’t mind you. Honestly, she’s scared of you more than anything. Steve doesn’t care.

The kids love you. Steve won’t make them hate you. He never would. But he won’t endorse their kind sentiments about you either.

More groups are formed, along with more plans. Scary, life-threatening plans.

You stay behind with Dustin and Eddie, knowing that Steve is quietly a basket case over the concept leaving Dustin alone without having him there to protect him from all this shit, the way he has before. With the demodogs, the Russians, and everything up to this point. That kid is his brother. His son.

It’s the only time that Steve tells you thank you.

And he sincerely means it.

By the grace of some unspeakable force, you manage to not only keep Dustin alive...but also Eddie. The bats have done their damage, and you've got some damage yourself. Though not nearly as bad as Eddie. You can withstand yours with adrenaline and the sheer need to protect one of your kids and get this metalhead back to the real world so that he can get proper medical attention.

When Steve and the girls all get back to the three of you there, after all the shit hits the fan - you, Steve, Nancy, Robin and Dustin all manage to get Eddie back across the gate and get him majorly patched up. Thanks to Dr. Owens.

You keep Eddie hidden at Murray's bunker. You're shocked to find it empty, your worry growing more every single minute. But Steve tries to assure you that your uncle is likely fine, probably just out to eat or something. However... even he knows that is not true. Murray does not go anywhere.

"Bauman," he's saying to you, softly. So softly. Softer than he's ever spoken to you once. "He's gonna be okay. I promise. We're here, alright?"

Two days later, Jonathan and his Cali crew all show up. Nancy and him are reunited.

And you watch Steve break.

He doesn’t let it show, not really. But you see it. Both you and Robin do. You let her comfort him. He needs his best friend, much more than he needs you. Especially in this situation. You are undoubtedly the last source of comfort for him in this specific instance.

You reunite with your Uncle Murray, who has returned with Joyce and — to your surprise — a very much alive Hopper. It’s a beautiful reunion, as you all hug tightly.

You all fucking lived, bitch.

Given the new flurry of debris-snow-shit in the air, you all end up having to take shelter.

Steve volunteers his house, given that his parents fled to their vacation home and he told them he wasn’t going. They ditch him, so he has the house all to himself. This time, he doesn’t have to be alone though. He has his real family.

You all move into the Harrington House. Lord knows it’s big enough. But it’s also really tight, for two people who can’t stand each other unless there’s a really ugly monster guy waltzing around that needs to be killed along with his multi-species army of little uglies.

Given the close quarters, on top of the fact that you all can’t leave the house much unless it’s for supplies, you and Steve have no choice but to coexist.

He still resents you, especially seeing Nancy and Jonathan are now getting along again and seem to be doing better. But it's much more subdued now, and you both find a way to talk. Which happens mainly because of you, initiating.

You learn more about Steve's home life, given the pictures everywhere throughout the house. They're all pretty stiff, lacking warmth. You figured that Steve was a pretty lonely trust fund baby, and being that you're a lonely child you can relate to the loneliness that comes with that. Not the trust fund part. Just the only-child-syndrome part, which you know perfectly well forces you to either become very well acquainted with yourself...or hate yourself even more. Steve clearing did not lean into becoming his own source of reliability and companionship, the way that you did. And it made you understand him better. It made you understand why he needed to be around the likes of Carol and Tommy H. He did not know how to be alone with himself.

"I think my dad and I don't even like the same beer," Steve scoffs, allowing himself a humorless chuckle. You don't laugh with him, instead giving him a soft look. An apology with your eyes.

"And my mom, she just...I dunno. Sometimes, I wonder why she never left him."

You let Steve reveal as little or as much as he wants to. It just depends on the day.

The two of you watch out for the kids. You both go with them to visit Max in the hospital. You even initiate finding a way to get her to stay there while in a coma, thanks to enlisting the help of your uncle to help enlist the help of Dr. Owens. The kids love you for that.

Steve doesn’t love you… But he appreciates you.

A lot. He's beginning to find appreciation for you, for a lot of things.

Your uncle clocks the very niche tension between the two of you, now that you’re all under the same roof and he’s given no choice but to.

And damn, it makes him curious. He is, after all, the witch doctor of love…

Nevertheless, Murray takes his time choosing when to strike.

As you and Steve both help nurse Eddie back to health, and read to Max in her coma (which leads to both of you just simply talking), and make the kids laugh together, and even make conversation with Nancy and Jonathan (…it’s very double date ish) Murray watches his niece — and mannnnnn, is he amuuuuuused.

One night, you and Steve stay up to share some drinks with the adults. It’s the first time that the two of you actually make each other really laugh, heartily. The drinks help.

That’s sort of Murray’s plan. Vodka is, after all, the holy grail.

Even Eddie joins, along with Robin. But Steve sits next to you. Not his best friend, or the new friend he’s made in the metalhead. Nope, he sits his perfect, hunky ass that makes all the ladies drool right next to little ole you.

And damn, do you both laugh.

Murray’s never seen you laugh that hard with anyone in his life. He wonders if you’ve ever laughed that way at all.

And the way that Harrington looks at you? Especially when you’re not looking… Holy shit.

And the way you look at him the same way... makes Murray grin ear to ear like a mischievous kid with the plan to wreak havoc.

Hopper and Joyce are so settled into their relationship, and Jonathan seems to be winning back the love of Nancy. Eddie and Robin are so single it hurts, but it's legendary too. And you? Steve? Well, you guys are mortal enemies. And yet somehow, sitting here in the Harrington's living room with glasses of chilled vodka, belly-laughing over anything -- you and Steve exude more chemistry than all of them combined.

So when everyone goes to bed, and Murray catches you alone, he grills you. Not like the others. Nah, you’re family. He’ll cut you some slack.

…not much, though.

It sobers you right up.

"Do not tell me for one second that you don't think he's gorgeous," your uncle is saying in a low voice. You're both standing in his bedroom, having fetched him a tall glass of water which turned out just be a way to fucking lure you into his witchdoctor trap.

"I love you Uncle Murray. I really do. But this theory? -- is not one of your other bullseye's."

"Face it, kiddo," your uncle is smirking. "Your uncle's never wrong. You're just never the one on the other end of his lectures when he's making astute observations. You're always contributing to it. But this time? You're the leading lady, darling."

"False."

"You like Steve."

"Murray...!"

"You like Steve..."

You try to tell your uncle that everything he is saying is nonsense. Steve hates you. He absolutely hates you. Loathes and despises you, and plans to do so until you’re all particles of dust.

“Plus, he is so fucking annoying and whiny and entitled and has zero self respect unless it’s up against someone who calls him out for his shit,” you tell your uncle, gesturing to yourself on the last part. “Steve Harrington is a cocky guy who would just rather suffer in his own misery than ever see or lean into being this...this incredible man that he's...capable of being, the role model he has become to those kids, who love him, they love the human most deserving of being put first —”

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

…oh fuck.

The silence is deafening. Murray’s smirk and all-knowing glare only adds to your being aware of what you just said to him, and admitted to yourself, out loud.

“Oh…oh so we do love Steve.”

Your uncle’s words are the cherry on top of the cake you just baked, and didn’t know you had the ingredients to make.

You don’t sleep that night.

***

The next morning, you and Steve both sit with Max.

"Wondering what she wrote in yours?"

Steve is nodding at the stack of letters on the bedside table. You all left them there, promising yourselves not to open them. Because she will wake up.

Lucas took it hard, Max dying. You'd been there to hold him, comfort him, along with Steve. You both watched him burst into tears numerous times, sometimes sobbing uncontrollably, despite the fact that she was somehow still here. It broke both your hearts, but you both got through it with him. Together.

And while the other kids were taking it hard too...so fucking hard...it was Steve who carried the most guilt. Remorse, anguish and guilt.

"I failed my kid," Steve had told you at the hospital once. You looked at him with a furrowed brow and concerned eyes.

"Steve, no you didn't."

His voice shook, eyes drowning in nightmarish thoughts. "I wasn't there for her. I wasn't -- wasn't..."

"You could never fail those kids. Not even if you tried."

He didn't believe you. But he wanted to. You had squeezed his hand that day, sitting in the waiting room. And to your surprise, not only did he let you...but he squeezed it back, letting your hands rest that way for an hour as you fell asleep in the seats before being woken up.

And now, sitting in one of his guest rooms while Max lay asleep in the coma still, you can see that guilt in him is spreading.

Steve is holding the letter that she gave to him, and you ask him if he’s wanting to read it.

Steve snorts. "God, you kidding? She'll wake up just to kill me before going right back to sleep."

You smirk, biting back a real laugh. “True.”

But Steve looks conflicted. He fiddles with the letter in his hands, wanting to tear it open. You know that he does.

“…want me to read it out loud to you instead? She can kill me in your place.”

Steve chuckles at that.

...but he doesn’t say no.

In fact, after biting his lip for a minute and thinking, he finds himself nodding. Yes. Please, read it to me, he’s thinking.

So you do.

You take the letter and read it to him. You read him the words that only a little sister could write to a big brother who she loves and wishes she will grow up to be like. You read him words that make him light up like a Christmas tree, yet cause him a painful ache deep within his bones. You read him a letter of love that no one ever took the time to write, let alone express, to him his entire life.

Steve fights tears. He bites them back, successfully. You’re the last person he ever wants to see him vulnerable. Hell, he can’t even see himself like that without judging his own self harshly. He can only imagine that you will, too.

He doesn’t know, though, that not only would you never judge him for that. But selfishly, you wish he would feel safe with you. Or God, someone at least. Just not Nancy. Someone who deserves him wholeheartedly.

"Steve," you speak softly.

He's staring into space, zoned out. But then, he finally looks over at you. He sees the kindness in him, and it almost takes his breath away. The way that you look at him...he just never thought you could...that you could --

"You're all of these things. Everything she wrote in this? You're all of it. And then some. You're the hero all those kids dream of being when they grow up. You're their favorite person. The one they trust, go to for everything. Even if you don't think that they do, they do."

He listens, unable to move. Speak. Breathe.

"You are...a great person, Steve Harrington."

***

That night, there’s a knock on your door. You’ve been given the guest room upstairs with no bunk mate. Unlike most of the people in the house. But given that Joyce and Hopper are together now, and El sleeps in Max’s room to keep watch, the four younger boys share a room with Eddie, Nancy is with Jonathan, Erica sleeps at her own house and Robin shares Steve’s room since she splits her time here and at home — you and Murray got the solo rooms.

Steve is now grateful for those sleeping arrangements tonight.

Because when you open the door, he’s on the other side. He looks sad, conflicted and lost. Like his mind is racing at a million miles an hour, yet can’t think of anything to say. He’s tongue tied, just staring at you expectantly…

What is he expecting?

“What’s wrong?” you ask. “Is it Max?”

Something about your question makes Steve brows pinch together. Like it’s suddenly confusing him even more. But he doesn’t speak.

You wait patiently. But truth be told, you are anxious as fuck. Because damn, he’s pretty. He is so stupid pretty. And fuck it’s annoying. His lips are just the right shape in a pout, and it’s really fucking annoy —

His lips are crashing into yours before you can even finish dissecting them.

Steve is kissing you like life depends on it. Gentle at first, but eager. Determined.

And when you both pulls back -- you don’t hesitate for more than a solid 2-3 seconds, your eyes shocked while his eyes silently ask, is this okay?

Your lips crashing back against his answers — yes.

Steve is a hurricane of both madness and all things serene in the ways that he touches your body. He explores your skin with his lips and hands, as if he has all the time in the world. The curve of your jaw and neck. The jut of your collarbones. The feel of your clavicle, which leads him to the shape of your tits and nipples. He cherishes your body, hungrily exploring it. It’s heated, hot and heavy. He licks a stripe down your abdomen to the waistband of your sweatpants. The way his brown irises look up at you, all round and doe eyed, makes the back of your throat groan with need. It’s not loud or brash, nor is it strained and quiet. It’s soft but certain. Steve melts at it, his fingers curling one by one around the band of your sweatpants, his eyes still asking — please?

You’re nodding without even having to hear a word out of him. And Steve pulls.

Euphoria is the feeling of Steve’s tongue exploring your folds. It’s the sound of him sighing into your portal in pure pleasure, and the way he sucks your clit with fervency yet flicks it with supple patience. His hands knead into your thighs, one of them reaching to squeeze your hips so that he can pull himself up to you and let you taste yourself on his tongue. He wraps an arm underneath your waist, hooking you to him, asking in the breathiest of whimpers, “Please let me, angel.”

He’s getting a fistful of your hair into one of his big hands, adoring the way that you squeak a yelp. You suck on his tongue, hard, and it’s enough to drive him mad. He pins himself against you, grinding. But you sit up, keeping your bodies glued together and now using your teeth to tug on his lip and paralyze him in pure ecstasy. You take the opportunity to slide your teeth and tongue down his jaw and neck, trailing pecks and kisses along the way, and the throaty whimper he lets out makes you see stars behind your hooded eyes as you drag your tongue down his chest. The wet stripe you’re leaving glides down to his toned abdomen’s bunny trail, and as you curl your fingers around his sweatpants, you pause… letting your lips press the most fluttery of kisses to each of his scars.

Steve can’t help the shudders, sighs and whimpers that escape his lips, along with your name. It’s raw, uncensored. He clutches your hand, which you extend up to him in a greedy grab as you slowly work his pants down with your other hand. You hook your fingers onto his chin, forcing him to let go of your hand in his and look down at you. He does, and it’s game over. You watch him and never break eye contact as you use both hands to push down his briefs…

…and thank God for that — because otherwise, you would see just what you’re up against as far as pleasuring him goes.

You feel the tip of his hard length tap your chin, and you scoot farther down into the mattress — on your knees like a perfect angel. Your tongue plays with its head, tasting the tang of his pre-cum, and Steve is shaking so hard he can’t stand it. He clenches his jaw, gritting out blissful curses through his teeth. “Fuck, baby, fuck.”

You take in the intense length of him, pleasuring him until he is touching the back of your throat and nearly gagging you senseless, and the mess he is up above you — it sends your mind into a tailspin. He has never looked so pretty, eyes squeezed shut except when he’s glancing back down at you with more fondness and adoration than you ever thought possible from not only a man who hates you…but any man at all.

And when Steve is just about to cum, he begins to beg. “P-please. Wait, please.”

His hands urgently cup your jaw, forcing you to look back up at him and cease your sickeningly perfect work. He pulls, and you follow. He drinks you in with his gaze, staring into your soul, as if he’s trying to figure you out. He stares and stares, his thumbs stroking your cheeks, his brown eyes searching yours like you are the most beautiful mystery he has ever needed to solve. He looks as though he might ask you something. Say something...

But he dives in to kiss you again before he lets himself.

His hand wraps around the bend of one of your knees, tugging it up so that he can hook your leg around his waist. Then he does it to the other. And before you know it, you’re straddling him.

“Fuck, Bauman, please,” Steve Harrington groans into your mouth. Then softer, murmuring against your lips as he kisses them endlessly, “please let me, please.”

And you know what he is asking. You know what he wants. You don’t have to even think twice. Lifting yourself up, lining him with your entrance, he stretches you out and the euphoric sting of it sucks the air right out of you. And Steve.

Steve is winded by the feeling of how tight your walls are, and by just how right it feels to be inside of you. You both fit. Like a perfect match.

At this point, you’re both a frenzy of fucking. You ride him – slow, hard, fast, all of it. Steve keens into your mouth, then your neck as he buries his face there — completely overwhelmed. You hold his head there, comfortingly and securely, and so fucking perfectly as your fingers tug at the ends of his perfect hair.

“I’ve got you, baby,” your voice shakes in a breathy whisper, just for him. “Let it all go.”

And Steve does. His fingers dig into the curve of your back, pulling you impossibly closer to him as he presses the loud growl of his climax into your bare shoulder. He releases himself into you, hot and loaded, and you drip just as much onto him as he just shot into you.

As if that wasn’t enough to send you reeling — enough to make you see angels and devils and god — it’s the way that Steve shudders against you, catching his breath…and then pulls back to look at you…that renders you speechless.

His hairline leaks sweat, his face beaded with it. His eyelids are hooded, the dark brown irises dazed and daring to meet your gaze. His lips are parted perfectly — and the way he looks up at you with his tousled hair, somehow still perfect after it’s been pulled and messed with, is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. Steve Harrington is so fucking beautiful. He’s an all-American boy, yet a Greek god.

The way that Steve gently brings your forehead to his, breathing against you, closing his eyes at the contact — you find yourself timidly nuzzling the tip of your nose to his. And you feel him smile against you, opening your eyes just enough to steal a peek — and that’s when you feel a deep ache in your heart and soul that might as well kill you.

Because now you realize. That is love.

Steve is love.

But you let it die inside of you tonight, not wanting to make this moment end any sooner than it has to. Instead, you let Steve entangle his limbs with yours, not daring to ask if he wants to stay. Because if you do, he’ll likely leave. He’ll realize that being in bed with you is the last place that he wants to be, and that he’s made a mistake. He’ll go back to hating you, more than he already does, and it will be the death of you. So instead, you just let it ride out however it’s supposed to.

You try not to count the minutes as Steve absentmindedly traces circles with his fingertips on your skin. Your hip bones, your shoulder blades, your spine. You tell yourself to forget that time and its limits exist as you stroke the hair at the nape of Steve’s neck, your temple against his forearm, his outer arm draped over you. You tell yourself that this is it. This is heaven. This is eternity. You tell yourself even if you wake up and it’s just a dream, you’ll remember it for as long as you live. Because on the other side of death is this, and it will never end.

You let that ease your mind as he presses his lips to your forehead and you no longer fight sleep.

So when you do wake up…and find that Steve is still there…you’re shocked. But you stay that way until he wakes. He looks at you in awestruck wonder. Not confusion or regret. Just…wonder.

He props himself up on an elbow, still looking at you, deep in thought. All you can do is stare back, wishing you knew what the hell he was thinking but not daring to ask. It wasn’t worth risking this. You stay that way for a little while.

He finally breathes a sigh, whispering, “Kids will be up soon.”

You give him a soft smile and gentle nod. You can already see Dustin waking up to go knock down Steve’s door, and that’s…not gonna end well if he finds out that Steve is walking out of your room instead.

Steve contemplates god-knows-what for another long moment before pressing a quick kiss into your hairline as he rises.

You watch him stand and dress himself, your heart throbbing at the way he looks in the early morning light streaming through the windows. His body is god-like. Tall, lean and athletic. His skin has the most beautiful constellation of moles that put the entire galaxy of stars to shame. And you ache at the thought of never being able to touch them again.

He gives you a soft grin after he throws his t-shirt back on, and before you know it he’s gone.

You lay there staring at nothing, feeling yourself leak a couple of silent tears and wondering why. You find yourself afraid to get up and face whatever new reality lies ahead of you on the other side of that door.

***

thanks for reading :) comment to be added to my tag list for this series.

tags: @erastourvip @xprloki @get0ut0fmyr00m @eddiemuns0nl0ver @marrowfrog00

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington angst #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington x you #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington stranger things #dustin henderson #murray bauman #enemies to lovers trope #they're in love your honor #Murray is a schemer #sorry stancy

261 notes · View notes

nelo0wesker · 3 months ago

Text

Who is she? Part 3

Part 1, part 2

Armando x reader

@violetmuses @nobodygetsza @onlyrealjoy @yeahnohoneybye

—————-

Y/N smiles watching kids play at the cookout. She was watching Mike and Marcus argue with each other about being on the grill. She turns her head seeing team AMMO talking with her now fiancé Armando Aretas. Reggie was also in their conversation talking about who knows what. She wasn’t close enough to hear but she could guess what they were talking about.

She turns her head seeing Theresa, Megan, and Christine setting the table and talking to each other. Y/N eyes move past them to look in the distance and her heart drops seeing a figure getting out of the car. She recognized the man. The man just happened to be her father's best friend. She watches the man pull out a baggy and put it in the trash looking her dead in the eyes. The man after putting the baggy in the trash goes back into the car and gets in driving away.

Y/N's breathing picks up watching the car drive away but her focus is on the trash can. She gulps trying to regulate her breathing but nothing is working. Her hands grip onto the wooden table she sits at. She could hear her heart pounding as she kept looking at that trash can. Her ears are ringing. She felt herself becoming dizzy and nauseous.

Armando chuckles hearing Dorn talk about his latest case he and Kelly did together when he turns to you and stops smiling seeing you. He immediately goes to you, seeing you struggling. “Y/N,” he says getting to you. “Cariño, qué pasa?” He questions and then pauses seeing you having a panic attack. “Breath in and breathe out,” Armando tells her watching as her eyes start to focus on the surroundings.

“Dime lo que ves?” He tells her watching as her breathing calms down as she looks around. “Hierba, mesas, Mike, Marcus,… Tú” she says, calming down and leans into him. He kisses her forehead wondering what the fuck happened when he wasn’t paying attention to you. He looks at your face and pauses seeing you're not looking at him but at the trash can at the edge of the park.

“I’ll be right back mami,” he tells her and goes to his father and uncle. “Y/N just had a panic attack… I don’t know why she had it but something or someone triggered it.” Armando tells them side eyeing you to make sure you don’t go into a panic attack again but all he sees is you looking at that trash can. Mike turns to look at his soon-to-be daughter-in-law. He looks over to where your gaze is. His eyes furrow seeing the trash can. “Distract her Armando I’ll go see what’s in that trash can,” he told his son walking towards it.

Armando goes back to you to distract you from what Mike is doing or to look away from the trash can. He grabs water and gives it to you so you can drink it. He kisses your forehead watching his father pull out a bag. He looks at the bag closely and his eyes widen seeing a symbol on the bag. When Y/N tried to look in the direction of the trash can, Armando immediately took her attention away from where she was about to look.

Mike, seeing Armando look quickly, hid the bag so Y/N didn’t see him holding it. Mike went behind Armando grabbing his son's leather jacket that he set on the table and hid the bag under it making sure Y/N didn’t see. “Y/N go help Theresa, Megan, and Christine,” Armando tells her kissing her forehead as she gets up and leaves the father-and-son duo.

“What’s that symbol on that bag? And why does it have Y/N freaked out?” Mike questions his son. Armando looks at his father and then moves his leather jacket up to reveal just the symbol after making sure you couldn’t see it. “It’s the mafia symbol,” he tells him, and Mike curses. “Thought the mafia didn’t want anything to do with her anymore,” Mike tells him. “True… but it’s cause they thought she was dead this whole time. When Ivan shot her while we were in that burning warehouse. It was made to believe I left her there and she died in the fire. The mafia must have figured out she was alive when she got kidnapped” Armando tells him.

Mike looks at his son and then his soon-to-be daughter-in-law. “They could have known she was alive. Maybe just waiting for the right moment. Could have known when you were arrested.” Mike told him. “Impossible I made sure Y/N wasn’t retractable. She wasn’t even part of the plan. Didn’t even meet my mother yet…” he whispers. “The only person that could of known Y/N was alive is Ivan”

Mike pauses hearing that. “Ivan?! Isn’t Ivan the same one that shot her?”. Armando nods his head “Ivan was ordered to kill her but he didn’t. Ivan has a better aim than that. If he wanted her dead Y/N would be dead. Most likely her other siblings want her dead but we don’t talk about them. It’s the fact that her father wanted her dead. Who knows how many he killed that were his kids? Y/N hasn’t told me how some of her siblings died but I believe it was by that man. It isn’t a coincidence that a girl accidentally put herself on fire. Especially in the mafia…” Armando revealed to his father.

“What do you mean put herself on fire?” Mike questioned. “That’s what I mean.. Carmen put herself on fire. Y/N sister. Well, that’s how everyone heard but people know that isn’t true. of that bastard kids are dead. Y/N was next… thank god I was able to save her in time” he whispers and looks at the bag.

Armando goes and opens the bag. He stops just seeing a phone. He grabs it and turns it over to look at the screen. The wallpaper of the phone was two little kids and a teen. One of the kids looked like a younger version of Y/N. The other kid looked like Ivan. Mike looks at the screen as well wondering who the teen was. “Who’s the teen?” Mike questions. Armando shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know. I think one of Y/N siblings” he tells his father and Mike nods his head.

Armando goes to open it but it needs a password. “Fuck” he curses and looks over in your direction seeing you distracted by Christine, Theresa, and Megan. He turns his head to hear footsteps coming towards them and sees Dorn, Kelly, and Rita. Reggie had gone to go to his wife and help out. “What y'all got there?” Dorn questions seeing the bag and a phone. Rita raises her eyebrow as Mike looks behind him, seeing you laughing at what Christine said. He turns back to the group and whispers “Mafia”. Kelly’s eyes widened hearing what he said and looked at the contents. “How do you know?” Rita asks him.

“The symbol is a dead giveaway of the Spanish mob,” Armando tells her. “The wallpaper of this phone relates to Y/N. Has a picture of her younger ". Rita looks at the phone screen and sees the similarities of the young girl to Y/N. She looked at the other boy and the teen. “Who’s the other two?” She questions. “The teen I’m not sure but the child is definitely Ivan. He’s the only one in her family that’s close to age and looks alike.”

Dorn looks at the screen. “Can you open it?” He questions. “No, it's locked. Need a password and Y/N most likely knows it” the Latino male says, closing the phone and putting it in his pocket. “I can unlock it,” Dorn tells him and Armando nods his head at him. “We'll do it later. Something is on this phone”

————-

It is now night. Y/N stayed over at Mike and Christine's house while Mike and Armando went over to Dorn and Kelly’s place. In the company of Marcus. The three walk into the place as Armando hands Dorn the phone. Dorn takes the phone and hooks it up to his computer and starts typing to figure out the password.

It didn’t take long but he got the password but it ended up triggering a video to pop up. Multiple of them. “Hey guys… you might wanna look at this” he tells everyone.

Armando, Mike, Marcus, Kelly, and Rita looked at the screen as the video played revealing a little girl and a boy. Younger versions of Y/N and Ivan. The video was outdated because of how old it was but it was fine. They could still make out what was happening in the video.

Armando's eyes widen seeing how your father was revealed to have shot the teenager later known as Gael in the head for arguing with his father. Another video pops up of a teenage version of Carmen. Gasoline was poured on her while she screamed at her father in Spanish.

“¡Papá, papá, por favor, perdóname! ¡Por favor, no lo hagas!-“ she screams as her father lights a match and burns her ablaze. The background of the room revealed a young you watching with little to no emotion. Ivan also has the same look. You two have the most emotionless stare.

“This guy is an asshole,” Marcus says, getting pissed off. “That’s her father,” Armando tells them. “That’s her daddy?!” Marcus says shocked. “If I ever see him I’m beating his ass,” Marcus tells him watching the video and hearing the screams of Carmen still going off. “Joining you on that,” Mike says watching your father turn to you. Couldn’t make out what he was saying but it had you scared so it was clearly a threat.

More videos were played. The training, the abuse, the manipulation. It showed it all. “Father of the year,” Dorn says sarcastically. Watching the videos play and then come to a stop. “These videos can be used against him,” Rita tells them. “Even if we used these videos. Spain wouldn’t be arresting him… he practically owns Spain” Armando tells them. “His influence is everywhere in Spain. He’ll get out immediately”. “Great,” Mike says. “No matter what he does or says in Spain. He’s a hero to the people… like Benito in Mexico” Armando whispers.

Mike sighs hearing that. “Asshole” and looks at the phone. “Why leave the phone for Y/N?” Mike questions. He thinks for a minute until Armando speaks. “Her father wants her to talk to him”. Dorn looks at them and then looks at the call list. “There’s no number,” he tells them. “Doesn’t matter. She knows his number so he expects to talk to her,” Armando tells them. His head turns around hearing a noise and stops seeing you.

“Y/N nena, ¿por qué estás aquí?” He asks her confused getting up and goes to her as Dorn quickly removes the videos so you don’t see them. Y/N watches her fiance come up to her. She gives a small smile. “I know what y'all been doing,” she tells them. Mike and Marcus wince upon hearing that and look away. Armando winces he knew he shouldn’t have hid what he was doing from you.

Y/N sighs going up to the computer as Armando follows her. She grabs the phone and immediately unlocks it knowing the code. She pauses seeing the background of her, Ivan, and Gael. “This is Gael,” she says referring to the teen. “He was the first to be killed. Me and my father never had a good relationship” she whispers and goes to call him. She puts in her father's number which she knows by heart.

She hears the phone ring and then the call starts. “Papa…” she says as there’s a silence. “Hija..” her father says over the phone. “¿Por qué?” She questions him. Her father took a minute to answer. “Eras indómito, rebelde, frío. No podía controlarte a ti ni a Iván. Así que elegí deshacerme de uno. Se suponía que México iba a ser tu último viaje... pero ese chico te salvó. Se suponía que ibas a morir.” He tells her and Armando's eyes harden hearing your father's words. “Te entrené para ser un asesino. Para no desobedecerme, pero lo hiciste.”

Y/N looks at the phone. “No, me has entrenado. Dejaste que las demás hicieran eso. Lo hice todo por ti. ¡¿Hice lo que me dijeron y luego tratas de que me maten?! Era leal. ¡Hice las incursiones, los asesinatos, el trato, maté a todos los que estaban en esa lista de éxitos!” She says angrily. “No mataste a todos por mí. Ese prometido tuyo que quería muerto. Quería a Armando Aretas muerto”

Mike took the phone. “You ain’t killing my son! I am glad that she is no longer in your control. I can’t say anything else about your other children but I feel bad for them being raised by a monster like you.” A laugh comes from the phone. “Mike Lowrey. You think you can save your son and my daughter from me?!” He says in his Spanish accent. “I can ruin Y/N's life by sending what she’s done to your government”. Mike looks at the phone hard. “You’ll really try and ruin your daughter's life. Your crimes are worse than hers!” Mike tells him pissed. He’ll make sure that your father won’t touch you or Armando.

“I will do it. I can have every gang come and try to kill her. Putting a bounty on her head isn’t hard Detective. A lot of people want her dead. The Italians, Russians, etc. she done them wrong. May be from my orders but she still assassinates members of our rivals. Once they figure out the mafia wants her dead and put a bounty over her head. It’s over” he reveals to Mike. Mike's hand tightens over the phone. “You wouldn’t dare,” Mike tells him. “I already have” The call ended making Mike curse.

“Uh, guys!” Dorn says typing on his computer. A bounty of you shows. The bounty has a time limit. Worth 20 million right now but once that timer is gone the bounty would go up to 40 million. “DAMN!” Marcus says, looking at the screen and seeing the bounty. “I thought the bounty of us was crazy! But no, your daddy wants you dead Y/N.” Marcus says now looking at her.

Armando's fists tighten seeing the bounty that was placed on your head. His soon-to-be wife now life is in danger again. Y/N looks at the bounty with little to no emotion. “I need to get out of Miami,” she says about to leave but Mike gets in front of her. “No no, you're not leaving. We’ll get this sorted” he tells her and she just looks at him like he is crazy. “I need to leave before anyone gets killed! It’ll be a war zone if I stay.” Y/N tried to move to the side to leave but Armando grabbed her wrist. “I am not leaving you to fend for yourself. We are doing this together” he tells her and hugs her tightly.

She allows the hug closely her eyes breathing in Armando’s scent. Her eyes water as her hug tightens. She didn’t want to put anyone in danger. “Thank you” she whispers.

—————-

Translation

“Baby, what’s wrong?”

“Tell me what you see”

“Grass, table, Mike, Marcus,…You.”

“Father father please forgive me! Please don’t!-“

“Y/N baby why are you here?”

“Father”

“Daughter”

“Why”

“You were untamed, Rebellious, cold. I couldn't control you or Ivan. So l chose to get rid of one.Mexico was supposed to be your last trip... but that boy saved you. You were supposed to die.”

“I trained you to be a killer. To not disobey me but you did.”

“You didn't train me. You left the others to do that. I did everything for you. I did what I was told and then you try and get me killed?! I was loyal. I did the raids, the kills, the dealing, killed everyone on that hit list!”

“You didn't kill everyone for me. That fiancé of yours I wanted dead. I wanted Armando Aretas dead”

#jacob scipio #armando aretas #bad boys #armando aretas x reader #mike lowrey #marcus burnett #my writing

142 notes · View notes

starsexplodeatnight · 9 months ago

Text

John Price X Reader!

My first published piece!

Captain John Pricex Reader!

Minors do not engage!

You loved him, really. But, John Price is a lot to handle. Yes, he is a family man, a great husband, a wonderful provider. But he holds on too tight. Tight enough to strangle. You- You had to do it.

even though it felt like your heart was being ripped out of your chest when he found out... Oh, his poor watery blue eyes you loved so much...

You cried your eyes out in bed that night, alone.

Price is eh, heh- heh, heh, heh. He's not letting you go, love. Not ever.

You live in this incredible house, curtesy of your husband's high paying career in the military. It's the perfect place for children to grow up...

Toxic Ex-husband Price never leaves. "The house is ours, love. Ours is ours." And leaves no room for debate. He'll live in the in-law apartment above the detached garage, yeah? He's not happy about it and uses every instance he can to weaken your resolve and stop this silly 'separation' nonsense.

Walk's out onto the balcony in the morning in his robe, coffee in hand. The robe is open, exposing his chest to the neighborhood. He doesn't care that the women jogging by can see and stare. He only cares when he sees you stop and stare out your bedroom window, all alone. Before you aggressively close the curtains, trying not to fall for his tricks!

Semi Toxic Ex-husband Price, who still wants all the gossip you used to share with him when you were married. He'll just stroll into the house from the back door and hear you chatting with your friend from Pta.

He does what he used to, sit his ass right next to you and press his ear on the other side of your phone. Does he care about the gossip? Not really, it's amusing, but not really his thing. What he loves? He loves how you used to turn to him and go off. You look so happy, chattering on and on about what you'd just heard. Including him in your life...

He says he doesn't really like the gossip but will get upset if you don't tell him every detail. His job is to know, love. You can't just leave him hanging! He will demand to know more about Patricia from the parent-teacher conferences. She slept with the teacher! You can't leave him hanging on that, luv! Just to get you to talk to him the way you used to.

Semi Toxic Ex-husband Price, who is your mother's favorite.

She hates your sister's boyfriend; she hates your brother's wife. You? You landed the cream of the crop!!!

How could you have left him??? Your grandma, your mother and your aunties LOVE him, smug bastard. He eats it the fuck up...

They greet him like the long-lost son they wish they had! Meeting him at the door with kisses on the cheek, beckoning him towards the kitchen, treating him like royalty. He is the favorite, and he's not even blood!

"Oh, such a handsome man! So nice!" "So polite!" "And respectful!" "Here, is she feeding you enough?" Oh, when they learn you've served him with divorce papers? They all cry out in alarm. Everyone, not just the women. Uncles, Grandpa, Cousins, all of them.

"What you talking 'bout divorce? fah! He still come to family parties!" They would totally be on his side… They all help in his case to get back together with you.

It'd make him so much worse….

Especially if your youngest kid is going to her first day of school. You both drop her off and you bawl your eyes out and he's there to comfort you, just like he had with all the times before… cradling you to his strong but soft chest. So warm... familiar... soothes the heartache you're experiencing.

Do you want another baby? You miss having a little one around now that your youngest is off to school, yeah? He can help with that…

Maybe- Maybe you... Maybe you were too harsh on him. Maybe, give him another chance...

#cod x reader #tf141 x reader #john price #john price x reader #call of duty #cod mw2 #cod #x reader #fem reader

196 notes · View notes

icycoldninja · 3 months ago

Note

Can you write the DMC men with the reader and their daughter looking almost an exact carbon copy of the reader

She got her daddy’s hair color but other than that, she’s a copy paste of the reader with a mix of physical traits from Eva like her fair complexion, her hair’s wavy texture and her cleft chin from DMC5 (this mainly applies to Nero, Dante and Vergil)

(For V and reader’s daughter, you can choose to write either have her hair be white like the original V or be black depending on your personal preference ) but other than that, their daughter’s physical traits and behaviors is almost the same as the reader

P/S: It’s very rare to see daughters looking almost exactly the same/ share more similar traits with their mother but it’s the case with me and my mom. I look nothing like my dad but I look just like my mother, just longer hair and less gray hair

Oh really? Wow, you learn something new every day. Hope you enjoy!

Sparda boys + V x Reader with a mini-me headcannons

¤ Dante ¤

-The minute your bundle of joy was born, you knew she would grow up to look like you. She was delivered literally 2 seconds ago, and she already had your eyes, nose, and lips.

-As she grew older, you discovered she inherited Dante's hair color, but other than that, she looked just like you.

-When Uncle Vergil came over to see her, he thought you sprouted a clone using some sort of demon weapon.

-Dante thinks it's so cute that both his babies look alike. He takes so many pictures of you guys, you had to get a whole new hard drive to store them.

■ Vergil ■

-Vergil's heart melted the moment he saw your little baby, who already looked so much like you.

-Refuses to put her down and carries her around everywhere, mumbling about how sweet and beautiful she is, calling her his little princess.

-Of course, he doesn't forget about you and made sure to give you all the love and affection you could possibly need.

-Insists upon taking care of your daughter by himself, only handing her over to you when she needs mama to hold her. This is because of two reasons: 1) He wants to spend all the time he possibly can with his precious baby, and 2) He wants you to rest.

□ Nero □

-Nero couldn't believe the resemblance! Your daughter had just been born and she already looked like your clone!

-As she grew up, she happened to gain Nero's white hair, (typical for the Sparda bloodline) but other than that, she was basically you.

-Nero is so happy to have two of you and won't stop showering your daughter with kisses, calling her his "precious", sounding more and more like Gollum every day.

-You think it's cute, too. Your daughter is gonna grow up to be a wonderful little lady, just like you.

● V ●

-V was practically in tears when your baby was born.

-Right from the very start, she looked like a copy + paste version of you, just shrunk a little and given a bit more chubbiness.

-When she got older, she started acting more like you, too, the only thing about her that connected her to V was the thick black hair that you often struggled to tame.

-V's heart melts whenever he sees you and your mini-me playing together. You're both just so adorable, it's a priceless memory he'll never forget.

70 notes · View notes

stuckyrogersbarnes · 10 months ago

Text

Step Uncle (Loki, bucky, & y/n smut)

Warnings: bi!loki, bi!bucky, double penetration, daddy kink, *step*uncle, sub!loki, dom!bucky.

[if you feel uncomfortable towards any of the warnings given above, please leave. Don't spread hate. If you do, you're comment will be deleted and if it occurs a second time, you will be blocked. This is not incest, no one in this sex scene is blood-related.]

Word count: 1.3k

Female reader

You groan as you wake up from your slumber. Although, it wasn't really a 'slumber,' since you hardly slept at all. You were in your second year of university, it wasn't that tough. It's just super time-consuming. You were still living with your mom and her new husband (ugh). He was quite the pain in the ass. And please, let's not get started on his brother, James, who is living with us for 4 months. Okay, fine, yes, Barnes is hot, like super hot, but he gets on your nerves and that pisses you off.

"Morning Mum." you yawn and go to the kitchen to make yourself some coffee. "Good morning sweetheart...Uh, Y/n?" "Yes, mother?" you look at her. Oh god, what is it now? "Your father and I are going for a trip, to the Bahamas, for four days." she chuckles. "Cool, when?" "Uh, the flight is in 8 hours. I'm so sorry honey, I just forgot to tell you an-" "Mom. I'm a full-grown adult. It's fine, I can take care of myself. Relax." You reassure her. "Oh sweetie, no. Bucky will be here to help in case anything goes wrong." "What? mom! I'm nineteen!" I whine, "I know darling but he's already here so..." she shrugs. "Ugh. Fine."

-Time jump (it's now 9 pm and you're in your room)-

"Okay, safe travels." You hang up. Your mom had seated in the plane and was about to take off. You dial someone else's number, "Hello?" "Hi, darling. I was wondering when you would call." you could hear him smirk. "You free right now? Come over." "Yes ma'am. I'll be there in 10." he hangs up.

Soon, you hear the doorbell ring. He doesn't even give you a minute before his mouth latches onto yours. You moan against his lips, "Loki," you bite his lip. "I missed you, darling." he picks you up and latches his lips on the soft spot on your neck, "Fuck," you whisper. He lays you down on the couch in the living room, "Loki, what if James catches us?" "You'll just have to be quiet then won't you, love?" You nod. "Good girl," he smirks. He crawls on top of you and removes your white crop top. He groans at the sight of your black push-up bra. "Turn" "Yes-" "Yes what, baby?" "y-yes Daddy." you stutter. "good girl." you turn to your back and feel Loki's warm, wet tongue licking the bottom of your spine, slowly going up. You try to hold back your moan as he sucks small hickeys on the back of your neck. He hooks his teeth on the hook of your bra and unhooks it in one swift go. You moan. He slowly slides his way down to your boxer shorts and yanks them off with his teeth. "Loki. I really liked them." you whine, "I'll buy you a new pair sweetheart." You groan as he licks up your slit, "fuck, Loki." He breathes in your scent, "Fuck you smell so good, y/n." he sucks on your clit as one of his fingers enters your wet hole. You moan. "Daddy, right there, ugh, yes." You scream as he enters another finger. "Shh, you don't want him to catch us, do you?" You shake your head. He keeps thrusting while sucking on your swollen clit. You're almost there, right there. He adds another finger and you lose it, completely. Your hole begins to pulsate on his fingers.

You open your eyes, riding out of the wonderous orgasm Loki just gave you, You gasp at what you see, James, leaning against the doorframe of the living room door. You bite your lip at him, still riding out. Your eyes flutter and Bucky smirks. Once you're out of the orgasm, you process what's actually happening right now. Barnes. Sex. Living Room. Orgasm. You cover your mouth in shock. "what happened, love?" Loki slides up to your face. He chuckles when he sees what you do, "James. Want to join?" Your breath hitches. What? He struts towards you. "I think Y/n deserves punishment for having sex in a shared area while her step-uncle is staying over. What do say hmm?" "Oh, I think she does." Loki smirks. You look up at Barnes with doe eyes and nod, taken aback by his gigantic bulge poking out of his jeans. Bucky chuckles, "Slut." For some reason, even though you never really liked degrading and Loki never degraded you, you got even wetter as he said that.

Loki crawls towards Bucky and unzips his jeans. He pulls down his boxers as you sit on your buttock and begin to circle your swollen clit. Bucky's cock was thick and long, just how you liked it. Loki grabbed Bucky's ass cheeks and pulled him towards himself. Loki started licking Bucky's length and sucked on the tip of Bucky's head. "Doll, keep your hands where I can see them. Now." Bucky orders. You groan and put your hands on each side of you. Loki takes in the whole of Bucky's length, something you were sure you could never do.

Seeing your boyfriend suck a dick was much more arousing than you thought it would be. You moan as you dip beneath Loki and begin to suck his dick, unable to fit the whole length in your mouth. Loki pushes into you, it makes you choke and tear up, mascara running down your face. You moan onto Loki's dick, making him moan onto Bucky's. Bucky grabs your boob from underneath and pinches your nipple, making you cry out. "Daddy, please let me come." "No." bucky and Loki both say in unison.

You hear Bucky pull out of Loki's mouth. Before you can react, Loki abruptly lifts you up and enters you without any hesitation or time for you to think. You scream in pain and pleasure. "Oh, she's loud, huh?" "Oh, yeah," Loki replies. He begins to thrust as Bucky starts walking behind him. "Up. both of you." You both listen to what he says and slowly stand up, finding it hard not to collapse on the floor. "Y/n, baby, come sit on my dick," Bucky says as he lies down. "Y-yes daddy," you say, doe-eyed. "Loki, once she's comfortable, enter the same hole, from behind." "Yes, daddy." He replies. You slowly climb onto your step-uncle's large dick and slowly thrust down. You moan, "fuck." "gosh, y/n, you're so fucking tight," He growls "Can you move, baby?" You nod, biting your lip trying to hold back your orgasm. "Move." You begin to move slowly, closing your eyes, boobs jumping up and down. You feel another dick at the entrance of your full hole. How is that supposed to fit? Loki doesn't give you a chance to say anything before he plunges into you, you clench and blackout, only seeing white spots everywhere. You come all over both their cocks.

It took you one solid minute before you could finally open your eyes. "Can we move now, sweetheart?" Loki asks. "Yes please," you say, dying for another release, already on edge. They both begin to thrust, all three of you moaning. "Daddy... Fuck." you shudder. Bucky places his thumb on your pussy and presses it down, making your third orgasm much stronger than ever before. As you ride out of your climax, you feel warm liquid oozing out of your pussy. They had come too.

After cleaning up, bucky runs to you, panicking, "Y/n! We didn't use protection." You laugh, "Something funny? What if I got you pregnant?" "I'm on birth control, silly." "Oh, thank god," Bucky says in relief. "One more round?" Loki asks. You both nod.

#loki fanfiction #loki smut #loki laufeyson #winter soldier #bucky x reader #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes #bucky x y/n #female reader #marvel #marvel smut

143 notes · View notes

all-mirth-no-matter · 11 months ago

Text

Time After Time | Chapter Thirteen

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Reader, Tommy Shelby x Original Female Character

Summary: A significant death shakes up the Shelby household just as you find your way back inside. That events and those after make you start to wonder if now is the time to finally listen to Madam Despoina.

Warning: character death, language, yelling

ao3 link | catch up on tumblr here

Chapter 13: Ghost

I like the sad eyes, bad guys, mouth full of white lies. Kiss me in the corridor, but quick to tell me goodbye. You say that you're no good for me, ‘cause I'm always tugging at your sleeve. And I swear I hate you when you leave. I like it anyway. — Ghost, Halsey

Coming back to the Shelby household wasn’t exactly what you expected. Best case scenario, you expected to be greeted warmly by Polly or Ada; worst case, you expected to have the door immediately slammed in your face by Tommy himself.

Instead, when you knocked on the door, little Katie greeted you.

John’s oldest daughter’s eyes widened and a smile spread across her face when she recognized you, “You’re back!”

She grabbed your hand and pulled you inside as you used your foot to close the door behind you to keep out the cold. When you got into the kitchen, Finn jumped from his chair and threw something into the fireplace.

“Finn,” you scolded. “That a cigarette?”

“Don’t tell Aunt Polly,” he begged, cowering down more in his chair.

Jack ran into the room, a smile on his face as he got ready to watch the show of his youngest uncle getting into trouble.

You hung your jacket on the hook and sat next to Finn, noticing him flinch slightly as you scooted closer. The instinct made you swallow knowing he probably expected you to hit him — one of the discipline actions of the times that still made you cringe despite your attempt to shield your facial expressions.

“I won’t. But you really shouldn’t smoke, especially while you’re still growing. It stunts your growth, ya’know. You want to be this height your whole life?” You tousled his hair playfully to emphasize your point.

Actually, you weren’t a hundred percent sure if that was true — you remember hearing it when you were younger (that and coffee) but you never actually ever did research on it yourself.

“It’s also bad for your lungs,” you added, closing the unattended box of sticks that were sitting in the middle of the table. “It’s bad enough the air quality here is practically smoke itself, the second hand smoke will probably kill us all—“

“Is that what’s happenin’ to mummy?” Katie asked, her hand resting on your knee as she began petting the material of your skirt.

Brow creased, you looked to Finn and Jack, then around the house and noticed no one was around.

“Where is your mum?”

“She’s sick again,” said Jack, or J.J. as you’d immediately called him when you learned that his real name was John, and that he’d been named after his father (Junior). Another moment of instant regret, seeing as you had no idea if initial names or initial nicknames were a common thing yet. But the seven year old latched onto it immediately and you’d apologized to Martha profusely. After the initial shock of her son insisting everyone call him this, who she’d named after John proudly, she finally admitted to finding the nickname quite cute.

That’d been the first substantial interaction you’d had with Martha after just starting in the house. Even before the boys returned, you’d offered to help watch the kids whenever Polly or Ada were babysitting. You’d built a bit of a rapport with the little ones over the months, which had honestly surprised you seeing as you had zero experience with children, being an only child and not having been around family outside of your parents your whole life. It’d taken a little longer to get friendlier with Martha, but eventually you’d found a mutual ease around each other when you were both in the house. But unlike Ada, you didn’t find yourself spending any time outside the house, or alone even, together. And that was okay.

But when she first started getting sick, you’d tried to put in a little more effort to at least let her know you were there for her, or Polly, or the kids, if they needed you. Last you’d heard, Martha had started feeling better around Christmas.

“It’s not smoke, dummy,” J.J. said harshly to his younger sister when she asked again if it was was because of the cigarettes.

“Hey,” you said instinctively, “no need for name calling.”

“Auntie Polly said she’s cold—“

“She’s got a cold—”

“Where is she now?” You interrupted before they escalated, bringing all three of their attentions back to you.

“Auntie Polly took her to the ha’pital,” Katie answered. “Teddy and Annie are with Auntie Ada, said they needed naps.”

And with that, you launched into babysitter mode for the three downstairs. You kept out of the way of the kitchen, especially when the shop opened. When Ada returned with the youngest two, you all took a trip to the shop for food, per Polly’s instructions. By the time you returned, Polly was back and starting dinner.

That’s when she broke the news silently to you and Ada.

Martha had passed away.

Polly was angry with the hospitals, ranting about how she didn’t trust them and how she never should have taken her there in the first place.

“I’ve sent word to John, but he’s still in Digbeth. I’m afraid I’m going to have to break the news to the children.”

You offered to stay the night to help with the kids and housework. That first night had been filled with tears. You even caught Polly’s eyes damp a handful of times during the quieter moments.

Over the next few days, whenever you didn’t have a shift at the Garrison, you ended up at the Shelby house, even sleeping in one of the unoccupied bedrooms most nights. Polly was spending most of the following days preparing for the funeral, while you and Ada tried to make this new world make sense to the children.

You and Ada both had your own experiences of losing your mothers to draw on in an attempt to console the little ones. But it was still difficult, especially for the youngest two, who were still not completely understanding that their mother wouldn’t be coming back. Finn’s patience and kindness to his little nieces and nephews had been the most endearing part for you. He’d been too young to remember his own mother, but was able to explain this new reality in child terms that surprised you.

Since arriving in this time and place, it was hard not to judge the living conditions and lack of opportunities that surrounded you, especially when comparing them to your own upbringing. You’d always considered yourself middle to lower class, but you still had so much more privilege than whole chunks of the world.

Here, even with some of those privileges, you were beginning to understand just how much faster it seemed these children of the time had to grow and mature than you ever had to. Hardships like losing parents at a young age were just the beginning — poverty, malnourishment, lack of education opportunities — these were things that you couldn’t imagine having grown up through. It make you think about Ada and Tommy, your previous image of them running around as children suddenly shifting to something more heart clenching.

Your respect for Polly and her role as matriarch was already high, but over the next few days it only grew as she handled the household, children, business, and funeral arrangements nearly on her own. There hadn’t been a peep from John or any of the brothers until the night before the funeral.

Not yet asleep, you could hear the banging of doors opening and chairs moving in the kitchen. Instinctively, you rose from the cot and grabbed the fireplace stick. On your way down, you stuck your head in the kids’ room, seeing them fast asleep before shutting the door and heading for the noisy intruders.

“Come on, Tom,” you heard Arthur’s voice coming from the kitchen. “She’s got a sister—“

“S’not tonight.” Tommy replying made you pause, your heart jumping at hearing his voice for the first time in weeks. “We’ve got— got the funeral tomorrow, then back to ‘beth.”

His voice sounded lighter than normal, if not slightly slurred.

“Ah fuck it — we’ve been over there for weeks now. The whores here know exactly what I like, them in Dig—“

You cleared your throat, startling both men, though only one reached for his gun to point in your direction. Despite your curiosity to hear more about their escapades, Arthur’s voice had grown louder and you were fearful he’d wake John’s kids, who’d been nightmarish already to settle down.

Tommy’s throat bobbled as he lowered his gun, setting it down on the table. You noticed the dishevelment of his hair and collar of his shirt under his jacket. That, along with the way Arthur was swaying and both with nearly empty bottles in their hands confirmed what you suspected — the boys were wasted.

“The fuck’re you doin’ here?” Arthur asked, his voice not holding as much disdain as you expected, despite the words coming out.

“I’ve been helping Polly and Ada with the kids,” you answered softly, crossing your arms. “They’re asleep upstairs, if you wouldn’t mind keeping your voice down.”

Arthur’s brow creased, his voice still at the same decimeter despite your request. “You ain’t got kids—”

“John’s kids,” Tommy reminded his brother. He gestured toward the door, “Go on now. Don’t you have someone to meet?”

Arthur perked up, “Right! Suppose you won’t join me now, eh? You’ll know where I’ll be!” He gave a final shout before leaving the room and closing the door loudly behind him, causing you to cringe and listen for the stirrings of awakened little ones.

After a moment of silence, you turned back toward the kitchen where Tommy was beginning to remove his jacket.

A deep red stain on the shoulder of his shirt sleeve caused you to gasp, walking toward him without realizing what you were doing, setting the fireplace poker on the table.

“What happened?” You asked, touching his arm gently as you rotated it to see a slash in the fabric.

Tommy shrugged, unsteady on his feet as he instead reached for the fuller bottle of rum on the counter. “Just a scrap ‘fore we went to the pub, ‘s nothin’—“

“I can help—“

“Just go back to the room—“

“Sit down,” you instructed more sternly. He glared at you, but you didn’t let it stop you. “Take off your shirt, that’s going to infect if we don’t clean it.”

“I can do it m’self,” he mumbled and turned to leave, but began to stumble as he became imbalanced.

You caught and stabilized him before guiding him back to the chair. “You’re drunk as fuck, Tommy. Just sit down and let me help you.”

He huffed, but began to slide down in the chair until it creaked with the extra weight. Satisfied, you finally turned to get a fresh bowl of water and clean towels, then the bandages you’d seen Polly use a few times before. He was unbuttoning his shirt when you pulled up a second chair closer to him, ringing the cloth in the water.

“What were you gonna do with that?” You caught his gesture to the fireplace poker on the table, his voice laced with condescension. “Should learn how to handle a real weapon.”

By the time you sat down, Tommy had his bad arm out of his shirt.

“I know how to handle a gun,” you answered plainly, your voice serious as he watched you examine his wound.

Well, you knew how to handle a gun in the 2000s, that is. With your father being a military man, he wanted to make sure you and your mother went through the proper gun safety and etiquette classes since there’d likely be some weapons in the house. You hadn’t been to a shooting range since your father was alive, but you imagined if you had to handle a gun today you’d at least not make a total idiot of yourself. Now, whether you could actually shoot a live person was another question.

Concentrating back on Tommy’s arm, the blood had begun to crust around the cut, but began to bleed slightly as you started to put pressure on it. He hissed slightly at the contact.

“Sorry,” you mumbled slightly as you continued to work. “Why’d you let this go so long? You know better—“

He scoffed, “Do I?”

“I would have assumed so,” you answered honestly. Someone with the military backing he had, he must have known the dangers of infections and exposed wounds. Though as you worked you began to realize it wasn’t as bad as it’d originally appeared.

He took another swig of the bottle before handing it to you.

“No thanks,” you answered, not in the mood to drink tonight.

“For the cut,” he said as he shook his head, a breath of amusement exhaling from his nose at your reaction.

Sterilizing, you realized, giving yourself a duh as you took the bottle and carefully poured some on his skin. He hissed again as blood started to flow once more before you applied proper pressure. You sat there silently for a moment, just holding the rag to his arm, when you noticed him looking down at the cut sleeve, running his thumb across the red stain.

“So much blood for such a small cut,” he said softly, mostly to himself.

Your brow creased as you lifted the rag to look at his arm. The cut itself wasn’t that deep, but it was pretty substantial, at least in your opinion. Maybe comparatively it wasn’t as bad as some of the other injuries he’d had in his lifetime. The thought made your heart clench as your eyes began to notice other scars along his arm and uncovered chest.

You kept going back to a particularly gnarly scar just above his chest as you lifted his arm to wrap the bandage.

“Did you get this fighting?” you finally asked, turning your attention back to the cut, your curiosity getting the better of you.

He grabbed the bottle and took another drink. “‘Cause that’s all we do, eh? Drink, fight, and fuck—“

“I didn’t say that,” you interrupted, your voice strong in defense.

You wouldn’t mention how his brother was just talking about whores. Or how they were both currently drunk. Or how the last time you’d seen him in this kitchen he’d been bloody and bruised from an altercation.

Probably wouldn’t be helpful at this point.

Instead, you tried to appeal to the logical side of him. “Just with the Digbeth expansion, I’d imagine that can be pretty dangerous.”

You finished the tie of the bandage as you looked back up at him. He was already watching you, his eyes red and glassy, causing the already bright blues to appear more translucent against the candlelight. You noticed how much darker the skin under his eyes were, and couldn’t help but wonder when the last time he slept was.

“You’ve got some on your hands,” he pointed, gently wrapping his hand around your own. He lifted it, revealing the deep red smear on the pad of your hand. He used his good hand to squeeze out the rag and began to clean your palm.

“It’s just blood,” you shrugged, trying not to let on that your heart was racing at the intimacy. “Blood doesn’t scare me, Tommy.”

He looked between your eyes. For a moment you felt like he’d suddenly become sober as he lifted his good hand and gently ran his thumb against your cheek. “It should.”

You swallowed. “Tommy, I—“

“You don’t belong here.”

At his words, you felt your back straighten in defense, not realizing how close you’d been moving in toward him. Your heart began to race even faster as you tried to decipher what exactly he meant.

Part of you knew he must have been talking more in general terms. That you deserved something more than Birmingham in a gambling den with gangsters.

But there was something in the rawness of his words. Something that made you feel like he knew what such a phrase could actually mean to you — that you didn’t belong here, in this time or this place.

“I don’t,” you answered honestly, not helping the sincerity of the words falling from your lips. “But here I am. And here is where I want to be.”

Tommy’s expression remained unreadable as his eyes flicked between both of yours, looking for the lie. His adam’s apple bobbed, then he whispered, “With me?”

The sound of soft whimpering caused you both to jump, turning back toward the kitchen doorway. Katie stopped at the archway, dragging a blanket as she used the end of it to wipe her face.

You rose from your seat to collect the little one — this wasn’t the first time she’d woken up crying since her mother’s passing.

Katie nuzzled her face into your shoulder as you turned back toward the kitchen. Tommy was already standing, putting his arm back in his shirt and grabbing his coat and gun, still slightly uneasy in his footing as he headed for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“Out.”

“Tommy—” you called as the door shut behind him.

—-

The next morning was hectic as everyone prepared for the funeral. You didn’t see the brothers again until that afternoon, John’s eyes red despite the stone expression he kept on his face as everyone offered their condolences.

You felt Tommy’s eyes on you as you both navigated through the house, stealing a few glances at him yourself when he wasn’t looking. Neither of you spoke to the other though, and you were beginning to wonder if he even remembered your conversation the previous night. But each time you found yourself thinking in that direction, you shook your head to remind yourself of the bigger picture of the day.

Polly explained that they would start at Charlie’s Yard and walk the body through the town Martha had grown up in before reaching the graveyard. There, the priest would perform the ceremony. Apparently most of Martha’s family was already gone, so the guests would be mostly John’s family and her friends. After the burial, the Shelbys would return to Charlie’s Yard to burn the caravan filled with Martha’s mementos and pictures. Apparently this was more of a Shelby family tradition, something you were greatly interested in learning more about, at a different time of course.

The preparations reminded you of your recent conversation with Polly over spirits. It got you thinking about the tea Madam Despoina had given you again.

Excusing yourself to get ready for the events of the day, you left the Shelby house to change in your lodgings, doing your best to find something black. The only thing you didn’t have was a hat, but Ada had promised to bring you an extra. Your eyes kept shifting over to your dresser drawer.

It’d been almost a month since you’d received the gift. You’d spent months desperate for an answer as to how or why you were here. And it seemed that just as you were given some sort of clue, some key to unlock something — you were rejecting it. You’d gotten caught up in the found family of the Shelbys and the unshakable pull you felt from Tommy. This new life you’d created for yourself had become a distraction and disassociation of the still very real mystery of your circumstance.

Your eyes moved again to the dresser as you looked over yourself in the mirror. Could the answer be in that cup of tea?

A knock at the door caused you to jump, your heart racing at being caught with your own thoughts. Half expecting Ada with the hat she’d promised, you were surprised when it was Tommy instead who stood on the other side of your door.

He had his hands shoved in his pockets as he stood there uncomfortably. He cleared his throat, “Ada wasn’t sure if you’d know where Charlie’s Yard was, so I offered to come collect you.”

“Oh,” you replied, wondering if it was true. “I just need to get my coat then—“

“Tommy? What are you doin’ here?” You heard another man’s voice down the hall as you turned back around to poke your head through the still open door of your apartment.

Benji approached the doorway in a button-up and small bouquet of flowers in his hands.

Tommy’s brow creased as he appraised the man, then looked between the flowers and you before his face hardened and back straightened.

“What are you doing here, Benji?”

He smirked, “We were going to get dinner, remember?”

You hadn’t. The man hadn’t even been a speck on your mind the past week.

“I’m sorry, Benji,” you began, your voice sincere, “um— Martha passed away this week. We’re on our way to the funeral, I can’t see you tonight.”

“Oh,” he turned to Tommy. “Right I heard about that. I’m sorry for your loss, mate.”

Tommy shook his head. “Save your condolences for my brother, Hancock. We’re going to be late, if you’ll excuse us.”

Without waiting for you, Tommy began to walk down the hallway toward the exit. You rushed to grab your coat and lock your door behind you before apologizing again to Benji and hustling after Tommy.

“Suppose that answers my question,” was the first thing out of Tommy’s mouth when you finally caught up with him, still looking straight ahead as you both walked down the lane.

“What?”

“Last night—“

“You remember last night?” you asked surprised. He had been really drunk

He scoffed, still not slowing in his walk nor giving you a glance. “I remember a lot of things. Including you telling me you weren’t interested in Hancock.”

“I wasn’t,” you answered, trying to catch your breath.

He scoffed again and your eyes narrowed.

“But then nearly a month went by after you ghosted me so I thought what the hell, give the guy a chance.”

“Ghost?—“

“You told me to stay away—“

“And staying away means being courted by a Peaky Blinder, ya?”

“Courted?” Your brow creased at the use of phrase. “It was going to be one date — just a dinner, we weren’t getting married.”

He rounded on you, pulling you abruptly into an alcove off the sidewalk until your back was against the brick. His eyes bore down at you as the fire returned to his eyes. “Do you know what happens to people who cross me?” He started, his voice lower than it had been moments before. “They lose their ears, their tongues, their eyes. You have no fuckin’ idea who you’re talking to.”

“I do,” you said, your voice just as strong despite the threatening tone of Tommy hovering above you. His eyes simmered for a moment. “You think you’re a monster. Maybe you are— maybe you have to be, maybe you don’t. I don’t care. I said I was going to help you. So shove off with the chauvinistic ‘I’m pushing you away to keep you safe’ bullshit — I don’t want it.”

You surprised yourself at your own words, though you tried to keep your face from showing it. Deep down, you’d always believed what you said, but you hadn’t known exactly to what extent. Did you not care if Tommy Shelby was a monster? No. And you couldn’t shake why.

“You’ll regret it,” he said, his eyes icy once again with the same hint of desperation you saw the night before.

“Not as much as you’ll regret going from ‘I need you’ to ‘stay away from me’—“

He shook his head, finally taking a step back from you. “I was being selfish—“

“Well then be selfish!” You took a step back toward him. “Because dammit, Tommy, I need you too!”

He pulled your body into his so quickly you nearly pushed him away. But your body immediately reacted to the feel of his lips against yours as you pulled yourself in closer, wrapping your arms around his neck.

You broke away first, the whistling of pedestrians on the sidewalk making you remember you weren’t as concealed in this alcove as you thought. Though Tommy didn’t seem to care, his eyes still focused on you as you caught your breath.

“Don’t think just kissing me absolves you from giving a proper explanation for your actions,” you tried to say as serious as you could muster between breaths.

You were still mad at him. He’d put you through a roller coaster of unnecessary emotions the last few weeks. For him to get jealous at the prospects of you moving on? There was something more, you could feel it. And there was no way you were letting him get away with not explaining himself fully before you felt you could open back up to him again.

The corner of his mouth rose in amusement, “Come to the races with me when I return.”

“What?” your brow creased, though the corner of your mouth tugged upward at the prospects of what sounded like a date (you really were delusional when it came to this man).

“I want to take you to the races. Join me?”

You shook your head, “Is this the Tommy Shelby version of an olive branch?”

He smirked, “Maybe. We can talk more then.”

“Deal,” you answered, pulling his smirk into a genuine smile as you both turned back to continue down the sidewalk.

—-

The funeral was beautiful. Honestly, you hadn’t any idea what to expect when Polly talked about the arrangements. But the words, the songs, and the beauty of the traditions had you in tears. John held his children during the entire procession, and gave a lovely send off before lighting the fire.

Despite the grief you were feeling for the family, your brain hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the tea in your bedroom. Tommy had informed you that they’d be wrapping up Digbeth soon, returning properly in a few weeks.

That night was the first night you’d been back in your own apartment. The first thing you did was open your dresser drawer and remove the box.

You left it on your counter top as you started the fireplace, then the kettle. As you reached for the tea cup, you wondered if it was smart to be alone while you did this. You were, after all, still about sixty percent sure that the old tea was just going to give you either a stomach ache or seizure. But, you guessed that was better than the ninety-nine percent that you’d been at upon first receiving.

You gently removed the leaves and vial of water, following the instructions from Madam Despoina as you made your cup.

Holding the warm tea in your hands, you made the last minute decision to sit on the floor — reasoning that if you collapsed or something, at least you wouldn’t have as far to go.

You settled on the rug, inhaled deeply, closed your eyes, then brought the edge of the cup to your mouth.

You could feel the hot water run through your throat, then down to your chest before the warmth began to spread through your arms and hands, down to your stomach, then legs, then toes.

With your eyes still closed, you sat for a moment, waiting for something to happen.

When nothing did, you took another sip. Again, nothing happened.

Sighing, you sent a small thank you to whomever was listening that you at least didn’t go into any kind of shock, then opened your eyes.

“Hello, darling.”

>> next chapter <;< chapter masterlist

Tag list: @cillixn @sidefanficaccounttohidemyshame @cillmequick @swordofawriter @sweetmilkshakeluminary @nataliewalker93 @ttae-yong @topstory21 @cole-silas @moral-terpitude @optimisticsandwichgladiator @reallysparklychaos @enrapturedbythemoon @bat-shark-repellant @kpopslur @skxawngs @musicsweetie21 @invisiblexcth @whoisf4yryl0v3r @laylasbunbunny @lordofthunderthr @luvstylesz @roseanimelover @lostgirl219 @berarenado @akemiixx01 @mulletmcghee @jasminxts @oneboygenius @piceous21 @xoprincessmel @the-blueatlas @regatoni1 @goblinjnr @gentyleman @xxbeckybeexx-blog @tanyaherondale @sometimes-i-sing @littlewhiterose @ja-4-leyvam @rubyxx16 @allie131313 @pet1t3 @globetrotter28 @woofgocows @radrouda @wildernessflora @jeysbae @lilianashomaresparza @himikotoga101 @a-asterias @sourholland @samywhale @thecityofspareparts @ponyboys-sunsets @mariaelizabeth21-blog1 @vastseamind @optimisticsandwichgladiator @booktvmoviefangirl @drquinnzel0217qqqqqqqqqqq @zodiyack @ofkilljoysandslytherins @bluevenus19 @ce1iat @mgajdaaa @babyotileeblog @arcanebabe @iamtrashsry @snowtargaryen @mottergirl99 @sinarainbows @belledawnidk @laneyspaulding19 @warrior-of-justice

270 notes · View notes