#it keeps going back and forth between him and bill

[s-ccharine]

i need more pictures of Sean :(

[wriokitty]

Sukuna hates your job. He also hates early mornings. If you put them both together, he hates the fact that your job requires you to wake up early in the morning—and by default, him, too.

“Sukuna,” you sigh. It’s the same back and forth every day. A nonstop battle of push and pull as you try to leave your (sadly comfortable) bed while he stubbornly keeps his arm draped around your body. “C’mon, we do this every day.”

“Yeah, so then stop,” he grumbles. 

“I meant you,” you purse your lips. “We wouldn’t do this every day if you would just let go.”

“We wouldn’t do this every day if you’d quit wakin’ me up.”

You let out an exasperated exhale as his arms curl around your waist tighter, pulling you closer so he can bury his face into your chest. You don’t like to admit that you somewhat encourage his difficult behavior by letting your fingers weave into his messy hair, raking your nails along his scalp while he shivers lightly. 

“I can’t cuddle you forever, you know,” you hum, smiling softly despite the absurdity of it all. “We have bills to pay.”

“I don’t need cuddles,” he grunts. It’s a ridiculously blatant lie—you’re getting dangerously close to running late because he won’t let you leave the bed, and the only reason for that is because he stubbornly refuses to let your body disentangle from his.

You expect nothing less from him, of course. You’re not naive enough to think Sukuna would admit that he appreciates having your body pressed close against his, but the evidence of his rather grumpy frown is enough that you’re contently able to assume. Gently, you pinch his cheek, grinning as you murmur, “You’re pretty clingy in the mornings.”

“Be quiet.”

“Not even going to deny it, huh?” You tease, giggling softly as he cracks open an eye and glares through sleepy, bleary pupils. “You’re down bad.”

You like to think you and Sukuna have come a long way. It’s hard to break through walls and navigate how far you can push through his exterior when it’s as tough of an exterior as it is. The first time you dare to reach between your bodies and hold his hand, yours is clammy from overthinking his reaction. What if he pulls away? Or swats your hand away? Or gets annoyed? Or weirded out? What if he realizes he doesn’t like you like that? Your brain runs a mile a minute, coming up with every worst possible outcome for ages before you have the nerve to close the gap.

(It was all for nothing in the end. He’d casually tightened his grip, of course, so your inner pep talk in your head was a pointless fit of anxiety, but you don’t think you can be blamed. He’s not exactly the most emotionally available individual.)

Now, you think fondly, he never lets go. There’s always a hand on your body. The ones that rest on your hips as he stands from behind. The one that grabs your wrist to tug you along so you keep up. The one casually laid across your thigh as you sit. The one that hikes up your shirt when he’s particularly shameless. 

He clicks his teeth with a scowl as he glances up at you and grunts, “I’m not down bad. I barely even tolerate you.”

“You seem pretty obsessed to me. I guess being this beautiful is hard to ignore, huh?”

You can practically feel the smile he’s fighting back, grinning down at him as he tries to keep his scowl painted firmly on. “It’s too early for this, brat. Get back in bed.”

“Baby, I’d love to. But I have work,” you argue, pouting.

He pretends he doesn’t hear you. You scoff incredulously as he simply pulls the blankets tighter over his shoulders and settles against your body, trying to fall back asleep as if you’re not behind schedule and risking an angry questioning from your manager. And as aggravated as you should be, you’re not.

You can’t be. (Because, really, who else has the luxury of witnessing Sukuna be clingy? Certainly no one else but you. What sort of fool would you be not to take advantage of it from time to time?)

“I know you can hear me,” you roll your eyes.

“Then you’re perfectly aware I’m ignoring you,” he huffs.

“Don’t be stubborn—I’ll be back before you know it,” you hum, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

He melts a bit, but his grip only gets tighter if anything. “You’re not leaving at all. Now let me sleep.”

You slump back against your pillows in defeat, letting him smugly doze off again as he presses half of his body weight over you, just to be sure you don’t try to escape. You watch the rise and fall of every steady breath. The way the usual crinkles on his face from his almost permanent frown are smoothed out. The way his lips are parted and soft puffs of air exhale every few moments. You can’t help but think how far you and Sukuna have come. How easily it is to love him and feel loved���how impossible it seemed at one point to know if he even cared.

And if you end up sending a quick text to lie about being too sick to come in just to cuddle some more, you think there are worse things to lie about.

[cxrrodedcoffin]

Route To Sin - Eddie Munson

Likes are always appreciated but reblogs and feedback keep artists going!

Summary: eddie decides to go on a roadtrip with you to visit your sister in vegas, when you stop at a themed motel on the way, things quickly take a filthy turn.

Word Count: 4.1k

A/N: my first eddie munson fic!! i’ve loved this man for two years, i just finally decided to put it on paper lol, please let me know what y’all think!!

TW: dom!eddie, slight brat tamer!eddie, reader has a sister, drug use (weed), food mention, marriage talk, dacryphilia, breeding kink, daddy kink, bathtub sex, oral fixation, unprotected sex (don’t do this), creampie, cowgirl, mirror sex, degradation (brat, whore), porn mention, spanking mention, pet names (doll, babydoll, sweet girl, sweetheart, angel), hair pulling, fem + afab reader, reader gets slightly insecure at the end

Rating: R, 18+

——

A waft of earthy smoke billowed from the open driver’s side window, the familiar smell pulling Eddie’s attention back to the van. You knelt on the bench seat, body stretched across the expanse of the front cab to rest your folded arms against the edge of the window frame, silently watching your boyfriend pump gas. The last of the joint you’d been passing back and forth dangled limply between your pointer and middle finger, careful to avoid dropping the simmering butt and accidentally lighting the whole place up.

“If you keep blowin’ that roach shit my way I’m gonna leave you here.” That signature sarcasm rang heavy in his tone, canines peeking out from under his top lip with the smile he flashed at you.

He shut the fuel door, grabbing the roach out of your hand before snubbing it out against the heel of his boot and tossing it into the ashtray on top of the nearest trash can.

“I gotta go in to pay, do you want anything?” He fumbled with his wallet, pulling the wad of crumpled bills out of the worn leather.

“Get me a slice?” You asked, tilting your head toward the neon in the window that read ‘Pizza: Hot To Go’ in blinking red letters. He nodded, hitting a light jog into the convenience store, wallet chain slapping against his thigh with every step.

When you suggested a roadtrip to visit your sister in Nevada, you hadn’t fully taken into account how long you’d need to be in the van. Hawkins to Vegas wasn’t exactly a short trip, two thousand miles to be exact, and as much as you loved spending time with Eddie, the old, worn out seat of his van was starting to make your tailbone ache. Being 16 hours into a 28 hour drive had you feeling more stressed out than usual, you definitely needed to sleep in a real bed tonight if you hoped to get any relief before your big weekend in Sin City.

Eddie came bounding across the cracked pavement, pizza box in hand and you perked up, his goofy smile illuminated by the final sliver of dusk and the dingy glow of the old gas station sign above.

“I got a whole pie, Rick wasn’t fuckin around when he said that new stuff would make you feel like you’re starving.” He yanked open the door, the metal creaking loudly on its rusty hinge. You took the box from him, setting it on the bench between you as he hoisted himself into the driver’s seat, starting up the van to continue your journey.

“Eddie, can we stop at a motel tonight?” You asked, opening the box to lift a piece of pizza out, folding it down the center and bringing it to his face.

“M’not sure if there’s anything on the way, but we can stop if we see something, doll.” He turned his head, keeping his eyes on the road through his peripheral as he took a bite from the slice in your hand.

‘Welcome Home (Sanitarium)’ by Metallica blared through the speakers either side of the van’s tape deck, vibrations from the heavy bass flowing through the vehicle and melding with the warm haze your high pulled over your mind, your body relaxing into the stained upholstery of the seat. You kicked your bare legs up onto the dashboard, white lacquered toenails pulling Eddie’s eyes off the road briefly. His gaze shifted down to your ankle, then your calf, then landing on your plush thigh, your soft skin peeking out from under your short pajama shorts.

“Eddie, there!” You pointed toward the sign glowing overhead through the dirty windshield, reading ‘Heart’s Desire Motel’ in faded letters atop a large metal heart. His attention was quickly pulled away from your soft skin, pulling the van off the highway and into the small parking lot. The place was quaint, baby pink paint peeling from the siding, with an old ‘vacancy’ sign blinking in the window of the front office. You pulled your sandals on and jumped out of the van, slipping Eddie’s jacket over your shoulders to shield your bare arms from the chill in the night air. Eddie followed quickly behind, catching up to you with ease as you reached the front door.

A small bell rang when you pulled open the office door, the only source of light in the small room being a desk lamp situated behind the front counter. You waited for a moment, hearing a ‘be right with you!’ called from an adjoining space.

“How can I help ya darlin?” A sweet older woman emerged from a back storage space, setting some paperwork down and taking her place behind the counter.

“Can we get a room for the night?” You asked cheerily, excited to finally lay down on something that wasn’t a blanket in the back of Eddie’s van. She smiled and nodded, flipping through the room log book, and you took the opportunity to glance at your surroundings. The walls were the same light pink as the exterior, with heart and cupid motifs scattered across them to really hone in on the theming. The kitchy aesthetic was endearing, a reminder of the bygone honeymoon resorts of the 60’s.

“All our double twin rooms are booked for the night so we only have single queen rooms available, is that alright?” She looked between you and Eddie, knowing her question may as well have been rhetorical.

“That’s actually preferred, it’s our wedding night.” Eddie lied to the woman, a shiteating grin stretched across his face when you turned back to him and shoved his shoulder.

“Well in that case I’ll put you up in our honeymoon suite! It’s not much different from our standard rooms, but there’s a heart shaped tub for you two lovebirds to enjoy.” Her face lit up with the sweetest smile and your heart melted, guilt sitting low in your chest knowing it was a lie. You didn’t have the heart to tell her or question why she’d believed it given the way the two of you were dressed, but you shrugged it off, just happy to be able to finally relax.

You took the key from her as Eddie handed her the cash to pay for the room, twirling it between your fingers, a red keychain etched with the same logo as the overhead sign on one side and the room number above a small heart on the other. Eddie shoved his wallet back into his pocket, his arm wrapping around your waist to usher you out of the main office, calling out a ‘thank you’ as you left.

“What the fuck was that?” You grabbed your bag from the back of the van, shooting him a death glare only to be met with that ridiculous smirk he so loved to taunt you with.

“What, you don’t wanna be my bride?” He faux pouted, dark waves falling in his face as you reached for his bag. You over-exaggeratedly rolled your eyes, starting to walk toward the room.

“Guess it’s the atmosphere of this place getting to me, babydoll.” He slammed the door of the van, jogging to catch up with you as you started putting the key in the door lock. Your cheeks burned in embarrassment from how that little nickname made your heart want to burst out of your chest, Eddie always knew exactly how to push your buttons in the best way and this was no exception.

The sight that greeted you beyond the door was like something out of a 70’s porno, wood paneled walls framing crimson velour window trimmings, a matching velvet comforter sprawled across the queen bed. Two poorly painted angels sat perched atop the heart shaped headboard, like prying eyes seeing every depraved act carried out on the altar below. Sure enough, at the far end of the suite was a heart shaped jacuzzi tub, tiled steps leading up and mirrors lining the walls of the corner it was tucked into.

You dropped your bag on top of the mahogany dresser across from the bed, and as you turned on your heel to shut the door behind Eddie, you couldn’t help but burst into a small fit of laughter at the cross hanging above the door frame. The idea that anything happening in this sex den was god-honoring was definitely scoff-worthy.

“What d'ya say we put that thing to use? My back is killing me and I bet those jets would feel killer.” Eddie’s fingertips dug firm indents into the flesh of your hip, a not-so-subtle indication of what his intentions were for the night.

“Whatever you want, daddy.” You winked, taking a step forward until his large hand gripped your forearm.

“What did you just call me?” He questioned, brow quirked in curiosity.

“It’s our wedding night, remember? Don’t you wanna start a family?” Your tone was playful but truthfully something about this place was stirring a feeling so raw inside of you that you weren’t kidding in the slightest.

“If you keep that up you won’t be able to walk in the morning.” Eddie released his grip, slapping your ass as you walked away to turn on the faucet for the tub.

“Won’t need to anyway, I’ll be sitting in your shitty van for 12 more hours.” You knew exactly how to push his buttons, and insulting any of his women (his guitar, his van, and you) was the quickest way to do so.

“That mouth of yours is going to get you in trouble.” He half-snapped at you, digging through his duffle bag in an ill-fated attempt to stop himself from watching the way you wiggled your ass while you bent over the side of the tub, watching the waterline rise.

“What are you gonna do, spank me?” You found yourself deliberately arching your back toward to accentuate the curve of your ass, hoping with every fiber of your being he’d stop what he was doing and manhandle you a little.

“Only if you don’t stop with the bratty attitude.” He glanced over at you and immediately dropped the shirt he was pretending to fold back into his bag, finally giving up on his resistance and approaching you from behind, the rough denim of his jeans rubbing against your bare thighs. His fingers slipped into the waistband of your pj shorts and underwear, roughly yanking them down to expose your ass.

“Gotta get you outta these if we’re gonna take that bath.” His tone had returned to that lighthearted sarcasm that you loved to hate, and you almost let yourself sink back against him. Instead, you stood upright again, taking the hem of his tattered Iron Maiden shirt in your grip and lifting it up his torso until he pulled it the rest of the way over his head.

Just as he reached to do the same to your tank top, you turned away and reached for the tap again, putting a stop to the stream of running water. He gripped your waist, pulling you back against him before pulling your tank over your head, leaving you fully naked.

“Get in.” He whispered against the shell of your ear, sending a shiver up your spine that had goosebumps rising over your skin. Maybe it was your residual high, or the lovesick atmosphere of your surroundings, but everything felt heightened, your skin more sensitive, his presence behind you more intimidating, his voice more intoxicating.

You ascended the short step and sunk into the bath, the water level rising to not quite cover your chest as you laid back into the left arch of the heart. Eddie watched your every move, eyes glued to your hips to drink in the way your form shifted with every step. He made quick work of removing his jeans, letting the stiff denim pool at his feet as he watched you settle in, your gaze drifting to the waistband of his plaid boxers. He pulled them down at an almost agonizing slow pace, exposing inch after inch of his semi-hard shaft to your waiting eyes until his cock sprung free, the sheer weight of him causing his length to slap against his upper thighs.

You absentmindedly pressed your thighs together, trying to dull the ache between them to no avail. You never truly got used to seeing him fully naked, blushing like a naive virgin every time you had the privilege of seeing him like this. The muscles of his thigh flexed as he took the step up to level with the lip of the tub, towering over you before sinking into the water beside you. He was an Adonis, all toned muscle under a tender layer of plush tissue that made for the perfect sleeping partner, strong and comforting all the same.

“Come here, doll.” He patted his thigh, the water swaying with the movement alongside the low hum of his voice. You rose to your knees, floating to the other side of the tub and straddling his lap, your core sitting dangerously close to his cock. His hands found your hips, calloused fingertips digging into your soft skin with a squeeze before gliding up your sides, his thumbs ghosting over the sides of your breasts almost teasingly while he admired the way water droplets dripped down over your nipples.

“Always so gorgeous.” He groaned, strong hands finally encompassing your breasts, kneading tender flesh as his rough palms gave your stiff peaks the friction they desperately craved.

His touch lit a fire within you, and as much as the way that he looked at you with such admiration made your heart melt, your need was becoming more and more unbearable by the second. You shifted forward, rubbing your folds over the length of his shaft with a hunger, desperate for stimulation.

Before you knew it he had dropped his grip from your chest, threading a hand into your hair to yank your head softly back, drawing a gasp from your throat.

“Did I tell you you could move?” He questioned, cocking his head to the side and raising his eyebrow. He couldn’t help his sarcastic nature, it just came so naturally to him, and knowing that he had such an immense effect on you gave him the ego boost of the century. You shook your head as much as you could given the grip he held on your tresses, and choked out a soft ‘no’ in response before clearing your throat.

“I-I think I deserve some relief after being in the van all day.” You tried to put up a fight, not quite done riling him up, but your tone was quickly losing all conviction and Eddie could see you slipping further into desperation.

“You don’t deserve anything, you’ve been a pampered little passenger princess for 16 hours while I’ve done all of the work to get us here.” He yanked your hair back even further, craning your neck to look up at the baby pink popcorn ceiling. The sting in your scalp brought tears to your eyes, the liquid breaching your waterline leaving dark mascara trails down your cheeks in its wake.

“You’re being awfully bratty, doll, where’d my sweet girl go?” He cooed, free hand cupping your cheek as he loosened his grip ever so slightly to allow you to look at him.

“I’m sorry Eddie, I’m just so sore.” You sniffled, tears still falling from the shame the disappointment in his tone made you feel.

“Don’t cry baby, just need you to listen, okay?” He dropped his grip on your hair, both hands cupping your face, looking lovingly into your glazed eyes. You could feel his cock growing beneath you, the sight of dark makeup running down your tear stained face serving as the perfect aphrodisiac. He adored seeing you all messy like this, his perfect angel looking like a filthy whore, only for his eyes to see.

“Think we can both get some relief tonight if you’re good, can you be good for me?” You frantically nodded your head. “Yes, I promise!” Your enthusiasm made him laugh low in the back of his throat, that goofy smile returning to his face.

“Need you to use your words and tell me what you want, can you do that?” His tone held sickly sweet condescension and you could feel yourself slipping into that mind numbing headspace, wishing he could just slip into your mind for a moment and see all the dirty things you wanted him to do to you.

“Need you inside, please.” Your words came out barely above a whisper and he knew he wouldn’t get too much more out of you before you devolved into a mewling mess, too lost in your own mind to articulate your thoughts, but he couldn’t help but play with you a little longer.

“Inside where, sweetheart? Here?” He mused, bringing his free hand to your mouth, pointer and middle fingers prodding at your parted lips. You quickly took them in, sucking softly on his digits as you shook your head no, oral fixation too strong to pass up the opportunity to have any part of him in your mouth.

“If that’s not what you want then you need to tell me, don’t be greedy.” He pulled his fingers from your lips with a pop, his tone falling an octave. Your eyes widened, nodding in acknowledgment, willing to do anything to please him at this point.

“I-I need you down here, please.” You took his wrist in your shaky hand, guiding him down to dip into the warm water, lifting your hips slightly so his hand could fit in the tight space between your bodies, pressing his fingertips to the tight ring of muscles at your entrance. You stopped, releasing his wrist, not wanting to break any unknown rule and let him take the reins from there. He brought the heel of his palm up to rut firmly against your clit, drawing quiet whimpers as you did your best to stay still.

“What do you want here, doll? My fingers, or something else?” He teased, dipping two of his fingers inside only up to the first knuckle, the slight stimulation almost torturous as he scissored his fingers inside, stretching open the first inch of your cunt.

“God, something else, please.” You sighed, eyes rolling to the back of your head.

“What then?” He stopped his movements, withdrawing his hand and you groaned from the lack of friction.

“Your cock, Eddie, please just let me ride you.” You swore you were trying to be good, but you were starting to feel like you’d lose your mind if you didn’t get the stimulation you were in desperate need of and you didn’t care how impatient you sounded.

“Only because you asked so nicely.” He laughed, his hands gripping your hips to guide you up just enough for his cock to stand upright in the water, the tip bumping against your weeping cunt. “Whenever you’re ready, babydoll. You want it so bad, you’re gonna do the work.”

You took his hint, bringing your hand beneath you to grip his member, finally sinking slowly down onto him until you could feel him in your stomach, the all too anticipated stretch making you cry out in relief after his teasing. He groaned, running a hand through his curls as he settled back against the edge of the tub, watching you start to slowly grind your hips, just feeling how full he made you feel.

After a few minutes you lifted your hips once more, starting a steady pace bouncing on his lap, the head of his cock rubbing against the tender patch of nerves deep inside your cunt, velvety walls engulfing him with every movement. The water surrounding you started to roll like waves, splashing against the sides of the tub, threatening to spill out onto the tile surrounding it. You took notice, slowly your movements to lessen the potential mess, and Eddie sighed.

“We’ll clean it up later baby, just let go.” He reassured you, secretly just as desperate as you were to get off. He didn’t care about a little clean up, let alone wiping some water off the floor.

You were hesitant but returned to your previous pace, angling your hips back to really allow his cock to hit the sensitive place inside you, euphoria slowly building in your core. Your gaze slowly shifted from his face and when you caught the sight of yourself in the mirrors surrounding the tub you gasped, the lewd image of your makeup stained face and your tits bouncing with every movement of your hips was something almost pornographic, really living up to the atmosphere of the room.

Eddie caught where your eyes had shifted to and groaned, throwing his head back to properly watch you get off to your own reflection.

“Look at yourself, bouncing on my cock like a desperate whore, making such a mess.” His hand came down to press against your lower stomach, his thumb rubbing quick circles over your clit until you were a moaning mess, your thighs burning with the almost brutal pace you were now maintaining.

“Want you to make me a daddy.” He moaned, his breaths becoming more labored. His statement broke you from your trance, your gaze falling back to his as you searched his eyes for any hint of sarcasm, but you found none, he wasn’t kidding.

“Can I knock you up, babydoll?” He reiterated the sentiment, increasing the pressure on your clit and feeling you pulse around him, your orgasm dangerously close.

“I need an answer before you or I can cum sweetheart.” He was panting, straining to prevent himself from finishing, and you did everything you could to pull yourself together enough to answer.

“Yes, Eddie, please!” You maimed, tears threatening your waterline from how close you were to the edge.

“Say it.” He groaned, locking eyes with you one last time.

“Please cum inside me daddy, please!” You cried out, tipping over the edge with one last slam of your hips, pleasure rolling over you in tandem with the waves of the water around you, your walls contracting over and over around him until his warmth spread throughout your cunt. You wrapped your arms around his neck, hugging him tightly against you until the aftershocks stopped wracking your body, relaxing on his lap.

“You okay angel?” His voice was strained but sweet as ever, always concerned about your wellbeing above anything else.

“Yeah.” You mumbled, smiling silently against his neck.

Once you were fully recovered, you raised off of him, both of you wincing at the loss momentarily before sinking under the now lukewarm water for one final rinse. You began to step out, Eddie right behind you to grab your waist when your foot almost slipped out from under you because of the slick tile.

“Careful babydoll, don’t want you to slip.” He held you firm as you stepped down, making sure you were safe on the ground level before following you out, handing you one of the fresh towels from the pile next to the tub. He wiped up the excess water off the ground as you dried yourself off, and you didn’t know if it was the cold air or the rational part of your brain turning back on, but something started to eat at you as you watched your boyfriend dry himself off.

“Is it okay that I called you that?” The worry in your voice almost made Eddie’s heart break into a million pieces, and he quickly wrapped the towel around his hips before taking you into his arms.

“I loved it, babydoll, I promise I would tell you if I didn’t.” He smoothed your hair away from your face, giving you a kiss on the forehead.

“How about we put on our pajamas and turn on a movie.” He smiled down at you, waiting for your approving nod before going to your bags on the dresser and pulling out your second pair of pj’s. He helped you into them before pulling on his own old band shirt and fresh boxers and crawling into the gaudy bed with you, cuddling up to watch whatever cheesy horror flick was airing on late night tv.

——

tags: @xxbimbobunnyxx @your-nightmaredoll

also tagging: @babygorewhore @taintandviolent @littlexdeaths @eddiesxangel @bimbotrashcan bc i thought you might be interested, please message me if you’d like me to remove you

please message me or send me an ask if you’d like to be tagged in future eddie fics!!

[rainydayathogwarts]

The team discovers you're dating - Aaron Hotchner

d/n: daughter's name.. Summary: The team discovers you're dating because of Jack's freudian slip. (singlemom!bau!reader) 0.7k wc

Small trudging footsteps paired with loud squeals caught the attention of the agents in the bullpen, an apologetic SSA following after his son. Derek and Penelope raced to the young boy, Derek scooping him up the second he was close enough, beating his work wife by seconds. "I'm sorry guys, national holiday and our sitter cancelled." The team dismissed him, understanding of his protectiveness over his son. After seeing so many cases, there was no way he'd let a random person look after his son. "I'll take him down to the daycare in a second, but Jack here just wanted to say hello to someone first."

Derek exaggeratedly frowned, looking down at the blonde boy "Is uncle Derek not the person you were looking for Jacky boy?" Jack shook his head, loud giggles filling the bullpen, just as the glass door opened one more. "Sorry guys," You started, trying to flip strands of hair out of your face while balancing your coffee and keeping your bag on your shoulder. "I had to drop d/n at daycare, sitter cancelled." You gasped loudly when you spotted the small figure in Derek's arms, placing all your things on the closest desk as you opened your arms wide. Jack wiggled his legs in Derek's arms so he could be put down on the floor, a wide smile gracing his features. You crouched down on the floor, grinning at the boy, who yelled loudly "Mommy!" as he ran into your arms.

An eerie silence filled the bullpen as all conversation died down. You wrapped your arms around the boy, his words sinking into your teammates' heads. You lifted Jack up into the air with a clueless smile, standing tall enough so you could see all of your coworkers' facial expressions, when it hit you. Your eyes widened and you froze, past the point of collecting yourself or trying to brush off what Jack said as an accident.

"What did he just say?" You hear Penelope interrogate, looking back and forth between the profilers in the room, hoping to get an answer. As though sensing the change in atmosphere in the room, Jack lifted his head from the crook of your neck, looking up at your face. You moved your stance to balance him on your hip, using the other hand to pick up your to-go cup and take a long sip of your coffee. "You wanna try my coffee Jack?" You teased, breaking the silence between you and him, laughing as the boy pulled a face of disgust, remembering the time he smelt his dad's black coffee one morning when you were over with d/n.

"Yuck! ... Mommy, am I gonna see d/n?" He asks, swinging his legs happily. You're painfully aware of the eyes stuck on you and the boy, glancing up to look at Aaron, observing his reaction. He's smiling softly at you and his son, back turned to the other agents in the bullpen. He walks over to you just as you reply to Jack "She's in daycare right now! Do you want to go join her?" Jack nods excitedly, arms lifting up when his dad walks over, allowing him to take him from you. "Well since the cat's out of the bag." Aaron shrugs, leaning down to press a kiss on your lips, walking out with Jack in his arms who giggles loudly "What cat daddy?"

With Jack finally facing away from you, you let all your emotions show up on your face: shock, confusion, and most importantly embarrassment to being exposed to your relentless team of close friends who will never stop the questions:

'How long?' 'Jack calls you mommy?' 'Don't you owe me money Morgan?'

You laugh at Spencer's comment, watching as Derek fishes his wallet out of his pocket, holding up a 20 dollar bill for Spencer to take. Rossi pushes himself off the desk behind him, where he faces Emily and the rest of the team. He sighs, shaking his head "For the record, I knew his whole time. And at least now you don't have to hide your ring, y/n." He states as he walks away. "You're married!?" Emily and JJ yell at the same time as Penny squeals loudly, running to hug you tightly. "Engaged!" You try saying over the noise. "Engaged not married!"

[ckret2]

Chapter 49 of human Bill Cipher being such a miserable prisoner even the Pines are starting to feel bad for him: The Eclipse: Epilogue.

####

"The heck did you do to that poor woman?" Tate asked, staring out the window. Bill was sitting on the pier, legs dangling in the water, staring blankly into the depths. He was still muddy and trembling. "She looks more traumatized than when y'all left."

Ford couldn't meet Tate's gaze under the brim of his hat, but he could feel Tate raising a brow when he spotted Dipper pacing back and forth on the pier behind Bill, muttering furiously.

"We've had a very bad day," Ford said. 

"Uh-huh."

"Could I borrow your phone to call my brother?"

Outside, Dipper was oblivious to everything except the one line he'd managed to remember from the Axolotl, the words he'd picked out as they crossed the lake. "'Sixty degrees that come in threes,'" Dipper murmured. He knew that much. It was a poem. It was a rhyme. He couldn't remember the rest. What did it mean? He murmured it over and over to himself as he walked, trying to remember the next line, "'Sixty degrees that come in threes,' 'sixty degrees that come in threes'... breeze, freeze, ease, lease, knees—" He couldn't remember the rhyme.

Bill was considering grabbing Dipper by the ankle and dragging him off the pier just to shut him up when whatsisname, the younger McGucket came out of the shop. "Hello there? Miss Goldie?"

Human. Strange human. Human that Bill could get on his side. Be charming. He tried to remember how to be charming. He offered a feeble smile. "Yello?"

"I wanted to make sure you're all right," Tate said. "You look like you, uh... you've had a hard time."

Bill laughed ruefully. "Well, I've been dragged all over the mountain, I'm hungry, exhausted, and half-drowned, and I can barely walk—but I'm not currently dead. Allegedly. I'll take what I can get."

The corners of Tate's mouth twitched down in a concerned frown. "Is there anything you need? A..." He floundered for a moment, "A water, or...?"

"I've had enough water to last me a lifetime." He wondered idly whether he could claim he was too exhausted to make it all the way home—there was a sofa in the staff room, Tate would probably let the poor bedraggled "woman" take a nap, if Bill got that bit of distance between himself and the Pines maybe he could... maybe he could... do something with it? But he couldn't think of anything more definite than that and now Ford was coming back and the window of opportunity closed. He shrugged wearily. "Just need to get back to the shack. Thanks." He half heartedly used the lake water to wash the drying mud off his lower legs and knees.

"Stan will be here in about twenty minutes," Ford said, and tried to ignore the dirty look Tate gave him. 

"I'll be just inside if you need anything else," Tate said. "Watching." He headed inside—and then, indeed, stood at the shop window and watched.

Ford was never going to get on Tate's good side. He suspected Tate would be a little less sympathetic to the poor woman on the pier if he knew who he really was; but it certainly wouldn't make Tate like Ford any better for keeping him around.

"Nothing to do now but wait." Ford unloaded the rest of their supplies from the borrowed motor boat. He dropped Soos's Monster-Mon backpack beside Bill—it was heavy, Bill must have just shoved his clothes and bedsheet straight in without bothering to wring out the water—and the plastic bag of snacks Dipper had bought. "You ought to eat more while we wait." Ford nudged the snack bag.

Bill sneered at it. "I don't want that trash."

"What?" Ford examined the bag's contents. Jerky, chips, candy, cups of marshmallow cereal... "This is ninety percent of what you eat."

"Ninety percent of what I eat is what I can scavenge from the counters."

Ford looked through the bag again. Ah. Right. So it was. "If you want something else, you know you can ask us to..."

"Mac and cheese."

Maybe Ford had better stop talking. He sighed and glanced at Dipper to see how he was doing.

It didn't look like Dipper had even registered Ford's return, too busy pacing and muttering to himself. Ford frowned. "Dipper?"

"Axolotl," Bill explained. "He's obsessing over him. Didn't I tell you that meeting that thing would drive him insane?" He tilted his head toward Dipper. "Look at that, he's already mumbling to himself. Don't suppose you have his therapist's number, do you? I doubt that would save him, but it might slow the process—"

Ford shushed him.

Dipper had briefly tuned back into the conversation when he heard Bill say Axolotl; and now he grit his teeth and stubbornly tuned it back out. No. He was not going insane. Dipper would figure this out. If he just remembered the rest he'd be fine. He tried to go through all the potential rhymes alphabetically, "—bees, cease, d—deez?" That wasn't a word. "Fees, geese, he's..." and on and on, "seas, tees, uh... vees? Wheeze..."

"I've had enough of you trying to convince that boy he's about to go mad," Ford muttered to Bill. "What do you get out of saying that? Even if you do convince him he's insane, it won't make him start trusting anything else you say."

"I'm not lying," Bill said heatedly. "You ought to know that, you've been in the multiverse, you've seen plenty of maddening sights. You saw them before you even left the Nightmare Realm."

Ford hesitated before responding; was Bill trying to persuade Ford he was insane? But he could still remember those first few moments of terror in the Nightmare Realm: the creatures that had seemed to move and shift in impossible ways as they swam in and out of dimensions Ford couldn't see, the lights and colors that throbbed like an inverted migraine, Bill himself seemingly suspended a million light years away and a foot in front of Ford's face at the same time. Until Ford had latched onto his quest to destroy Bill and let that focus him, his mind had felt like an unraveling sock. "You were chief among those maddening sights."

"I was," Bill acknowledged neutrally.

"But I didn't go insane."

"Because you knew when to look away." He cast a sideways glance at Dipper, an implicit unlike him. "I know you used to read cosmic horror. Do you know why the narrator always goes mad just from looking at some giant beast? It's not because it's too ugly to take. It's because once you meet something, you try to understand it; but if you want to understand the reality something like that comes from," he rolled an eye up toward where the invisible Axolotl had hung in the sky, "you have to lose your understanding of your own reality. They're incompatible. Like the lunatics who escaped Plato's cave and came back ranting about nonsense like sunlight and colors."

It was a twisted interpretation of the cave allegory. Plato had meant it as a metaphor for education: that learning about the true nature of reality was enlightening, but alienated you from your peers.

Perhaps to Bill, enlightenment and insanity were the same thing.

Ford murmured, "Once your eyes have been too dazzled by the sunlight to see the dim shadows, you'll never be awed by a candle again."

"You have been there before."

Ford didn't answer.

"Once you've seen something like that, if you let yourself dwell on the significance of it all, you're doomed. Better to tell yourself it's unimportant and try to forget it ever happened."

Ford thought of Fiddleford.

Bill twisted around to snap tiredly at Dipper, "So stop staring at the sun before you go blind, moron."

"Shut up." Dipper had been trying to mentally drown out Bill's dire predictions by grasping for more rhymes—"disease, unease, Socrates"—but enough filtered through to make his stomach churn with nervousness. What if Bill was right? What if he never remembered what the Axolotl told him—what if he drove himself mad trying? What if this turned into a lifelong obsession—but he'd be fine and could let it go once he remembered—was that the trap? Was whatever it had told him impossible for a human to remember? Was it something so incomprehensible a human couldn't remember it without going crazy?

But he'd seen plenty of stuff last summer that was supposed to make humans go "insane." Bill had to be messing with him. He remembered the first line—surely that meant he could remember the rest—but was that part of the trap? "'Sixty degrees that come in threes'... come on, there's something else, I know it, what is it? 'Sixty degrees that come in threes'—"

Bill sighed irritably. "'Watches through the eyes in trees.'"

Dipper stopped pacing. He hadn't realized he'd raised his voice enough to be audible. "What?"

"What?" Bill said.

"What's the rest of it?"

"What rest of it? It's a couplet. That's all," Bill said. "Is that what he told you? He gets rhymey when he feels self-important, it's no big deal. Maybe you're lucky. Put it out of your head and you'll be fine."

Dipper turned the words over in his head. Sixty degrees that come in threes, watches through the eyes in trees... "That's not exactly right," he said slowly. "It was 'watches from within birch trees.'"

"Is that how he translated it? I've never heard it in English before. I got close, though, I knew it'd rhyme."

Ford echoed, "'Sixty degrees that come in threes.' Like a triangle?"

Dipper gave him a perplexed look. "What?"

"You're taking geometry next year, aren't you? The inner angles of polygons always have the same number of degrees; and a triangle has a hundred and eighty degrees. Three angles of sixty degrees forms... an equilateral triangle."

Dipper and Ford stared at Bill.

Bill gave them a tired, unreadable look. "What?" he said. "Don't look at me. I'm not the only equilateral triangle in the universe."

Well, now Dipper was sure there was more to the poem than just a couplet. "How many other equilateral triangles spy on people through birch trees?"

"Lay off," Bill said crabbily. "I didn't have to tell you that line. Don't make me regret it." He planted his elbows on his knees, laced his hands together, pressed his forehead to them, and massaged his eyelids with his thumbs.

He tilted slightly to the right, keeping the weight of his head off his left arm.

####

"Nice shirt," Stan said, eyeing Ford's anger management t-shirt.

"If you like it, you can have it."

"What happened to your coat?"

"Somewhere at the bottom of the lake," Ford sighed.

"How...?"

"I'll fill you in later."

Bill's trembling was almost unnoticeable by the time Stan arrived. Or, at least, it was slight enough that he could stand and make the short walk from the pier to the car without an obvious struggle. 

He climbed into the back seat, slid across the bench, leaned against the door, wrapped his arms around his Monster-Mon backpack, fell asleep, and didn't wake up for the entire drive home.

Dipper and Ford fell silent when they noticed; and, sensing the heavy atmosphere, Stan followed suit.

####

The event organizers for Higher Dimensional Gate had arranged for the Magister Mentium's audience to surround him in a circle with as large a circumference as possible, so that as many shapes as possible could pack into the first few rows where they could see him. Even so, the crowd was much too large for everyone to be in the first few rows. Speakers had to be planted throughout the crowd so that they'd all be able to hear the Magister speak. Most of his audience couldn't see him.

But he, with his all-seeing eye, could see all of them.

The crowd extended back, row after row after row, in every direction like flecks of multicolor confetti filling the air all the way to the horizon. He'd never spoken to such a large crowd before. He didn't think he'd ever seen such a large crowd before.

Not all of them were his worshipers. He didn't have that many worshipers. The rest were drawn in by his boast—to be the first shape outside of legends to predict an eclipse, over six months ahead of schedule. They were here for a spectacle. He meant to give them one.

If he succeeded, all these spectators would become his worshipers, he was sure of it. If he didn't succeed, he lost everything. The whole nation knew about his bet. He'd be financially ruined. His worshipers would abandon him. There would be no fleeing to a new town and starting over; everyone everywhere knew who he was. His life would be over.

This would be only the third eclipse he could recall. There's no way to neatly map shape ages onto human ages. Different year lengths, different aging speeds, different mental and physical milestones. But approximately, compared to a human, he was scarcely over fifteen years old. 

But he wouldn't fail. He pushed all his fears aside. He didn't even want to think about them. He wouldn't, because he couldn't, because he could see what nobody else saw. He could see the eclipse's approach.

It was traveling across the vast empty gulf outside the world.

The only other third dimensional objects he'd ever seen were the sun—which looked to him like a circle—and the stars—which seemed to be mere points. He assumed all third dimensional objects were fundamentally just second dimensional objects, moving on a strange plane. He had no capacity to model a 3D object in his mind.

But the eclipse was a beast that twirled and gyrated around impossible axes, moving and rotating in ways his eye couldn't even comprehend. To him, it looked as though the living creature—he assumed it was a living creature, sometimes it manifested a couple of limbs or an eye—was constantly shapeshifting, its perimeter moving and altering. Its uncanny undulations had haunted his nightmares for months after he first watched it, so young he'd barely started school. It wasn't any less nightmarish now.

But as incomprehensible and terrifying as it was, he could see it, and nobody else here could, and that was all that mattered. He could watch it on the horizon and publicly announce that it would cross the sun in two weeks—and then in about three days—and then, to his humiliation, not tomorrow but today, guaranteed, as the creature sped up and threw off his estimate. His worshipers and bemused spectators had taken over the square to while away the time. They'd quickly gathered around him to wait after he'd declared it would arrive within the hour

That had been almost an hour and a half ago. The stupid thing had slowed down.

The triangle was terrified.

In every direction, shapes were staring at him. Waiting. His father was watching him—his stare seemed to grow heavier by the minute. He could see reporters in the crowd taking notes.

He had to fight not to pace, not to cringe, not to show any nerves in front of the hundreds of eyes.

Now. It had to be now. It was so close. Please don't let him be wrong. Every cord in his body quivered in terror as he grabbed his microphone and announced: "Lines, bis, tris—quads, quints, and more! My dear students and beloved believers, and my—" he cut off the urge to say something nastier, "—curious visitors, who I hope will join our quest for enlightenment. This is the moment you've been waiting for! The eclipse is upon us! In less than a minute, it will begin!" He had to keep his gaze forward as he spoke, looking at his audience. (His mother had always said the way his eye went white when he was looking at the third dimension unnerved people.) "Soon—you won't have to take all my claims about the third dimension on faith. You'll be able to see for yourself the effect of the third dimension on the plane."

The crowd murmured excitedly. He could see his father relax. He stared up-but-not-north, gnawing nervously on his eyelid until he caught himself. The beast above glowed a warm pink in the light of the nearby sun.

And the stupid thing. Slowed. Again.

He stared in disbelief.

"Sixty seconds," his father whispered, out of range of the microphone.

His stomach flopped. He was dead.

"One minute, fifteen seconds. What's going—?"

He held his microphone away and hissed, "The eclipse decided to zigzag."

"Eclipses can zigzag?"

"Shhh!" He'd already failed. He'd already shown everyone he was wrong. He could hear the murmurs. His eye hurt from staring at the sun and from straining for so long to turn so far upward-not-northward, go faster faster faster—

There! The snout of the eclipse was this close to kissing the perimeter of the sun. He cried triumphantly, "Now!"

The wretched beast did a loop-the-loop around the sun and missed it entirely.

The triangle felt the last strands of his fraying self-composure snap.

He howled in rage.

He could hear laughs from the crowd. They felt like daggers in his sides.

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" He was bellowing into outer space as if he thought it might hear him, "Do your think this is a game?! Is this funny?! Are you trying to humiliate me in front of the whole world!" His father put a hand on his arm; the triangle shoved him away. "Get back here right now! You thick, brainless, blobby, pink, feeler-faced two-eyed freak of nature! GET BACK HERE and LOOK ME IN THE EYE!" He was a lunatic, everyone would know it, their leader raving in a direction no one could actually see about some big pink delusion, what did he care, no one would ever take him seriously again anyway—

And the thing in the sky.

Stopped.

And looped back.

And came closer, and closer, and bigger, and bigger—it just kept getting bigger, how far away had it been before, how large was it, how large was the sun?

He hardly noticed the crowd's gasp as the creature twirled between them and the sun—the light shone through its body, pink with blood—and then out of the way, and then in again, and out—until finally it was so close that its perimeter completely engulfed the sun. He'd taken a field trip to the planet's surface once—an enormous solid mass of stone and crystal. Until now, he'd never seen another solid objects so large. To his limited understanding of 3D objects, it looked as though there were no organs inside its perimeter—just a layer of solid, uninterrupted flesh. He didn't know how it could even move.

It stopped straight over him.

He was sure the two black circles embedded inside its body must be its eyes. His whole life he'd heard psychic powers—psychic powers like his own—described as having an "inner eye." But he'd thought the phrase was just a metaphor. An eye on the inside of a body instead of on its perimeter would be useless to most people. He'd never seen a creature with an eye literally on the inside of its body. But the eclipse had two.

And they were looking at him.

A giant ever-shapeshifting cosmic horror from outside of reality, staring through the veil separating the sane world from outerplanar space, and it was looking—at—him.

He was terrified.

He heard an alien voice in his head, vast and deep and slow as distant whale song:

"Hello there!" It was overjoyed. It was tickled pink. "I've never been spoken to by a shape on the wall before. I didn't know you could see off of it!"

Weakly, the triangle repeated, "'A shape on the'...?"

"Yes, this wall of yours." The eclipse gestured with its tail at—everything. A single sweep that took in an entire dimension. "I've probably commuted past this wall billions of times, and nothing's ever called to me before. I didn't know shadows could do that!"

"'Shadows'?" the triangle echoed again. That was all they were? An eclipse's shadows?

"I'm absolutely delighted," the eclipse said. "First contact from a lower-dimensional species! I've watched you for eons and never imagined. Isn't this exciting! How charming of you! Tell me who you are."

Him? "Me?"

"Of course. Who else?" It stared at him. Only him. A shapeshifting force of nature the size of a planet with two inner eyes, an eclipse that saw him as a shadow—and it was looking only at him.

Weakly, he said, "I'm... the Magister Mentium."

The eclipse thought that over. Its tone was a tad dubious and not terribly impressed (why should it be impressed? he was embarrassed at himself for giving his silly puffed-up title)—but it said, "Yes, I suppose that's true. I am the Axolotl. It's been a pleasure meeting you." It began to shapeshift again—its eyes slid sideways through its body, until one reached its perimeter and disappeared.

It dawned on the triangle, in its first immature understanding of third dimensional objects, that its eye had disappeared because the Axolotl was turning away. "Wait!" he cried. "Why..." Why answer him? Why focused on him so completely, if he was just a shadow? Why ask who he was like he mattered? He didn't even know how to put those questions to words in his own mind, much less out loud. "Why are you here so early?"

The Axolotl turned back to the triangle. "Oh! I had to go back for some documents I forgot at the office. Big case in the morning," it said. "You shadows know my schedule?"

"You... pass in front of the sun."

The Axolotl turned away, eyes disappearing and frills fluttering, to look at the sun. "So I do! How funny." It turned toward the triangle and gave him a strange, grotesque look that—by the tone of its psychic voice—he suspected was a smile. "I must get going. I'll be heading into the office a few hours late tomorrow, but perhaps I'll see you again then." And it turned away. It felt like it took forever for the enormous body to sail over-not-north-of the triangle—and pass, at last, out of the sun's path.

The triangle didn't look down-but-not-south until someone shook his side—his father. He lowered his dazed gaze to the crowd—the cheering, applauding crowd. Ma-gi-ster, Ma-gi-ster. A sea of multicolor confetti shapes that filled the air to the horizon.

Shadows.

His father shook him again—"Go on, say something. They're waiting"—and the triangle held up his mic as though he were in a dream. He tried to remember what he was supposed to say. "I was right," he said flatly. "Just like I always told you. I can see the third dimension. The realm of dreams—of colors, of light, and..." The lies left a sick taste in the back of his eye. He couldn't say them. Points of light in darkness and pink nightmares.

"I'm s— You'll all have to excuse me," he said, his voice childish and small. "I can't—I've had a... a... profound... spiritual experience. I must meditate on the revelations I've received." The words felt like woo-woo mumbo-jumbo. "The next eclipse will be a few months after the new year." It seemed important, for some reason, to pass that information on. Wasn't that what he always said he did? Share the wisdom of third dimensional spirits with his followers? "I... have to go now."

His father took his elbow. "This is your moment," he whispered. "Come on, son—you don't want to lose your chance to speak directly to them, do you?"

He shoved the microphone in his father's side. "You speak to them."

"But—"

"I can't," he said. "I can't."

He cut through the crowd as fast as it would part for him—if they were any slower, he'd have started stabbing his way through—haunted the whole way by their applause.

####

And that was it.

From the Axolotl's perspective, he had just had a brief pleasant exchange with a precocious tadpole in a sidewalk puddle.

From the triangle's perspective, he might as well have been standing on the boat deck watching as Cthulhu rose from his millennia of dead slumber at the bottom of the ocean, turned to the fragile vessel bobbing on the waves, and said, "Good morning! Glorious weather we're having, isn't it?"

And from the perspective of the Higher Dimensional Gate, their Magister Mentium had predicted an eclipse, been rightfully insulted when it didn't come the exact second he ordered it, and furiously summoned down an eclipse darker and swifter and longer than any in recorded history.

Up until then, he had been seen as, at best, an oracle. A prophet. A messenger to share the secrets of the third dimension, but that was all he could do. But now, he had commanded forces in an unseen dimension, creating an eclipse months before it was natural. He had made it flicker on and off like he had his finger on the sun's light switch. News reports and the most unimpeachable scientific authorities reported that the eclipse had centered on the location of the Higher Dimensional Gate rally, narrowed down to an inexplicably small radius around that point, and then remained unchanged for several long minutes, long enough for anyone in its shadow to grow fatigued from the missing sunshine. Nothing like that had ever happened before. It defied every known fact about the science of eclipses.

People around the gathering—even people who had known nothing about the Higher Dimensional Gate rally—reported that during the eclipse, they'd become inexplicably disoriented, unable to tell compass directions, and had felt themselves fall toward the darkness—as if gravity's pull had suddenly moved from the south to the epicenter of the eclipse. Public building inspections confirmed that somehow the entire town had shifted, ever so slightly, closer to the epicenter. Closer to the Magister.

Never mind prophecy; as far as the Magister's rapidly-increasing followers were concerned, he might have been a god.

It was the greatest triumph a baby cult leader could ask for.

He barely noticed.

####

For days, he could hardly sleep, speak, or think. He kept losing track of conversations to stare into space. Now, it awed his followers when his eye turned an empty white—he must have been communing with something in a higher dimension.

He didn't argue. It was better than letting them know he was losing his mind.

He spent his time alone locked in his room, pacing back and forth, trying not to look up-but-not-north and failing. Dwelling on the significance of it all. Feeling like he'd never figure it out.

He used to love cosmic horror stories, back when he had time to read. They followed a reliable pattern: the hero travels farther than any rational shape ever should, meets something big, and goes mad from the realization.

And what was it that the hero always realized? That he was a dust fleck in the firmament. That he was insignificant. That he didn't matter. That there were things out there he'd never seen before and would never truly understand, and that they cared not for mere shadows on the wall like him, and that in the grand scheme of the cosmos he was nothing. That he was utterly unimportant.

In moments of what felt like lucidity in between the shivering horror, the triangle  wryly acknowledged that it was no surprise he'd ended up in a cosmic horror story. He could see into another dimension. In the stories he'd read, that made it all but inevitable.

But all the authors had gotten the maddening revelation wrong. He could have handled knowing he was nothing. It almost would have been a relief. 

True horror was knowing he mattered.

He'd spent the majority of his young life selling the idea that he was oh-so-important, as part of a big con to trick gullible idiots into liking him and flinging cash at his rotten undeserving family—and he'd only been able to do it because when the guilt got to him, when his conscience asked what would become of the shapes forking over their life savings on false promises of divine secrets, he could look out into bleak black space and tell himself that nothing really mattered, nothing was important, nothing he'd ever do would really make a difference, and the people he manipulated didn't matter any more than he did. He meant everything to his worshipers, and nothing to the universe. He could do anything and it didn't matter.

For a moment, a vast mind-melting shape-shifting incomprehensible eldritch god had focused its full attention on him—of all the universe, of all the dimensions beyond the known universe, it had looked at him and only him—a mere shadow on the wall, and yet in that moment, it found him interesting. It found him worthy of notice. He had screamed into the cold uncaring void, and the void had cared. For a moment, he'd held cosmic importance. He mattered. His actions mattered.

He'd felt it see him as important, but why? What was so important about him? There had to have been something significant he'd done, something he showed it, something in what he said. He replayed their conversation in his mind over and over and over and over, trying to remember what he'd done that proved he mattered.

He didn't know what it was. He couldn't find it. All he could remember was just... being.

The writers were wrong. Cosmic horror wasn't when an elder god's eyes slid past you without noticing you existed. It was when the elder god gazed down at you at your lowest and bleakest, during your most petty and selfish act of mass swindling, from a dimension where not even slamming the door and shutting your eye could shield you from its gaze—and it decided you were worth caring about. Cosmic horror was when you encountered a colossal alien that planted the incomprehensibly alien idea in your head that you had an inherent worth just because you existed. Cosmic horror was when a force of nature asked the name of a shadow on the wall.

If it was true... if it all mattered... then what was he doing? How could he? What had he done?

####

He was lucky—he was lucky that his parents had raised him to think so clearly about issues like morality and money and easy marks. His only saving grace was that he was too rational to seriously entertain the Axolotl's mad ideas.

And yet, his mind boiled with mad regret. It blazed with insane guilt. The heat of it could burn him out. It was months before he could continue his public sermons without feeling sick—and even once he did, he could still feel the delusion that what he did mattered, festering in his mind.

It would fester for the next trillion years.

####

(And that concludes this plot arc! I hope y'all enjoyed it!! I'd love to hear what y'all thought of the whole thing—especially now that we've looped back to the original eclipse. 😁)

[visibleclosedeyes]

Gap in my heart (Literally)

pairing: Mr. Gap x reader

“Hello”

While you prepare to work in your bedroom–doing your makeup and hair, putting on your uniform–ready for the day ahead, a chilling but familiar voice calls you. 

“Mr. Gap? Uh. Me not play,” You said without turning your head toward the voice. Since the day you managed to get out of that  Otherworld, Mr.Gap has consistently shown up in your space in the gap in the wall, in different containers, and so forth. At this point, you kinda have a domestic relationship together. Boyfriend? You wouldn’t go that far, but something is there. 

“Disappointed” Mr. Gap narrowed his eyes before asking another question 

“Where go?”

“Same place every day, Mr. Gap. Working. uh–Me work, same work.”

“Why?” He asks, eyes still narrowed–displaying an unreadable expression that you guess to be some kind of discontentment. It surprised you really–Mr. Gap isn’t a high-maintenance type and he never asked you these questions before. What changed?

“Uh…Work hunger gone,”

“Work stop hunger?” He seems interested now. 

“Not exactly. Work gives things, and things get food.” You try again to explain to Mr. Gap the concept of monetary exchange and bill to the best of your ability. 

“....not understand, residents don’t need work. Why work?”

“Humans need work, me human…Mr. Gap, why curious now?” You ask a question of your own. 

“Me bored, Stay,” 

“Can’t. Need work,”

“Disappointed” He responds, the conversation sounds like it goes back to the very beginning. 

“Give finger?”

“No,”

“Disappointed” He repeats yet again before disappearing. 

Working is hard. Living in the human world is hard. You know this already but it seems like every day her co-workers really remind her of that fact. Today is just another day of demoralizing work days. Getting yelled at by your boss because of your co-worker's mistake is not fun. In the parking lot, you are sitting there with a cigarette between your fingers contemplating whether or not to murder your co-worker, literally speaking. Suddenly between the gap in the wall opposite to you, a familiar pair of eyes pop up.

“Hello”

“Mr. Gap??! How did you..? Oh right, you can show up in any gap,”

“Human trouble?”

“Its nothing, just hard day at work,”

“Me solve problem, give me finger,”

“What? No! Not give finger,”

“Boring. Goodbye,”

Almost every day was the same old same old—your co-worker is an annoying asshole who purposefully caused issues just so he could blame it on you.

“Where are the documents the boss asked you to do?” Speaks of the devil… the most annoying face among the co-workers in this shitshow of a company has shown up like a fucking ghost the moment she starts thinking about her job

“What? What documents?” She answers truthfully. What fucking documents? And why is she hearing this just now?

“Seriously, the boss wants you to be the one to do it. you’re seriously irresponsible. Why did they even hire you?” He said with such a fake shocked expression on his face. Wait, so the boss told him…

"Boss told you this and you never told me?” she asked him in disbelief

"You never ask me to tell you, you should have been more active,” He snickers with a smug smile. Oh, this irritating fucker.

2 months and 1 week. She has sworn off killing people for exactly two months. Like a proud ex-addict, she wears that pride quietly on her mind, unable to announce how prideful she is for not killing some random pedestrians who show up in an abandoned apartment. She wants to keep it that way, but this man seems to be testing her patience. She is going to lose it and kill this guy on his way home. 

"There is still time left. You can take responsibility and be active for once. Give me a call once you are finished!”

your palms curl into a fist full of hate and rage–this man has no idea who he is up against. She fantasizes about the different ways she would go about killing him. Her regular method of a crowbar to the head would be the safest route but this guy is a piece of shit to her so far and she wants to do something special for him.

No, she doesn't want to kill these days. Hunting and killing seems to be a hobby she lost interest in a while ago. Now, she simply wishes for a more simple life after all those lives she proudly took. 

(not finish)

One day, when she was working as per usual–she hears the sound of that asshole screaming from the restroom

"I swear! I saw it there! a pair of creepy eyes between the crack in the wall inside the male restroom!”

"some pervert looking into the male toilet?”

"No! I…I don't think it's human–when I saw it, it just disappeared into thin air!”

"I think you should go see a doctor”

“Yeah, are you I'll or something? Did you hear a voice in your head too?”

“S–shut up! Stop mocking me! I fucking saw it, Ok?!” 

It seems like vacation comes to visit you early this year as she hears one of the best but most shocking of all week. Her asshole co-worker has decided to quit, it also seems like he has been scared shitless and borderline losing his mind at something that most people don't seem to understand. Many think that he cracked under constant pressure but she has a better idea of what might have happened. She didn’t think to ask of him at this current time but it seemed like he could read her mind somehow when she found him manifesting in her bag, a pair of gleeful, teasing eyes with an otherworldly smile somehow made her heart skip beats. 

“Mr.Gap!”

“Hello. Me good resident.” 

“I heard about the haunting spirit between the wall’s gap in the male bathroom—did you do it? The guy who tormented me quit”

“Me solve problems, me good resident,”

“Yeah, that was a good one. Good, thank you”

“Give good resident finger?”

“No”

“Disappointed”

[daddy-dotcom]

Bang My Line

Summary: You're Penelope Garcia's first intern, and you learn a lot more from her than just her technical skills.

Rating: M

Words:4, 357

Warnings: Fluff, typical canon violence mentions, smut ;)

*reblogs or comments r much appreciated*

Read my newest fic Scents and Sensibility out now 🤭

_____________________________________________

The first day was a blur. It was scary enough to completely change career paths, but working for the FBI was an entirely different beast. Between what seemed like hundreds of background checks and interviews, I finally made it to my first day. Granted, I would just be an intern for now, but hopefully this would lead to a permanent position as a technical analyst. I waited in the lobby for Penelope Garcia, the woman who would be my mentor for the duration of my time with the BAU. We had spoken over the phone and even texted back and forth a bit, but this would be my first time meeting in person.

“There she is! My shiny new intern.”

“Hi you must be Agent Garcia,” I replied with my arm outstretched. She took it and gave what was the most enthusiastic hand shake I’ve ever seen.

“Oh honey, I’m way too fun for you to call me agent. Call me Penelope.” I shook my head in agreement and she led me towards the elevator.

“I know I gave you a rundown of the team via our text messages, but be prepared for them to ask you a million questions. You’re my first ever intern and they’re dying to meet the newest member of the team.”

“Duly noted, just know I’m going to be doing the same to you Penn because I’m a little out of my element here.”

“hmm Penn, I like the sound of that.”

As the elevator doors opened, I could see the rest of the team gathered around a desk, too focused on their own conversation to notice me and Penelope.

“Everyone, please welcome my first and only intern (Y/N).”

The man in the crisp black suit stood up first to greet me and introduced himself as Agent Aaron Hotchner.

“Penelope has not shut up about her new intern so it’s nice to finally put a pretty face to the name. I’m SSA Derek Morgan.”

I let out a bashful chuckle as I shook Morgan’s hand. Penelope did warn me that he could be a bit of a flirt. I was then greeted by a blonde woman who goes by JJ and an older man named Agent Rossi.

“Don’t tell me you write in pink sparkly gel pen too?” he jokingly asked.

I smiled and shook my head no, before being greeted by Agent Emily Prentiss.

“Don’t mind Rossi, it’s always nice to have another woman on the team to keep these boys in check.”

She gestured towards Morgan and the other agent beside her, who I can only assume is none other than Dr. Spencer Reid.

Penelope had described him as quote “Steven Hawking trapped in a young Bill Nye’s body.” What I didn’t expect was for him to actually be attractive. Sure, Agent Morgan and even Agent Hotchner were easy on the eyes, but Spencer Reid was strikingly handsome in the most unassuming way. The soft golden waves that covered the top of his head combined with those puppy dog eyes were enough to remind me how nervous I was to be joining the team.

“Nice to meet you (Y/N)” he said as he took my hand. My palms were beginning to sweat, but the steadiness of his firm grasp eased my nerves.

“Likewise,” was all I could manage to say. He held my gaze for what felt like both a moment and an eternity, before releasing my hand.

“Well, (Y/N), let’s get you briefed on your first case,” said Penelope.

I followed Penelope into the briefing room and decided to sit in the seat closest to the screen so that I could take notes on her presentation. To my surprise, Spencer took the seat next to me. As if I wasn't already a nervous wreck, his close proximity to me was going to make my writing even more illegible than usual. Still, I could get used to sitting next to the most handsome member of the team.

As Penelope wrapped up her presentation and the rest of the team departed on the jet, the bubbly blonde gave me a little tour of her office. Rossi wasn't joking about Penelope's love of glitter gel pens, and her desk was adorned with unicorn paperweights and mermaid statues.

"This is your workspace over here, (Y/N), although you'll mostly be assisting me for the first couple of weeks. Feel free to decorate your desk with as many unicorns as you please," she said.

The first hour or so of work was mostly getting situated in my new workspace, but we soon got our first call from the team, and it was from the man himself, Derek Morgan. Penelope pressed the button to answer the phone and his voice immediately came through the speaker for both of us to hear.

"It's your babygirl and her babygirl in training, what do ya need hot stuff?" said Penelope.

"Hey mama, I need you to look into Walter Price's bank activity for the last few months, see if there were any suspicious withdrawals or transfers."

"Anything for you gorgeous"

"Thanks babygirl, I'll be expecting your call back soon."

I sat with my mouth slightly ajar, looking over at Penelope dumbfounded.

"Do you talk to everyone on the phone that way?" you asked.

"Nope, just my sweet lover Derek Morgan."

I paused for a second before asking my follow up question, "so are you two like...in a relationship?"

"Only in my dreams," Penelope said with a wink. I let out a laugh because this whole situation surprisingly made me more at ease in my new job.

"As your intern, I guess it's my job to learn how to answer the phone like you?" I said with a wicked smile.

"Oh no my dear, at least, not yet. We've got a long way to go before you get to my level. And of course you'll have to find your own gorgeous man to talk dirty to, Morgan is already taken."

That definitely wouldn't be a problem, I already had the most gorgeous man on the team in mind.

I spent the next few weeks listening in on Penelope's phone calls and looking up information for her. I even got to help her present a new case to the team. After my first week, the team took me out to celebrate surviving my first case with the BAU. Even though I had become more comfortable around everyone on the team, I couldn't shake the butterflies Reid gave me whenever we interacted. However, I did notice that I was much more confident over the phone than in person. I tried to conceal my blossoming crush on Spencer as best I could, but I couldn't help but be the slightest bit sweeter to him whenever he was the one who called us.

During my second month of internship, we had a particularly hard time tracking down an unsub. Penelope was getting way too many names and she called Spencer to help her narrow down the list.

"There were traces of chlorine and calcium hypochlorite on the body which are chemicals commonly used in pool maintenance, Garcia narrow it down to men over 40 in the area who own pools or work in pool maintenance," he said.

"One name! It's Michael Dunlop, he works as a freelance pool maintenance man and, ooh get this, he hasn't responded to any jobs since the first murder on June 11th."

"Sending the address to your phones right now!" I interjected.

"Thanks (Y/N),"

"Anything for you, cutie" I said, with a sudden burst of confidence.

As I hung up with a satisfied look on my face, Penelope glanced over at me looking smug as ever.

"Cutie huh? That's a new one," Penelope said, "I knew I'd rub off on you sooner or later." And she was right. I started incorporating more color into my work wardrobe and I even brought my tiny stuffed cow to sit at my desk.

"You said I had to find my own gorgeous man to flirt with on the phone...so I did."

"I knew it! You have a crush on our genius boy-wonder!" She was positively giddy just by the thought of it. "I mean he's always sitting next to you and looking over at you when he thinks no one is noticing. You would think in a room full of profilers that I wouldn't be the only one to notice, and yet here we are."

It never occurred to me that my little crush might actually be reciprocated. Spencer was always a bit socially awkward, so I just assumed that he was the same way with me. I never once thought that he was actually as nervous to talk to me as I was to him. This fact somehow boosted my confidence even more, and I decided to have some fun with Spencer over the phone.

---------------------------------------------------------

"Cutie huh?" Morgan asked the blushing boy. Spencer was used to Penelope teasing him, but this was different. He had been harboring a small crush on their newest intern for the past month, and when she flirted with him over speakerphone for Morgan, of all people, to hear, Spencer couldn't help but turn as red as a tomato.

Of course, being a profiler, Morgan took notice of Reid's crimson cheeks. "Call me crazy but I think she likes you, pretty boy."

"O-of course not, she's just copying the way Garcia talks to you," Spencer stuttered.

"That may be true, the only difference is that you have a little crush yourself."

Spencer didn't bother trying to lie since he knew Morgan would see right through him, so he just mumbled something about Prentiss and Hotch needing them at the location (Y/N) sent.

---------------------------------------------------------

It was a lot easier to flirt with Spencer when he wasn't physically in front of me. When we were in the office together, we'd shoot each other smiles from across the room or he'd bring me an extra coffee in the morning. But when he was out in the field and I was back at my desk at the BAU, it was a whole different game. I tried my hardest to make him blush over the phone any chance I got, and it seemed to be working. After Penelope found out about my little crush, she decided to play matchmaker and slip Spencer my work phone number to call me instead for information. For the first time, I heard my phone ring instead of Penelope's and I immediately answered.

“Give it to me good baby, what do you need from me?” I replied. I knew it was Spencer since he was the only one who had my number.

"Hey (Y/N)" he said, and I swear I could hear him smiling through the phone. I could tell he had become more comfortable with our one-sided phone flirting over the past month. "I need you to look up all of Dr. Gupta's patients at the psychiatric clinic for the past 3 months, see if any of them drive a black van."

"You got it, gorgeous. If you need anything you know you can always bang my line."

---------------------------------------------------------

“You have (Y/N)’s number?” JJ asked.

Spencer looked puzzled, “Yea.. don’t we all?”

“I think it’s just you pretty boy” Morgan quipped, as he chuckled and gave him a pat on the back.

Spencer had grown fond of (Y/N)'s phone flirtation, but he was too embarrassed to return the favor in front of his colleagues. He loved watching her walk around the office in her high heels, trying to keep up with Penelope's fast pace. He knew brief glances and morning coffees weren't going to cut it anymore, he had to do something before her internship was over. So he decided to call her on his way home from working the case.

---------------------------------------------------------

The team had just finished a case and were on the plane headed back to Quantico. Penelope had plans so she left me to wrap things up in the office. Just as I was making my way towards the door, my phone began to ring. Confused, I picked up the phone and listened to see if it was a misdial.

"Hey babygirl."

I nearly choked when I realized who was speaking. My body involuntarily shivered and my heart quickened its pace. This "babygirl" hadn't come from Morgan, it was Spencer on the other line.

"Hi Spencer! What's up I thought you guys wrapped up the case?" I asked in a confused tone.

"We did, but I thought I'd call you without everyone else around." His voice sounded sultry and silky smooth, unlike his usual rapid rambling, and it made it so much harder for me to speak. "We should be landing in about twenty minutes, stay in your office and I'll meet you there."

"Okay, I'll be waiting here, handsome."

--------------------------------------------------------

Those twenty minutes were the longest twenty minutes of my life. I knew Spencer had a crush on me as well, but what could he possibly want to meet with me for? Was he going to ask me to stop flirting with him on the phone? Was he going to ask me out? Was he trying to make out with me? God I secretly hoped it was the latter...

Just as I had been getting lost in my own thoughts, I heard the familiar voices of the rest of the team down the hall. I knew Spencer would be walking into my office any minute, so I nervously fixed my hair and applied the lipgloss Penelope gave me.

"Hey babygirl," said the tall man standing in the door frame.

"Hi Spencie," I said with a smile as I called him the nickname I lovingly gave him, which I'm sure he secretly hates. I couldn’t help but grin since the word “baby girl” still seemed so foreign coming from his mouth. I stood up to meet his gaze as he slowly made his way over to my desk.

"I know you've been teasing me these past couple weeks," he said as we closed the gap between our bodies. I would say our faces were inches from each other, but he was impossibly tall and my face didn't reach past his chest, "but now its my turn to tease you," he said as he brought his hands behind my ears and pressed his lips onto mine. He was gentle and tentative at first, but I passionately pressed my lips back against his to deepen the kiss. I ran my hands through his gorgeous locks and began to tug. We quickly became a breathless mess and I couldn't help the feeling building in the pit of my stomach. His hands traveled down to my waist and he gingerly pulled me closer. He was both hesitant and passionate, not quite sure if he should act on his instincts. He pulled back for just a second to speak:

"I know you only have a few weeks left with us, but would you like to get coffee sometime?" he asked with those same puppy dog eyes that made me fall for him in the first place.

"Oh Spencie, we're a bit past coffee don't you think?" I said with blushy cheeks. "Let's get dinner sometime, I'm free any night except Tuesday, I have Zumba class with Penelope."

"She really has influenced you a lot hasn't she?" he said, making a mental note of the pink scrunchie in my hair.

"In more ways than one hot stuff."

---------------------------------------------------------

Over the next few weeks, I spent my days phone flirting with Spencer at work and my nights making out with him in my office or eating Chinese take-out in his apartment. No one on the team, not even Penelope, knew about our brewing workplace romance, and we intended to keep it that way until I was hired permanently. However, that didn't stop him from flirting back on our calls. I was on my last week of internship and I was now the only one who Spencer called when he needed information. Spencer and I had agreed to take it slow, but our most recent calls had me desperate to find out what else he was packing besides the gun strapped to his hip. Just then, a call interrupted my wandering thoughts and I immediately picked up knowing it was him.

“Dayton Ohio you're on the air" I answered in my sexiest voice possible.

"I'd like to make a request," Spencer replied.

"You can request anything you want, doctor" I could hear him chuckle behind the phone before telling me what he actually needed.

"I need you to look up a marketing firm by the name of Firsthand Media and see if they have any connections to the colleges of the first set of victims."

"I'm on it, sugar" I answered.

"Oh and one more favor, look up the words beautiful and brilliant and see what you can find."

"Look at that, it's me"

"You're the best (Y/N)"

I could feel Penelope's eyes on me before she turned around and said

"I've never been more proud."

The rest of the day was filled with calls from the other agents to Penelope, mostly Morgan, until that evening when I got one last call from Spencer. He asked me to see if there were any men who had been admitted to the hospital in the last 6 months for brain injuries, but no one came up.

"Couldn't find anything, looks like you're going to have to punish me Spencie," I replied.

"You'll just have to wait til I get back for that"

He hung up, and I couldn't believe what I just heard. Penelope and I were in shock that Spencer Reid could be so dirty. For once, I was the one blushing on the other end.

"(Y/N) I swear to god if you don't let that man make sweet love to you I am personally writing your letter of resignation"

"Penn! We just flirt is all, like you and Morgan, I could never actually be with him"

"So you two haven't been using my sacred office space to make-out between cases?" she asked with raised eyebrows. I stood there, with my mouth open and eyes wide, looking guilty as ever.

"You do know there's a camera in this office right?" I was mortified. Thank God we'd never done anything more than kiss in this office.

"You knew this whole time? Why didn't you say anything?"

"Oh Morgan knows, but everybody else is still in the dark because I didn't want to risk you not getting hired. And I hacked into the security computers and deleted the footage."

"Thank you so much Penn, and I promise I won't have anymore heated makeout sessions in this office, or anywhere in this building for that matter."

"Anything for my little protege. But in all seriousness, you should definitely ride boy-wonder off into the sunset and make it official once you're hired."

"Penelope!" I hit her in the arm, only half jokingly because I knew deep down that that's exactly what I should do.

---------------------------------------------------------

As usual, I waited in my office for Spencer to meet me. But this time, I was determined to go back to his apartment and finish what we started over the phone.

"Hello beautiful" he said as he made his way over to me. He greeted me with a hungry kiss and it took every ounce of strength I had not to pin him down and ride him in this office.

"Spencer listen, we can't makeout in this office anymore. Garcia and Morgan know about us already and she had to delete the footage off of the security cameras."

"Morgan knows? That present he gave me actually makes a lot of sense now."

"Nevermind that," I said before moving closer to whisper in his ear, "what I need now is for you to punish me like you said you would."

I could feel his heart beating out of his chest, his eyes went wide but faintest hint of a smile appeared on his deliciously soft lips.

"well then what are we waiting for" he said as he grabbed my hand and practically pulled me out of the office.

We wasted no time getting back to his apartment. Reid was always such a cautious driver, but this time he was driving like his life depended on it. Once in the building, he wouldn't let go of my hand and we were practically sprinting towards his door. He fumbled with the key for a moment before the door sprang open and I pushed him inside with the force of my lips on his. His hands had become quite comfortable exploring my body, and tonight was no exception. I tugged on his tie without breaking the kiss and he let out a heavy sigh as I led him towards his bedroom. I pushed him once again, this time down onto the bed, and I practically jumped on top of him to straddle his waist. As I let my weight rest on the growing bulge in his pants, he let out the sexiest groan and I could feel the wetness pooling in my panties. I continued to grind on him as we completely devoured each other. This wasn't the first time we'd done this, but this time it was different, we both wanted more.

"Spence please," I whined, "I need you."

"You can have me baby," he replied, looking up at me with those puppy dog eyes that I adore so much.

We quickly undressed and I raced to climb back on top of him.

"You really are beautiful," he said while tucking a loose strand of hair back behind my ear. I smiled back at him and gently kissed his lips before going back to grinding over his now bare cock.

His groans were like music to my ears and I couldn't help but sighing at the feeling of him gliding across my exposed cunt.

"Baby please, I want to be inside you," he pleaded.

"Do you have a, uh, condom?" I asked, somewhat sheepishly.

"I do...that was actually the 'gift' that Morgan got me," he said followed by a nervous chuckle. He reached into the drawer on the bedside table and, slightly trembling, opened the package.

"I-I just want you to know that I haven't done this in a while, (Y/N)," he began, "I don't know if I'll be any good." He was just as nervous as I was. I gave him a sympathetic nod before replying.

"It's okay Spence, it's been a while for me too. I guess you could say we get pretty caught up in our work."

"Agreed," he said, slightly more at ease.

As soon as he finished up rolling on the condom, I wasted no time lining him up with my entrance and sinking onto his length.

"Fuck, baby" he moaned with his eyes screwed shut "you feel so good." It was insanely hot to hear such foul language come out of Spencer Reid's mouth.

"You want me to ride you baby?" I asked teasingly.

"Yes please..."

I began to bounce rapidly on his dick, feeling every inch of him come in and out of me. I had a feeling he wasn't going to last long, but I didn't care, I was beyond happy to just watch the pleasure that I was bringing him. I took his hands and placed them on my breasts, which caused a simultaneous moan to come from the both of us.

"God (Y/N) you're going to make me cum" he said, nearly out of breath.

I knew he was close, but I was slowing down as my legs began to give out on me. He sensed the slowing of my pace, so he took one hand from my breast, wrapped it around my waist, and began to pump into me from below.

“Consider this your punishment babygirl”

This new angle was heaven to me and I couldn't help but cry out. He was fucking me so hard I swear I could see stars.

"Oh god Spence," I moaned. For someone who has been out of the game for a while, he was making me feel so good.

"I'm gonna...I'm..." he muttered.

"Let it out Spence, cum for me baby."

And with that, he spilled his load inside the condom. He just kept coming and coming inside of me until there was nothing left. Spencer Reid was utterly and completely spent.

---------------------------------------------------------

“Well Dr. Reid, you sure know how to please a woman,” you said poking him in the rib.

“What can I say, I’m an overachiever,” he replied with a cocky smile plastered on his face.

As I was about to go in for a kiss on his cheek, my cellphone rang, and it was a call from Penelope.

“Hello my pretty! Sorry in advance that I’m probably interrupting your sexy times with boy-wonder but I just couldn’t wait to tell you. You got the job!”

“Oh my goodness! That’s great news, thanks Penn! What department am I in?”

“You’re going to be working in the international intelligence department, aaaaand that means you’ll probably have to report your little romance directly to human resources.”

“Sounds good Garcia, we’ll take care of that first thing in the morning,” Reid interjected.

“Ah, so boy-wonder is there with you! Looks like you took my advice after all (Y/N),” Penelope replied.

I rolled my eyes and said “Goodnight Penelopeeee” in a sing-songy voice.

“Goodnight you two, be safe and don’t stay up tooooo late.”

“Aww, what ever happened to the fun Penelope Garcia?”

“She’s not here right now but leave a message, bye!” And with that our conversation was over.

“Guess it’s time to tell the rest of the team about us”

“I guess so Spence, good luck handling all the teasing on your own baby,” I said with a giggle and planted a kiss on his cheek before drifting off to sleep. Tomorrow was surely going to be an interesting day at the office.

__________________________________

AN: Thanks for all the love, shameless plug for my newest oneshot The Visit

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[saeun]

LOLLIPOPS ꢾ꣒ OLD DREAMS ex!sukuna ryomen x reader.

+ love, ‘su: in this sukuna’s that one ex who just won’t leave you alone bc hes annoying // toji sneak but he's like irrelevant !,×&&÷

the store’s dead. nothing but the whirring of vending machines and the music softly playing from the speakers can be heard. you’ve been behind the counter for the past five hours—you’re sweaty, bored, and experiencing the consequences of sitting on a random upside-down bucket for hours with nothing to support your back besides random moments of fixing your posture.

you double-tap the glass on your phone, sighing as you saw the time. it’s 08:30 p.m exactly, just thirty minutes before you can clock out. time felt slower than usual—the lack of customers and WiFi helped in dragging the time.

rolling your shoulders back, you stretch your neck to the sides, desperately trying to release tension. tension that’ll easily build right back up. there’s truly nothing to do. you’ve made paper airplanes, chewed on half a pack of gum, doodled on the wrappers and gave yourself tattoos, took multiple five-minute naps—the list can go on.

a “ding!” prevents you from succumbing to your boredom. immediately, you fix your posture, dusting off your shirt before you scanned the store for whoever just walked in.

so far, all you’ve seen is a man dressed in knee-length pants, a loose tank top, and an unlit cigarette tucked between his ear as if it were a flower.

another “ding!” came in, effortlessly moving your attention towards the glass doors. another man walked in. this one’s decorated in black from head-to-toe. full-length sweatpants, a hoodie, a cap, and a face mask. with an attire like that, you felt a bit threatened. what if he’s here to rob the village convenience store that runs on life support?

the scenario withers away immediately when you saw him walk to the previous man. seems like they’re friends. shrugging, you grabbed a random flyer from the desk, folding it back and forth to make a makeshift fan.

the men lingered around for a while, strolling through the four aisles before they walked up to the front. the one without the suspicious outfit places his items on the wooden desk: six beers, a pack of cigarettes, and a lighter.

he’s probably in his forties, you mentally judged based on his items.

“your total’s twenty-two dollars.” you bagged his stuff, sliding it towards him once you placed everything in it.

“thanks,” he nods, sliding a twenty-dollar bill and a five-dollar bill your way. “keep the change.”

“‘kay.” you gave him a nod back, not caring about the extra three dollars.

the all-black outfit man didn’t seem to follow his friend, though. you shifted uncomfortably on the bucket, waiting for him to say something, but it looked as though he’s a silent one.

“i clock out in, like, eleven minutes sir. is there something you need?” you questioned, lacing your voice with a touch of attitude.

he takes his cap off, then lowers his mask. the familiar hair colour and tattoos that adorned his face made you audibly show your fight-or-flight reaction. the “oh fuck,” left you quicker than you expected.

“it’s been a minute, yeah?” he spoke, looking down at you.

your face twisted into an expression of disgust before you brought forward the customer-service smile. you remembered that you’re still in the store, and there are unfortunately working cameras.

“been a minute of you wasting my time, sir! please leave!”

“sir?” he tilts his head at the unfamiliar title. were you drawing a line, or were you acting as if you don’t share a history with him.

“yes, sir.”

shifting, he places his hands into his pockets, slightly leaning back to appear nonchalant—as if he’s not bothered by the act you’re putting on.

“y/n l/n, did you really think moving back to your hometown would stop me from coming?” a condescending tone oozes from him. the mention of your full name didn’t fail to make you shiver.

swallowing back the chain of insults that threatened to flow, you dug your nails into your fist, gritting your teeth.

“keep it cute, sukuna.”

“there we go,” sukuna smiles, “i don’t dislike sir, but i prefer my name.”

you automatically rolled your eyes, unfazed by sukuna’s taunting. you’ve been through it for two years, after all.

the sound of the bell followed by the glass doors opening disrupts the moment between you two. the man with the cigarette re-enters the store, looking at his friend up and down with eyes filled with judgements.

“talk about cockblocking,” sukuna mumbles under his breath, waving his friend off before turning his attention back to you. “i’ll see you tomorrow.”

“we don’t have enough time for you to be tackling a cashier.” he clicked his tongue, gesturing for his friend to leave his position and exit the store.

you kept quiet, watching the two fade into the darkness of the night the moment they exited. once you were certain you couldn’t make out any figures, you let out a long, exasperated sigh.

“stupid fucking job and a stupid fucking ex.”

──────

sukuna’s a man of his word. you know this—everyone knows it. it’s exactly why you shouldn’t have greeted him with a “what the fuck!?” and slam your apartment’s door in his face. when he said he’ll see you tomorrow, he genuinely meant it. you don’t know how he knew of your apartment complex and your door number, but he’s here now.

poking his inner cheek with his tongue, he gave your door three obnoxious knocks again. the sole purpose of the knocks was to annoy the neighbours which would then pressure you into letting him in. you’ve always been wary of making sure everyone else is comfortable and sukuna’s glad you’re still the same in some ways.

just as he predicted, you quickly opened the door, immediately cursing at him.

“can you be fucking quiet?!” you whisper-yelled, holding onto the damp towel that was once wrapped around your hair.

“if you let me in,” sukuna whispered back, shrugging at your annoyance.

“no.”

a firm rejection. you prepared to close the door (again) with full force but it wobbled back when it met sukuna’s foot that prevented it from being closed on him (again).

“very disrespectful. who raised you?” he clicked his tongue in disapproval, placing a hand on the door to force his way in.

you were ultimately defeated. there was nothing left for you to do but stand there wondering whether it’d be a good idea to report a home invasion with a side of harassment.

sukuna allowed himself to be amazed by your little home. the colours alone scream your name. he observes every detail, ignoring the voice in his head that’s telling him how it would’ve been had you two not break things off.

“nice place.” a compliment.

“tell me something i don’t know, you undiscovered demon.” an insult.

‘undiscovered demon?’ the insult lingers in his mind for a bit. your… peculiar ways of naming people truly surprises him.

ignoring your burning gaze, sukuna takes his shoes off before sitting himself on your sofa. he shuffles a bit to make himself comfortable: leaning his head back, closing his eyes, and stretching both hands on the top edge of the backrest.

a frown decorates your face. walking towards the kitchen, you grab the disinfect spray and sneak up behind him.

feeling you near him, sukuna raises an eyebrow, “got me a drink or what?”

you hummed, fighting back a mischievous smile as you sprayed disinfect like it’s body mist. the attack makes him jolt, turning around to curse at his offender.

“what the fuck was that about?”

“get out of my apartment, sukuna.” you leaned on a leg, placing a hand on your hip to emphasize that you’re serious.

a minute of silence welcomes itself. you can see sukuna thinking about what’s the best action he can do in this moment.

is it: (a) leave like you said to. (b) get back comfortable. (c) suggest something else.

“maybe if you let me reminisce and sleep with you again.”

clearly, he went with option c and a tablespoon of shameless-ness.

“what– wait– huh?!” you spluttered, bewildered at the audacity of the man who claims to have been in a past relationship with you—even when you’ve preached about not knowing him!

sukuna shrugs, shifting around in the sofa to make himself comfortable again. only this time he’s laying down.

“my hand gets tired too–”

“have some class!” you cut him off, throwing your hair towel at him. you can’t ignore the heat that’s settled in the back of your head.

by the time you regained your calm, sukuna’s already on his way to a nap. he even rolled your towel to use it as a pillow.

closing your eyes, you inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly. there’s really no winning with sukuna.

[darlingshane]

Dumb & Poetic

Michael Berzatto x F!Reader

Summary: Michael and you cannot communicate anymore without screaming at each other, but you've managed to keep that out of the workplace. Except for today. Your argument reaches a boiling point, and you have a big blowout in the kitchen in front of everyone. You end up apologizing to each other at the end of the day in the only way you know how to.

CW: +18, explicit, heavy angst, complicated relationships in the workplace, smut, vaginal sex, hate sex, making out, misogynistic comments.

Word Count: 2,2k

— Links: AO3 // Michael Masterlist

The kitchen is on fire, and it's not because everyone is working their asses off. It's only because of the heated argument you're having with Michael.

If your hands weren’t busy with the sandwich you’re making, you would definitely close your fist and sock him in the face. You don’t condone violence, but right now, he's earning himself a good punch. Breaking his nose could be the only thing that would stop him from relentlessly nagging at you while you work. There's fire in your knuckles already, itching to hit something. Anger is really starting to fester in your stomach as he keeps yapping in your ear about nonsense. You give him one more minute before you either swing your fist or quit altogether. It'd be pretty funny to leave him in the lurch with the show full of people anxiously waiting for their food. You're understaffed, overworked, and lacking better management. He knows it, you know it, everyone and their mother in the neighborhood knows it. And yet, Michael refuses to listen to reason. The only thing he loves listening to is himself talking.

If you had other options, you’d certainly drop what you’re doing and walk right out the door. It'd take you to be as much of an asshole as he is to just leave him stranded today. Unfortunately, you can’t afford the luxury of quitting this job.

Turning heads on your way, you yell at each other, going back and forth between everyone working tiredly on the tight kitchen space. It's not unusual for you to fight, but today there's a time bomb ticking that holds something inside more complicated than any of you can understand.

You knew mixing business and pleasure was a mistake. Yet you jumped, eyes closed. It serves you right, you're hitting your head against the bottom of the pool for not following your gut. You knew Michael was trouble, also your boss, and that didn't stop you from getting into bed with him.

Now everything is a mess. You can't communicate without screaming at each other. All the back and forth between being together and apart has burned the last bridge between you and Michael, and there's nothing you can do to fix it when he's not willing to do his part in helping you.

“Orders are piling up. You either move out of the way, or join the party. So help me God, Michael.” You throw your knife with disdain into the sink before you do something you might regret.

“You still haven’t answered my question. Why did you change the menu without telling me?”

“I tried! I called you ten times, and you never picked up. And I didn’t change the menu. I just added a special for the weekend to try it out. See, it’s working.” You use your hand to point at the kitchen window crowded by heads on the other side. “You said you were leaving for two days, and you were gone for over a week. You think that’s normal, to go on a bender and leave us to fend for ourselves? You got orders, bills, vendors to deal with… You're being fucking irresponsible. Has anyone told you that? ”

“Give me a damn break. You have no idea what I have to deal with. You've been working here two days and act like they own the place. Who the fuck you think you are?”

“I've been here two years, Michael! Two fucking years carrying your sorry ass around. You’ll be lost without me, asshole!”

“I'd be lost without you? That's rich.” He scoffs loudly. “I taught you everything you know.”

Now it's your time to snort. “You showed me how to make your stupid sandwiches. It's not like you taught me how to cure cancer. You should be grateful I care enough to do something about it.”

“It wasn’t your place! You added chicken to my menu. Beef. We serve beef.” He points at the logo on the shirt he's wearing. “Can't you read, sweetheart? If we start serving chicken, people are gonna get confused.”

You roll your eyes intently.

“I told you, it's just for the weekend, Mr. Beef.” You have to hold yourself back from throwing the wrapped sandwich in your hands at him.

“Yo, cousin, since when we do chicken specials.” Richie walks in, protesting, from the front of the shop.

“Ask the smartass here. Thinks she knows better than all of us.”

“Well, I don't know about smart, but she certainly has a good ass.” Richie laughs.

“Oh, look at your other half agreeing with you. What a surprise! That's sexual harassment, by the way, Richard. And you're late, as usual.”

“Take it to the police, sweetheart.”

You feel like you're the one who's taking this place more seriously than both of them. Perhaps you shouldn't even try anymore. If Michael doesn't care enough to make this place better, why should you? You're sick of busting your ass for nothing. You should just take a step back and let him drive this hole further into the ground.

Done with arguing with someone who doesn't even listen, you turn around and go start on the next order.

“Hey, I'm not done talking to you.” He, of course, follows behind you.

“Well, I am. Stop wasting my fucking time.”

“Not until you apologize for going over my head and changing things around without consulting me.”

You almost burst into laughter.

“The only one who needs to issue an apology is you, Michael. Not me. I've done nothing but bringing life into this fucking dark hole you've created. You're just too obtuse to see that.”

“You've got some fucking nerve. And who do you think is paying for all the chicken you ordered? Did you get a new vendor?”

“I know a guy. He got me a discount on the first order.”

“Really? Vendors I know don't usually do that. Did you have to suck his dick or something? Cause that's the only—”

He can't finish his sentence because before you know it, the back of your hand is swiftly flying across his face. All that vitriol that was boiling inside, begging to get out, ends plastered on his cheek that quickly turns red. Your knuckles hurt from hitting his jaw, but it was worth it.

Suddenly, you notice almost everyone in the kitchen is looking at the two of you, caught in the middle of the space in a standoff.

It takes him a second to tell everyone to go back to work. You can see him fuming, but he doesn't respond or retaliate to your aggression.

As much as he deserved it, you almost regret it immediately. At least you got him to shut up for the time being. You take a ten-minute break and finish the rest of your shift without more altercations or Michael pestering you, thankfully. You're not sure if you want to come back tomorrow. You're done with his shit. It's not worth it anymore. You'll have figured out something else, cause this is never going to get better, and today was proof of that.

Almost everyone is gone when you decide to have a word with Michael after closing.

“Hey,” you say, standing by the open door to his office as he looks up from the pile of papers on his desk. “I'm going to take a couple of days off from my vacation days.”

“Yeah, I think that'd be best.” He agrees.

“Are you going to fire me?”

“It has crossed my mind.”

“Well, are you?”

“Sit down” He motions at the empty chair while he stands up to close the door behind you.

“I'm not sitting down. I'm tired of arguing with you and I wanna go home. Just tell me, Michael. No hard feelings. We'll go our separate ways, and you'll never have to deal with me again. ”

“I'm not firing you, okay? Please sit. I have something to say.”

Begrudgingly, you sigh and sit in the chair with your arms crossed while he leans on the edge of the desk.

“Look, today got out of hand, and I'm sorry for my part. I shouldn't have said that.”

“It was way out the line. But I shouldn't have slapped you, either.”

“Did it feel good to slap me?” his lips pull up at the corners.

“Maybe a little.”

You both smile for a moment, but you know there's more to say.

“I appreciate you helping here, but you can't make decisions like that when I'm gone. You should have told me first.”

“You never listen, Michael. This isn't something new. I've been telling you for months. This place needs to change, or you're going to lose it. I thought it meant something to you, but hell, what do I know? But don't worry, I'm butting out from now on. It's your business, do what you want with it.”

“I highly doubt you can do that, sweetheart. You and I both know you won’t be able to stay out of it. You just love being a pain in my ass too much.”

No, you're done for sure. If he can't at least meet you halfway, you're done trying. You can't fix this place cause you can't fix him. And that's the main issue here.

“Believe what you want, Michael.” You stand up to leave, but he's surely not even close to being done with you.

“Wait, there's something else I gotta say.”

“What?”

He steps closer in your direction, and you almost flinch when he brings his hand up to touch your face. Sighing, you let him cup your face while he leans in to kiss your mouth. It's so puzzling the effect he has on you. It’s dumb and poetic. He keeps fucking with your head like it’s some kind of fetish, and you keep letting him for no reason other than you can’t help but caring for him. You wish you didn’t, but you do love him more than you’d like to admit.

“Your lips are moving, but I don't hear any talking,” you mumble against his kiss.

“Hm, I wasn't done yet,” he licks his lips and then the tip of his tongue traces the shape of your mouth before sliding past your lips to do his talking. You don't give in so easily to his dirty antics. He's going to have to earn it.

It takes you a moment to respond to the bidding of his tongue that moves slowly against yours, begging you to kiss him back.

You should know better by now that this won't end well. This is a path you've walked many times before, and every time you end up regretting ever stepping onto it. You should duck, run, kick him in the balls, but you’re far too deep into the mind-numbing rhythm of his tongue that casts an impossible spell on you to do anything but argue with your tongue. As the heat rises, the hunger of your lips locking becomes unbearably hot to handle. You can barely breathe when you notice his hands roaming all over your body, claiming it as if it was his.

“God, I hate you so much,” you grunt into the kiss, pulling slightly from his mouth to see the vicious red that has plumbed his lips.

“I hate you more, baby,” he huffs, sucking your bottom lip between his teeth as he presses his crotch between your legs. “That’s how much I despise you.”

“Not as much as I do.” You undo the buttons of your jeans before grabbing his hand and shoving it into your panties to make him feel how soaked you are already.

Dark eyes lock with yours as he viciously massages your whole pussy. Before you know, you’re turning your back on him, and bending over his desk, pulling your pants and underwear down so he can fuck you from behind.

There’s no time wasted, as you brace your elbows to the table, he smoothly buries his cock in your opening, collecting all your juices. He’s hard, and you're soft in all the right places for him to thrust firmly without hurting you. His hands grip your ass while the pace of his hips quickly drive you out of your mind. You feel every stroke and thrust rippling through your body, kindling a fire within your core. You glance over your shoulder to see him darkly staring at you before smacking your ass with his palm.

“How do you like that now, huh?” He snarls, slapping your ass a second time harder, earning a moan out of you. “Yeah, I know that’s how you like it, sweetheart.”

You then hang your head and let him drive you closer to the edge. You can feel his cock twitching inside you as you send one of your hands between your legs to touch your clit.

“What? You got nothing to say now?” He leans forwards to grunt in your ear. “Good. You look prettier with your mouth shut.”

“Fuck you, asshole,” you moan as his hand follow the path of yours to helps you take care of your clit as you both nearly touch that last final line.

With the help of his fingers, and those final firm erratic thrusts, you quickly come undone, letting your walls flutter around him, bringing him down with you. He spills himself inside, holding on to you as you and him are momentarily taken by that jolt of bliss that ripples from his body to yours and vice versa.

— credits: divider by @bernardsbendystraws

[davosmymaster]

No Time To Die

TAGS AND WARNINGS - +18, Minors DNI, no explicit smut but sexual themes, whump, a lot of angst, blood, graphic wounds and procedures (?) probably not medically accurate, could be almost gore if you squint, hurt/comfort, two dorks in love, canon-typical violence, near-death experiences. Not based on the game, I don’t know anything about the game and I don’t want spoilers please.

PAIRINGS - Joel Miller x fem!reader

WORD COUNT -  9.6k.

SUMMARY - The main difficulty of being Joel’s closest friend is not falling in love with him, but you still do. Those feelings are buried until you join him on a mission to trade supplies with Bill and Frank. With your life now hanging by a thread, Joel is determined to get you to safety, but the clock is ticking faster than he can run.

A/N - I honestly don’t know what this is. I tried to look for angsty and whumpy fics and couldn’t find any that hit the spot just right; so I wrote my own. This story is set in some time between 2010 and 2020, or so. Bill and Frank are still very much alive. The only warning apart the amount of blood in this, it’s my own knowledge of the English language.

'Breathe'

 With a shiver, you try to comply with your own command. The action itself confuses you, and you don't know where exactly in your mind that thought came from; or why. All you know is that a moment ago you were nothing, absolutely nothing, not even human. You forgot your own existence in a still ocean made of black thick ink. The ink is now backtracking, though, but the remnants of it stay in your foggy mind, clouding it as your consciousness comes back in waves.

 Waking up from a dream is easy, you just come back into yourself from a nice trip to your own imagination. Regaining consciousness, however, is a little more difficult. Instead of going somewhere, you go inwards into yourself. Your overworked mind, already tired and busy with keeping you alive, doesn't care much about bringing you to any other place so you can die peacefully. No. And the awakening is not as it should be either.

Coming back into yourself is your body crawling its way to the land of the living, with your flesh drenched in tears, blood and sweat; and nails digging firmly into the dirt. At least that's how it feels as you go back and forth between the two worlds, rocked violently by the waves threatening to drown you in its heavy never-ending dream.

 You wake up tired, and cold. The first sense that returns is touch; and with it, a pulsing pain radiates from under the right side of your collarbone and all the way down to your chest and back. The —obvious— wound is warmer than the rest of your body. It's like you've grown a second heart right at the borders of the wound; it throbs relentlessly. The second is taste. Your mouth tastes like salt and melted butter; despite not having eaten either in at least three days. Around the dryness of your tongue you feel a sticky liquid swirling around in your mouth, plastered to your gums.

 Whatever it is, you cough it out of your mouth. The old blackened blood splatters on the wooden planks below your mouth. Then, a second later, you feel a sprawled hand on your back; and the rest of your consciousness returns with it.

 He calls your name. And he, whose presence you'd have recognized even blindfolded, even miles away from there, doesn't appear in your mind for a few seconds. But even half-conscious and at death's gates, his name leaves your mouth with a sigh of relief.

 Joel.

 "I'm here," he says, his palm now pressing a bit harder into your back, trying to comfort you somehow. If you had been fully aware, you'd have been embarrassed at the relieved groan that had escaped your lips while saying his name. "How are you feeling?"

 His voice sounds less muffled now, but the pulsing pain intensifies the closer you are to the surface. A second groan escapes your mouth as the warmth under your collarbone becomes impossible to ignore.

 "I know, I know" he says.

 Your eyes flutter open. From your point of view there's not much to see except torn wallpaper, your blood stains, and the shadow of a window. You're on the floor, your cheek pressed against the dusty carpet, your body very still laying on them, and Joel rubbing your back.

 The room is dark. His fingers enter your field of vision, they dip on the wet blood stains and turn around so Joel can see the sticky fluid staining his fingers. He takes a breath, a gasp, really.

 "Goddamnit," he mutters under his breath. His hand stops rubbing your back, and as black stains crawl from the corners of your vision, trying to take you under the waves again, he talks to you:

 "I need to turn you around..." he says with a gentle voice. It's like the icing on top of a sour and burnt cake; he's trying to sound caring, but that doesn't change the fact that it's going to hurt like a bitch. "You hear me?" he says, and his voice breaks for a second. Your ears ring, the next thing he says your brain doesn't process it, your vision has been clouded by darkness again...

 A scream tores your throat as a shooting pain lights your body on fire. It feels like lightning going through your backbone. Suddenly, the waves are very far away and you're feeling way too conscious for your liking. Despite your pain, Joel is still as careful as he can as he lays you on the floor, now facing the ceiling instead.

 The throbbing pain continues, and you blink to get rid of the tears that distort Joel's face. His hand wipes the tears from your face.

 "I know," he says. He has a crease between his seemingly angry eyebrows that you had never seen before.

 Both hands are roaming your ribs now, before you can even say anything. His warm hands give you shivers as he touches your naked skin. The pain is so unbearable that all you can do to mitigate it is hold your breath. If you could move, you'd be right now curled on the floor like a pretzel. You are not crying anymore, but you'd be lying if you said you weren't close.

 "Can you breathe?" he asks then, when he doesn't find any cracks in your ribs by touch alone. You don't respond because you can't find your own voice, and he sounds desperate at this point. "You coughed blood, I need to know if any of your lungs are collapsing."

 "It-it hurts..." you wheeze, your eyes tightly shut. For a split second, you wish you were back to being nothing. Being nothing sounds way better than having a gunshot wound in your chest. The bandages, tight over your bones and shoulder, don't mitigate the pain either. If anything, they worsen it. It feels like a tight sock over a painful pustule on your heel.

 Worst part is you know all this pain is for nothing; you know you won't make it. If you go back to the QZ, you will be executed. If not, there's nobody to help you except Joel. But even if there were doctors or hospitals, you highly doubted you could find the necessary tools to extract a bullet and stitch the wound. That is, if you manage not to die of blood loss.

 "Where?" Joel asks. Even beyond all this concern and well-hidden panic, he seems to cling to an ounce of hope. "Tell me where it hurts."

 Your fingers gently trace your skin until they reach the area under your collarbone, and you sign to your back too. There's a bandage there, but nothing else, and that's when you notice you don't have a shirt on, just your blood-soaked bra.

 "Is it bad?"

 "Not that bad. The bullet went through," he said. That explains the pain on both sides of your body; you have a literal hole in your chest. "And it clotted soon enough to stop the bleeding, but you lost too much blood anyway... Anywhere else?"

 Your whole body hurts and this abandoned house suddenly feels like penance, but you don't want to scare him further, so you shake your head no very slowly.

 "Alright," he mumbles. Joel nods once, and it looks like he is reassuring himself. His eyes betray him, he looks like he is very far away from here, very buried under all the scenes playing on his mind; but despite his stillness, his lower lip quivers.

 You can't move your right arm at all, but with the other hand, your fingers lightly touch his knuckles still resting on your stomach. He winces, and your fingers are wet with his blood too. He must have beaten to death whoever shot you, that you are certain about.

 Your voice, little more than a weak breath, whispers:

 "I-I want you to do it."

 The crease between his eyebrows deepens. He seems confused rather than angry; the reaction you were hoping for. You take a breath to repeat your own words, but he squeezes your hand.

 "Don't," he says.

 "Joel..."

 "Don't even think about it," he snarls. "You are perfectly fine, don't be dramatic."

 You don't know what hurts more; his pain or yours, but his denial makes your eyes wet with tears again. This is already hard, but he is making it even harder. All he will achieve by trying to keep you alive is either prolonging his pain or getting himself killed. You both know this is no world for the injured and the sick, not out of the QZ, at least. And in most cases, not inside either.

 All you ask of him is to not leave you for the infected to find. Is that too much to ask?

 You want to insist, but you know he won't have it. Joel has lost so much already that the thought of losing what little left he has is not even going to cross his mind. Not until it's too late, at least. Also, you don't want your last moments with him to be a fight. You are tired of fighting, of swimming against the current. You just want to let go for once, give in to the external forces, close your eyes and peacefully breathe.

 What's more, you should have already known that he wouldn't do you that favor. He is too selfish for that.

 He pats your cheeks gently with his large hands, and your eyes, already rolling back into your skull, get focused on him again with a few blinks. You breathe slowly, trying to focus on him, on the world around you slowly twisting and turning.

 "...that's it," he says, it doesn't sound like his first sentence, so you guess he's been talking to you before. When you look back at him, his breathing is shallow, and you know he is trying to take a hold of himself too, trying not to give in to panic. "Good girl, that's it. Keep your eyes on me."

 Exhausted and hurting as you are, keeping your eyes open it's like asking you not to drop a weight that you cannot, in fact, handle; but you try nonetheless. It's your fault, really, for letting yourself go, for trying to give up on your fight earlier than you should. Joel is here trying to keep you alive, mending all your broken ends and stitching them together —he has always been good at that— while you're just trying to give up on him —you are really good at that too—.

 Giving up on Joel has been one of the hardest things you've ever had to do; and now you're letting him go for the last time. Part of you is glad you don't have to keep watching how he chooses Theresa over and over again. You are even relieved that fate —or whatever there is out there— is forcing you out of the equation. After all, you would never have given up fully on him.

 He refuses to kill you, what he doesn't know is that you've been dead for a long while now. Him being your executioner would be the kindest act he could have with you, the most intimate thing you'd ever share; your last moments. You want it to be him, you want him to free you from this torment.

 He refuses, though; and it feels like a punch to the pit of your stomach. You shiver.

 He gets up from his place on the floor, where you are lying just over the carpet. You follow him with your eyes and see a fire cracking up in a fucked-up chimney. He stokes the fire, throws some more wood on it and then comes back to you, covering you with his jacket, the very same jacket you had on before he turned you around. It's warm, his, and you have to stop yourself from sinking your nose into the collar.

 "I had to take off your shirt to patch you up," he says, but he doesn't say sorry. Ever. So you guess it's his way of apologizing.

 You simply nod, aware that you had wished for this very moment to happen many times before. You had dreamt of his rough hands over your naked flesh, caressing the sides of your body. You had dreamt of him watching you with those chocolate eyes as you took your shirt off, deep black pupils spreading over the brown as he watched the lace fall like a helpless witness.

 But now the bra was covered in blood and he was watching you anywhere but the lace. He had a frightened and concerned look on his face, rather than aroused. A look that would have made you feel guilty and ashamed if it had happened in the other scenario. And instead of undressing you, he was covering your body with his jacket as if you were his child.

 "What's wrong?" he is asking now, instead of whispering 'I want you' and it hurts all the same to know he's not ever going to say it, and that Tess now will have all those words for however long their lives are.

 You guess they were made for each other. And it makes all the sense, really, no one like Joel would ever look at you twice. You were grateful that he even allowed you to be his friend.

 "Nothing," you respond.

 It's always 'nothing' when it comes to Joel. It's always that nothing whenever he notices you are under the weather. It's always nothing when you are hurt, when someone tries to rob you and they leave an angry black eye on your face. It's always nothing; and he never believes you.

 "I don't make promises, you know that," he says, taking your left hand in his. "but you will be fine, I swear."

 You don't know what to say, how to explain that you are not scared of death, that you are just scared of not seeing him again. But you can't, so you say nothing and just nod.

 Does he want to hurt himself? Okay. You can't do much while lying on the floor anyway.

 After that, both of you stay silent. Joel seems to be avoiding looking at you. His eyes are stuck in the fire creaking in the chimney, but they are too restless to be present and conscious of the yellow and orange haze.

 Your palm lands on his thigh, your fingers gently brushing the denim. You want to comfort him somehow, but, at the same time, you are scared he will reject your touch and reassurance. That's all you can do for him: no words, no further touching, just a featherlight touch that indicates you are still present. There, with him.

 "I thought we couldn't make a fire."

 "Don't be dumb. The windows are all broken, it's winter and you are in shock. How else would you heat up?"

 "Got it. You're not in a talking mood," you huff. "Alright."

 Silence settles between both of you. However, one of his big, rough hands travels to where your fingertips are gently brushing his thigh. At the touch, even if you don't want to let go, your fingers begin to back off. He's not in a good mood, and you seem to be pushing his boundaries a little too much. Except that, instead of letting you go, he catches your hand in his and puts it back over his jean. This time, it's him who brushes his thumb over your knuckles.

 For a minute, the only sound in the living room are both your breathing patterns, the flames licking the air and the wind rushing through the broken windows.

 "I'm sorry..." you start. And immediately, his brown eyes are all over you again. Your voice sounds exhausted, more than you'd have liked. "...I fucked up the mission. I know-"

 "You haven't fucked up anything," he interrupts. That's Joel, all stoic, swallowing his feelings and denying everything that it is not up to his standards. "Would you mind to just rest-"

 Your eyes well with tears.

 "Joel, for once... Just for once, don't lecture me, don't ignore what I'm trying to say just because you don't want to hear it," you tell him. Then, he thankfully presses his lips together in a pained grimace, but stays silent nonetheless. "I fucked up the mission getting injured. I know it isn't my fault, but it doesn't matter whose fault it is. If you wanna go on without me, I won't blame you."

 His fingers are now squeezing yours, but you know he is not even conscious of that. He leans in a little, his cheeks now reddened in anger. He looks like he is about to spit on your face.

 "I'm not leaving you anywhere," he says. He looks offended that you even thought he was capable of that. "You and I are gonna get to Lincoln, either if you like it or not. There, Bill and Frank will help you. We have traded all kinds of things with them, and I know they are very well supplied."

 "Why would they help me?"

 "They are not just people we trade with," he says. His fingertips brush a strand of hair out of your face. "I know they will."

 "What if they changed their minds?"

 His pupils lock into your own, his jawline swells as he grits his teeth.

 "I'm persistent."

 The mission was supposed to be an easy one. Walk out of the QZ undetected, walk fifteen miles to the town of Lincoln, just outside Boston, get our things and come back. Our cargo were the two last spools of aluminum that Joel had promised to trade with them and two packets of seeds. Theirs? Two pounds of rolling tobacco and a gun. Tess couldn't make it, she had appointments with other smugglers, probably the ones who snuck the drugs in; which was more than half of their business. If it wasn't that important, she wouldn't have stayed in the QZ for anything in the world. But Bill and Frank were also important, and Joel couldn't go alone.

 The two of you should be home by now, and you wondered if Tess was regretting her decision of asking you to go with him. Last night you had both snuck out of the Boston QZ; and it usually didn't take more than six hours to get to Lincoln. But just outside the city you had bumped into raiders; and a stray bullet had hit you. Now you were stranded in a small cabin lost in the woods, about seven miles away from Lincoln; and unable to walk a single step.

 And to top it all off, Joel was enraged and neurotic.

 Still with the same expression, he takes your wrist and squeezes two fingers into it. Even if you had preferred him not to, knowing that your heartbeat got wild whenever he was around. You let him check on you, hoping that if your symptoms got better he would let you have a quick nap. Your nervousness, however, doesn't improve despite your efforts of trying to calm yourself down.

 "Since when are you a doctor?"

 He lets your wrist go, then gets back on his feet and gets his rifle.

 "You should rest. You'lll need it," he says, now heading to the entrance. He's gonna be standing on guard all night, you are sure of that. "We're leaving tomorrow morning."

 That is when you lose it. You can't believe he is that blind, that caught up in his own world.

 "I know in your perfect fantasy this is just a scratch, but I truly can't move, Joel. Even laying here awake is hard. How am I supposed to follow...? Joel!"

 But he's out of the house before you even finish the sentence.

  [***]

  Joel doesn't keep his word.

 A few hours later, not even near dawn yet, you get pulled back from a dream. Your eyes take a few minutes to register your surroundings; again. And the memories gallop back to your mind in a rush; accompanied by the burning and piercing pain on the upper right side of your chest. Your eyes shut tight, and you inhale a shallow breath. Even breathing hurts.

 "We need to go," Joel whispers. His voice sounds muffled, especially over the sound of your beating heart. "C'mon, wake up."

 He is once again rocking you rather than shaking you awake. Just to be able to fall asleep you had rolled back into your chest, cheek once again firmly pressed against that twenty-year-old dusty carpet. When he came back from checking the perimeter, not even five minutes after your argument, he placed his backpack right under your stomach so your right side was elevated. You wouldn't have been able to fall asleep if it wasn't for that. The pain was maddening, atrociously painful. Joel had found you gritting your teeth even in your sleep.

 He had said you'd leave the next day, but you felt like not even minutes had passed.

 "Morning," you complained, half a grunt accompanying your words. Joel shook you gently again when he saw you relax a second time, and your voice came back. "Y-you said...mor-"

 "I know what I said but we can't wait any longer," he answered. "I'm gonna sit you up."

 Fear pumped enough adrenaline into your system to wake you up. The ache from before rushed back into your mind, and your 'please' and 'wait' left your mouth like a prayer.

 "I can do it," you said, but it sounded more like begging than an affirmation.

 "I know you can," he lied. As your eyes opened and you saw his expression —eyes focused on you, trembling hands, half of his face hidden in the shadows, the other half gently licked by the orange-like haze of the dying fire— you understood that you had to be in a really bad condition for him to look at you that way, and feel the need to lie to make you feel better. But then, a second right after that, his shoulders relaxed, his eyes fluttered between your face and the surface of his jacket over your shoulders. His stoic mask was back on. "I'm just gonna help you, okay? But you do it."

 He did not, in fact, let you do it.

 You had managed to lift yourself barely an inch over the carpet, using all the strength left in your healthy arm, when both his hands curled around your side and pulled you up to his chest. Clenching your jaw, you allowed him to drag you a few feet back and into a seating position against the wall; your whole weight over the left side of your body.

 "Don't lean on the other side, your shoulder blade is broken."

 "Oh..." you almost chuckled. "Great."

 For a second, Joel looks at you as if you were completely insane. He reaches for his backpack, crouching on the place where you were lying just seconds prior. Then takes his flask and doubts when passing it on.

 "I'm not that desperate for water," you respond, reaching for the flask and drinking a gulp of the liquid. You swallow despite the soreness in your throat. "Next thing you'll do is spit food into my mouth."

 "Not even getting shot shuts your fucking mouth, does it?" he says, grossed out at your comment. However, a smile tugs at the corners of his lips. Relaxing him has a calming effect on you too.

 You try to pass him the flask again, but he refuses.

 "No," he says. "Drink it all. You'll need it."

 You look at him with narrowed eyes, confused. It's hard to keep a single thought in your head other than the throbbing pain in your chest and back, but you still try. Rather than asking him how you are supposed to walk seven miles, with the aluminum and his pack, you try to approach the matter another way.

 "What's the plan?"

 He takes a deep breath.

 "You're not gonna like it," he says, his deep voice almost slurring the words. It's barely a whisper. He looks into your eyes, then. "I'm gonna carry you."

 "What?"

 "You heard me."

 There's not an ounce of doubt in his eyes. Joel has that look of determination, the one you only really see when he has his eyes set on something really fucking important for him; most times that includes his own brother or not talking about the times before the outbreak. And with that look on his face, you know there's nothing you could possibly say or do to make him reconsider his own words. He's stubborn like that.

 You still try.

 "It's seven miles, Joel..." you tell him on a thready voice, a whisper. And Joel sighs through his nose —as if he had forgotten. "And we have to carry..."

 "We leave everything here," he says. "Come back for it later."

 "They won't let us in empty-handed."

 "You don't know them."

 For Joel to be so certain about it, certain enough as to put both your life and his on the hands of strangers; you understand that their relationship goes beyond trading. Joel had told you about them, about their situation and the first time Tess and him had shared dinner with Bill and Frank. Still, you were suspicious of them, and you thought that he was too; up until now, at least.

 "It's still seven miles," you tell him, and you know him, you know he's about to stop talking to you and leave the room if you don't, at least, partly give in to his reasoning. "...are you sure you wanna do it?"

 His pleading brown eyes engulf you, then, with an emotion he had never showed before. His gaze diverts for a second to your wound, to the bandages that, as you look at them, you find they are once again covered in blood. They are soaked in it, the skin surrounding it has a large black bruise —internal bleeding, you guess. And when you try to take a full deep breath, you find yourself unable to, at least not at full capacity.

 The understanding hits you, then. You don't have much time left.

 "I don't have any other choice," Joel says, but what he means is 'I don't want to lose you'.

 "Okay."

 Not even a full second has passed from your reluctant acceptance, but he is already on his feet. Joel walks to the only table in the room, takes your gun and puts it in his hip, right inside the jean. The only other thing he takes apart from ammo is another set of bandages —and he silently thanks whatever it is out there that he put those there a month ago—. He doesn't have anything to clean the wound, though; and one of his biggest fears is that it might already be infected. Even bandaged it looks bad.

 He approaches you, crouches down so he is facing the wound.

 "I'm going to tighten the bandage, and I have to keep the pressure," he says, loosening the knot. His fingers are once again stained with you blood, and he has to fight the images of him pressing on your wound from a few hours ago, when he had found you and, with trembling hands, had tried to stop the bleeding coming out in waves. He looks at you, trying to forget the awful picture of your eyes closed, your body limp on the ground. "Bite something."

 You reach for the sleeve of his jacket, the one hanging from your shoulders; and put the padded cuff of his jacket into your mouth.

 Joel doesn't give you a warning; and you're not sure if that's a good or bad thing, either. He presses the heel of his hand right over the covered hole in your chest, with such strength that you wonder if he will end up breaking your clavicle in half. As he presses your body against the wall, you can almost feel the cracked bones in your back smashing against each other.

 Needless to say, the pain is blinding. The view of the room, the feeling of his heat around you, the scent of him under your nose... all gone in a matter of seconds. Your vision turns white, all your senses stop functioning. Over the scream that falls from your lips, muffled by the jacket, you hear him say:

 "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

 He lets go, and your vision immediately darkens, the shadows flowing from the corners of the room quick to reach you. With your last grip on reality you feel yourself melting against the wall, slowly slipping to the side. Joel catches you before you hit the floor.

 Cold water is what brings you back. Your breathing quickens at the coldness of it, and the next thing you feel are his wet hands palming your cheeks, throwing water from his flask all over your face.

 "C'mon," he mumbles. "I need you awake."

 Your eyes flutter open, your whole body relaxed now that he's not applying pressure; but alert enough that your unfocused eyes make a single shape out of him.

 While coming back into yourself, Joel does not have any time to lose. He takes his jacket over your shoulders and slips your left arm inside the sleeve, the other, where the wound is, he decides to leave it as it is; and buttons it over your chest so you're not exposed.

 "You good?"

 In any other situation you'd have said some joke, or just something to piss him off. But as of right now, nothing comes to your clouded mind; and even if something did come, you're too exhausted to even do the mental effort to say it. So you just nod.

 "Okay," he nods too, talking to himself inside his head, then takes your face in his hands and looks into your eyes. "You're fine, you hear me? I'm gonna carry you and you're gonna be on my back; so I need you talking all the damn time, alright?

 You nod again.

 "Starting now."

 "Y-yes... okay."

 "Good," he says. His hand crawls to the back of your neck, and he joins both your foreheads. He takes quick breaths. He's terrified when he whispers. "You're doing so good. I'm so proud of you."

 "Y-you... are?"

 "Mm-hmm," he says. And as his words settle into your brain, you feel your chest warm. When you open your eyes and he separates, there's a tear on his cheek, but he's quick to wipe it off. "I'm gonna open the front door."

 It's just an excuse, you both know it, but neither dares to say anything. None of you wants to talk about the elephant in the room, the fact that your chances are slim even if this works.

 Joel returns quickly, with his lashes wet and reddened eyes. It makes you speechless, to know that all this effort and tears are for you. You'd have never, in a million years, thought you'd ever see Joel Miller cry; let alone for you. He had always been so quiet, so detached from everyone, even from Tess.

 Without a word, his hands get hooked on the underside of your thighs. He lifts you up, seemingly effortlessly, and your inner thighs surround his hips. You take a deep breath, again —or at least try to— as you try not to blush and show those feelings you buried long ago. This is not the time, nor the place; so you allow your head to follow his range of motion; forwards. Soon, your nose is pressed against the lapels of his denim shirt. With your good arm, you grab one of his broad shoulders. The other falls limp, and even that little movement hurts like hell.

 He freezes, his shoulders now stiff under your hand. His beard grazes your jaw as he tries to look at you, so still in his arms.

 "You okay?"

 "Yeah..."

 Better than okay, you want to respond. Better than I've been in a long time. But you don't.

 He leaves you on the table, on the edge, with your legs dangling.  His eyes waver for a second as he leaves you there, his hands squeeze your knees in such a brief movement that you wonder if he was even conscious of that. He looks like he wants to say something, but he can't think of what, so he turns around and bends his knees a little to get you to a good height.

 "I need you to push yourself up with your good arm," he instructs. "and keep the other still, okay?"

 "Okay," you respond, fighting the urge to just nod instead.

 Not even following his instructions to a t saves you from the pain. The effort, even with your arm limp in the air, makes your body shudder and an agonizing stab runs through your whole spine. The scream that tores from the depths of your throat is so intense that Joel hesitates to put you back on the table, his back trembles for a second as his body shivers in distress. But, in the end, he has you in the air with a good hold.

 He waits, but doesn't hear anything except shallow breaths, doesn't feel anything but the weight of your head over his shoulder.

 "You with me?" he asks. He is seconds away from aborting the mission.

 "Y-yeah..."

 Your arm surrounds his neck loosely. Your fist is closed tightly, grabbing the other shoulder, and he wishes he could touch you, give you some kind of comfort, but he can't let go from his grip under your knees.

 Joel does not have the privilege of time, every second is precious, so not even giving it a try, he starts walking as if you weighted nothing. He crosses the front door and the freezing cold wind of the East Coast cuts your cheeks. If he notices —and you know that he has, wearing just his shirt in the middle of the night— he doesn't react.

 "Remember what I told you?" he asks.

 In less than a minute he has crossed the space from the cabin to the highway, where you were surprised by raiders. You look around, see the bodies of five men sprawled on the floor; lifeless, drowning in a pool of their own blood. One of them has his face mauled to nothing. The sight is so sickening —or maybe you are getting so ill— that a sudden dizziness takes hold of your shivering body.

 "Hey..."

 "I'm sorry..." you start, teeth chattering from the cold. "I'm sorry I screamed into your ear earlier."

 A sound, half a relieved sigh and half a chuckle, leaves his mouth.

 "I'm half deaf from that ear anyway."

 A light chuckle falls from your lips too. Joel keeps walking west through the highway, and you keep yourself desperately clinging to him for dear life. The moon is your only other companion; without her, you both would be completely blind in the darkness of the night.

  [***]

  Joel probably hadn't thought about the possibility of taking breaks along the way. That's why, fourty-five minutes later, and under a beautiful sunrise of orange tones, he's struggling to keep going. His knees are screaming for him to stop, his biceps and hands tired of walking with a person's weight over his shoulders. And for the first time in years he remembers the times before the outbreak, when he was capable of lifting and moving huge pieces of furniture; often times on his own, other times with just Tommy.

 He might have overestimated his own strength, assuming he was as strong as before. But it seems that not only his mental health has deteriorated after Sarah's death, no. All of him has become older and darker and more broken since then. He hardly recognizes himself in the mirror anymore.

 "Joel?"

 "Yeah..." he gasps, out of air. "Sorry, I got distracted. You were saying...?"

 It is in moments like this that he hates not to be that same person he was before. He wonders if he is, finally, paying for his past sins, for all the people, infected or not, that he has killed.

It is unfair, the fact that you're paying for his piper.

 "You should stop for a while," you tell him, your voice low like a whisper. The warm air from your mouth slithers across his skin, up his neck, over his ear, and almost sends a shiver down his spine.

 "No."

 "Joel..." you huff. Before speaking again, you take a big gulp of air. "We are not getting anywhere if you don't take breaks. You'll just wear yourself off before we reach the halfway mark."

 His mind refuses to agree, but it's as if his body takes a relieved breath when he hears the words. Little by little, his body starts to listen to you before his mind does. His thighs are screaming, sore from the pain of exertion; and before he acknowledges, even, his body has stopped moving.

 "Okay," he gasps, quick tired breaths quickly entering and leaving his lungs. "...but just a minute, we don't have time for this bullshit."

 "Okay," you say, in the same tone he used earlier with you; when he lied and said he knew you could sit up on your own. "Just a minute."

 He pulls to the side of the road, and with the last of his strength he kneels down and tries to lay you on the ground as carefully as possible. You fall on your ass on the wet ground, but at least you don't hurt yourself on the spot. He asks you for the millionth time in the last twenty-four hours if you are okay.

 "I think I'm doing better than you," you respond, but your voice is so exhausted that Joel would love to just lay next to you and lull you to sleep.

 He turns around, his whole weight sitting on the grass as he takes gulps of oxygen. His eyes shut tightly, he wipes off a tear of sweat from his temple and looks at you.

 Wide-open eyes stare back at you, but just for a split second. He gets closer, his thumb brushing the shoulder of the brown jacket, his brown jacket. His eyes pierce yours.

 "Are you sure?"

 "That bad do I look?"

 Joel doesn't look at you, not at your face getting paler by the second or the dark circles under your eyes, or your hair now dishevelled. He sees you on his memories and can barely recognize you; your skin and eyes always glowing under the sun, your hair always perfectly done. Your job was often to act as an HR for their clients, and very rarely took actual FEDRA jobs that stained your hands; you weren't like Joel, you didn't care about rations or money or whatever.

 Expert fingers gently tug at the buttons, unbuttoning them so he could take a look to the wound. He had barely a glimpse of it when your fingers stopped his hands. Joel looks at you with those puppy eyes, as if you were about to faint in the next second.

 "If you wanted to see me naked you didn't have to wait until I got shot, you know?"

 You had said it in a playful manner, kidding, as a joke; but he saw beyond that. Part of you had only expected him to laugh, the other was dying —not pun intended— for him to kiss you. You'd have never said it if you weren't in this position, you'd have never gotten in between Joel and Tess.

 However, he didn't laugh, didn't make any funny remark. The way he looked at you, from under his eyebrows, lit a spark of hope somewhere inside you. Deep, deeper than your conscious mind would have ever reached. Joel didn't say anything, not even chuckled. His eyes came back to the wound, and uncovered the full sight of it.

 He had to fight a shocked gasp. His eyes fluttered, while holding his breath, between your own face and the wound. The bandage was still soaked in blood, that he had expected, but not the large bruise growing into your neck; or your right hand slightly paler than the other. He lifted, with trembling fingers, a corner of the bandage, and his action caused a trickle of dark blood to gush out, as if he had crushed a piece of watermelon between his fingers and it was now running down his arm. He looked below, inside his jacket, and saw a trail of blood that landed right into your navel.

 This time, it was impossible for him not to react. Not only his face, but also his body. He tried to get back on his two feet again, but before he finished the action, your fist closed around his wrist.

 "Joel..." he heard you call.

 "We need to go, now."

 Pressing your lips in a sad smile, you pulled him to the ground and he sat, mesmerised on that face he had only yet seen once; that time when he got too drunk on a Friday night and told you about Sarah at three in the morning. He felt his pulse quicken, his heart beating at the ends of his fingertips.

 "It's okay," you told him. Your gentle touch brushed his palm, danced around over his tan skin. "You can rest."

 Joel felt like he was in a fever dream. The setting certainly felt like it. You hadn't left the Boston QZ in a long while, and he had never pictured you out of those big silver walls either. He had not agreed to Tess' idea either, the dangers beyond the walls were almost impossible to escape. Still, Tess and him knew the city, they could get out fairly easily, had done that for a couple years to share stories over dinner with Bill and Frank. And Joel had loved the idea of seeing you sitting at that dinner table next to him, surrounded by a garden full of flowers, going through the dresses in the boutique that Tess had sworn you'd love.

 He had not signed up for this.

 "We need to go, please..." he tried a second time, but you just shook your head. He understood, somehow, what you meant.

 "A minute won't make a difference," you told him. In reality, you wanted to tell him that you'd be dead when he got the both of you to Lincoln, anyway. "If you are tired we will never get there."

 Useless and powerless as he felt, his only option was waiting. He took your hand, intertwined his fingers with yours and took a deep breath. You had never seen him so upset.

 "What are you so scared of?"

 At your words, his lower lip quivered slightly; it would almost have gone unnoticed if it wasn't because you had been watching him attentively for so many years. He looked at you, eyes barely half open, from under his eyelashes.

 "You're very important to me," he said. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth, he seemed to be even more breathless than he was before. Joel had a hard time admitting his feelings, even to himself. "I don't know if you understand to what extent you're important to me."

 "I know..." you answered, nodding, your hand squeezed his for a second, trying to give him strength. "But you have Tess home, and your brother loves you... It will hurt for a while..."

 "Shut. Up."

 His eyes were tightly shut when he said it. It was a metaphor, almost, the way his eyes were closed not just to the physical world, but to the whole situation too that he couldn't escape from.

 The tip of your tongue wetted your lips.

 "What I'm trying to say is... it will pass..."

 His chest heaved, his gaps the only sound that filled the space between the two of you. And you continued:

 "People die all the time, Joel; and most times we can't do anything about it."

 His body rushed at you, his hands locked perfectly on both your cheeks, like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle finally in place.

 "Not you, you hear me? Not you," he almost growled, his face a mixture of anger, determination, and grief. "Never you. You're not allowed to leave me. I will never forgive you."

 There was something hidden between the lines, something Joel wasn't saying. It was something you had denied yourself for a long time, for years, something you had insisted on not seeing because you didn't want to see it. Because, deep down, you were afraid that Joel would never love you back, that he would break your heart, that the only good man you'd ever known inside the walls of the Boston QZ would also be the one to abandon you to your luck.

 Joel had been your family for so long, and you had unconsciously protected yourself from seeing him as something else. But now there it was, clearly, latent in his confession. Your punishment for years of silence was now time, or rather, the lack of it.

 "I'm not giving up," he said. "and I need you not to give up either."

 He's close. His hot breath smells sweet -so instinctively Joel- and it's all around your face. His flesh is warm over the freezing skin of your cheeks. His body around you is shelter, is home.

 Joel is soon leaning in. He's all erratic breathing, rapid heartbeat and trembling hands; and as you close your eyes to allow his presence to swallow you like a black hole, he closes his eyes too.

 He doesn't let go, not just yet. He breathes in into your quick breaths the same way you revel in his.

 "I need an answer," he whispers over your mouth.

 "I won't, either."

 At first it's like a collision. He kisses you angrily for a split second, demanding and impatient; then, once he knows this is really happening, once he does understand that this is —finally— not a dream, he relaxes into your touch, your fingers delineating his jawline, caressing the beard there.

 He's quick, quicker than you'd have expected him to be; definitely quicker then he would have liked. He separates, then; and looks down at his jacket and the drops of blood staining the insides of it. It's not enough blood to send you into shock again, but it means part of the wound is ripping. You need stitches, not just a couple of bandages.

 "Enough resting then," he says.

   [***]

 Seven miles is usually nothing for Joel. In the first few months trading with Bill and Frank, Tess and him usually walked the fifteen miles that separated the city and the town at least twice a month. But this is all the more difficult, not just carrying you there, but knowing that he is running out of time.

 And you seem hellbent on making the journey even more difficult.

 "So...Tess?"

 "Pass."

 You huff, and the warm air sends a shiver down his spine; but he says nothing.

 "Okay."

 Your voice sounds so disappointed that he feels a pang of guilt. You know him better than to insist, and he knows that too. The guilt increases, though; and now he's inhaling a big gulp of air while still walking as fast as he possibly can without hurting his own knees.

 "We fucked a few times, before," he says. "but that doesn't mean anything. She's my colleague. That's all."

 If he was better with words, and feelings, he could say that he didn't feel anything for her. He could say that their hookups were nothing, just a fun thing they used to do before, before he realized that the one who he really wanted was you. A few months back he had realized that it never actually satisfied him, that those moments with Tess weren't as fun and innocent as they seemed to be before. They had talked about it, of course. He didn't want to play with her feelings, and that had been the end of it. She was just as fine without him, anyway.

 "I thought you two were dating."

 "If selling drugs for a living is what you call dating, then yes."

 Without even looking at you, he knew you were smiling, he could almost feel your lips stretching over his shirt.

 "I..." you said, then he heard you take another deep breath before talking again. "I'm sorry I asked you," another breath. "I... ran out of things to say."

 His brow furrowed in confusion.

 "You can say anything," he says. "Anything you really like, even a story."

 Anything just to know you're there...

 "Well..." you started. Then, a wheezing noise filled the air, followed by a gasp. "I... liked rock music-" silence. "...back in the day."

 "You okay?"

 Your fist tightened around his shoulder, your forehead pressing against his trapezius. He heard that wheezing sound again, followed by a pant. His hands squeezed harder the tender flesh under her knees.

 Joel tried to look at her, but all he could see from his peripheral vision was the top of her head and one eye tightly closed. His throat turned into knots.

 "Baby..." that was the most gentle tone you had ever heard coming from his mouth. "C'mon baby. Hold on, we're almost there."

 His whole body felt paralyzed, and he had to force himself to keep walking.

 What he didn't know was that your lungs were burning. They felt like a pair of balloons squeezing against your ribs, trying to expand beyond its cage. And it made all the pain in your back, from the shot, double as painful. The air you tried to swallow so bad, sounded like a whistle, like the breeze through an almost closed window. You were suffocating.

 "Talk to me, c'mon."

 With a painful drag of air, you complied.

 "I can't..." your fist tightened around the fabric of his shirt. "I can't."

 "Goddamnit..." he was panicking now. "Okay, that's okay baby. Just hold on to me, don't let go."

 Unable to do anything else, you just nodded as best you could and kept on holding on to him. His eyes desperately looked for signs of the town, and far away, in the distance, the row of trees ended; and he walked faster, hoping that Bill had already seen the both of you through the cameras.

 "J-Joel"

 You struggled to find air, and, therefore, the words.

 "Easy, easy" he said. "Just a bit more. You can do it, I know you can."

 His words lingered in the air, unanswered, not even him fully believed them. Joel was starting to feel his own shirt wet with blood from your wound. The feeling made him sick, his own imagination as he pictured what Bill was watching through the cameras, made it all a hundred times worse.

 He kept hearing the panting, the wheezing, becoming more desperate by the second. He realized, with horror, that you were suffocating righ there, on his back; from a collapsing lung, he guessed.

 He shouted Bill's name as he saw the fence that separated them from the town. Joel wasn't sure if he could hear him, but tried anyway.

 He felt your grip on his shirt hesitate, and he had to fight the instinct to squeeze your hand; if he had done it, you'd have fallen from his own grip. He heard you try and say his name.

 "Save it," he responded, even if it came out not as reassuring as he would have liked. "Don't try to talk."

 Before he reached the fence, it was already opening. Bill came out running, yelling something that he was too distracted to distinguish, Frank came behind him. Joel felt his knees wobble once through the gate. And now kneeling on the floor, he called your name, tried to turn his head to take a glimpse of you.

 "You did it. We're here."

 He noticed, then, that everything seemed all too silent. Everything that happened after that, happened very quickly. The hand that had been gripping his shirt slipped, limp over his shoulder.

 His mind disconnected, completely unaware of the other two people approaching. He released you with all the care that a person could have had, and his arms immediately caught you in an embrace. The sight of your closed eyes made him panic, and not having even checked your pulse, he buried his face into your neck and sobbed.

 Trails of blood ran through his forearms, and he threw up all the words that passed through his mind; a string of 'please stay' and 'I'm sorry'.

 "Joel," Frank struggled with him, fingers digging into his shoulder. "Joel you have to let go. Let us help her."

 He was too far gone, so much so that once your body hit the floor, Frank didn't allow him to touch you again. He sobbed, and, for a second, Bill saw himself in him. He would have never thought he would see Joel in this state, but yet there he was. He kept pressure on the wound, and saw himself in Joel, and Frank in you; and promised he would never let this happen to the two of them.

 Never.

  [***]

  The sun comes out the next morning. As it always does, as it always has. Orange light and blue skies illuminate the room, the clouds shine a different color; and Joel blinks; absolutely exhausted, devastated.

 His body is heavy, even if he's not holding any of his weight. He's sitting on the cold tiles, on the floor, his sore knees and thighs in the space under the bed, his head lying on the mattress, his whole body is bent over and it feels like jelly. His eyes are the only thing moving, they look at the window and see the night sky turn into daylight.

 Joel couldn't possibly say that he slept in that position; because he didn't actually sleep. He hasn't had a second of sleep since you got shot two days ago. Lying on the bed, is you, dormant; and his thumb draws circles on the back of you hand even if he's not paying attention to it. It comforts him to a degree, at least.

 Suddenly, pretty much everything has lost its meaning. Frank opens the door an hour later, almost tripping with the tray of food and water that he left the night before for Joel. He hasn't touched any of it. In fact, he forgot about it, but if it bothers him, Frank doesn't say anything. He takes it in his hands so he can take it to the kitchen downstairs.

 "We played 'I will survive' in the radio" he whispers before leaving. "It's a 70s song, but Tess will get the meaning."

 "Thank you," he mutters, his mouth pasty from barely speaking in the last twenty-four hours. Funnily enough, the only word he's said to them is 'thank you'.

 "You're welcome, Joel," he says. After a few seconds, waiting, he makes a dissatisfied sound. Frank approaches Joel, his palm squeezing his shoulder. "You should eat something, at least. Is there anything you want?"

 Joel looks at him, lifting his cheek from the mattress for the first time. His eyes are blood-shot and black circles adorn his eyes.

 "Coffee."

 "Not coffee, you need sleep."

 He huffs, his eyes lost in the window again. Frank, knowing he won't get anything from him again, vanishes behind the door and into the kitchen. He will bring him warm food later, hoping the smell will make him eat something despite his unwillingness to listen to any signal of hunger from his own body.

 A few moments later, your hand slips from his. As he loses your touch, a pang hits the pit of his stomach. But then, as he lifts from the mattress again, your fingertips lightly touch his chin, your thumb lovingly brushing his beard.

 "Baby?"

 Maybe he lost his sense of time, because he didn't expect you to wake up yet. In any case, when he sees your eyes open he practically pounces on the bed. He sits on the edge, and swallows the image of you looking at him.

 "Morning."

 He smiles at your words, feels his strength coming back into his body.

 "You're here," he says.

 Even beaten up as you look, he thinks you are gorgeous. Your face has regained its usual color, the bruising is coming down, changing colors little by little, the wound is stitched and bandaged, and the blood flow seems to reach your fingertips normally once again. Joel has no idea how Bill fixed the collapsing lung, he had said something about medical knowledge being necessary in the field too, but he hadn't paid attention. He doesn't care about the details, though. He just cares that you're safe and sound, and despite the close call, that has seemed to be the end result to this whole dilemma.

 There's no blood in sight, not even in the bandages. Frank had washed the blood from your hair the day before, and Joel had helped with the rest. He wished he could have you like this everyday: happy, clean, safe...

 In the last few hours Joel had discovered he was jealous. He wished he had a town like Lincoln all to himself, just so he could see you picking flowers in the front garden.

 "I'm here," you told him. The words felt like strawberries in his mouth. "and I'm not giving up on you."

 He released a breath he didn't know he was holding, leaned in for both your foreheads to meet, and kissed you.

[distantdarlings]

CRY TO ME // t. nott

RATING: R / 2.1K WORDS

Theodore Nott x Fem Reader Insert

+ SUMMARY - (1960s AU) (Based on this) When Theodore Nott, the best dancer at one of the top clubs in the Wizarding World, loses his dance partner, he asks you to take her place. However, he pushes you too far and you quickly become overwhelmed.

+ WARNINGS - SMUT! (PIV), unprotected sex, kissing, language, inexperienced!reader, sub!reader, dom!theo, brief mention of masturbation, small amount of angst at beginning, fem reader, bad Google translate, not fully proofread (please lmk if I missed any)

+ MUSIC (listened to while writing) -

Cry To Me - Solomon Burke

A/N: Okay so here’s that Dirty Dancing inspired idea I had. I know it’s kind of a weird mixture but I want to see what you guys think, so please lmk below!!!

- - -

“So, why? Why can’t we do the dance this way?” you demanded, pressing your hands to your hips.

“Because the performance is in two days! We’ve rehearsed it like this the whole time!” Theo shouted back, his face becoming red with anger.

You groaned in frustration, pressing your hands to your face. The sweat slipped through your fingers and down your arms. The two of you had been at it for 4 hours, practicing like your lives depended on it.

Your second to last performance of the season was approaching quickly, as was the end of summer. The two of you couldn’t come to a conclusion about what the finishing move was going to be.

You had argued back and forth for weeks trying to decide what was going to knock the rest of the performers off of their feet, and ensure the two of you would be the main entertainment for the rest of the season. Only that would pay yours and his bills.

You’d been partners since the beginning of summer, when the two of you had first met. You’d had no prior dancing experience and had been absolutely terrified to take on the challenge of dancing with Theodore Nott. One of the best dancers you’d ever seen.

The club you agreed to dance with Theo for had been threatening to drop you for another set of partners. They were better, faster, more qualified, but you’d promised Theo that you’d help him keep his job with this club.

But right now, you felt as though he was expecting too much of you. You’d promised you’d be his dancing partner for the rest of the season only to keep him his job. You didn’t agree to become one of the best young dancers on the scene. You weren’t good enough. Theo was, however. And he was expecting too much from you.

“Theo, I told you I’d help you keep your job. When your dance partner backed out, I stepped up to help you immediately. But I told you from the beginning, I’m not a professional dancer. I’m nowhere close to you or even your old dance partner. I’m just me! I’m telling you—I don’t think I can do this move!”

Angry tears had begun to cascade down your face. At the sight of your emotions, Theo seemed to pause and drop his defensive boundaries. His rage seemed to stutter.

“I didn’t—I’m sorry,” he whispered, stepping closer to you. You shook your head and turned away from him, so angry you couldn’t see straight through the tears or your fury.

“I’m sorry…I’ve pushed you too far,” he said. “How about we take a break?”

You sighed, covering your face out of embarrassment. You didn’t want to cry in front of him. You wanted to finish the damn dance and move on.

“Amore,” he whispered, his voice rattling through the air. Your breath shuddered as he reached for you once more, trying to comfort you. The tips of his fingers brushed against your arm. Somewhat awkwardly, he tried to comfort you. Yet the way he spoke, and the way he touched you, led you to want more than his comfort.

Since the two of you had started dancing together, you couldn’t ignore the obvious attraction you felt for him and the tension that often hung through the air between the two of you.

“What does that mean?” You breathed, refusing to meet his eyes.

“What?” he chuckled quietly.

“Amore,” you responded. “What does that mean?”

“It means ‘love.’” You gasped slightly at his words.

When you finally met his eyes, he grabbed your hand and pulled you toward the back of the practice studio.

Behind the studio was a small building where Theo was allowed to stay while he was performing with the club—it had been part of his contract. He led you through the door.

His room was dark and smelled slightly of tobacco smoke. He walked past the fireplace and further into the room. You could feel his fingers unfurl from yours as he cast a small incantation toward the small candelabra in the corner. it was bronzed and quite plain but the boy it illuminated was cut like David.

Theo turned and walked toward you, stopping just before your body. His softly carved fingers traced slowly up your arms. Though you wore a long-sleeved shirt, you could still feel his fingertips through the material. Shocks went down your spine.

He pressed his hand tightly against the small of your back. You recognized this position as the one that he had done while you were dancing just moments before.

Your hips melded against his as he let you fall back against the brace of his arm. Your eyes fluttered shut as you allowed the dark boy to support you with full trust. You sighed as your back craned against Theo’s arm. He dipped you once before pulling you back up. You smiled slightly, allowing your hands to place themselves on Theo’s chest.

It was endearing how Theo seemed to incorporate dance into everything. He was a dancer, that much was clear, but you weren’t. You’d never taken any classes but the way Theo moved your body within his hands made you feel as if you’d always known what to do. Like you’d always felt the rhythm that Theo kept in his body.

He pulled you as close against him as you would go. Your lips trembled as the tall boy leaned you back once again, molding his blushed lips against your neck. You weren’t sure how you felt about this, feeling this boy's touch and wanting more. If your parents knew, they'd murder you but this was your way of rebelling against them. You knew that they'd hate you but you didn't care.

"K—" you breathed out, your chest shuddering beneath the pressure of his closeness.

"What?" Theo asked, his eyes flickering up to yours, eyebrows furrowed in concern.

You looked into his eyes, wanting nothing more than to fall into them. You wanted to feel the brunette's arms wrapped around you and his cold lips on your chest. You wanted to feel the strings of his heart wrap tightly around your throat and suffocate you.

"Kiss me."

Theo exhaled shakily and, without another moment, pressed his lips to yours, holding your face in place with his gentle fingers. Within a breath, you wrapped your arms around his neck, attempting to be closer to him in any way possible.

You felt his hands fall away from your back and slip beneath the underside of your thighs. A gasp slipped from your lips as Theo lifted you off the ground and pressed your back to the wall. The feeling of the wood behind you and his soft body before you made you shudder with delight.

The boy’s lips melded perfectly with your own, allowing you to see that this is what you wanted. You didn't want to be constantly nagged at by your parents about finding a Ravenclaw man or a wealthy auror. You wanted Theo—this beautiful, Slytherin dancer.

You unwrapped your legs from his tight waist, placing your feet gently on the floor. You pushed Theo backwards and over to the lounge chair you’d seen when you first walked in. Theo fell down against it and allowed you to straddle his hips.

You pulled his lips back to yours, feeling the way the boy's chest pressed so beautifully against your own. A small moan slipped across your tongue at the taste of Theo’s lips.

He brought his fingers up to your hair, burying them within the soft strands. Your chest shuddered against his feelings.

Theo’s hands traveled down to your waist, pulling the hem of your training shirt out of the waistband of your skirt. You helped him slip it over your head.

Theo marveled at your body. Your skin was flawless beneath the white fabric, carved with the intricacies of an art form. He dragged his fingertips down your curves, reveling in the feeling of the soft flesh that blushed beneath his touch.

"You’re so beautiful," Theo whispered, his lips parted, a springtime blush painted across his cheeks and nose. His lips were a bit swollen from the pressure of yours.

Without another word, you pressed your lips back to Theo’s, allowing him to turn both of you over.

The small chair caused some issues with that but Theo quickly figured it out, getting to work on your skirt. His nimble fingers moved over the fabric like they were dancers themselves.

You watched his every movement, his chest elevating with each heavy breath. The brunette boy pressed his cold lips to your stomach.

A gasp escaped you at the sudden change in temperature. Your fingers wrapped in Theo’s hair just as he had done to yours.

Once your skirt was undone and slid down the length of your thighs, Theo slowly slid his pants down his legs. You helped him pull the firm material down and to the floor.

Though you both had waited for months to see each other, to touch each other, to love each other, you couldn’t wait another second now. It felt as though you’d miss out if you waited any longer. You were scared that Theo would slip through your fingers and you’d never feel his touch again.

“Can’t believe I waited this long,” Theo breathed against your flesh.

He kissed his way back up your chest, marveling at the roving dips and curves. Your hands which were still tucked within his hair led his head back up to yours. Your lips locked together once more with a fervor that left the both of you—inexperienced and experienced—utterly breathless.

The brunette boy's hands traveled down between the two of you, his pale fingers tracing down your abdomen. His hands slipped gently between the fabric of your undergarments and your flesh.

You moaned against Theo’s lips at the contact he was applying to the core of your body. His hands gently teased the your most sensitive areas, smirking against your lips at the sounds he elicited from you. The sound was intoxicating to him.

The only thing you’d ever felt down there was the touch of your own hands, but now you wondered how you’d ever lived without his. He touched every aspect of your body perfectly—almost like he could read your mind and knew exactly what you wanted. Perhaps he was a Legilimens.

“Theo, I need you closer,” you breathed, just as his fingers had just begun to edge your inexperienced body over in on itself.

Without saying another word, he slid his briefs down his pants and ever so gently slid himself inside of you.

The foreign stretch pushed your face to the sky. Your lips opened wide, crying out in silent bliss. His hand gently brushed your hair away from your sweating face.

“So beautiful,” he sighed. “You feel just as I’d imagined.”

The thought of him imagining you and himself like this had you teetering on the edge of pleasure.

With him inside of you, claiming you as his, you imagined him after one of your heavy, tension-filled practices. Ones where he’d brush his fingers down your body a little slower, a little longer, a little softer than he had the last time…or ones where he’d let his breath fan across your neck when he was standing behind you…or ones where you’d touched yourself after the fact to relieve even half of the tension he forced into your body.

And with one final thrust against you, you came breathlessly over Theo, with him very close behind.

At the tightening of your muscles, he gripped the cushion above your head and released into you, pressing love and warmth into you over and over again. You clutched at his bare skin, begging for purchase on anything as he rode out his high into you, assaulting what little strength you had left.

You could barely see anything—not his gorgeous face above you screwed together in pleasure, not the metal ceiling of the building overhead, and not the black beginning to cloud at the edges of your vision.

“S-stop,” you barely muttered out.

Within a millisecond, he completely stopped his movements. His high had passed and so had yours.

“I’m sorry, tesoro,” Theo breathed, checking to make sure you were okay and desperately kissing your fingers. “I didn’t mean to push you too hard.”

“It seems you have a bit of knack for that, hmm?” you whispered, giggling just a bit.

As he realized you were joking, he relaxed just a bit, returning your lazy smile.

Theo was a hard man to keep up with, whether it was dancing, fucking, or just living, and you realized that. But for whatever reason, his intensity only exhilarated you, no matter if it left you in the dust sometimes.

“I will slow down for you, bella,” he spoke softly. “Resterò qui. I will stay here with you, my love. For as long as it takes…”

- - -

Tag List: @lilymurphy03 , @mypolicemanharryyy , @clairesjointshurt , @bunbunbl0gs , @acornacreacure, @niktwazny303 , @thestarlithideout , @sarahskakskskskajakwwnwjw , @yhiiil, @ravenclawprincess33, @xxrougefangxx , @thatblackthorn, @robinyx , @starsval , @jolly4holly , @blvebanisters , @chgrch, @abaker74

[thisapplepielife]

Written for @steddiesongfics.

You, Me & A Christmas Tree

December Prompt: You, Me And A Christmas Tree by The Steve Carlson Band | Word Count: 1725 | Rating: E | CW: Sexual Content, Blow Job, Grinding | Tags: Future Fic, Long Term Relationship, Park Ranger Eddie Finds His Perfect Tree, He Already Has His Perfect Partner in Steve

Inspiration song here on Spotify.

Eddie looks over at Steve, only lit by the glow of the dashboard lights. It's impulsive, leaving before dawn, hitting the road with Steve behind the wheel. It makes Eddie feel twenty-one and free, out on the road together. Falling in love. Starting this thing he plans to hold onto for life.

This morning, before the sun has even risen, they've hopped in the car to go get a tree at a farm up north in Tacoma that he's only heard of by word of mouth. It's thrilling. 

"You sure you'll be okay cutting down a tree?" Steve asks, and that's a fair question. They could absolutely drive seven hours to this tree farm, only for Eddie to get cold feet looking at the gorgeous, living, breathing trees he's spent his life admiring and caring for, with pleasure.

He loves the trees. 

"Maybe," Eddie admits.

"I'll take maybe," Steve answers, and Eddie smiles. It's not about the tree. It's about the adventure. He knows that, and so does Steve.

He can't do it. 

They have a perfectly good artificial tree at home. He can't kill this one just to make their living room pretty for a month.

Eddie runs his hand along the needles of the tree, feeling them between his fingers, and leans in to get a good whiff of that earthy, pine scent.

"You can't do it, can you?" Steve asks, squeezing both of Eddie's shoulders from behind.

"No, but look how pretty they are," Eddie says, looking out over the rows and rows of trees. Park rangers take care of trees, trying to keep them alive for generations. They don't chop them down for sport, and he's just realized he's most definitely a tree-arian? Treean?

Whatever it's called, he's an advocate for trees, a friend of them. 

"They are," Steve interrupts his train of thought, and Eddie looks back at the trees.

So, maybe they've just driven seven hours to admire trees. They live amongst the trees. A trek to see them isn't exactly necessary. But these are different trees than the ones in their backyard. Eddie's not mad they came all this way to see them, and he knows Steve well enough by now to know that he's not mad either.

A cheerful worker comes over, trying to help when he sees that they are just standing there, and Steve is honest, telling him that while they can't cut down a tree, that they are gorgeous. 

The worker looks left, then right, like he might be preparing to offer them a drug deal, before dropping his voice to a whisper, "Sixteen miles north. Living trees. You get one, return it, and get it again next year as it grows."

Eddie's sure the smile that splits across his face is wide and bright. 

Steve digs in his back pocket, getting out his wallet, fishing out a fifty dollar bill. A tip instead of bribe this time, but still offered up to get Eddie out of a tight spot, and Eddie is delighted.

Sixteen miles.

There are rows and rows of trees in pots, and Eddie wants one. He wants all of them. But he also recognizes that hauling a tree back and forth across state lines seven hours each way, twice each year, at Christmas, seems more than impractical. Eddie tells the owner that he's a park ranger, that he loves trees, that he has chosen to spend his whole life surrounded by them, and just couldn't cut one down. He tells him that he loves this new model. To keep the trees alive, growing, to be used for multiple years by the same family.

But he also explains that they just live too far away for this to be a realistic option. He's scared it'll be too hard on the tree being hauled back and forth that far, year after year.

He still loves the idea, though. Maybe there's an adopt-a-tree program? Like with whales or bears? He can have a tree, but not have the tree?

The owner takes pity on Eddie, and spends over an hour giving him all the trade secrets to keeping a potted tree alive year-round at home, and sells it to him outright for far less than the cost of renting it each year.

So, now they own a Christmas tree. It's small, maybe more like a Christmas bush this year, but it's a tree. It's gonna grow, and when it's too big for the house, Eddie thinks he'll transplant it into the yard. He knows people. They could do it. 

And then they could have it for decades to come, and that delights Eddie.

Settling back into the car, Eddie smiles over at Steve, "Okay, sweetheart. It's just you, me and Christmas tree. Let's go home."

They only make it as far as Portland before Eddie hollers, "Stop, look there!" 

Steve brakes gently. Eddie knows he's not surprised by Eddie shouting that he wants to stop somewhere along the road.

"Where am I looking?" Steve asks, awaiting further directions. 

"Three o'clock," Eddie says, "Look at all those roses!"

Someone is selling garlands made of fresh roses at a roadside stand, and Eddie wants some for their brand new tree.

"Oh, so roses you can kill without remorse," Steve banters, but turns the car into the parking lot.

"Yep. Fuck them flowers," Eddie declares, teasing as he hops out, heading over to pick out several of the white ones.

He's never had a tree with roses on it before. Never even knew that was an option. He asks the vendor a thousand questions on how to keep it alive, and they are definitely gonna need a spray bottle to mist it. 

Then they head south in their weighed down, sleighbound car. 

At home, Eddie takes great care of the potted tree, and the rose garlands, following all the instructions. He's gonna keep them both alive if it's the last thing he does. Especially the tree. The garlands will only last a few weeks even if he does it all perfectly, but the tree? The tree could outlive him if he plays his cards right.

After everything is settled in, Eddie starts stripping his clothes. He needs a shower, and then he's gonna show Steve just how thankful he was for this impromptu adventure. Another in their ever-growing history. 

They are made to be on the road together. It's where Eddie feels at home, a map in hand, Steve at his side, in search of adventure.

And trees.

Eddie finds Steve sprawled out on the bed dozing, and Eddie needs no other invitation. He slots his body on top of Steve's, pressing their lips together. When he pulls back, he says, up close and personal, looking into Steve's eyes, "Thanks for the adventure."

"You say when and where, and I'm always there," Steve answers, rubbing his hands up and down Eddie's bare skin. It's nowhere near cold in their house, but it makes Eddie shiver, nevertheless. 

He's won the lottery several times over with Steve Harrington. He knows that. 

And now he's gonna show him how grateful he is for that.

Eddie slides down Steve's body, settling between his thighs.

"Big plans, huh?" Steve asks, his voice trailing off into a giggle. 

"The biggest," he banters back, cupping Steve's cock through his underwear, then moving the material aside so he can reach bare skin.

Eddie slides his mouth down, taking Steve all the way in, resting his open palm against Steve's hairy belly as he bobs his head. 

"Jesus," Steve says, and Eddie smiles as best he can with Steve's dick in his mouth. That he can still be Steve's undoing all these years in, thrills him. He likes the power of it, it's more of a turn on than anything else.

Steve loves him.

And he loves Steve.

He wants to fuck him. He wants to suck his cock. He wants to ride him. No, he wants Steve to ride him. He wants Steve to settle across his thighs, and sink down, bottoming out, moving together in Steve's favorite position. Eddie wants to look into Steve's eyes and be that connected, always.

Eddie grinds against Steve's calf, working himself in the same rhythm as he's sliding up and down Steve's cock, mouth wide, Steve's hand in his hair. Petting, not guiding, just enjoying the ride.

There's no doubt Eddie's gonna get off on this alone, it's just whether or not he beats Steve to the punch. He better bring in the big guns.

He wraps his fist around the base of Steve's cock, and works his hand with his mouth in tandem, twisting upwards on every stroke.

That's all it takes. It's all it ever takes. Eddie can read him like an open book, and could get him off blindfolded. He wouldn't want to, he'd miss seeing Steve coming undone. But he could.

Steve tenses, his dick hardening further against Eddie's tongue, and Eddie is more than accustomed to what comes next: Steve, against his tongue, down his throat. Eddie keeps bobbing, keeps grinding, and finally Eddie comes against Steve's leg, not to mention surely on the comforter, as he swallows. Steve's definitely gonna have thoughts about him coming on the bedspread, but he couldn't help it. Steve in his mouth, the taste, the feel, is always irresistible. 

He licks at the head of Steve's cock, and Steve jumps, oversensitive, but Eddie wants to get it all. Waste not, want not.

And he laughs at the thought.

"Laugh it up, you're doing the laundry," Steve says, but he's smiling, relaxed and rooted to the spot.

Eddie smiles and crawls back up Steve's body, settling in and letting Steve hold him close, as Eddie tucks his face into Steve's neck.

"I will. Later. Nap first," Eddie wheedles, and Steve nods against his cheek, wrapping his arms around Eddie tighter, pulling him into his body as close as possible. Eddie loves it. Loves him. Has loved him for fifteen years and a handful of change.

And he doesn't see that changing anytime soon.

"That tree is gonna outlive us, you know?" Steve asks, and Eddie smiles against Steve's skin.

It definitely should, and when it does, it'll just be part of their love story.

Deeper than the holler, higher than the redwoods growing up on their hill.

If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @steddiesongfics to follow along with the holiday song cheer! 🎵

Notes: This feels like it's at least loosely set in the Take the Money and Run universe. I didn't go back and re-read that fic to make sure everything fits, but them already living up in that corner of California felt like the most likely reason they'd ever be in Tacoma or Portland, lol.

And it's not a holiday song, but the last line is also a play on lyrics from the song "Deeper Than the Holler" by Randy Travis.

[slutforth]

2009!BILL KAULITZ X FEM!READER

req: I was wondering if maybe you could write a headcanon or a fic abt Bill (2009 or 2008) dating fem!reader , who is a rapper and who has a total different clothing style (like super girly, etc)

cw: Heated makeout session, but nothing actually happens. Revealing clothing I guess?!?

a/n: Tysm for the request, I had lots of fun with this 😈 sorry it's short :P

"Thank you all, and goodnight!"

You yelled into the microphone, inflicting thousands of screams from all your fans that came to see you. Seeing all their happy faced made you so grateful that you had made it this far with your rapping career.

You ran off stage, your little white miniskirt doing the bare minimum to actually cover anything, but you didn't mind. You loved the attention, especially from your boyfriend. Bill.

People always found your relationship weird because of the stark contrast between your styles and how you dressed.

Bill stuck to a more edgy or "emo" style, with his dark eye makeup that you absolutely adored and his black and white dreads that sat perfectly on his shoulders. As well as the heavy and big pieces of jewellery that he decorated almost every outfit with.

Whereas you had a more girly style, always having your hair down or in some type of cutesy updo. You always made sure to incorporate pink into your outfit somehow, whether that was the whole outfit itself being pink or just a cute ribbon in your hair.

And not to mention that most of your outfits were quite revealing, especially the ones you wore on stage. Miniskirts and tight little shorts that left little to the imagination made it torturous for Bill to watch you from the wings.

Which is why, as soon as you were off stage, he grabbed your hand and dragged you to your dressing room. You just giggled, knowing that there was a raging problem under those baggy camo pants.

"Bill, as much as I'd love to... yknow.. help you out, I'm on again soon." You explained, knowing that he probably wouldn't let up and just try yo fuck you anyways.

"Don't care.." He growled, a firm grip still on your wrist. It was turning you on, seeing him all dominant and sexually frustrated.

You obediently followed, a silent gasp leaving your lips as he pulled you onto his lap, his hands resting on the curve of your hips and your plush thighs.

He cupped your face, smashing his lips onto yours to release all the pent-up frustration he had from watching you on stage in your pink little crop top and white mini skirt. He thought he was going to burst.

You let out a little moan into his mouth, feeling his hands slowly start to guide your hips back and forth against his lap. The friction from his pants onto your safety shorts felt way too good.

"Mm... Bill.." You breathed between kisses, his hand never leaving your hips to make sure the pleasure remained between your two bodies. He needed release, and he needed it now, but making out was one of his favourite things.

He slid his tongue into your mouth, gently probing and exploring as you kissed him back. The seam of his pants felt amazing against you, only making you grind down harder onto his lap.

The reaction you managed to get out of him caused you to smile into the kiss, his grip on your hips tightening as his lips stuttered against yours. You caught him off guard.

You put your hands on his chest, trying to break the kiss from air, but as soon as you did, Bill latched onto your neck, one of his hands travelling up and massaging your breast through the fabric of your shirt.

"Bill.." You breathed out as you glanced at the time, knowing you'd have to go on soon, so you wanted to stop whatever this was before you went back on stage.

"Shut up for a sec, hm?" He grumbled, clearly not happy that your attention wasn't fully on him. Instead, it was on your performance. Which was understandable, but it still annoyed him.

"Just keep moving those pretty hips." So you did, grinding slowly as you kept adding more pressure between you, only increasing the pleasure more and more.

You guys kept making out until you heard and abrupt knock at the door of your dressing room, followed by your manager yelling. "On in 5!" You pulled away and looked down at Bill with a smirk, knowing you were right after all the times you told him you needed to be on soon.

"Fuck." He rolled his eyes.

[indigovigilance]

Bullet Theory

Thesis: Crowley passed Aziraphale a bullet during the Final Fifteen kiss. This bullet contains his memories. He tucked it under his tongue, then began to access the memories during the ride up the elevator.

Edit: debunked by God himself, in response to this post. As a reminder, please don’t send fan theories to NG.

Proof:

Glint in the mouth

Inspo credit to this post by @somehow-a-human

Yeah so we were already paying way too much attention to that very special four-letter word we thought Aziraphale was going to say, but it so happens that during that cut-off phoneme is the only time you can see this shiny object in his mouth. (catching this on the right frame was emotionally painful and I’m sending Gavin Finney my therapy bills (actually no I’m not I love you very much sir)).

So that’s the basis of this theory. Crowley passed Aziraphale a bullet that he then tucks under his tongue.

Add’l Evidence Post-Kiss

Aziraphale works his jaw after raising his fingers to his lips: [gif]

Then when the Metatron comes in, he turns his back on the Metatron and raises his hand. I originally thought he was wiping his eyes. Now I think he’s raising his hand to his mouth, maybe to spit out the bullet, maybe to make sure it’s secured under his tongue.

Credits Scene

Aziraphale has the craziest fucking look on his face through the credits, we can all agree. But towards the end, his eyes flicker back and forth, as if he is watching or reading something. Then he smiles. I hypothesize that he is still accessing his memories during this time, and getting the information he needs to [redacted].

Thematic Justification: The Bullet Catch

Aziraphale having a bullet in his mouth as part of a two-man act of deception is not a fresh concept by the time we get to The Final Fifteen.

Additionally, the use of surreptitious modes of communication, where messages are passed from person to person inaudabily, is introduced in this same magic trick. 

NB1: I wish I could credit the person who I first saw point this out (relatively recently). It wasn’t even tagged as meta, I don’t think. But the gist was there’s some parallelism between “aim for my mouth but shoot past my ear” and the “pin the lips on the lips” move that Crowley pulls in the Final Fifteen. If I find it I will properly cite.

NB2: One hypothesis that has circulated around, I think creditable to @sendarya, is that Aziraphale mouths “trust me” to Crowley just before he gets on the elevator. This isn’t necessary to the Bullet Theory but it would be thematically consistent.

Small objects carry memories

Why a bullet? Well, it’s a small object that has meaningful significance between the pair of people involved, much like:

Beelzebub introduces us to the idea that a small object like a fly can be used as a storage container for memories. We also see that the object entering the body of the person is a viable way for the memories to be delivered.

(btw Jon Hamm if you’re reading this, you have very pretty eyes)

“I keep a derringer in a hollowed out book”

K, so it’s not like Crowley is just carrying a bullet loaded with Aziraphale’s memories around with him at all times, is it? (I mean, it could be, but probably not. I’ll just point you to this meta for my theories on why, if Crowley had anything that needed to be kept safe, he would keep it in the bookshop.)

We learn in S2E4 that Aziraphale keeps a gun in a hollowed out book somewhere in the shop. A gun wouldn’t be any good without bullets, right? This may not be the reason the derringer was left as a Chekhov’s Gun for S3, but it’s a possibility. If Crowley wasn’t already in possession of a bullet, he knew that he could find one in the shop. Even more likely, the exact bullet used in the 1941 magic trick is a precious keepsake being kept somewhere in the bookshop, and Crowley chose to use that exact bullet because of the memories already directly attached to the object.

Why Aziraphale even has memories to be returned to him

We know that Aziraphale could have had his mind wiped because Heaven has done it before. Certainly once. Probably twice. We know this because when Metatron is announcing that Gabriel, alongside having his memories erased, is being demoted to 38th class, Muriel pipes up and reminds us that they are 37th class:

So this wasn’t a “just Gabriel” thing. Mind-wiping is a routine form of personnel management in Heaven. There is NO reason for us to believe that it didn’t happen to Aziraphale. But in case you need a reason to believe it, here goes:

We know from our interactions with Jim that the person whose memories are missing (1) doesn’t necessarily know and (2) isn’t necessarily distressed by that fact, even if they do. Muriel also fits this “cheerful empty shell” archetype. You know who else does? Ding ding ding. The one and only A. Z. “wiggles with delight” Fell.

I can already hear your very valid counter-argument. This guy is actually terrified out of his mind on any given day that his romance with a demon will be discovered. Yes. Because he’s involved in a romance with a demon. The other two angels we’ve met don’t have this issue. Beyond that, though, these three characters share more in common with each other disposition-wise than any of them do with the other angels we’ve met (Uriel, Michael, Sandolphon, etc.).

We also know that Aziraphale has been [demoted] at some point from Cherub to Principality. This is book canon: 

"Technically Aziraphale was a Principality, but people made jokes about that these days."

This has also been confirmed (insofar as Neil Gaiman ever confirms anything) by Word of God:

(marketing video screengrab clipped for brevity)

We don’t know for sure it was a demotion, but I think we have enough evidence to infer that with a high degree of confidence.

Anyways.

Summary: Aziraphale is a cheerful angel who was demoted and has a name that is not biblical canon. This evidence indicates that was probably mind-wiped. This is not the first time I’m proposing this. It won’t be the last.

How Crowley Did It

My meta on Continuity Errors gives the complete proof for why I believe that Crowley is able to stop time without Aziraphale knowing, and I propose in that meta that the kiss was a cover-up for the exertion of effort necessary to pull that off. I further proposed that during the pause, he retrieved something from the bookshop. At the time of writing, I didn’t know what. Now, I have an inkling that it was a bullet.

If you need a refresher on Clock Theory, here’s one. The idea is that the clock behind Aziraphale shifts by fifteen minutes from before the kiss to after the kiss. This is consistent with a theory that Crowley paused time (but the clock kept running) in order to retrieve the bullet, dump Aziraphale’s memories into it if he hadn’t already, and then return to transfer the bullet to Aziraphale.

Why Crowley Kept the Secret So Long

As with Continuity Errors, I am ending this meta with a very unsatisfactory “I don’t know.” The motivation for Crowley to keep Aziraphale’s memories from him until the very moment he’s about to leave must have been a strong one. I think it has something to do with why Crowley was so insistent on trying to get Aziraphale to run away with him, instead of dealing with whatever’s coming. But as with Continuity Errors, I suspect that the good omens meta hivemind (and the vast collection of people who are posting clues, you have no idea how important you are) will assemble yet more breadcrumbs that we can follow to some sort of hypothesis.

Until then,

iv

(here's my meta index if you would like to read more stuff like this)

[sugar-crash]

🍬King Candy (Wreck-It Ralph) x (gn) Reader👑

(Beginning Relationship Pt. I Edition!)

(I thought this song would be fitting considering King Candy’s voice is based on the vocal performance Ed Wynn did for the Mad Hatter… That and its… Nostalgic🔑 [I saw the animation meme culture rise and fall.] lol)

- So, as we all know, the more unpleasant parts of his personality (which could tie him to Turbo) are suppressed, and hidden, though they can still peak out when he’s feeling particularly malicious.

- He’s a slime, a real manipulative rat who’s so sure he can keep everyone in the dark, who takes it slow with you at first to try to maintain his hard work.

- There’s a clear wall between what he displays in front of others and how he is, just the way he likes it, but honestly— If you mean so much to him, you get a weird mix of the two (well, more than usual), a kind of sweet goofiness that’s followed up with a snide remark about being the most skilled in some specific topic.

- Again he’s not the best lover, though from his previous indiscretions he has learned to be more open to others feelings— But only for your sake, mostly cause he can’t stand anyone else besides you…. And Sour Bill sometimes, but he’s mostly the personification of a minimum wage worker.

- Spending time together after hours is a must, though he’s more understanding now than he was before, not demanding every moment of your time but relishing whenever you do.

- I think all that time alone before Sugar Rush got plugged in made him lonely, and less stubborn to admit that he wants that comfort from someone else.

- I don’t think it’s much of a far reach when I say maintaining the King Candy persona is something he is very fluid in, but it’s exhausting at times.

- When he gets that seldom time alone without any of his kingly duties he finds himself yearning for your comforting touch, that stubbornness making way as he makes Sour Bill retrieve you.

- I can see moments between the two of you to be on the tamer side, not as many arguments like Pre-RoadBlasters, little to none really, but there are these tense moments where you ask him something a little too close to home and he becomes stiff in your arms if only for a brief moment.

- As much as he wants to be, not only for himself but maybe even you— He isn’t perfect, he isn’t the person he tries so hard to be, that gleeful and peppy voice going flat the second he isn’t feeling it anymore.

- It becomes apparent the more you know him he’s far more serious than he lets on, puffing his chest up slightly when things don’t go his way and he has to play dirty, which he’s certainly no stranger to...

- In comparison to himself when the arcade first ever opened, he’s certainly grown from that childish hatred, for better and for worse.

- He’s more affectionate for one, providing you with comfort fitting to how you are feeling at that moment, little compliments, and gestures of affection to quell your anger and anxiety in a matter of seconds.

- Quick to learn every little thing about you to make sure he’s able to relate to you, though his intentions with this information go back and forth.

- He wants everything on a silver platter, not only for himself but also for you, making the other subjects of Sugar Rush bend over backward for you, even when you object to all the attention.

- I think one of the ways he dotes on you in a way is date planning, various areas in Sugar Rush vary which can be very nice date spots… He seems like the picnic blanket and tea liker as King Candy, as stereotypical as that is lol.

- Though if that isn’t your style, he can always do dates at the castle, like baking— chatting the night away, it’s the simple things in life <3

- Even with his character growth he is far from a good person, which we all know and love for the most part. He’s fully aware that the things he does to bar you, Venallope, the Sugar Rush inhabitants, and even the arcade entirely is cruel, spiteful even. But what could he have done? Let himself fade into obscurity and be characterized after one of his biggest mistakes?

- No, no, not when he still has so much to provide— He’s a person, just like everyone else, better yet he was programmed to be better. Why should he stand aside and let the world spin without him? Why should he look at you from afar when he has every right to want you?

- That’s part of the reason why he’s so adamant about keeping his spot as the monarch of Sugar Rush, he’s the rightful ruler after all.

(Cr cqh’r lncp, hjw cq cr?)

[prettybean]

KEEGAN (+18)

“We didn't get the dessert”

Car sex, degrading, dirty talk, rough Keegan!

* I had to do it

ENGLISH IS NOT MY FIRST LANGUAGE

Keegan is the best boyfriend ever: he never lets you miss out on anything and always satisfies you in every possible way. Every Saturday, he takes you to a different restaurant, and by now, you've tried them all. But each time, it's even more amazing than the last. He’s a gentleman.

He arrives to pick you up in his car. You still can't figure out how he managed to get his license, but you don't want to tell him he's a terrible driver. You just hope to make it through the entire trip alive.

He surprises you with a bouquet of fresh roses, opens the car door for you, and insists on paying for dinner. His gallantry makes you fall in love with him all over again. You've tried to at least split the bill a few times, but he's more stubborn than you and won't let you.

"Love, did you enjoy your meal?" he asked as he hopped into the car, exiting the parking lot and heading towards your home. "It was absolutely delicious," you replied, and he grinned at you, placing his hand on your leg and moving it back and forth.

"I'm sorry we didn't get the dessert," he said, suddenly changing course and taking a more secluded route with less lighting. You felt his hand move up your inner thigh, his fingers squeezing the soft skin. "Where are we going?" you asked. "To have my dessert," he replied with a chuckle, his hand making its way towards your panty-covered area, tracing circles on it.

"Fuck, you're so wet," Keegan says chuckling, while you moaned as you wrapped your legs around his hand, holding onto his wrist as you rubbed yourself against it. "If you make a mess, you'll have to clean it up with your tongue, got it?" he growled in a demanding tone.

He always got what he wanted, no matter the cost. When he was turned on, he became a different person. "Good girl, keep making those noises," he whispered as he slipped his fingers into your panties, teasing your dripping entrance. You gasped and covered your mouth to stifle your moans, while he kept his eyes on the road, moving his fingers in and out quickly.

“God, look at you. You're getting touched in the car like a whore. That’s fucking pathetic."

His words made your pussy clench on his fingers, noticing how the bulge in his pants is becoming more and more noticeable. “Keegan, stop here please.” “No bitch, I decide when we stop. You can stay still and quiet like the good pet you are."

You whimpered, grinding your pussy on his hand, getting the whole seat wet.

He switched off the car, readjusting the seat and lowering it. "Come over here," he commanded, gesturing towards his lap, lifting your trembling legs for you to sit on him. Your body pressed against his bulge, and you couldn't resist moving against it, letting out soft moans against his lips. Keegan gently kissed you, sensing your desperation for him and hearing every moan that escaped your lips.

"Do you want my cock?" he asked, pulling your lower lip between his teeth, and you nodded eagerly.

“Mine or someone else's?" Keegan asked, pulling down his pants slightly, stroking his cock with his hand, and resting it against your entrance. "Yours," you replied, settling on top of him, sliding his length between your folds.

“Can't you resist anymore? You're literally pushing your pussy against my cock, you're a greedy whore. Say it." He looks into your eyes, squeezing your hips, making you ride his dick. "I said, say it".

Moans leave your lips, feeling how his length fills you up nicely, pushing against your sweet spot.

“I-I'm.. your whore.” You tried to repeat his words, holding onto his shoulders.

Keegan thrust into you with force, making you moan loudly. "You were craving this, weren't you? You wanted me to fuck you from the moment you walked in the door." You nodded, tears of pleasure streaming down your face as he whispered in your ear. "You're such a good little slut, waiting for your reward. Do you want me to cum inside you? Do you want me to fill your pussy?" You screamed in ecstasy, your body trembling with pleasure, riding him hard and moaning his name over and over again.

"Yes, just like that," he said, teasing you with his hand on your folds, enjoying the mess you’ve made, coming all over him.

You attempted to shift, but your body was overly sensitive, causing discomfort in your intimate area, too much overstimulated. Your legs trembled, and you struggled to catch your breath. Keegan took the lead, pressing himself against you, intensifying the sensation within you.

He smiled evilly at you, smacking your ass hard;

"Where do you think you're going? You will get fucked until I say so, got it? Now, take my cock and let me use you."