#it's just... so difficult to survive the nights here at home

[watercolor-hearts]

.

[violentdelightsandviolentends]

jax is THE "obsessed with his girl when she wears sundresses or those slip nightgowns" like theres a CRIMINAL lack of fanfic around him going bark bark awooga over that shit do u agree with me

Sundress.

it’s sundress season. jax can’t keep his hands to himself.

pairing - jax teller x female reader

warnings - smut. cursing. jax is a terror.

word count - 1.5/2k maybe? i’ll check later.

authors note - you’re so right. that man is not surviving sundress season.

masterlist. inbox.

You felt it as soon as he walked in.

There’s always an atmosphere between you and Jax. A tension that’s alive, crackling, buzzing with anticipation of itself.

You’ve been waiting for the honeymoon phase to wear off for years. It never has.

All evening, he’s been watching you.

Careful, concentrated blue eyes repeatedly raking over your figure. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down.

Eventually, it’s making it too hard to work. You ask one of the girls to take over the bar and stride across the space, grabbing him by the front of his shirt and pulling him into the back room.

“Okay baby, I like it when you-”

“Cut it out.”

He stops in his tracks, slightly taken aback.

“Huh?”

“You heard me, Jax. Cut it the fuck out.”

He leans against the wall, cool as ever, eyes still wandering.

“Cut what out?”

“That!” you scold, smacking his chest. “The eye fucking. I’m trying to work.”

“I’m just looking at you.”

“You are not just looking at me. You look like you’re going to bend me over the bar at any given moment. Stop it.”

“I can’t help it, darlin’.”

He takes a step forward, sliding his hands across your hips and pulling you into him.

“You look so fuckin’ pretty in this dress. It’s takin’ everything in me to not rip it off you.”

You try to stand your ground, but his warm body pressing into yours is making it difficult.

“You can do whatever you want to me when we get home,” you tease, leaning up to press a gentle kiss to his lips. “When we get home.”

“That a promise?”

“It is if you can cool it with the stares. You’re scaring people.”

“Good.”

He kisses you roughly, hands migrating down to palm at your ass. You moan into his mouth, arms wrapping around his neck to stay steady.

“Jax,” you hiss as you pull away. “Everyone’s gonna think we’re fucking back here. Behave.”

“I like it when you tell me to behave,” he smirks, smoothing out the skirt of your dress.

“Behave,” you repeat, tugging his hair roughly. His eyes close in bliss and for a moment, you debate just letting him have you now.

Remembering the entire reason for this conversation, you slap his cheek lightly.

“Best behaviour until the end of my shift. You hear me, Jackson?”

“Yes ma’am.”

He mock salutes you before stealing a quick kiss. Opening the door for you, he smacks your ass as you walk by, laughing when you turn around to glare at him.

“I mean it.”

“Oh I know, baby.”

To his credit, he reels it in. Slightly.

He’s still watching your every move, but with a little less intensity than before. You catch his eyes occasionally, winking as you grin. He shakes his head, beaming smile on his face telling you everything you need to know.

As the night comes to a close, people start to vacate the bar and make their way home, drunk and merry. Jax sticks around, arm slung over the back of the booth as he watches you clean.

“You two gonna be alright?”

“Yeah, Chibs, we’re good. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He gives you a kiss on the cheek before leaving, as you hear his bike roar to life.

As soon as Jax has confirmation he’s gone, he’s getting up, sauntering over to where you’re wiping down the bar top.

“What’s my prize?”

“Hmm?”

You look up at him with big doe eyes and he almost melts, leaning across the wood towards you.

“What’s my prize? For behaving myself?”

“You’re insufferable,” you laugh. “You’re supposed to behave yourself.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

You shake your head and lean down to throw the rag under the sink. When you stand up, Jax is pressed against you, body warm and firm.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

His big hands cradle your face, rough and gun calloused.

“You look so fuckin’ pretty.”

You flush, heat rising across your chest. Jax lunges in, smashing his lips to yours and pushing you up against the bar. The lip of the wood is digging into your back as he presses you into it further, rocking his hips into yours as he kisses you.

You gasp as he bites down on your lip, so he takes the opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth. He tastes like beer and cigarettes and the gum he chews because he knows you like it. You tangle your fingers into his hair, trying to plaster yourself to him.

Jax leans down and presses open mouthed kisses to your ear, your neck, your collarbones, your chest. No skin goes left untouched as you tilt your head to give him more access. He smirks at how quickly you’ve relented.

“I know you wanted this,” he murmurs against your throat. “Wanted it just as bad as me, didn’t you?”

When you don’t respond, he snakes a hand around your neck, squeezing just enough.

“Yes,” you gasp. “Yes, Jax. Please.”

He presses his lips into the junction of your shoulder as his hand slips underneath your dress. He traces you over your underwear, cupping you as he chuckles.

“Filthy girl. So fuckin’ wet.”

You drop your head forward into his chest, trying to take deep breaths so you don’t pass out.

“Can’t take my time with you like I want to,” he murmurs. “Don’t want anyone walking in and seeing you like this.”

In the blink of an eye he’s spinning you around, hand on your shoulder blades to push you down onto the bar top. He flips the skirt of your dress up, bunching it around your waist.

“Been thinkin’ about this all day. Pretty fuckin’ girl.”

Jax pulls your underwear to the side as he fumbles with his jeans, pushing them down just enough. You feel the warmth of him behind you, sliding through your wet heat with ease.

“Please,” you whine. “Don’t tease.”

“Needy baby.”

His tone is so patronising, so condescending, that on any other day you’d slap him. But in this current moment, the only thing you can thing about how is how you might die if he doesn’t fuck you soon.

“Okay, honey. I’ll give you what you want. Only because you look so fuckin’ gorgeous in this dress.”

He slides himself home as both of you groan. You rest your head on your folded arms on the bar as his hands find your hips, setting a brutal pace instantly.

His rhythm is consistent, deep thrusts reverberating through the core of you. Your knees threaten to give out as he knocks your entire body forward, his hips smacking into yours.

His mouth is running constantly, spewing filth right into your ear as he breathes down your neck.

“Prettiest fuckin’ girl I’ve ever seen. This goddamn dress. Drivin’ me insane.”

“Yeah darlin’, just like that. Fuck, baby. S’good.”

“You feel like heaven, fuck. Atta girl.”

“Good girl. Good fuckin’ girl. That’s it, there we go.”

You can’t do anything but take it, babbling nonsense right back at him. He chuckles, snaking his hand around your front to circle your clit.

His fingers are your undoing, clenching around him like a vice as your legs give out. All you can do is whine his name, all high pitched and breathy.

“Fuck, baby.”

Jax comes as soon as he feels you, groaning as he rests his head on your back. He squeezes your hips a couple of times, kissing across your skin.

You’re both revelling in your post orgasm bliss when the door flies open, hitting the wall and startling you both.

“Oh, shit. Sorry, lovebirds.”

Chibs is grinning, laughing as he looks around the booth where he was sitting. He finds his keys on the floor, holding them up as he shakes his head at the two of you.

Jax pulls out of you and buttons himself up, smoothing your dress down to preserve your decency. You hide your face in his chest as he chuckles, the sound rumbling through the both of you.

“See ya tomorrow!” the Scotsman yells as he leaves, stupid smile on his face.

“What did I tell you about behaving?”

Jax can’t help but laugh at you, pulling you in to press a kiss to your head.

“Let’s go home, pretty girl. Wanna fuck you in this dress a couple more times.”

@lauratang @ladyjbrekker @myhappyplaceofstuff

[verstappen-cult]

Charles likes to spoil you and give you everything you want, you just need to pout and look at him with your big puppy eyes and he’s gone.

Max, however, is a little more stern and doesn’t give in so easily.

And that’s the beauty of your relationship.

The perfect balance.

Like that one time where you had been going out to dinner three nights in a row. Max has been okay with it because he’d missed you since they weren’t home for three weeks. But the fourth day when you came into the living room and sat down on Charles’ lap, Max immediately knew what you wanted and he had made up his mind the day before. You didn’t know, of course, so he just let you try to get your way with Charles while he played some FIFA.

Max knew Charles was a goner the minute you sat on his lap and began to tell him about how much you had missed him. And then Max had you both looking at him and pleading to go out. Again.

“We’re gonna stay here tonight and we’ll cook dinner together.” Max said, too concentrated with the game to look at you.

“But I missed you!” You pouted, snuggling closer, if that’s even possible, to your Monégasque boyfriend. “And I’ve been waiting for you to be back, so we can go to all this new places.”

Charles gave you a kiss on the forehead, “Max, she is right. We can go out tonight, non?”

Finally, Max paused the game and turned his body to look at you both.

“We are not going out.” His voice was stern but his expression soft. “We missed you too and we want to go out and visit all those new places. But we are not gonna expose ourselves to fans and photographers tonight. You understand, right?”

“Alright, Maxie.” You said, standing up from Charles’ lap and walking to your Dutch boyfriend to sit on his lap, and kiss his cheek.

Charles groaned, a little amused too, because how was that even possible.

Or that one time when you came home after one of your Pilates classes while they were cuddling on the couch watching an action movie. They immediately knew that something was going on when you stood in front of them with your hands behind your back and a sheepish look on your face.

“What did you do?” Max asked, brows furrowed.

“Remember when I showed you that picture of the puppy that was up for adoption?”

Charles sat up in a second, eyes wide and a smile making its way to his face.

“You didn’t.”

Then, you showed them what you were hiding behind your back: a dachshund puppy.

Max couldn’t deny that the puppy was very cute.

“Oh my god,” Charles stood up and with all the care in the world took the animal in his arms.

You and Max watched him whisper sweet nothings as the puppy licked his face.

“Can we keep it?” You asked, looking directly at Max. You knew Charles was more than happy to keep the puppy, it was your other boyfriend who you were worried about.

“Have you thought about what it means to have a puppy?” He immediately asked.

And god you love how he’s always been the voice of the reason in your relationship. Always thinking with a clear mind about the pros and cons, because if it were for you and Charles, you wouldn’t survive a day.

“You know how difficult it is with Jimmy and Sassy when we have to travel.”

You pout and look back at Charles who is too busy playing with the puppy to pay attention to what is going on. “I take care of them when you travel.”

“I know,” Max patted his thigh and you went willingly to sit on his lap. “But cats are more independent than dogs.”

“But I feel so alone when you’re not around.” At that, Max heart broke a little. He knew how alone you felt because you’ve had that conversation in the past. “And if I have to travel with you or something I can bring him with me.”

Max looked at his boyfriend only to find him already looking at him.

There was a silent exchange of words between them before Charles nodded and spoke.

“Max,” He said softly, leaving the new puppy on the carpet to sit next to his boyfriend. “We can have a puppy. She will make sure he gets along with Jimmy and Sassy, right, love?”

“Yes, absolutely! I looked up information about that and I can even train him.” The way your eyes lighted up and Charles looked at you so happy was enough to break Max.

He gave in.

The perfect balance.

Because Max can be strict and the responsible adult of the three of you when it’s needed, while Charles is the one who makes him remember that he doesn’t need to be like that all of the time.

[teaboot]

if ur a murderbot nerd now do u have any fun opinions abt it yet?

Oh my goddd you have no idea

I really, really, really like Murderbot because it comes at life with this perspective we don't often see that is very real among people who have already been through traumatic experiences, who developed skills and abilities to suvive that were once useful but no longer have context- that search that traumatized people go through to recalibrate and reorient ourselves in a world where we no longer really need those things to survive.

A bit personal here, but my own issues personally involved a lot of psychological abuse that made it difficult to trust my own perceptions of reality, and as a result I found I was very easy to lie to and manipulate.

To handle this, I became obsessive over writing things down, cataloging details and making notes of things as they happened- I'd carry recording devices and make audio recordings and stay up late at night to transcribe what they'd picked up, read those over and over again to reassure myself of things I wasn't certain about.

While doing this, there were others close to me that I felt responsible for, who I had to protect from others and protect myself from at the same time. Life was about two things: Evidence, and defusing threats

Over time, I learned to trust myself as my memories matched what had been recorded where their narrative didn't, but I never really kicked the habit. Like Murderbot, I had added something to my own programming that reassured me I was safe, that I was in control of myself, that I couldn't be mistaken or crazy or broken or used.

I'm only on book two, but already I see myself in Murderbot again. No spoilers here, but when I left home- left that dangerous context- I didn't need to repeat these patterns to survive anymore, but I still did, because I didn't know anything else anymore. It felt safe, comfortable, knowing knowing that the past couldn't repeat itself, because I'd written that flaw- blind trust in myself-  out of my programming and replaced it with something else.

Still, though, I'd become something specially suited to thrive in a very specific environment. Nothing else felt right like followinghigh-risk situations, like witnessing and watching and recording and knowing I had proof of the truth where others might not.

People took notice. I wound up in security by accident, but's an environment that I thrive in due to the same patterns and behaviours I originally developed when I had no other choice. I climbed the ladder pretty quickly, once supervisors caught on that my reports were the most accurate, most objective, most factual, detail-oriented and timely. I keep others and myself safe and prioritize public safety above all else, and I perform well under pressure

Now I'm in a position where I often wonder, do I enjoy this job, or is it just what I'm good at? I have a set of skills now, but do I have the option of choosing not to use them? What would I be, if not this? Could I be anything else? Can Murderbot be anything else?

It has a set of skills that set it apart, make it different, special. It does what it knows best. But is it free? Does it want to be? What does it want? Does it have to do what it was built to do? What if it didn't?

I know what I'm good for. The idea of deliberately leaving what I'm good for for something uncertain, that I might hate, that I might be useless at- the choice to give up what was so important to me for so long and become deliberately obsolete?

Let go of my entire purpose? The only thing I know, that I fit so well into but don't actually know if I enjoy? Now that I can choose? Now that enjoyment is a luxury I can afford to consider?

Yeah, that resonates.

I like the Murderbot series so far because it feels the way I feel: Like the most significant and formative part of my story, the part where I became what I am, has already happened

And now I have to just. Keep going

Into... what?

It feels absurd. Like a microwave giving up on reheating food and deciding to start a life around abstract dance.

So, uh. Yeah. It's really very wild to see this same philosophical-ish dilemma I've been digging over in the back of my mind and in therapy for the last forever laid out so plainly in a genuinely exciting and enjoyable story like this. I feel much less alone, and I... kind of really need to see how it resolves, I think.

So, uh. Yeah. Read Murderbot, I guess

[certifiedwhore4slashers]

Manipulative

pairing: coriolanus snow x f!reader, past oc x f!reader.

summary: he’s fallen way too deep, and he knows that.

a/n: i am in no way romanticizing nor defending his actions, he sucks as a person, this is for funsies, keep that in mind. remember he’s literally responsible for mass murders of children. also this idea is cliche ik ik. but, if you want more I will do more with original ideas.

reader has somewhat long hair, BUT no other descriptions of the reader. and I don’t usually do that. just for this post:)

warnings: yandere themes, toxicity, manipulative behavior(manipulation) obsession, possessiveness, no fluff, implied/referenced murder, slight blood, narcissistic tendencies, delusion, unhealed trauma, implied stalking, mild violence.

The meadow was where you’d often go. Ever since the games, it was a stress reliever, humming some songs or even just listening to the birds chirp.

After Coriolanus was sent to be a peacekeeper, You were sent home. District 12 was your home. You sat down on the cold rock. You were more of an creative artist than musician. Sometimes you wrote songs, and sometimes you wrote poems or just stories.

But you didn’t feel like doing anything today, just admiring the breeze in front of you. You were fairly zoned out when you hear a twig snap, and turn around.

You sigh of relief.”Sorry. Still have those instincts from the games.” You rushed over, not doing much. Still in disbelief he really was there.

You didn’t expect him to be here. But here he was. “It leaves quite the impression, He chuckled. It was a long embrace, and you say,”You found me. Quite surprised.”

“You figured I would, He teased. “Not this fast, and really it was hope, You tease right back, lips on his, it was passionate and sweet, ideal for a reunion.

“The sun’s hot, come in the shade, You offer. He had some ice, now melted and offered it.”Here. For you.” “Thank you, You reply.

You were very thirsty. The moment the water hit your tongue you were in heaven. “This must be the only cold thing in November, he joked.

You laugh in response.”So, Coriolanus Snow, What are you doing in the Meadow?” You were half joking. You never were fully serious. At least until it came to your feelings for him.

“Spending some time with my girl, He replies. The word My, a possessive tone, You notice. But brush it off.

“It’s unbelievable, You admit.”Truly. But I was surprised they brought me back. I swore It was all me.” “But it wasn’t, he points out. You look at him.”Clearly they didn’t believe me.”

His lips were on yours again, long and passionate. You two hadn’t seen each other since the games ended.

“Well, It was hard to believe for me too, He admits.”Tell me what happened after.” It was difficult to recall everything. The games were a nightmare. Especially the Arena. And Mayfair.

As the two of you share the water, You couldn’t help but wonder as he told stories, exchanging them, if something was wrong.

“Poor Jessup, You say sympathetically.”He didn’t deserve that. It was you, though, wasn’t it? The one who killed Bobbin?”

“I had to, Coriolanus replied.”He tried to kill me.” “I’m not saying what you did was wrong, but I suppose killing is for survival in the Arena, You reply. Snow only nodded.

“I heard the others brag, You say.”So I know. I thought the worst happened. You know, that you were dead.”

Heading back up beside him, You still couldn’t believe he was here. Whatever relationship you had, seemed to grow.

“What have you been up to? He asks, curiously.”It’s been a while.” “It has, you laugh.”And truly, not much. A few performances here and then. At the Hob, Maude Ivory’s an amazing singer like Lucy Gray.”

For a mere moment, You were in complete bliss. And that night was a normal evening for the Covey. Your parents were killed, well, your adoptive parents. They took you in, then Maude Ivory came along, your younger sister.

You became a part of the Covey. Until of course, their murders. But you had her, at least. “You want one? A peacekeeper asks, referring to liquor.”You might need it for your performance.”

“Sure, You grin, taking a swig, not making a reaction to the bitterness of it.”You’re right. I might need it.” Lucy Gray was a beautiful singer, but tonight, let you perform.

“Are you sure? I’m not the songbird, You tease. “I’m sure, and Maude Ivory wanted you to, She sweetly says. Your cousin was always the songbird.

“Besides, I think he’d like to hear you sing, Lucy Gray smirked. You knew who she was referring to. Truly the one who knew of your relationship, but by accident.

You wore a yellow dress, not too short but not too long either, and sunflowers in your hair. You wanted to have a good impression.

You tease her,”I think he’d like to hear you.” But you went up there, guitar in hand. A talent that you and Lucy Gray both had. It was the genes, you swore.

But you amazed the crowd as you sang. You were no Songbird. But you had some talent. And the whole time your eyes were on him.

It made him feel more special, in a way. Like the only person could make you feel this happy was him. Him. You were his, at least in his eyes.

But you did a wonderful performance. You mostly did instruments and stood in the background. You didn’t sing much.

Even though you were aware he was there, you went on, even with butterflies in your stomach. It was later that evening that things went downhill.

You said goodbye, even to Coriolanus, saying,”I shouldn’t be out so late anyway. But I promise, straight tomorrow. I’m sure you have peacekeeper things to do, anyway.”

He smiles.”It’s alright. You must be tired from that performance.” You laugh, then nod, quickly kissing him, then moving along.

You didn’t notice that he followed you. He was quite literally, obsessed. Especially after hearing your sweet voice. Since finding your home in the Seam, it wasn’t hard to follow you, and pretend he was there for something else.

Sometimes, he’d meet you there. Other times, didn’t even know he was there watching. He’d call it protectiveness. But it was really a sense of possessiveness over you.

That’s what it really was.

He heard your voice in your room, you sang to yourself. You sang a love song. That wasn’t hard to understand.

He had a sense of jealousy. It was clear the lyrics wasn’t about him. A past one, maybe. It wasn’t Billy Taupe. He had Lucy Gray. So who could you mentioned?

He was bloodthirsty. Or at least, had a taste for violence. He’d never say it or admit it. It was like he was a rebel. And he hated rebels.

But that didn’t stop him from feeling this way. As you danced and sang a little. Coriolanus defended his behavior, he was being protective of you. That nobody would hurt you.

He had fallen way too deep. And he was aware. You might feel the same about him, just as equally obsessed as he was. But that night, he wasn’t looking for trouble. Not much, anyway.

Someone stood beside him, admiring your singing. “Peacekeeper, huh? The male laughed. Coriolanus turns.”Yeah. Punishment. Not a choice.”

“She’s always been a singer, the male explained.”didn’t have much faith.” He wanted to know how the male knew that.

“How do you know? Coriolanus asked, curiously. “She wrote that song about me, the male bragged and seemed proud.”One of these days she’ll get back together with me.”

You never mentioned your ex lover much. Only that he hurt you, and that he was still infatuated. You were right about that.

“She isn’t interested, Coriolanus says, coldly. His fists clenched, along with his jaw, both from the rage he was feeling.

Maybe it was his narcissistic tendencies that were showing. A feeling of shame. A feeling that, he was superior than the male standing in front of him. He’d do so much better.

And with that, he swung. He could’ve shot him. But it was the easy way. And he didn’t deserve the easy way. His blood thirst took over a little, and like Bobbin, didn’t know how far his strength would go.

He stands back, his knuckles bleeding and blood on his uniform he’d have to explain later. Maybe it was a mistake coming to visit you. Your singing had stopped.

He pants. What had he done? Standing over the body, Coriolanus realized what he truly had done. And what could he do? He didn’t want a career as a peacekeeper; but his future would be damaged even further. He had to do something.

The Lake.

It brought him good memories. Swimming alongside you and the covey. But he’d have to hide the body somewhere.

It took a lot of his strength; but didn’t wear him out to drag him to the lake. It wouldn’t be too hard hiding evidence. His body would eventually disappear and Coriolanus doubted anybody cared about him. You didn’t anymore.

And he just watched. After the blood washed off, He walked away. He left the Seam. He'd come back. But You'd be aware of it.

Morning came, and peacekeepers came knocking at your door. The whole morning was a mess. When you did eventually meet up with Coriolanus, you decided on telling him about it.

“Did you know? She asked.”I’m assuming every peacekeeper knew. The guy I used to go out with was murdered. Found in the lake.”

“We were informed today, but I wasn’t the one who found it, He lies. He did not like lying, but he had to. He held a tight grip on you.

And he wasn’t letting you go.

[asterias-record-shop]

—𓆩[something worse]𓆪—

𓆩[main masterlist]𓆪 𓆩[request/ask me something!]𓆪 𓆩[updated bingo card!]𓆪 𓆩[bingo masterlist]𓆪 𓆩[join the bingo taglist!]𓆪

𓆩♡𓆪 CHARACTER - Tobias Eaton (Four) x Fem! Dauntless Born! Reader

𓆩♡𓆪 TYPE - smut, fluff

𓆩♡𓆪 WORD COUNT - 2K

𓆩♡𓆪 SUMMARY - You and Four had been together since he chose Dauntless, especially because you were one of the Dauntless born pulled into training. You both had never put a label on your relationship because it never seemed right, but everyone knew that you both were a couple, except the newest tributes you both were training, no matter how obvious you both made it. It seems you both have to make it a little more obvious.

𓆩♡𓆪 STORY WARNINGS - so sorry I was writing this during a final and it might suck I’m sorry 😭 || cursing || unprotected sex || creampie || oral || fingering

You were used to wandering eyes, you really were, your partner was literally the hottest man in Dauntless. It didn’t really matter about wandering eyes though when they knew you both were together, label or not, but it seemed to be difficult to get through the mind of one of the new initiates.

You weren’t born Abnegation like either of them, you were a bitch and you made sure everyone knew it. You were a lovable bitch though, that’s why you were being fucked every night by the hottest man in all of the factions.

It passed through your mind to just show her, get Four to tell her something is going on in a certain area just to pull him there to fuck you. You passed it through Tori just to make sure, and she said no though, so you decided not to go through with it.

Maybe that’s why you were watching Four fix Tris’ position because she wouldn’t stick with it when Eric did it. It made your skin crawl, staring at the two of them. Maybe it did feel right that he was with someone from his home faction, didn’t he like selfless people? You were selfless in your own way, right? He knew that.

“Hey, you okay?” Uriah asks you, a smile quickly making its way to your face.

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, I’m okay, thank you. I’m going to go see how some of the kids are doing, you mind telling Four?” You start collecting your stuff, inhaling deeply as Uriah follows you.

“He’s coming over here.”

You shoot up as Four stands in front of you, his brow raised. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to go do my time at the school,” you say, smiling slightly. “I just… haven’t seen King in a while.”

Four sighs. “Well… I can go with you in a minute, okay? King likes me, right?”

You laugh, slowly lifting your arms to wrap your arms around his neck before pausing. Public displays of affection were never really your thing, but you really wanted to.

Four saw you pause, leaning down to wrap his arms around your waist as you smiled and wrapped yours around his neck. “Everyone likes you, Four,” you teased, giggling. “But I love you.”

He smiles back, leaning down for a soft kiss as you tugged on his hair. “I love you too.”

You pulled his hands closer to your form, pulling his face into your neck as you looked over his shoulder just enough to wink at Tris before pulling away. “Let’s go see King.”

He nods, letting you lead him out of the training area and to the school. Dauntless didn’t teach like Erudite did, but they made sure that the children of the faction learned things needed to survive in the faction. King was a child of two Dauntless soldiers who had died exploring beyond the wall, and as a result, you both took him in sort of like your own.

Seeing you with a child really made Four want to give you a child, especially with how good you were with kids, but it never really seemed to be the right time.

That was until he saw you twirling another boy in your eyes, King cleaning one of Four’s guns while the older man oiled up one of the other ones. The younger boy was named Chris, someone whose parents got caught up in a mission and you both took him home just for a while.

“She looks good with a baby, right?” King asks, smiling. “Y/N was always good with kids. She was good with me,” he mumbles now, smiling. “I’m doing well in my training. She said that.”

“You are,” Four said with a smile. “You’re doing really well. Ranked third, kid, you’re doing good,” he leaned forward and ruffled his hair with a laugh. “Want you to get that first spot, though.”

King grins. “I will.”

Someone knocks making you fix Chris on your hip, quickly walking toward the door as Four stands. “Stay there,” he orders to King as you open the door, raising a brow when you see Tris. “Who is it?”

“Uhm… can I help you?”

She inhaled. “I just… I’m here to see Four.”

“Four, honey!” You yell out, the tall man coming behind you and settling a hand on your hip. “One of the trainees wants to speak with you.”

Four raised a brow. “Everything alright?”

Oh, the Abnegation was coming out.

“Y-Yeah, everything’s fine-”

“Perfect,” Four smiles, taking Chris from your arms and setting him on the ground. “King, come here!”

The older boy quickly walks over, standing just like Four. “Yeah?”

“Why don’t you take Chris down to eat? Tris will join you both,” Four says making King’s nose scrunch. “What?”

“Don’t forget I sleep here too.” King takes Chris’ hand, looking back just a bit. “Don’t forget I have a bed! That’s my bed!”

“Bye, King!” You laughed as Four grinned, closing the door as his other hand held your waist.

You couldn’t stop smiling, giggling as you stared up at him. “You did that, didn’t you?”

His smile grows, just a bit. “Yeah, I did. Uriah kind of… hinted it to me.”

You hummed. “Good, because I would've done something worse,” you said, slowly stepping back and pushing your hands into his tight black shirt. “I was this close.”

“Oh yeah? What did you have in mind?” He asked, smiling as the back of your knees bumps against the bed. His rough hands slip under your shirt, rubbing against your back as though he could feel the black ink you had gotten tattooed.

“Was gonna make her catch us fucking in the corridor,” you giggled as Four slipped off your shirt, humming as he leaned down. “Who said we always have to fuck on the bed? You like that idea?”

He nodded into your shoulder, lips pressing soft kisses to your skin as you started to lean back, his hands securely catching you before you could fall back fully. Carefully, he sets you down, his mouth pressing hot kisses to your neck down your chest. “I fucking love that idea,” he mumbled, his hand slowly rubbing circles against your thigh. “You want to go do that now?”

It was a tempting offer, but you shake your head. “No,” you say, tugging on the hem of his shirt. “You already got me here. Why move?”

He smiled even wider, leaning down as his hands moved to your hips to slowly tug at the tactile pants you wore. “I was thinking,” he whispers as you pull him down to press kisses to his neck. You could see the black peeking out from his shirt, pulling it off of him easily as he pulled away just to slip it off before pulling off your own. “You looked good with Chris on your hip.”

You paused, looking up at him. “You think so?”

He nodded, his hands tugging at your sports bra as your hands dragged down his back. He kneels over your body, pressing kisses down your neck to your chest. “I know so. You’re a natural with kids, angel, you’re fucking perfect.”

The slight husk in his voice made a shiver run up your back, your stomach twisting and heat flooding into your underwear as he lets his hot mouth suck at your lower stomach. “D-Does that mean something?”

He smiled, looking up at you. “Did I just get a Dauntless-born to stutter?”

You blushed madly, looking away. “Don’t let it get to your head, Four.”

He laughs, pressing a kiss to your pelvic bone before he slowly starts to pull your underwear off, his fingers dancing along your thighs as you squirmed, gasping as he pressed a firm kiss to your clit. It makes you squirm, his fingers replacing his lips as he kisses lower and lower.

“F-Fuck,” you whimper as the tip of his fingers slowly prod against your cunt, his mouth sucking and licking around his fingers as your hands push into his hair. “F-Four, you’re being too nice.”

He laughs, pulling away just for a minute as he slowly pushes a thick finger into you, watching as your hips buck into the air and your back arches. “Maybe it’s the Abnegation?”

You shook your head, reaching a hand down to push his fingers deeper into your pussy. It makes you whine, a gasp coming from your lips as he pulls them out just for a second to add another finger. “Abnegation is selfless, my darling, maybe it’s the Amity? J-Just, don’t stop.”

He laughs, popping a kiss to your cunt before pushing his fingers deeper into you, watching as you squirmed. Moans fall from your lips as he pressed firm circles against your clit, the sensitive bud making you whine loudly, hips bucking.

His fingers curl inside of you, pushing his tongue into you with his fingers as you tug on his hair and your other hand finds his cheek.

You felt your stomach twisting, hips bucking uncontrollably as you attempted to ride his fingers. You gasped as his fingers curled inside of you, attempting to find that one soft spot inside of you that made your eyes roll back. It didn’t take him long to find, especially because he’s memorized your body over the years and he groaned as you clenched around him.

“Come on honey, cum for me. Want to watch you cum.”

Your eyes rolled back, whimpering as he pushed his fingers knuckle deep into you to watch your pussy flutter. Your stomach twists, loud groaning falling from your lips as your stomach twists. Your hips buck, eyes rolling back as he sucked on your cunt, swallowing loudly as he pulled out his fingers.

He pulled away, sitting up as he pulled down his pants just enough to pull out his cock, hissing as you raised your legs to wrap around his waist. He grunts as he slowly pushes into you, eyes rolling back as he leaned down to hold himself up with his elbows, pulling you in for a kiss. “Fucking hell, I want to see you with my kids so bad,” he groaned, gasping as you pulled him down for a kiss. “Want to see you pregnant over and over again.”

You whined, his hips moving quickly as the bed pounded into the wall, your nails dragging down his back. His cock rammed into your pussy, strong thrusts making your eyes roll back as he pressed his lips to your neck. “You want that honey? Want to be fucked, round and full with my kids?”

You nodded, whining loudly. “Yes! Yes, I do!”

He grunts loudly, slamming into you just to feel your pussy clench along his entire shaft, a broken moan leaving his lips as you cum again around him. “Fuck.”

“Fuck, fuck! Four!” You yelled out as he reaches down to rub firm circles into your clit, rutting his hips just a few more times as he came inside you for the first time without protection.

It was an odd feeling, but filling as he groaned loudly, your cunt continued to clench around him to milk him of everything he had. It was warm, and if you could feel sticky-ness inside of you, it would be this. You whimper as he starts to pull out, trying to reach forward to pull him back in before he grabs your legs, pushing them back so your knees were on your shoulders.

“You don’t think we’re done yet, do you? Gotta make sure this sticks.”

omg, I love fulfilling requests ♡ keep them coming for Bingo!!

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© asterias-record-shop

[splatashahowlett]

missing piece

logan (james) howlett x reader

the record player was playing One piece at a time, your favorite song, occasionally letting out a soft sound of scratching against the vinyl. the bar was crowded and everybody seemed to have a good time. the 70's may become your favorite decade. you've been alive for over a hundred years now but you liked everything about this era; the music, the clothes and the recklessness of it.

you were currently seated at the bar, drinking whatever the bartender had offered you. the guy had been hitting on you all evening, and you figured that free drinks couldn't hurt since your healing factor would keep you from getting drugged. you liked the attention anyway, your ex lover had disappeared on a random tuesday and never came back home. it had been four years since you had last seen him, you weren't mad at him anymore, but more at yourself for thinking a man could keep his promises. so some compliments were always welcomed.

you were watching people dance, the festive atmoshpere filling a void in your chest. whenever you felt alone you would go to a bar, or a pub just to feel something. in those places, time seemed to stop, you could be invisible. nobody cared about you or asked anything from you. sometimes you would dance with a random girl or guy and end up in their motel room just to sneak out the second they fell alseep. you were conscious that this lifestyle wasn't for everybody. in fact, you didn't enjoy it in the slightest. but you didn't have a choice. you didn't have any family anymore, and the only person that counted took off 4 years ago. you didn't work and your only hobby was drinking. you weren't living, but barely surviving. but with time you get used to it, right?

right as when you were about to get up to dance, someone sat next to you. too close for your liking. you turned your head and were met with a drunk looking guy, staring at you like you were some piece of meat. you gave him a look that meant "get the fuck out of here and leave me alone" but he didn't seem to want to comply.

"hello pretty girl, need some company?" he said, or at least that's what you understood. his breath hit your nose and you almost threw up; your heightened senses could really be a pain in the ass sometimes.

"go fuck yourself" you said, walking toward the back door. the guy following you.

"I think I'll need some help with that, my girl" he said, trying to catch up with you. you ignored him, or at least he thought so, and went through the back door, making sure he was still behind you. once you found yourself in a small alley, you grabbed him by the collar and pushed him brutally against the wall.

"I am not your girl" you threatened. the dickhead tried to answer but with your hands on his throat the task seemed more difficult than usual. you hated this petname, it reminded you of things you wanted to forget. you let go of him, letting him fall to the ground and kicked him in the stomach. that wasn't necessary but he deserved it.

you went back inside, planning on gathering your things and then finding a place to sleep. you folded your jacket on your arm and put your pack of cigarettes in your pocket. but as you turned toward the door, your heart stopped. a familiar face looking at you from the crowd. at first you thought you were hallucinating, the fucker was dead. you hoped he would be. it would hurt less. but when he started coming closer you scoffed.

you couldn't do it without a drink, so you sat back and asked for straight tequila. you missed this vanishing feeling the night procured you.

logan sat next to you and asked for a drink. you refused to look at him. you wanted to punch him in the face, alright maybe you were still a little mad at him. seeing him here, and so close to you made you mad. you wanted to kill and kiss him.

"I missed you" he said, looking afar. out of all the things he could have said you weren't expecting this. you scoffed and tightened your grip on your drink.

"shut your damn mouth" you gritted through your teeth, still holding onto your drink for dear life. you had imagined what it would be like to see him again and promised to yourself that you would tell him you moved on and leave him speechless. you never thought you still loved him so deeply. you hated how he made you feel, you hated feeling weak. but you loved everything else about him, and if feeling vulnerable was the price to pay to be with him then you wouldn't think twice about it.

"I didn't have a choice" he added, this made your blood boil. you knew he was telling the truth and you had already forgave him, you just needed to hear him say it. you didn't say anything, didn't ask about the reason of his departure. you kept your mouth shut, hoping he would take the hint and leave. no you didn't want him to leave, you wanted him to think that you wanted him to leave.

"I’m sorry” he muttered. this was your last straw, your glass broke between you fingers, shards of glass flying all over the counter and cutting into your hand. you jumped, startled at your own doing. logan reached for your hand immediately but you moved it away before he could even brush it.

"fuck you" was the last thing you said before running to the bathroom. your healing factor was already pushing the glass out of your flesh but it still hurt as hell.

“let me help you” you hadn’t even hear him coming in. you smiled, amused at the situation. you terribly wanted to give him your hand but your pride told you otherwise.

“why are you here?” you whispered, almost scared that if you spoke louder he would disappear.

“I told you, I miss you”.

“of course you do, that's why you came back so quickly” you said, washing the blood off your hand. “I just know you were bored to death without me" you joked, trying to ease the tension.

logan approached and slowly put his hands on your waist, your back facing him. he then delicately planted his chin on your shoulder. “I know you won’t believe me when I tell you I did this to protect you and that’s fair but I need you by my side, I need my girl” you swore you heard a sob in his voice. you looked up, staring at your reflection in the mirror, you could see logan’s head next to yours he was looking at you. this was the first time you’ve look into his eyes since he left. and they felt like home.

you turned around slowly, facing him. you hands claimed back their place on either side of his face. wiping his tears. seeing logan cry was rare, extremely rare. you felt your heart broke at the sight. he put his hands on yours and closed his eyes, enjoying how your touch felt like after so many years. nothing changed, not his love for you nor what he felt around you.

“let me take you home” he begged

“where?”

“doesn’t matter, home is whenever I’m with you”

you knew that your james was telling the truth, and you knew that you still loved each other.

"I need time, james" you answered, even if your mind was already made you had some self respect. you were about to say something else but logan beat you to it:

“I love you” he breathed.

you kissed him passionately, making up for all the lost kisses.

"I love you most"

you were still upset about what he did, but at the end of the day, you knew he did it for a good reason and that it hurt him maybe even more than it did you, and you certainly couldn’t imagine life without him.

you both cried into the kiss, silently promising to always be on each other's side.

"come on, let's get out of here"

[evilminji]

Speaking of Summoning?

We don't see people fuck it up enough. Or CAPTIVES deliberately fuck up their captor's work. Like? Yeah, you are hogtied so tight you look three parts chain to one part man, but you can still WIGGLE.

Aggressively wiggle over that rune until it's too blurry to function! Kick at it with your heel until you scrape the paint! Smear that shit around! You're not here because you WANT to be! Fuck being a polite hostage. Make their life difficult!!!

Or BETTER?

The "$4000 bucks for chalk" take!

It's not the MATERIALS that make John "fuck you" Constantine a force to reckoned with. It's the DECADES of time, training, mistakes, fuck ups, FIXING those mistakes and fuck ups, then surviving the resulting fires.

Any idiot with a voice and some poor impulse control, can use most of those books.

John is GOOD at what he does, because he SURVIVED it. Knows when to stop. What to fuck up on purpose. HOW to do it. And what the results will be.

You're not impressive because you can light your dick on fire with magic.

You're just an idiot.

And when some "you are held back by your FEAR~!" Delusions of grandure fucko, one AGAIN crawls out of the muck like he's something God damned special, and not on the quick bus to a gory unspeakable end? Plays fast and loose with things that SHOULD NOT be let free? Yeah, John exhausts himself keeping millions of people from learning what the inside of Hell looks like.

Wakes up here.

Honestly surprised he wakes up at all.

Most of Dark is here. And Every Single One looks UNSPEAKABLY pissed. Like they got chewed on by a tree thrasher. That was probably on fire, given half the burns he's seeing.

The bastards monologuing, probably thinks they're hanging off his every word. Arrogant prick. Mostly though it's just intense eye contact and eyebrow charades over gags. Head gestures. Seeing who has what and if anyone's concussed. Honestly? You get good at shit like this, after a few too many times bound and gagged.

First mistake always is and has been, not killing them when you had the chance.

But... Zatanna is looking way too pale. And when she sharply gestures with her head? He sees WHY.

Blood on the floor. Not random. Just shitty, shitty writing and no binding agents. Oh sweet merciful fuck. It's not even CHARGED. No grooves to HOLD the blood in a way to keep most of it away from the air. Just splatter painted with some cheap brush on the unscrubbed floor, mixing and contaminated by god knows what, IN LAYERS.

Because it keeps drying.

Because OF COURSE IT KEEPS DRYING, YOU FUCK.

You are DOING IT WRONG.

Is he using THEIR blood? Oh sweet fuck he is. Are you ser-!? One of them is a CHIMPANZEE! Blood's blood literally changes! John's is fucked up! This idiot really things you can just slap it down like PAINT and trot off on your merry lil way, doesn't he? Why don't you just throw "Chemicals" at it next! Big ol bag of whatevers on hand!

At least he has people to share his outrage and horror with.

Oh god, is he STILL talking? Really. REALLY? How long has he...?

Wait. WHAT.

Crazy pants has "found" (more likely was lead by the nose too) a way to True Name Summoning people?! As in "kidnap from literally anywhere and bind them to your will, because unlike normal Summoning Targets they can't fuck off back home under their own power, so it's either submit or stay trapped until you die"??! Oh fuck. Oh shit, oh fuck.

And, OF COURSE, he's going to TEST his new fun trick?

On the Justice League.

Fucker, turns and starts chanting. John is closet, but everyone throws themselves forward. Even though none of them can really move, they have too TRY. His eyes shoot around the shit writing. Trying desperately to make out familiar symbols. Anything. Something. THERE!

He never thought he'd be grateful for all those far too drunk nights and pounding morning hangovers. But he is FAST wiggling across the floor, scrunching and swinging himself around, too sharply scrape the heel of his boot at the concrete floor, just inside that omenious off color Summoning. The layers of blood, painted down again and again to keep the "fresh", stick together like paint chips. Are raised just enough, his shoe tred catches, and all but pops the rune he's aiming for clean off.

Power surges as the spell completes.

He yanks his foot back before he runs the risk of losing it.

The light flares. And between one moment and the next? There are white hazmat boot standing just on the other side of the writen line, from John's face. He looks up into a young, pallet swapped, face. Nightwing, younger then he should be, wrong colors, different uniform. Confused look on his face quickly melting to that familiar "someone's about to get their ass kicked" look as he assesses the situation.

John grins like the MEANEST lil shark. (And yes, he DID steal this look of an ex.)

It WORKED.

Because half the people behind the kid? Not THEIR League. Hero's, yeah, he left that rune alone. But the "civilian identity" that was tied up in the "of this reality" one? Whoops! Guess it was forced to grab any applicable version of the Hero, from the Multiverse, who WASN'T currently off duty. Sure hope your bindings work on THEM!

AND it didn't tip off every single hero OFF duty!

The kid steps over the binding line, bends down, and snaps the chains around John with his bare hands. Offers him a hand up. He takes it. Gets a front row view of alternate versions of his colleges testing to see who is and isn't able to step out. Quiet a few are. Oh dear~, oh dear~. All these Heros! What's a lad to do, huh chucklefuck?

They would like a word.

@nerdpoe @the-witchhunter @hypewinter @hdgnj @mutable-manifestation @lolottes @babbling-babull

[undreaming-fanfiction]

Written for @steddieangstyaugust day 4: angst with a happy ending.

Once upon a time, when the world almost ended and didn't, Eddie Munson used to think that surviving the near apocalypse would be the most difficult thing he'd ever have to do in his life. Surely being bitten to death, then resurrected by the big bad, then breaking away from his influence and helping save the world, that must have counted for something, right? He'd earn a happy end through all that suffering.

Well, no. Not really. That's what he learned the second the portal to the Upside Down closed. The lovely people of Hawkins still hated him, he and Wayne had nowhere to live because their trailer split open, and he barely escaped another group of government scientists very much interested in the whole "came back to life" thing.

It was only natural Eddie ran. Why wouldn't he? He brought Wayne only bad luck, even worse reputation, and a bunch of extra expenses. His friends from the Corroded Coffin? Tortured by Jason to find his location. The freshmen he dragged into Hellfire? Also targeted. Eddie's name was a target on the back on everyone he loved and he wouldn't stay long enough for it to put the others in danger. Not Wayne, Dustin…Steve. Steve who confused him as much as enticed him. But Hawkins wasn't the place to explore this forbidden space in Eddie's head.

Indy sounded like a good destination and so that's where he went. He wrote a bunch of goodbye letters, trying to explain, but mostly to ease the pain. I will be in touch once I settle in, he said in them. He was never a good liar, not even on paper.

The whole Upside Down affair had robbed him of everything. His baby, his guitar. His closest relationships. His only proper home. The future he saw with himself and the Corroded Coffin. But he still had his life, so that was something.

He made friends, but not really. How do you make a real connection with someone when you can't tell them anything about the most important event in your life? How do you explain staring at every girl with golden blond ponytail on the street, dreading the moment they turn around because it won't be her?

He would send letters to Wayne sometimes. They would be long, talking about this and that, he would sometimes call too. But he noticed that for how much he talked, the content was empty. He wondered if Wayne noticed too. He must have - his uncle was the most perceptive man he'd ever met. He sent a bunch of short messages to Dustin via Wayne, just to keep him from going all Sherlock Holmes on Eddie. He swore to visit them both one day. Just not today. Or tomorrow.

The only good thing about his life in Indy was the anonymity of a large city and with that, the possibility to explore who he really was. He saved as much as he could and bought a new guitar. It would never be like his first love, but he could get back to music and drive his roommates insane with how out of practice he was. He'd play here and there, become very slightly famous in the local queer community. Sometimes his performances would earn him a free drink, sometimes a kiss. Or if he was really good, company for the night.

Five years in, it was going fairly well, he thought. He wasn't completely broke, he could kiss who he wanted - boys, how long it took him to admit that!, his songs got more genuine. He even wrote a bunch about Hawkins, never naming the place or people, of course, but it helped him work through some stuff. And on some days, he didn't even think much about what and who he'd left behind.

Until that fateful evening when he was scheduled to perform in his frequented gay bar. He sat on his usual stool on the podium with his acoustic guitar, greeted the regulars, and said his usual spiel: "This one is about a very special boy. He wore a yellow sweater, saved my life a bunch of times. Was really badass too. I think he made me realize who I really am, even if he never knew how I feel about him."

He never gave the song a name. He considered "His vest over my bleeding heart", or maybe something like "Keep me like you kept the vest", something with sunflowers, nail bats, perfect hair. Everyone in the bar knew he hated naming his songs anyway, so he took a deep breath and got ready to play.

Only then did he notice a familiar shade of yellow near the bar. And a surprised, but still a smile.

Eddie didn't run that evening. He finished the set, thanked his supporters and fans, and then he found himself sitting next to Steve Harrington, the man from his songs and dreams.

"Everyone misses you like crazy. They still hope you'll stop by, but I get it. I just feel lucky as hell. I didn't think I'd see you again," said Steve and it sounded sad. Like he actually missed Eddie too.

"I didn't think I'd find you in a place like this," responded Eddie. He wanted it to sound more rough, defensive, but his heart betrayed him and it was more of a question. Of a plea.

Steve smiled at him again, and maybe it was Eddie's imagination, but did he shift closer to him? "You haven't seen me in a long time, Eddie. This is exactly the place you'd find me these days. And now…I don't even need to drag Robin with me as an excuse."

Oh. Okay. Eddie could work with that. Licking his lips, he prodded even more. "So…uh. I take it you still haven't found what you're looking for?"

Steve turned to him fully, reaching out for Eddie's hand, and Eddie realized that he might have been wrong. This might be his happy ending after all.

Especially when Steve's lips parted and he said: "I have now."

Eddie would visit Wayne. He'd call Dustin, catch up with Gareth and others. Because he no longer felt like a bad omen. The morning he woke up next to Steve Harrington, with a careful promise of much more than one night, with pancakes for breakfast and talking, so much real talking with no secrets and no lies, he decided that he was ready to stop running. For good this time.

[redroomreflections]

Real Love

Natasha Romanoff x Fem!Reader

The Loud House Universe

Masterlist

Summary: Reader comes home after a night out with friends

W/c: 2.3k

When Natasha gets a knock at her bedroom door, she’s a bit surprised. She wasn’t expecting any company at this time of night. Not that people came knocking at her door anyway. Natasha’s a lone wolf. She’s content with being by herself. Since joining the Avengers she’s made the effort to embrace the team and everything that comes with it. Group meals, training, maybe even a movie night if she’s feeling up to it. Tonight is not one of those nights. She’s been reading in her bedroom for the past hour. Her legs perched high enough to rest her book. She’s read it a dozen times before. 

Pride and Prejudice. A cliche she knows. It brings back good memories for her. Back in Ohio, when she was young, Melina had gone to the library and picked out a few things. She was supposed to play the part of a quiet and observant older child. So, she came back to Natasha’s bedroom with a summer reading list and a pile of books. Most of them were on Natasha’s level. They were things she could read and enjoy. Others were more difficult. The material was hard to grasp. Not only that but she was also not a native English speaker so she struggled for a bit. Nonetheless, she enjoyed the books given to her and picked this one as her favorite. Books distracted her from the world and sometimes she needed that. 

The only thing that could distract her from her favorite pastime is you. Considering you’ve been out all night and not texted her it shouldn’t be a problem. Except she’s annoyed by it. Not your lack of response. Not really. She’s angry at herself for caring a little too much. Even a year into your relationship Natasha has to remind herself to calm down. It’s the first time she’s ever been in love. The first time she’d ever cared for someone. She didn’t want to ruin it with jealous or overprotective tendencies. So, she sent one text a few hours ago. Just to check up on you. Then another about something random. To which you didn’t reply. It’s fine. She’s a busy person too. She’s survived without you. Which is why she’s been sitting here for the past hour reading the same page. 

When the person at Natasha’s door knocks again, she blows out a puff of air. Surely they knew to leave her alone. Most of the guys wouldn’t dare disturb her. Except maybe Tony. His lack of boundaries pissed her off. It was all love though and she’s learning to understand that too. Natasha closes her book gently and walks over to her door. She grips the knob to swing it open only to find you on the other end. 

You’re energetic and bouncy. You’re wearing a short and tight dress that almost leaves nothing to the imagination. Your hair is done up. Makeup is immaculate. Almost the opposite of Natasha right now who's wearing a tank top and shorts. You surge forward, throwing your arms around her, before pulling back.

“Hi, Tasha, your friend let me in,” You provide to her before she can ask. 

“Hi,” Natasha is a bit confused but returns your enthusiasm. “Where have you been?” Natasha begins to ask but she’s interrupted by your lips on hers. You give her a few pecks, using a thumb to wipe your lipstick from her lips before you look into her eyes. “Have you been drinking?”

“Have I?” You grin. “I have.” You nod. “I missed you so much. We can talk more. I really have to pee.” You inform her before you rush past her and into her ensuite bathroom. Natasha stands, stupefied, before she closes the bedroom door and locks it. She walks over to your kicked-off stilettos and sets them neatly against a wall. 

“Where’s Karen?” Natasha asks. 

“Probably somewhere giving a blow job who knows,” You answer back. “Preferably to Steve Rogers.”

“Okay, ew,” Natasha shakes her head. She walks over to her dresser drawer to find your spare clothes. There’s no way she would be letting you go home like this. She finds you a proper outfit and places it on a chair for you. She moves to sit on the bed again, propping herself up against the headboard. She listens to the flush of the toilet and then the running water. There’s silence for a few more minutes before you come out. 

You look over at her with a pout. 

“You’re angry with me?” You point out. Natasha’s expression doesn’t give away her feelings. Her arms are folded against her chest. “Come on, baby, don’t be mad.” You drawl as you walk over to her. Only it’s not as coordinated with all of the liquor in your system. You lean over Natasha, your arms on each side of her leg, as you lean closer to her face.

“I’m not mad,” The lie slips so easily from Natasha’s mouth that you almost believe it. You’d like to think you know her well by now. You tap her legs, drumming your little beat, and she rolls her eyes. 

 “I’m sorry I didn’t text back. My phone died. I forced Karen to come here with me just to show you I was okay.” You stand proudly with your hands on your hips. You make a turn for her, showing off your nonexistent injuries, not missing the way her eyes fall on your ass. Which looks amazing in this dress by the way. You lean over again, not giving her any space, as you speak. “I love you?” You try. 

“I love you too,” Natasha says back automatically. No hesitation and your heart soars. You kiss her. Once, twice, and another before you’re pulling back. “I was worried about you. I know you’re an adult.”

“I like that you’re worried,” You assure her. “I worry about you too all the time.” You confess as you begin to strip yourself free of the dress. Natasha watches as you reveal yourself and all your glory. No underwear of any kind. You don’t shy away from her gaze. Instead, you walk over to the pajamas and put them on. 

“What did you guys do?” Natasha questions. 

“Oh, just bar hopping,” You say. “The usual. I drank a few too many drinks. One more semester of law school. Then I’m free.” You smile. You walk back into the bathroom to grab a few towels and wet them. Natasha holds her hands out to take them when you return. You sit in front of her patiently as she begins to clean your face free of makeup. 

“Will you stop moving?” Natasha says gruffly. 

“You can’t be mad anymore,”

“I’m not mad,” Natasha sighs. “You turn into a three-year-old when you’re drunk.”

“I resent that,” You argue. “I think I give a modest seven. I didn’t need your help going to the bathroom.”

“You’re right,” Natasha sets the towels aside. “There, all better.”

“Thank you, baby,” You slur. You wrap your arms around her neck and pull her down to the bed with you. You plant wet kisses all over her face. Most of which she doesn’t wipe off. “I love you so much.” You say and Natasha chuckles. 

“I love drunk you,” Natasha says. 

“I know,” You nod. “I would suggest we have sex. Which, I mean, let’s face it I would honestly love to see you cum right now.” You hold nothing back. “I would much rather cuddle. Mainly because I can feel the earth spinning and it won’t be pretty if I puke.”

“Hmm,” Natasha hums. “Good choice.”

“I’m totally open to morning sex though,” You suggest instead. 

“Noted,” Natasha allows you to lie your head on her shoulder. For a few moments you’re too silent, she thinks you’ve fallen asleep. 

“Do you love me?” You lift your head. 

“I do,” Natasha looks into your eyes. 

“Oh, because I was just making sure,” You inform her. “I need to know because when I ask you to marry me I don’t want to be blindsided or anything.”

Natasha’s heart soars and sinks at the same time. The thought of marriage terrifies her. The fact that you’ve been thinking about it? She likes the idea. If she would allow herself to admit it she would want to. Widows are not made for love. Replays in her head for far longer than she’d like. 

“Hello, are you going to accept my proposal?” You poke at her belly. 

“Is this a proposal?” Natasha raises a brow. “I hoped it would be much better than this.”

“No, no,” You shake your head. You agree with her. “It would be much better. So much better.”

“Good,” Natasha smiles. “You should allow yourself to sleep.”

“I can’t,” You sigh. Your hands travel along her body, resting on her hips, and then her ass. You kiss her again. “I can’t stop thinking about how much fun I’m having with you. How when you’re my wife I’m going to spoil you so much. I promise orgasms every day.”

“Every day huh?” Natasha just may hold you to it. 

“I can’t wait to see you with our babies,” You continue. That makes Natasha stiffen. She hasn’t thought about this aspect. Or telling you that she can’t carry. She didn’t think you would get this far. “Don’t worry. We’ll have help. My mom loves you. She would do anything you asked for.”

“We’ve only ever talked on the phone,” Natasha swallows thickly. 

“Even still she sees how happy you make me.” You tell her. “And I’m sorry if I’m scaring you with all this. It’s just the liquor is giving me a lot of courage right now and I mean a lot.” You giggle.

“I can see,” Nathasha muses. “I like you like this.”

“Good,” You nod. “Do you know that song by Mary J. Blige?”

“Who?” Natasha dares to say and you surge forward. 

“You don’t know Auntie Mary?” You gasp. You look horrified and for a second Natasha is wondering if you’re talking about a real aunt. 

“I’m Russian,” Natasha shrugs. 

“No, babe, this is, I can’t,” You shake your head. “You have taken this too far.” You sigh. You sit up to look around the room. “Oh, F.R.I.D.A.Y. can you play Real Love by Mary J. Blige?” You call out to the AI system. 

“Sure, now playing Real Love by Mary J Blige,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. responds before the first few notes of the song begin to play surround sound. Natasha watches as you begin to bop to the music with a smile on her face. 

“Baby, you don’t know real music until you’ve listened to Mary,” You laugh. You stand, dancing around the bedroom, singing along to the lyrics, and all around having a bit too much fun. 

We are lovers through and through

And though we made it through the storm

I really want you to realize, that I really want to put you on

I've been searching for someone to satisfy my every need

Won't you be my inspiration?

Be the real love that I need

Real love, I'm searching for a real love

Someone to set my heart free

Real love, I'm searching for a real love

“That’s you,” You point to her. Natasha laughs this time. A full-on belly laugh. “You and Karen and Denise are like my best friends in the entire world. I know I’m always doing work or busy with something but, I enjoy my time with you.” You dance circles around the room before you move over to plop onto the bed. 

“Are you not going to sleep tonight?” Natasha asks as you mash your face into the pillows. Your energy seems to have gone as you take a deep breath before turning your head towards her. 

“Of course I am,” You say without opening your eyes. “I’m gunning for that morning sex. That requires me to sleep.”

Natasha hums again. She fishes her book out from under you and places it on a nightstand. 

“Can I tell you something?” You ask, looking to Natasha for confirmation. She nods. She helps you under the covers and orders F.R.I.D.A.Y. to turn off the music. “You really satisfy me. And I know I’ve had sex before. Great sex even.” Natasha raises a brow. Was there a point to this? “You’re the first person I’ve been with where I’m truly satisfied. Physically, emotionally, all that stuff. I just really enjoy being with you and the fact that you care if I’m having a good time and the orgasms are great. I mean ten out of ten all around.”

Natasha chuckles. She’s sure you won’t remember ninety percent of this night. Though it’s great to know that her skills in bed are a winning factor for you. 

“Come here,” You turn to your side and raise your arms for her to come and lie in your embrace. Your hands again return to her ass and she doesn’t mention it. She likes them there. “I know you’re scared sometimes. I know that a relationship isn’t what you’re used to and I know I dropped a lot of shit on you tonight. I may come off a little strong sometimes. I just can’t go without saying it you know? I love you, Natasha. If I get to marry you I’d be the happiest woman in the world.” You begin your butt massage right there for her. 

“I know,” Natasha begins. “I love you too. I need you to know that. I want to marry you too.” Natasha says. She’s going to continue but your hands have fallen limp against her backside. She raises her eyes to look up at you but you’re already asleep. She has no idea if you heard anything she’s said. Oh well. She’d save it for later. She rests her head on your chest again, allowing you to hold her, as she falls asleep to the sound of your heartbeat. 

[oceantornadoo]

a ghost lives

price came to your door and told you simon was killed in action. three months later, who's that at your door step?

angsty but turns smutty. happy ending dw :)

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

“no.”

you slammed the door, hands shaking. “no, no, no. it’s not possible.” your shaking hands raised to your cheeks, clawing. tears streamed down your face, blurring your vision. the door opened, a dark figure walking through it. you flinched, taking steps backwards until your back hit the wall. you kept shaking your head, murmuring “no, no, no” without sound. you slid down the wall, staring at the man in front of you.

simon was in shambles. the moment he was medically cleared he had jumped on the next plane home, not bothering to tell anyone. he needed to see you, to hold everything he held dear, to believe in good again. and instead of a warm welcome, instead of your customary jump and kiss, you were breaking down. he didn’t understand it. what did he do wrong?

“love? it’s me. i’m home.” he said almost stupidly, unsure of his next move. he closed the door and locked it, and you flinched again. you were sitting on the floor now, tears running down your face with your head in your hands. he set his bag down gently, not wanting to spook you. he ripped off his mask and gloves, tucking them away. you gasped, finally making eye contact.

“you’re not real. you died. my husband died three months ago. you’re in my imagination. please, just go away.” you pleaded, prayed. price had come to your doorstep three months ago, hat in his hands, tears in his eyes. he talked about a difficult enemy and unfair terrain. the only word you heard was “k.i.a.” you died that day, and had been a breathing ghost ever since.

simon was in shock. he had left the hospital so quickly that he had never talked to his unit, didn’t know what they told you. he dropped to his knees, your pain flowing through him tenfold. “i didn’t die, love. i was just lost. i survived for two months in the woods until they found me. i was so badly injured i had to be treated by foreign operatives. price doesn’t even know, i thought they told him. i’m so sorry. i am so, so sorry. i’m here.” you shook your head at his every word. your nightmares were terrifying, but this was the worst one yet. you had never hallucinated in broad daylight. his familiar scent of musk and that cologne you bought him last christmas wafted through the air, punishing you. 

“i don’t believe you. you’re not real. i buried you.” you couldn’t afford to hope. the last months had been about survival, and you had just started eating regularly without bursting into tears, imagining simon cooking his famous meat pie in your kitchen. “casket was empty, lovie. i’m going to touch you now. i need you to know i’m here.” he reached his hand out slowly, like he was approaching a feral cat. you flinched again, breaking another piece of his heart and burying it like that empty casket. his fingertips brushed your cheek and your mouth dropped, tears stopping. 

“si? tell me this is real. convince me.” he maneuvered over until his knees touched yours, bringing you down to earth. you couldn’t believe him. your ghost was alive. there was no way. maybe you had too many melatonin gummies last night.

“look, dove.” he pulled up his shirt, showing you new scars. you had his scars memorized, mapped down to the millimeter, and you would never dream of him being hurt more. he showed you his bandages, moving your fingers over the wrapped bullet hole. he grimaced and you gasped. you would never wish for simon to be in pain, so the fact that he was meant…

you flung yourself at him, shedding new tears. “you’re here, you’re really here. you’re alive.” he nodded against your shoulder. you hear a small meow and drew your head back, looking at riley jr., your ball of fur. she padded over softly and nuzzled her head against simon’s knee, drawing a short laugh from him as he scratched behind her ears. through all of your nightmares, riley jr. had never acknowledged your ghosts. which meant simon was real. which meant he was alive. 

“i’m here.” he kissed your forehead, brushing back your hair. “i’m here.” he kissed between your eyebrows, smoothing the creases there. “i’m alive.” he kissed your tears away, drying your face. “i’m never leaving, dove.” he kissed your nose, finally drawing a small smile out of your. “i’m home.” he kissed your lips, and you kissed back fervently. your husband was home and alive and here. “simon, i’ve missed you. you have no idea. i died that day. i’ve been waiting to join you ever since.” he shook his head as tears rolled down his face. “be ready to wait another 70 years, love. we’re alive.” you tackled him again, pushing him down on the ground. you kissed him with the passion that had been gone for the last three months, cracked and dried out inside you. you climbed on top of him, needing to feel him, needing to believe. 

you grinded your hips against his, drawing out a low moan. “let me inside. let me show you i’m alive.” he said, still not convinced you believed him. you nodded, overcome with love for the man beneath you. he rubbed his palm against your clit, rocking you as you kissed. you hadn’t even thought of sex in the last three months, and it had somehow built up to this. you were instantly wet, always ready for your simon. you felt his hardness underneath you as he bucked his hips. you unzipped his pants, taking him out, long and heavy in your hands. he pulled aside your shorts and you sunk down on him with a low moan. “my husband. my simon. you’re alive.” you finally, truly believed it. he bucked into you, the friction of his clothes stimulating your clit. “my wife and her beautiful cunt, sucking me in. look at you.” there were dried tears on your face, sweaty clothes clung to your body, and your cunt squelched with every thrust. you were the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. you were so pretty, even when you cried. 

he flipped you both over, fucking into you hard on the floor. his hand wrapped around your head, protecting it from bumping. “i’m back because no one could ever fuck you like this. no one as good as me. say it.” he ordered, needing reassurance. “no one as good as you, si. no one will ever be you.” you moaned, your orgasm building up, with something behind it. he sucked your neck and pinched your nipples, reminding your body of how good it felt to be owned by him. “come on, dove. come for me.” you felt so wet and achy, your emotions out of control. his voice was the only thing keeping you conscious. you felt stuffed, full of your husband. “come on, my dirty girl. let me fill you up. my welcome home gift.” you gasped as you came, a tingling sensation following it. you looked down as you squirted on simon’s cock, so overwhelmed. he came, the juices mixing, trailing down your holes. “gonna give you a baby so you won’t ever leave. we’re never leaving each other, yeah?” he grasped your hair and pulled you in for a kiss.

“never, simon. i’m yours.”

[sayruq]

Hello , I hope you’re doing well 🫶🏻

Me and my family need your help to survive from genocide in gaza,here our goFundMe link just read our story and help us if you can or just share it, we appreciated everything you would do.

https://gofund.me/38cab03b

Hello, I'm Khader Abu Sha'ban, and I'm 20 years old, I have a twin brother his name is Ragheb, and we are from Gaza City, We started the second year of our degree (designing and programming mobile applications). We live with a family of 9 members, they are all educated and have university degrees in the fields of engineering, programming, information security, administration, and law, We are the youngest in the family and we are the only ones who are still learning and we didn't end our degree yet.

Don't forget our beautiful cat - Kelwa – whom we consider a family member and we adopted him during the war when he was homeless in the street, however, he filled our lives with joy.

Before October 7th, Our life was full of goals, ambitions, and hope. and because we are identical twins I and my brother share everything in life and we have the same hobbies, actually we have the same life So we practice sports such as football, table tennis, and basketball and we are professionals in video games. we spend our time learning English next to our university education in the field where we found our passion which is Programming, and we have a small online store (Candles Store) to sell candles that we manually made. We have a goal to finish our university life as fast as we can to join the labor market of IT and open our startup company for techniques and applications with the great passion that we already have. this dream is growing day by day, but because of the war and the current circumstances, the dream started to fade, during the war educational institutions and Universities were destroyed in Gaza and the study was arrested. during the previous 8 months we have been unable to complete our education and estimates indicate that restoration of university status in Gaza will take time and may exceed years. The war came and destroyed our lives, our dreams, and our souls, My family did not decide to displacement to the south, despite all the suffering we had passed during this period and we decided to stay at home and not leave the beautiful memories, the idea of displacement to south and go to an unknown place that we don't have any relatives there was the most difficult for us to leave everything and not return back, so the decision was steadfast, non-displacement and patience on the suffering, but the war has been partially damaged our house because of targeting the house next to us, and damaged our beautiful memories and become ineffective to live, but thank God no one of my family has been hurt. The house went and we lost a lot of our beloveds (14 members of my cousins) and witnessed a lot of suffering in Gaza we were forced to internally-displacement east and west more than 5 times and it was very difficult to escape under the shelling at night and under The voices of aircraft and bombing and moving from a non-safe place to another non-safe place and don't forget the starvation that we still live in northern Gaza and dumping bombs, rockets and insecure until life became black for us. We won't forget the night of December 18th, when we lived the most terrifying night in our lives when we woke up at night to the voices of bombs and shells of nearby tanks and the glass and shrapnel on us, and I do not forget the voices of crying and the sounds of the SOS and we are unable to move even unable to breathe because of the hole of the smoke bombs that have thrown on us, I swear the horror of this night will accompany me to the last day My life. The horror of this night is repeated daily and there is no end and life has already black for us, after all this suffering we have reached a plan to rebuild the rest of our lives again elsewhere after we lost our house and members of my family as well as we lost the source income of my family this led us to seek help through this campaign, the raised funds will cover travel expenses for 9 people outside Gaza (where the travel coordination costing $ 5,000 per person) and $ 5,000 for addition costs for initial stability Abroad and $ 5000 initial amount to complete the study abroad for me and my brother. If the situation improves in Gaza we will use funds to restore our house and complete our education in Gaza or abroad, according to appropriate conditions.

These brothers have been raising funds since May and they've only received €678 so far. Please share and donate. Help save lives !!!!!!!

[the-boy-meets-evil]

maybe something sweet and fluffy with woozi. trying to stay late to surprise him with dinner or something but he finds you asleep on the couch. he's been stressed and working more than usual (insane behavior) and you just wanna help him relax and take the weight off his shoulders

pairing: jihoon x gn!reader genre: est. relationship | fluff, maybe the tiniest bit suggestive rating: e for everyone (but this blog is still 18+) word count: 1440 warnings: mentions of food but nothing else

author's note: thank you for sending this! i am painfully late with this (and wanted to wait to finish all the requests before posting). this is for my baby @effortandmore for her birthday drabbles. ily lauren 💕 divider by @cafekitsune

taglist: @crepecakeu, @tinyelfperson, @dokyeomkyeom, @miriamxsworld, @hongrizoon, @klecksstorys, @gyuminusone, @aaniag, @naajaeminsgf, @straykidswhoo789, @kimseokgen, @beomesbabe, @haolistic, @harry-the-pottypus, @pyeonghongrie-main, @nuttywastelandmentality (strikethrough means can’t tag, check your settings!), join my taglist here

You’ve loved Jihoon for a long time. As a friend first and then slowly as something much more. When you first met him, you thought he was hard to read. Difficult to ever really know. As you spent more time around him, that idea morphed into something else as well. He’s not the kind of person to be vocal about what he’s thinking or feeling. If you’re waiting for him to tell you how he feels, then you’re going to be waiting for a while. Unless you know where to look.

That’s probably why it took you time to realize all the ways he was telling you that you were more than a friend to him. Over time, he started inviting you just to be around him when he was working on projects at home. Or inviting you over to do your own work at his place while he did chores around the house. Slowly, you realized that he always had your favorite snacks in the cupboards and favorite drinks in the fridge. Occasionally you would even mention needing something in passing and it would show up delivered to your house a day or two later. Never with a note, but always with the understanding that it was Jihoon taking care of it. Taking care of you. You realized that your heart shifted to caring about him as more than a friend before your brain even caught up. It was like he had been showing you all along that you could depend on him. 

Jihoon isn’t always one to say what he’s feeling, but he likes to hear it from you. It’s cute to watch his face light up when you tell him how much he means to you or why you think about him throughout the day. He’s easy, though, because he’s just as happy to have you around. Sometimes you don’t say anything at all, just curl up on the couch to watch a favorite show. Those are some of your favorites because you know how much space he’s made for you in his home. You know how important that space is to him so that he can recharge. But, he accepts you like you always belonged there with him. 

Lately, work has been a little overwhelming for him. Maybe not overwhelming as much as busy. You know how much he likes to be busy and would prefer that to work being too slow. It’s also clear how much he likes to solve a problem and be the one to find that elusive solution. So, this project has been challenging, often resulting in him staying late, and you know he wouldn’t change it. Even on the nights where he doesn’t get home until it���s nearly time for bed. 

Tonight, you’re trying to do something a little bit nice for him. It’s been days on end, even some weekends, of him busting his ass on this project. And you don’t understand the words he’s using. Haven’t ever really been tech savvy enough to get programming. What you do know, though, is that he’s been surviving on too much caffeine and food delivery. Sometimes he does listen and order from healthier places. Sometimes it’s all he can do to remember to eat at all, so it’s whatever can get to him fastest. But, he seemed pretty confident that he would be out of work at a decent time tonight. You decide to use your key to his place and let yourself in to surprise him with a great home-cooked meal.

For someone that doesn’t really like cooking that much, Jihoon has a pretty well-stocked kitchen. Although, knowing how considerate he is, that’s probably mostly because you liked to cook at his place and complained about all the things he didn’t have. All you need to do is show up with your ingredients. You decide on a menu of comforting foods that also can either keep warm on the stove or be easily warmed up without losing flavor. 

You figure that you should let him know that you’re going to be there when he gets home so it doesn’t surprise him. The food can be the surprise even if he knows you’re there waiting for him. He seems excited to see you when you text him. When the food is all ready, you figure that you can have a glass of wine while you wait. 

Jihoon: i’m so sorry, this is taking longer than i thought to wrap up

You: that’s fine, take your time

It’s not uncommon for Jihoon to send a text like that when he’s in the middle of a project. He hates it and you know he does. But, you also assure him that it’s fine. You didn’t have any actual plans and he doesn’t need to rush through work on your account. 

While you’re waiting, you decide on a little taste test of the food you made, careful not to make it too obvious that you’ve had some. Not that he would care, you just want the presentation to be nice for Jihoon. With some good food and a glass of wine down, you’re a little sleepy. Cooking can do that to you. There’s no harm, you figure, in getting comfortable on the couch while you wait and putting on some background noise. 

You don’t even realize that you drift off until you feel someone’s arms sliding underneath you. Your eyes flitter open and land on Jihoon. He’s got his shaggy hair pulled back into an elastic with strands falling out from the length of the day. His face is soft with nothing more than complete love and adoration. It’s so clear that he doesn’t want to disturb you and that makes your heart constrict further. This man has been working for who knows how many hours and he’s still taking care of you.

“I’m awake, babe,” you say through a slightly groggy voice.

“Sorry, was trying not to wake you up,” he says and pulls his arms back.

You catch one of his hands to pull him back in for a quick kiss. “I’m glad I woke up.”

“The place smells really good,” he comments.

“Yeah, I made dinner,” you say.

His face brightens for a moment and it makes you nearly melt. “I would’ve left sooner if I’d known.” 

“It’s a surprise, you goober,” you say with a smile. You pull yourself into a sitting position.

“Hey, it’s fine, I can get a plate,” he says.

“No, no. You go have a nice shower and by the time you’re out, I’ll have it all ready,” you say and get to your feet.

“You don’t have to…” he starts and you press another kiss to his lips before turning him in the direction of the bathroom.

“Go,” you say.

It takes a minute to shake off the cobwebs from your unexpected nap. By the time you’re in the kitchen and warming everything back up, you can hear the water running in the bathroom and the music audible even over the sound of the shower. It sounds like one of his more upbeat playlists, which is a good thing. Even if he doesn’t say much, you can always tell his mood by what playlist he puts on. Tonight, it seems like he’s in a good mood despite the long day at work. Part of you hopes that you surprising him adds to the good mood. 

The water shuts off, leaving only the playlist as your background and you know you still have a little bit of time before he emerges. So, it’ll be perfect timing as nearly everything is ready again. You’re putting a plate together when he emerges from his bedroom in gym shorts and a t-shirt, wet hair still falling around his face. The smile on your face is instant.

“What?” he asks.

“You’re just beautiful,” you say, smile still bright.

“I must look exhausted,” he brushes off.

“Still beautiful,” you insist and delight in the way blush creeps up his neck. To save him from saying anything, you hand over a plate.

“Can’t believe you did this,” he mumbles softly.

“I thought you deserved a treat,” you say as you grab your own plate. 

“Just having you here is a treat,” he says, unusually sappy with you.

“So you don’t want the rest of the post-dinner treats I planned?” you ask innocently. 

“Didn’t say that,” he says, locking eyes with you.

“How early do you have to be in tomorrow?” you ask. 

“I have the day off,” he says.

“Don’t get too full, then. I’ve got plenty of surprises for you,” you say. 

hope you enjoyed it! let me know 💕

[luvrodite]

JASON X F!READER [12k]

synopsis. the end of the world comes and goes. you’re just trying to survive another day, but you don’t quite expect to become so attached to the green eyed boy who saves you. “i’m here,” he tells you, and a horrible part of you wonders, for how much longer?

warnings. zombie apocalypse in a no capes au, attempted sexual assault, body horror, gore, angst, character death, violence. (if you feel i'm missing any tags, please let me know) sfw but minors and ageless blogs please don't interact with my profile

note. for my sunnie @fic-over-cannon, who always lets me talk her ear off about my jason wips, and without whom i would never have listened to everywhere, everything by noah kahan properly and thought of this fic. you are such a sweetheart and deserve all the good things in the world. unfortunately all i can offer at this time is this fic. i love you, and i'm sorry

additional disclaimer that i am NOT american so i’m talking out of my ass and my expertise is like a six month stint in the midwest please ignore any inaccuracies i’m just a baby

read on ao3 | the playlist

The end of the world comes and goes. 

There is, as with all things, blood and the destruction promised. The end sweeps through the country, burnt buildings and shattered glass that crunches further under your feet. It leaves few survivors, cares not for wealth nor poverty, health nor sickness. All succumb to its touch, and the world you know slips away from your fingertips so violently you can no longer remember what it was like, in the beginning. 

The world ends, but then it doesn’t, really, it doesn’t burn when it should have. You are still here, somehow, aren’t you? (It’s only a matter of time before you aren’t. Only a matter of time before you, too, join the horde.)

You find each other in the wreckage, on the outskirts of the city you’d grown up in. The body in front of you twitches as it falls – only moments ago, inches from your throat – and green eyes assess you coldly, your own tracking his movements with your heart in your throat. Blood stains your hands, and they curl around your weapon when he lowers the barrel of his gun.

What are you even living for? All you know is gone and lost, stolen from you by a drooling maw and ever starving fingers. Blood tracks your every step, a haunting you will never be rid of. Until  your last breath, you will remember it.

You stay by his side, let him offer you a hand out of the rubble and sink your teeth into the tough skin of dried meat he pulls from his pack. It’s a kindness you refuse to leave unpaid. The days turn into weeks, and he doesn’t demand you leave. You aren’t sure when this thing became a partnership. Perhaps when he’d taught you how to wield your weapon better, clumsy movements turning precise, fear hardening a once soft heart.

I’m going to find my brothers. They’re out there somewhere. Over a small fire in an abandoned department store, he tells you this, green eyes flicking over his shoulder to meet yours.

How do you know they’re...

I just do.

Oh.

You coming? Or you got people to –

No. No, I’ll help you.

A nod, then, seals it.

The end of the world brings with it a disconcerting level of silence you find it difficult to grow accustomed to. Your skin crawls at the stillness of it all, the unmoving air of abandoned homes you use as shelter. A city once unrelenting, the echoes of what once was ring in your ears as you traverse through the city. No longer does the smoke catch in your lungs, and the nights are clearer than they ever were, stars shining on a city with no one to look up to them.

You travel out of the city, eventually. The bridges had been the first to go, in the beginning – an act of damnation perceived as absolution. Better to contain it within the island, you think bitterly, to damn the desperate millions who could not seek refuge. Still, you find a way through, travelling on foot through the tunnel they forgot to destroy – filled with stationary cars that prove just as difficult to navigate around as a destroyed bridge. You come out the other side by the skin of your teeth, and the both of you continue.

Do you know where we’re going?

A sharp look, as if questioning your loyalty. Last I heard, they were in Georgia. You getting cold feet?

No.

Then come on. We’re going to lose daylight.

It’s easier, the further you travel into the country. The quiet out here makes sense to you – it had been here long before the beginning of the end, before the beginning of all things. Gotham had never known peace, you think. It was not meant for that, ever moving, ever alive. Out here, there are less of them, too. Very quickly you learn that the end of the world did not kill with it all other vices.

Despite your rationing, despite ransacking what places you can for food, it dwindles down. Maryland, now, you think – you’d passed a sign a few hours back – he’s begun to slow down. His face is pale, but he stubbornly clamps his jaw when you try to get him to eat the last bits of your food. It’s in the middle of this argument, nearing tears and trying to keep quiet, when you’re found.

The trio makes their presence known by the deliberate snap of a branch, and you stiffen, hand flying to your hatchet as you whirl around. Jason moves closer to you, until your shoulders brush.

“You folks look like you could use a good meal.” The one at the front eyes you unabashedly as he says it, eyes trailing down your figure. A prickle of unease runs down your spine, and you shuffle closer to your partner.

“Couldn’t we all?”

He lets out a little laugh, and raises his hands. “You’re trembling, darlin’. Relax, it’s just an offer.” He looks over at your companion. “Your man over there looks like he’s about to fall over.”

It feels like a gut punch, despite his grumbled “I’m fine.” because you know he isn’t. In the end, you ignore the warning in your gut, and you find yourself making camp with them for Jason’s sake. The three men share looks amongst themselves when you shuffle closer to him, but you try your hardest not to pay them any mind, pressing bits of dried meat into trembling hands and watching him until he swallows every last bit. You don’t take a bite of your own soup until they do, relaxing only in the slightest when he seems to have gained back some of his strength.

“Where are y’all headed?” the second of them asks, and his expression rankles you less, so you answer.

“Further south,” you say carefully, looking between the three of them. “And you?”

The first grins at you in a way you think is meant to be charming. “Shit, sweetheart, I’ll go wherever you do.”

You stiffen and he lets out a laugh. “’M only joking, jeez. Going west – they’ve got communities over there.”

You can barely let out a non committal hum. Beside you, Jason’s head presses into your leg, and your gaze slides over to him. In sleep, he looks younger, more like what you think he might’ve looked like before all this. Black curls rest close to his forehead, hair cut close to the scalp courtesy of the scissors you’d found in a gas station a few days ago –

All of it?

All of it. Don’t need it getting caught on something and getting us killed.

Can’t you tie it back?

What, you attached to this look? Knotted hair does it for you?

No. It’s just –

...It’s just hair, kid. C’mon, I’m getting tired.

Fine.

– The group settles into silence after that, and though your lids weigh down, you take watch. The night is quiet for the most part. You’re kept company by the whispering trees and the occasional sound of an owl. Every so often, a branch will pop in the fire, the sound making your limbs stiffen reflexively. Your eyes scan the treeline each time, vigilant. You balance your hatchet across your knees, and wait.

Eventually, black bleeds into the cool blue of dawn and Jason stirs beside you.

“Morning. You didn’t sleep?” You dart a glance over to the three sleeping bodies a few feet away and he presses his lips together in understanding. “Should’ve woke me.”

You shrug, looking away to where daylight breaks through the thick of the trees. “You needed the rest.” And before he can argue back – you can already hear the retort, and you don’t? – you stand up, passing him your axe. There’s a small knife in your shoe, and you don’t intend to go too far, you figure it’ll be fine. “Gonna powder my nose.”

He snorts at the phrasing, and you offer him a tired smile. Relieved that he seems to be in better health today, you step away from the campsite. The breath of air you take is cool in your lungs, and you stretch your arms above your head as you step over rocks and fallen branches.

Relief muddies your senses, you think. You forget to be mindful, forget that this is not just another day, not just a camping trip of sorts. As you pull your jeans up, there’s a rustle nearby and you freeze, hands on the waistband of your pants tightening in unease when someone breaks through the foliage and it isn’t Jason.

“Oh,” he says, stopping short in front of you. There’s something like surprise in his voice but it feels short of convincing you that he hadn’t meant to find you, the artificial coating of his words doing little to hide the interest in his eyes. “Guess we both had the same idea, huh?”

You wrinkle your nose, taking a step to the side. “Yeah. It’s all yours.”

His hand clamps down on your arm as you go to walk past him and you stiffen. “Whoa, what’s the rush, little lady?”

You grit your teeth, glaring at him. “Can you let go?”

He balks at the look on your face, before his own hardens, lips tugging into a sneer. “You should be a lot nicer, you know. If it weren’t for me, you and your little friend would be dead by now. How about a thank you?”

You consider spitting in his face as you grind out, “Thank you.” Still, he does not let go. “Can I go now?”

He mulls it over, before shaking his head. “Nah. You don’t sound so thankful, let’s try that again.” At the look on your face, which suggests you’d rather die, he grins. It’s a mean thing, eyes glinting as he tugs you closer. Your heart picks up at the proximity, and by your side, your fingers curl into fists. “Or, you could just pay me back proper. How about you put that mouth to use?”

You stay still, frozen as he draws nearer. The stench of his breath makes your stomach turn and suddenly you’re in motion, raising a foot to stamp down on his with all the force you can muster. It takes him by surprise and he yells. You take the advantage to wrench your arm out of his grip, pushing him as he stumbles and booking it through the greenery.

He recovers quickly, if the crashing behind you is anything to go by, bellowing threats. Your arms sting as you push through the foliage instead of carefully stepping through as you had earlier, branches scratching and snapping as you barrel in the direction of the camp. The brush of fingers against your neck makes you scream, loud and high, and you force your legs to carry you faster.

The distance to the campsite isn’t far but every step seems to stretch and time slows with the threat of leaving you disjointed, forever stuck in this moment with hands reaching for you.

You burst into the clearing and bolt to where Jason is. He’s already on his feet and he meets you halfway, standing resolutely in place when you try to push him further away – we need to LEAVE, what are you doing? He steers you behind him when your pursuer breaks through, and you grip the back of his jacket. Still, he refuses to move, an arm stretching behind him to curl towards you protectively.

Your mind seems to black out then, because when you blink, Jason’s hands are hovering over you and there’s an awful amount of blood on them.

“You hurt? Did he touch you?”

Your gaze slides over his shoulder and your stomach begins to turn when you see what’s become of the man. Blood soaks into the earth in copious amounts, another carcass to join the millions. You tremble and he turns your face back to him. His palm is sticky, and the realisation of why brings tears to your eyes. You shudder, stepping closer to him.

“You’re fine,” Jason mutters, breathing hard. He repeats it when you begin to cry in earnest, clutching fistfuls of his shirt. “You’re fine. I got you. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

You learn a few things that day. The first, that he’s not hesitant about taking lives if it means yours are safe. And second, that a horrible, terrible part of you doesn’t feel remorse that he did it.

In the wake of the murder, the fallen man’s companions had fled, unwilling to meet the same fate, and Jason had let them go. You keep to yourselves after that, travelling further south and avoiding the few survivors you do come across. Guilt festers in your stomach when you sneak glimpses of weary faces run haggard, but fear weighs out when you feel the phantom brush of hands on your arm and neck.

Neither of you speak about it beyond the set of the sun that day but it brings about a shift, however miniscule it may be. He’s less willing to let you stray far from his eyesight, now. Sometimes, even with your back turned, you can feel the weight of vigilant eyes on you. But it isn’t only Jason who’s affected by the changes. You linger closer to his side, now, never beyond arm’s reach, never more than a few paces away, unwilling to risk being parted once more.

The spill of blood only brings with it more carnage. It feels rather like a curse when, in the days that follow, only havoc trails after you. Blood in the spaces beneath your nails, blood that pools and darkens in linoleum and hardwood and concrete, blood in your mouth. It clings to you, a stain you’ll never be rid of, no matter how you scrub your skin. The frigid water sticks you like a thousand pins, pinking in the dying light of the day, and still you scrub.

The end of the world doesn’t harden you like you think it’s supposed to. You think maybe if you were idealistic, it would be a kindness, to retain your softness. But it has no place here, meant for a life long gone. For all the precautions you take, the weapons you wield and hide on your person, you still feel like vulnerable prey, the soft belly of your heart exposed. You flinch, you freeze, you–

“You’re going to hurt yourself.”

He says it quietly, standing at the mouth of the river, behind you. Red lingers in the corner of your vision – his flannel, darkened. You ignore him.

You’ve stripped down to your underclothes and waded in until the water reached the top of your thighs. Your name falls off his lips, and your own press together tightly. Your jaw aches with the weight of all you try to hold back, and it’s only when fingers curl around your elbow gently do you let it out.

The boy pulls you out of the river with all the care of coaxing a wild animal, uncaring of the water that bleeds through his pants. The skies overhead grow darker, the air steadily cooling around the both of you, and yet you remain in place, staring at the place where his hand meets your skin.

There is no trace of what happened, nothing to suggest anything had occurred. Old scars fleck the back of his hands, disappearing beneath the sleeve of his shirt, but his hands are clean. You stare at the lines of him, the bitten nails, the tendons that flex. Hands that had, only hours earlier, killed for you.

“You’re going to get sick if you stay like this,” he says finally, and you let out a breath.

“I can’t wear those,” you whisper and he tips his head.

“There are clothes inside. They’ll probably fit.”

“Okay.”

He tilts his head, and you fall into step with him. His hand drops until it circles your wrist, and you let him pull you forward. There is only silence as you walk through the wood, save for the snap of leaves and sticks beneath your feet, clumsily pushed into your boots. You can feel the water clinging to your underwear, and you can  feel the autumn air cutting you deep.

(You can hear the sound, still, of splitting flesh.)

You return to your camp for the night, stumbling up the rotting porch and entering the cabin. Unseeing eyes trail over the living room, browns and flaking paint quickly disappearing out of sight behind a wall as you’re pulled into the next room.

“Here.”

The Henley thrust into your hands is felted over. You look up and you’ve entered what looks like the main bedroom – perhaps the only one, you think.

Time stands still in here, the air stale and near everything left untouched. The bed remains made, dust lining the window, pale light filtering in through discoloured glass. Perhaps once, you might’ve felt the discomfort of standing in a place that was not yours. Once, your skin might have crawled at the clothing in your hands, the absence of their owner a clear signal of their fate. Now, it’s all you can do to tug the rest of your clothing off and pull it on. A pair of pants are passed to you next, a size too big and settling low on your hips.

Your wet tank top remains slung over the rail of the bed frame, and you watch the water drip out, pooling on the floor. There’s the rustle of clothes behind you, and you wait until he moves back into your line of vision to look up.

In the darkening room, the boy in front of you looks older than he is. The shadows beneath his eyes smudge deeper, the hollow of his cheeks carved. You wonder what you must look like to him, half crazed and yet entirely subdued. Your breaths mingle in the air between your mouths, and you feel, not for the first time, the years you’ve lost and those forced upon you in the last months.

“Good?”

It takes you a moment to register what he’s talking about. His eyes flick down to the clothes on your body, and you nod jerkily. He seems dissatisfied at your answer, turning to rifle through the closet. When he turns back around, it’s with a jacket in his hands that he pulls around your shoulders.

It’s thick, lined with fleece that settles comfortably against your sides. It’s a wonder it hasn’t been ruined and immediately you try to shrug it off. It would fit him better – but he refuses to let you, fingers tightening on the lapels and keeping it tight around you until you settle.

“Going to freeze otherwise,” he mutters.

“What about you?” you ask dully and he shrugs.

“I run warm.” But already, even in the dim light, you can see the pink in his face. The thick sweater he’s stolen out of the closet does little to combat the chill of the water, and you push past him to rummage blindly through it until your fingers come into contact with something soft. The coat you pull out is fraying at the sleeves, loose threads tickling the skin of your wrist, but you push it against his chest anyway. You don’t move until he pulls it on, letting out a breath you hadn’t realised you were holding.

“Better get some rest,” he tells you, tilting his chin in the direction of the bed and you nod, only to pause when he goes to turn. Your hand flies out so suddenly you have no time to feel ashamed, only fear at the thought of being left alone.

“Where are you going?”

He blinks. “I’ll take the couch. I’ll hear it if – if something tries to get in.”

“Stay here.” The words are out before you can rein them in, and you aren’t sure you want to, anyway. The bedroom is small, wide enough to fit a dresser, closet and a bed, but it looms outwards threateningly at the suggestion of only housing one occupant. As if on cue, a branch slams against the windowpane and you jerk, fingers tightening on his sleeve. He looks back and forth between the window and the door, and sighs.

When you go to bed an hour later, it’s after he pushes the couch against the front door and moves your things to the bedroom. The bags lay at the foot of his makeshift bed, spare bedding laid down on the floor beside the bed in a mess of blankets. It hardly looks comfortable, but he’s silent as he takes his place amongst them, lying flat on his back. You peer over the edge of the bed to confirm he’s still there. In the dark, it’s difficult to make out his features, but the sight of his body reassures you, the sounds of his breathing guiding you beneath the covers until you’re staring up into the blankness of the ceiling.

“You still awake?” It’s him who breaks the silence a while later, voice barely above a whisper.

“Yeah.”

“Can’t sleep?”

“Mm. You?”

“Yeah.” A beat, and then he says, “You know it’s not – it isn’t your fault, right?”

Your mind flashes back to the mauve blossoms you’d spotted on his stomach when he’d undressed – the only evidence of your morning.

“I almost got you killed,” you tell him, feeling dread burn in your gut. You see it once more, the horror etched in his features, the thud of a body against his, a drooling maw and rotted limbs outstretched. Your hatchet sinking into a softened skull. “You don’t need to coddle me.”

He lets out a breath. “I’m not.”

“You are. We got lucky.”

“You’re the reason I’m not -” he breaks off, letting out a shaky sigh. It’s the only thing that betrays his fear and your heart squeezes painfully in your chest. “I owe you.”

“You don’t.” Your voice comes out harsh, and you fist the sheets under your fingers, suddenly burning despite the chill in the room. “Don’t say that to me. If you’d died, it would’ve been on my hands. I nearly killed you. Don’t tell me that.”

Your voice rings in the air between you, harsh, before he exhales once more.

“If that’s what you want.” Weary, he settles back into the quiet.

Your eyes burn the longer the silence stretches on, and your throat is uncomfortably thick as you force out the words, “I can’t do it again.”

“I know,” he whispers.

“I’m selfish,” your voice wobbles, but you grit your teeth. Salt tracks a trail down the sides of your face, bleeding into the fabric under your head. “I just can’t. I can’t do it alone. Not again.”

“I’m here,” he tells you, and a horrible part of you wonders, for how much longer?

Outside, the world is still and you’ve never hated silence so much, never longed more for the shriek of a car alarm and drunken arguing. Gotham lies in ruin now, motionless and hundreds of miles behind you. It only seems to grow quieter the further you travel into the country, nought but grassland and the whispers of wind to be heard.

Your hand finds his in the space between you, and it’s only then that sleep finds you.

Autumn storms sweep through the county over the next few days when you leave the cabin, driving you to take up shelter in the loft of an empty barn. Water streams in through a gap in the boards with each burst of wind, whistling echoing in the caverned space. The two of you huddle in the corner, tucked close amongst bales of dried straw and a ratty, threadbare blanket you’d found hanging over one of the stalls. Grey clouds form overhead, thick and visible from the skylights above, and you watch through a window as the grass whips back and forth violently, the entire world awash.

Jason pores over the map you’d snagged, eyes squinting in the dim light to make out the lines. It’s torn in a few places, and an entire section of Eastern Gotham and the surrounding states has bled into an unintelligible mess of ink. He looks up when you shuffle away from the window back to his side.

“If we take this route, it should get us to Georgia quicker,” he tells you, pointing a finger along the line. “We’re gonna need to find a car, though. It’ll make it easier.”

“It’ll be noisy,” you murmur, pressing your cheek into your shoulder and he lets out a breath.

“Yeah. It’s that or we keep walking. We don’t have any other options.”

Water drips in through the ceiling, and you sigh. There’s a thread of steel woven tightly into his voice, desperation that reminds you just why you’re making this journey.

“What were – what are they like?” you ask quietly, pulling your legs close and resting your chin against them. His clothes rustle as he shifts against the wall.

“Annoying,” he tells you, but there’s affection in it, voice teetering on the cusp of grief-stricken. “Before, I couldn’t get a moment of peace without one of them interrupting it, showin’ up at my place and demanding to stay ‘cause they didn’t wanna go home.”

“You didn’t live with them?”

He shakes his head, and something in his eyes shutters, a story you’re not privy to hidden in their tourmaline depths. “Moved out. The two younger ones lived with my old man. My, uh, older brother, lived in Bludhaven, but you wouldn’t even know it, always hanging around mine or my old man’s.”

“I think that’s sweet,” you murmur, and he snorts.

“You would. You’d like him, probably.”

You tilt your head to hide your smile. “We’ll see, I guess.”

He sounds more plaintive than you think he means to when he says, “Yeah.”

Rain slams against the roof, the storm no closer to clearing, and he clears his throat.

“What about you?”

“Me?”

“What was it like, y’know, before?” He sounds hesitant, as if the question might hurt somehow. And you suppose it does, in a way, when you think of all that came before, of all that can never be. It will never be as it once was. You hum.

“I don’t know,” you tell him. “I was in college, and then I wasn’t. I thought it was gonna be like that forever, you know, finals and midterms and the break in it all when we went out, even though we had to be up the next morning.”

“You go out a lot?” he asks, curious and you shrug.

“I liked dancing,” you hum, and once more you can feel the heat of a packed room, the floaty feeling of a few drinks and the press of fingertips into your palms, sweet smiles and longing. You let out a laugh, bitter and mournful. “I always said I was too tired and then somehow ended up walking home at 2.”

 “Sounds like you had a good time, at least,” he says, and you catch a hint of envy in his voice.

“Did you not -?”

He lifts a shoulder, hunching forward. “Things got in the way of normal for a long time. By the time it started to settle, I got in a few years before..” He gestures vaguely around you. You nod,

“We’ll find your brothers soon,” you murmur, shoulder pressed against his. Your hand finds his atop the straw, and he doesn’t move away.

“Yeah,” he breathes out, tiredly. His temple knocks against yours gently and the two of you sit like that, with his head on your shoulder until the storm passes through.

You think that maybe fortune must be smiling down on you when you find a truck a few miles out from the farm and it lives long enough to carry you to the interstate, where Jason is able to siphon gas from the lineup of abandoned motor vehicles. There’s a moment when you think it might go south, your heart gripping painfully in your chest when a herd passes through just as he gets back into the truck and you have to press down into the footwell of your seat to keep from being spotted. Your fingernails leave dents in the back of Jason’s hand, stretched across the console in danger of being seen to hold onto him. He squeezes yours back intently, green eyes meeting yours from where he’s managed to fold himself beneath the wheel. A finger comes up to his mouth, and you incline your head in the barest of movements.

They pass through, eventually and you find yourself glad for the grime that muddies the windows, making it hard for already decaying eyes to catch sight of a pale arm reaching out to comfort you. You hate that he’s kind, a little. He waits until you’ve caught your breath, letting you hold his hand and press your forehead to the seat until the tremors die down before the two of you shift carefully back into your seats and pull away – mercifully, in the opposite direction of the herd.

You drive for a day and a half, switching every so often and pushing the truck into the cover of the trees when you decide to rest. Dawn comes once more, and the terrible dream continues to prove it is anything but a fiction. There is cruelty in the enduring stillness of the world around you, and you think your heart breaks for the thousandth time when, as you pass a faded billboard sign, you begin to recognise the buildings around you.

Your hand flies to the console, pushing you up from the passenger seat to take a better look out of the windows. Beside you, Jason makes a noise of concern.

“You okay?”

You blink, looking over your shoulder at him before you’re pulled back to the passing playground and a familiar set of swing tires.

“I know where we are,” you tell him, hating the way his eyes soften sympathetically before the words are even out of your mouth to explain. “I used to spend my summers here – look, there.”

He follows the line of your finger to a row of houses, and you have to press your lips together at the wave of nostalgia that washes over you.

You think about a different time, a neighbourhood washed in gold and the roughness of bark beneath your palms. The ghost of a seven year old girl in overalls stares at you as you drive past the corner store, and you remember skinned knees, bare feet on asphalt and the stickiness of ice cream dripping down your wrist. You think of the two boys that had lived three houses down, always arguing, always dragging you to the arcade with them and insisting you play the games with them. You think of barbecues and the smell of charred meat, running around under the spray of a hose and squealing when the older kids jumped into the community pool.

Madison is now broken fences and stains you don’t dare to look at too closely, abandoned tricycles and boarded windows. It’s eerie as you drive through the bones of the suburbs you’d spent your youth in. Not for the first time, grief takes your heart in its hands and squeezes.

You turn your face away from your companion when the tears start, trying to discreetly raise your hand to swipe them away. It’s unfair, that the months have done little to soften the edge of your hurt, that even in the fear you find moments to mourn. Time passes, and your scars remain as fresh as the day the city fell, wounds open for anyone to see.

Jason, though, you never catch his grief, hidden except when the light tilts just so, when he turns and you catch a glimpse of it, like a star winking before it’s gone. You envy it, that he’s able to carry himself – that he’s able to carry you, too.

Sometimes, you wonder if it wouldn’t be better if he’d left you, that first day.

Almost intuitively, his voice draws you from your thoughts, the murmur of your name on his lips as he brushes against your elbow. You blink, and water splashes against your cheeks.

“Pass me the map,” he says, tactful enough not to mention the drying tears on your face when you turn to him. He lifts his chin towards the bag at your feet. “Should be in the front pocket.”

“It’s not there,” you mumble, after rifling around and coming up with nothing. Rooting around the spare t-shirts you’d bundled after a stop at a small boutique – 3 walkers, easy enough to take out except for the one, split second when you’d fumbled with your axe – and the ripening pears you’d salvaged from the farm had brought up nothing, and Jason clicks his tongue when you tell him as much.

“It is,” he insists, taking his eyes off the road for a moment to flick in your direction. “I put it there this morning before we left.”

You frown at him, impatient as you begin to unpack the bag again. “I’m telling you, it isn’t here. Is it in the other one?”

He takes the empty rucksack from you, placing it in his lap and rummaging through it with one hand. You don’t wait for him to realise he’s wrong, twisting in your seat to reach for the other bag in the backseat. Your body blocks the gap above the centre console, and you squeal when Jason swerves a little, your hand flying to grip the headrest of his seat. His hand leaves the bag to snag onto the back of your shirt, the material twisting in his fingers. The metal bars are cool beneath your fingers, and strands of his hair tickle your palms.

“Watch it!” you tell him reproachfully, unzipping the bag as best as you can with one hand. The material proves hard but it eventually gives way, and you grin when  the glossy paper of the map comes into view. “Found it, I told you it wasn’t in there.”

“Yeah, whatever,” he grumbles, looking away when you settle back into your seat.

That evening, when you make camp, you park the truck and head further into the forest. 15 minutes of walking leads you to a lake, and you grin when you come to a stop near the water, turning excitedly to Jason.

He doesn’t return the enthusiasm, eyes tracking for movement on all sides, but you see the satisfaction in his face when he sets his pack down on the edges of the lake.

“You go wash up first,” he offers, nodding his head. You’re too pleased to argue. His face warms a little, and he turns away. “I’ll keep watch.”

The stones are smooth and rounded, here, and you bite back a swear at the chill when you step in after shucking most of your clothes. It occurs to you, when you wade in about knee deep, that maybe you ought to be a little more concerned about undressing in front of him, but when you glance over your shoulder, Jason’s face is directed firmly away from you. He remains alert, poised to act at any moment, and you let out a little breath, assured in the set of his shoulders.

The water is, mercifully, not too cold. You get used to it after a few seconds, scrubbing your skin as quickly as you can.

“Don’t take too long,” he reminds you, calling over his shoulder but keeping his voice fairly low. “Don’t need you getting sick.”

“I won’t,” you mutter, but you end up lingering a little longer than you ought to, soaking your worn muscles. When you get out the sun has begun its descent in the sky and you quickly pat yourself dry with a spare rag. You take advantage of the afternoon sun to warm yourself on a larger rock as you take up your post, now your turn to keep watch as your companion washes himself off.

“Shit.”

“What is it?” you tense immediately, turning your head in a panic only to find him clutching the sodden material of his shirt. He lifts his eyes to you, and shakes his head. You realise, delayed, that he hasn’t got a shirt on, standing only in his boxers, and you look away, feeling your face warm.

“Can you pass me -”

“Yeah, sorry, got it,” you mumble quickly, leaning for his bag. An undershirt and flannel are retrieved quickly and passed to him with your eyes decisively fixed on the treeline, passing the items behind you until you feel the brush of his fingertips as he takes them from you.

You try not to think about the water pooling in the divots in his skin, or the drops falling from his hair, ink black and curling.

“You sure this water’s safe?” he grumbles, after a while, climbing up onto the rock beside you. The sun is steadily setting, and you need to make camp, but you sit, watching the shadows stretch over the lakeside, orange glowing through the leaves. “I’m not gonna contract a flesh eating disease, or something, right?”

You huff, foot pressing out to kick gently at his ankle. “We swam here all the time, back then. Relax.”

He lets out a little laugh, and you look away when it turns something in your stomach over. It’s a pleasant sound, though one you’ve rarely heard – there isn’t much cause for joy, these days, after all. You turn the sound over in your mind, wondering if this is what it might’ve been like, to be friends in another world. You sneak a look at him through your lashes, and the feeling travels up to sit beneath your ribs, stretching soft like toffee, sticking to all it touches, too sweet a feeling for a world like this one. He leans back on his palms, face relaxed. You could almost pretend, here, that nothing exists beyond the treeline.

“I’m trusting you,” he says lightly, knocking your shoulders.

“I wouldn’t lie to you like that,” you say, and it comes out like a confession. His eyes meet yours, and all that you don’t say, all that you don’t even dare to think, too out of reach and impossible to grasp between your fingertips, lies between you. Jason nods.

“Yeah, I know.”

The cicadas have begun to sing, and he keeps his gaze on you a moment longer before he pushes himself up, holding out a hand.

“C’mon. Gotta make camp, unless you want to freeze tonight.”

You take his hand, pulling yourself to your feet. He squeezes it once, before your hands fall away.

The fire he builds that night is small, stones piled high to surround the flame and keep it from drawing any unwanted attention. You watch him squat, arranging the rocks from your place on a log, leaning closer to the pit and holding your hands out.

“Can I ask a question?”

He hums.

“How do you..” you furrow your brows. “Most people don’t know how to do all this stuff. Were you like, some doomsday nut, or?”

His eyebrows fly into his hairline, a surprised laugh falling from his lips as he turns to you.

“A doomsday nut?” he repeats, amused, and you nudge him with a foot, attempting to unbalance him. Frustratingly, he only grips your ankle to still it. “Come on, tell me.”

He presses his lips to stifle a smile, shaking his head. “My old man was the doomsday nut, not me.”

You incline your head forward. “Really?”

Jason snorts. He pokes at the fire a little, before sighing. “No. I mean, kind of. He was really disciplined about all that self defence shit and being self sufficient. We used to go camping, and he’d make a game of it, a survival exercise, or something. Mostly we were just goofing around, but I guess it was interesting, and I picked up a few things.”

He looks over at you, hesitating, before he elaborates. “He and I, uh, we fell out when I got older. We mended it after a bit, but it wasn’t the same, you know. It’s all gone to shit now, but if I have one thing to remember him by, this is a damn good one, I guess.”

His thumb strokes an arc across your ankle, before he lets it go, turning back to the fire.

“Did..” you trail off, unsure, and he shakes his head.

“Kicked the bucket a few years before all of this.” He stands up, only to deposit himself by your side. “Left a fucking mess behind him, but I’m glad. That it was then, before..”

“I’m sorry,” you murmur.

“It’s not your fault.”

You hum. “I know. I’m still sorry.”

You press closer, resting your cheek against his shoulder. His arm comes around you, after a beat of surprised silence in which you worry you’ve overstepped, and he leans against you. The flames flicker and burn, the cicadas sing and Jason does not move.

When you wake the next morning he’s lying on his side and both your hands rest in the space between you, fingers curled and knuckles pressed against each other.

It feels like the flicker of something new. Something is forged in the earth where your hands lie, weaving your palms together, an invisible thread that ties you. His eyes flutter open a few moments after yours, and in the early light of the morning, you know you aren’t the only one who recognises it.

But there is a bigger sky over your heads, one that presses the urgency of your journey, one that has no time to address the curling in your gut or the gentleness of his fingers as they brush dirt from your jaw.

Time, time, time. You return to the truck wishing for more of it, for more spaces in between.

The road is bumpier when you return to it, and you follow the map in silence, navigating carefully around the rare lone walker.

Georgia comes faster, then, and you feel the stirrings of fear as the distance to where you’re headed, noted on faded boards, grows smaller and smaller. Jason grows tenser, too, answers short and distracted. The possibility hangs heavy in the air – of what might await you. His fingers curl into fists, and he presses his knuckles to his mouth as you drive past the first sign –

Welcome to Georgia! The Peach State.

You don’t dare to speak when he tells you to pull over, climbing into the passenger seat wordlessly. He drives slowly, and your nails dig into the fabric of your jeans when the car slows down and he mutters to you,

“We’ll walk it from here. We know where the car is, if–” he stops short, and reaches over the console to grab his pack from the backseat. You nod, biting your cheek and he looks over at you in confirmation, pausing only when he catches your obvious apprehension.

He takes a breath, and extends a hand.

“You trust me?” he asks, and you nod.

“I do.”

“I’ll keep you safe,” he presses, intent, and you nod.

“I’ve got your back, too,” you whisper, and he leans forward to knock your forehead against his.

“Let’s go.”

There is a part of you that knows you will not return to the truck – that leaving will forever alter the course of your journey. Safety is not something you can guarantee, but intuitively, you know this: the moment you close the car door, you seal your fate. This knowledge is something you know, yet are blind to, unwilling to face it, unwilling to shirk your post at his back, unwilling to abandon him now. You are at a crossroads. He will not stay a moment longer from his brothers, and you – 

You  will not leave his side.

In the end, of course, you follow.

You are tethered, caught in his orbit and unwilling to let go – he is loath to let you, but you know he would. You’ve seen the hesitance in his eyes, the silent debate of whether he should have brought you into this, if you’d be better off without him. If you asked him to let you go, you think he would.

You follow him, eyes alert and shoulders tense. The path to the bunker is a difficult one, overturned branches and muddied with fallen leaves. Once, twice, a few times, you cut down the walkers that stray into your path. The sound of a splitting skull makes your stomach turn every time, and you bite your tongue hard enough to draw blood, in an effort to keep from screaming when you strike.

Each time, Jason pauses to inspect their rotted faces, and you wait in apprehensive silence. Stranger. Stranger. Stranger. With each that proves to keep the chance of his brothers being alive, his face grows harder, fingers twisting around his machete.

Dread creeps up on you as the sun begins its descent in the sky, and you draw upon the outer perimeter of the place he’d detailed to you in the car.

He told me – gave me the directions to a bunker. It’s pretty deep in the woods, but he said it was secure. They’ve got some sort of system in place, so it doesn’t go down easy.

You begin to see what sort of system exactly it is, wooden spikes boring up from the ground to act as a fence. Already, a few remain impaled, their gurgling making you flinch as you pass by. A pair of heavy metal doors act as the only entrance, and you watch Jason come to a stop in front of them, hands trembling by his side.

He takes a breath.

You grip your axe.

He bangs on the door.

There is a split second, right before the door opens and a gun presses to his head, where Jason looks over at you. The face that peers through is not, judging from the mistrust on the man’s face, his brother. A large scar runs down the side of his face, red hair dry and thinning. He’s much older than the both of you – and stockier. In a fight, you don’t know that the both of you could overpower him.

“I’m looking for Grayson,” Jason spits, unrepentant and unmoving in the face of the metal digging into his forehead. Your throat closes over and you find it difficult to breathe when a cloudy eye trails over his shoulder to fix on you. “She’s with me. And he’s expecting me.”

You anticipate the words before he delivers them. You see it in the way his face eases ever so slightly, as if he’s established you aren’t a threat, though his grip on the gun doesn’t waver. You see it in the pikes propped up beyond the fence, small boards attached with writing you can’t make out – you know it in the drop of your gut, though, the loss of balance as the world seems to swim before you. You know what those are, and you know the words before he says them.

“Grayson ain’t here, kid.”

Jason stiffens, and you taste blood. The walkers nearby gurgle louder, likely catching the scent of your bitten tongue, your grief palpable in the air.

“What the fuck do you mean,” Jason says lowly, and you want to reach for him, but you’re too aware of how anything could change in a split second. “He told me he was here – how the fuck do you think I found this place, huh?”

“Jason,” you whisper and the red haired man cuts you a sharp look.

“Grayson,” he bites out, clearly agitated. “Drake. Wayne. ‘S who you’re here for, ain’t it?”

Each name he drops makes the hair on the back of your neck raise, and you look at Jason – the eerie stillness on his face, not a muscle moving. He’s barely breathing.

“Only me left, man,” he breathes out, weary. Overhead, the trees blot out the sun, so thick it feels as though night has already fallen.

“Are they dead, is that what you’re saying?”

He looks at you then, at the devastation on your face, the grief of another life lost etched into your heart, and he sighs, opening his mouth to answer but before he can, he’s cut off.

“I don’t believe you,” Jason says defiantly, chancing a look over his shoulder at you and back to the man. “You’re lying – there’s something you’re not telling us, look at him.”

And you trust him with your life, he’s kept you safe thus far, so you do look. There’s a nervous twitch of his eye as he begins to protest, and you note the sweat beginning to bead at his hairline, despite the cool evening air.

“Is that true?” you ask, voice trembling. He pales and there’s a moment when you think he might just come clean but it comes too late. Jason, fed up, shoves him, dislodging the gun from his grip and spinning it around to face the other man. You gasp, but it’s already over in a matter of seconds, the tables turned before you can blink.

“Only you, you said,” he breathes out heavily, expression hardening. He lifts the gun to point over his shoulder. “You try anything and unlike you, I won’t hesitate. I’m here for Grayson and you’re going to fucking take me to him.”

Red grits his teeth. “Fine.” He mumbles something under his breath that you strain your ears to catch as you draw closer. “Don’t...warned you, though.”

The bunker is dark as he leads you down a large stretch, your flashlights pointing straight into the black to avoid tripping. You’re aware of your obvious disadvantage – though you might outnumber him, he knows this place far more intimately – and it makes you wary as you step through. When the hallway finally opens out, it’s into a wider, caverned space, and you descend a set of stairs into a small atrium of sorts. There is no sign of any other occupants – nothing scattered across the large tables joined together to meet in the middle, chairs left firmly pushed in.

Your gut curls as he leads you through the bunker, and you draw closer to Jason. His hand reaches out to brush against yours briefly, before withdrawing. Once more, you reach a set of stairs and begin the ascent. Another exit, you note.

Twilight outside slips through when he opens the door and with it, the scent of something immeasurably wrong. You go to clutch the hem of Jason’s shirt, panic spiking in your veins, but he’s just out of reach, already stepping through. Against your will, you are tugged forward, as if a marionette on strings. The smell reaches you before you’re even out the door, and you retch when your eyes fall on what he’s brought you to.

Red is breathing hard, glancing between the both of you, unaware of just how precariously his life hangs in the balance now.

Looking at what he’s brought you before, you can’t find any pity for him.

Jason makes a strangled noise, and your own face is warm, the slide of tears dripping into the earth beneath you. Once more, you find a spiked fence, once more you find bodies speared. All strangers to you. To Jason –

There are echoes of a handsome face in the rotted visage of a nearby undead. Milky eyes stare hungrily when he draws closer, clamoured breaths fogging in the air in front of him, anguished. Red remains forgotten, attention stolen by the groans of what had once been most loved. Jason’s knees give out before him, and he falls forward into the muck, prostrate in grief.

Flanking his sides, two younger bodies – both who receive the same reception. He doesn’t have to say a word. Grayson. Drake. Wayne. The youngest, no older than 16, bears the worst injuries compared to his counterparts. Grief rolls in through you, and overhead there is a distant rumble of thunder.

You turn, the contents of your empty stomach splattering into the mud at your feet.

The acidity makes your eyes water and when you stand, wiping your mouth, you look to Jason. A new feeling grows within you, the longer you stare at him, a burning in your gut that simmers at the look on his face – too late, too late. One, two, three, all gone, before he could reach them. Worse still, his failure stands before him, a taunt of all that he had done, all that had not been enough.

Red is blurry when you turn your gaze to him, but it doesn’t soften the loathing that floods your being. He stands a few feet away, fidgeting, unsure what to make of this.

“You kept them,” you breathe out and he furrows his brows.

“Huh?”

You tilt your head in the direction of the pikes. There’s a throbbing in your head, and you’re distinctly aware of your hands growing numb. “They were your companions – and you couldn’t even put them to rest. You just left them like this, and for what? To protect yourself?”

Confusion bleeds into irritation. He isn’t forgiving of your tone, contempt in your every syllable.

“Don’t you fucking look at me like that,” he growls. “You don’t get to judge me – I’m doing what I gotta do to make it out here. Everything’s gone to hell and you wanna judge me? No fucking way, lady.”

“Fuck that,” you shoot back, shaking your head. A suppressed sob threatens to rise when you step forward to the pike, and he grows alarmed.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Putting them to rest,” you snap, and he lurches forward. He doesn’t get very far, Jason rising from the ground in silence and slamming him in the jaw with the butt of his rifle. He stumbles back, swearing.

“Don’t fucking touch her,” he warns, voice hoarse. Red-rimmed eyes seek yours out and you nod reassuringly.

“I’m okay.” You turn to Red, eyeing him disdainfully. “You can either help me get them down or go back inside, but I’m not leaving them like this.”

He chooses the latter, after some moments of silence, retreating through the doors mumbling under his breath and leaving the two of you alone with his brothers. A light mist has begun to roll in, and it clings to your hair and lashes as you move towards Jason.

He folds into you when you reach him and you stagger to support his weight, a hand resting on the back of his head as he takes a shuddering breath. His face hides in your neck, hands gripping your jacket tightly. You let out a soft sob, clutching him.

“I’m sorry,” you murmur, lips pressed against his head. “I’m so sorry.”

“Fuck,” he gasps, struggling to draw a breath. “Should’ve...’f I’d just fucking stayed...”

“It isn’t your fault,” you plead, but it rings hollowly between you, a feeble consolation that even now does little to free you of your own guilt.

He weeps and the mist turns to a gentle pour, rainwater streaming over your heads and muddying the ground at your feet further. You hold him like that, trembling frames clinging to each other in your shared grief. A second passes, and then another, until you’re unsure how long you’ve remained there. Long enough to grow roots, certainly. It’s difficult to move when you smooth a hand over his rain slicked head, to urge him forward.

“Come on,” you murmur thickly. “We have to do right by them.”

His face seizes again painfully, and you fear he might collapse once more. His grief holds him whole as he moves forward, and you flank him as he steps forward.

The youngest goes first, an apology on his lips as he presses the barrel of the rifle against Damian’s forehead. The silencer keeps the shot from ringing out, and his snarling face falls slack in mere seconds, slumping forward. You hold the rifle as he’s lifted; cradled in Jason’s arms, how young he truly was weighs on you, and you turn your face into your shoulder to muffle a cry. Jason places him gently on the ground, and turns back to you. Tim is next, and laid next to Damian. Jason lingers by his side, a hand cradling his head, and you feel, not for the first time, like a stranger bearing witness to something sacred, like you’ve stumbled across something not meant for your eyes.

All that’s left of their family are the two eldest, now, and Jason stands before the being that had once been his older brother. Dick Grayson leans forward, drooling and he doesn’t flinch, despite the rotted fingernails stretching out only inches from his face. One step forward, and he too would join them. You wonder if he isn’t half considering it, staring up at him.

“I’m sorry. Dick, I’m sorry, you hear me?” His voice trembles as he hefts the rifle. “You stupid bastard. I told you I was coming. Why didn’t you wait for me?”

There’s a current of betrayal in his words, hurt and grieving. In the dark, it’s hard to make out the expression on his face, but you can hear the hitch in his breath, the strangled sob he tries to bite back at the groan his brother lets out.

“B’s gonna – he’s gonna kick your ass, you know.” He’s gasping the words out, trembling violently and you’re helpless to do anything about it, rooted to the spot. Would that you could carry his burden for him – but it’s his to bear. “You better – fucking give it back. Fuck. I’m sorry.”

The last of his line, an orphan again – you hear Jason shed bitter tears as he shifts his older brother, laying his body beside the others.

He rises, sniffing loudly. The rain has stilled, but the temperature is unforgiving on your dampened skin, you fear the two of you might fall sick if you stay out here any longer. Still, it feels wrong to leave them here.

“Go inside,” Jason instructs, his voice rough. “Gonna get sick, standing around like this.”

“I’m not leaving you,” you refuse. “I’ve got your back. Come on.”

You find a shovel amongst a pile of tools, just outside the door. Within the circle, unwilling to venture beyond the safety of the fence, you dig. The muck makes it difficult, and your arms strain as you sift through the earth. The two of you take turns, and by the time your plot is dug, you’re covered in filth.

Only one grave is dug – “Keep them together,” Jason mumbles tightly and you nod. In your arms, his youngest brother is light. You kneel, lowering him into the ground with a whispered apology of your own. It will never reach the ears it was meant for, but you repeat yourself, and then once more, when the third body is laid down. You make a vow of your own, too, to these three, whose brother might have reached them in time had you been a little faster – had he not been slowed down by you.

I’m sorry, you apologise, thrice over. I’m sorry. I’ll take care of him in your stead.

You climb up, standing beside Jason as the wind begins to howl, a wordless service to the fallen. Bitter, guilty and grieving, the two of you pack the earth over their bodies. Buried, you hope they’re at rest – and hope they’ll forgive you.

It’s only in the late hours of the night that the two of you return through the doors. Red startles awake where he’d been sitting in the atrium when you shuffle in, tracking in mud and grime with you. Bloodshot eyes scrutinise you before he tilts his head. “Shower’s through there. Should be a clean towel in there.”

You tip your head tiredly, and Jason nudges you in the direction of the bathroom. You’re dead on your feet, and more than once you stumble, muscles aching and mind foggy. The cold has begun to set in, and your fingers feel numb from the hours outside.

Jason locks the bathroom door after he steps in with you, scrubbing wearily at his face. He lifts his chin, a silent request for you to go first. You don’t have any time to protest before he drops to sit against the closed toilet lid, eyes closing firmly.

Stiffly, you peel off your mud-stained clothes, stepping into the small stream of water. The warmth takes you by surprise, and Jason lifts his head at the noise you make, finding your gaze in the thin cloud of steam that’s begun to amass in the air.

You okay?

You offer him a nod, and he lowers his head once more.

Neither of you speak, when you leave the bathroom later, about the sniffles you’d been unable to mask under the thin spray of water or the red that rims Jason’s eyes. The only other inhabitant of the bunker has long since retreated to one of the bunks and you curl up in a different room, listening to the tremulous breaths across the room. In the dark, Jason lies in the bunk closest to the door, a chair wedged against the door – just in case.

It’s difficult to sleep, despite the events of the last day. Exhaustion weighs your limbs down, and though you’d scrubbed down every inch of dirt, the grave clings to you still. Beneath closed eyelids you can still see the twist of their faces, of Jason’s when denial had made way for grief, stubborn disbelief swept away by a tidal wave when he’d met milky eyes.

Tears once more. You press your fingertips to your face, shucking the duvet higher up to muffle your breathing.

He hears it anyway. There’s a warmth at your back that you don’t startle at, only shuffling closer to the wall and making room as he slips under the covers with you. Perhaps it’s for your comfort, but you don’t doubt that he seeks it, if only partly, for himself, too. His forehead presses to the back of your head, and arm sliding beneath your neck. You clasp the hand that finds a home over your stomach, turning your head to press your mouth against the skin of his forearm.

Words conjure in your mind and fall short, a static-y mess of jumbled letters. There is nothing to offer him in place of the loss he’s suffered today. Your hands remain empty. Would that you could turn back time. All that could have been taunts you in the darkness beneath your lids.

When you turn to press your face into his neck, settling your weight firmly in his arms, it feels like both a plea and a measly tribute. What is a stranger in the place of three brothers?

When dawn breaks, you are deep beneath the earth. Sunlight does not reach through the walls of the bunker, and so you are disoriented when you wake. It is as dark as when you’d closed your eyes, but you’ve shifted in your sleep, and your bed is missing a body.

Panic seizes you first, and you sit up straight, ripping the covers off. You’re halfway out of bed when you trip over the rucksacks, and the fall startles you enough into realising you aren’t in danger. Much, anyway, you reason when you slink out of the room and find Red in the hallway. He raises a brow at you, and you press your lips tightly together, unwilling to interact with him any more than you have to.

“Your man’s down the end of the hall,” he tells you gruffly, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. You hum indifferently, waiting for him to leave before you start in the direction of the room.

You’re led to another bedroom, larger, with more cots pushed into it. Jason stands in the centre of it, holding a shirt in his hands that you don’t recognise from the contents of his bag. He turns over his shoulder at the sound of your footsteps, relaxing when he realises it isn’t Red.

“Hi,” you whisper, lingering at the threshold. The air is still in the room, and you’re hesitant to disturb it. A twitch of his mouth is your answer, a tilt of his head that coaxes you closer.

There’s a scribble of initials on the tag, D.G scrawled over the care instructions. Your fingers curl into a fist at your side, and you turn away, ashamed. It’s hard not to bear this guilt. It lingers with you, clogging your throat at the sight of the few possessions that clutter the room. You don’t have to draw closer to know whose room this had been.

“We’re leaving. I’m not staying here,” Jason says finally, and you turn to look at him. He clutches the shirt in his hand, fingers curling in the blue fabric.

What else is there to say? You go where he does.

“Okay,” you tell him, and only when his shoulders loosen do you realise they’d been tense in the first place, as though he had expected resistance, fearing your denial. “Should I go get our things?”

He shakes his head. “Too late to go anywhere now. We slept through the day.”

How are you up, you wonder, staring at him. How can you continue, how can you move on? But you see it, in the lines of his face, the fragility of his facade. There’s a haunting in his eyes, emerald turned viridian, and his hands tremble in front of him. Barely kept together, there’s a silent plea.

Don’t press. Not now. Now is not the time to break. There will be time to mourn your loss later.

So you don’t ask. You don’t press. You lead him out of that room, away from the ghosts, away from the pencil shavings left undisturbed and a sketchbook that never got to be filled. Another day passes, the first in a world without his brothers. He sleeps in your bed again, and your fingers intertwine in the dark. He presses his cheek against your pillow, and you remain awake until his breathing evens out.

Dawn breaks and you leave with a handful of things shoved into your packs. You don’t tell Red, nor do you care to wake him when you leave.

“Where will we go?” you ask Jason, when you break out of the woods. His face seizes painfully at the reminder that there is nothing to reach now, nobody waiting on the other end to make it worth the pain.

“Anywhere, I guess,” he croaks. He glances over his shoulder doubtfully. “You still with me?”

“I made a promise, didn’t I?” It’s far from what you want to say. But you think he understands, and there’s a hint of gratitude in the crease of his eyes – the time is not now, but not never.

That selfish hope tides you over, tightens your grip on his hand as you step out into the wasteland.

For a long time, the two of you drift. Unmoored, adrift with nowhere to go, you struggle. Days bleed into night, dusk into dawn, rinse and repeat. If you could ever find such a thing, you come closest to finding respite in the thick of the woods. Winter draws closer, closer, and you make your camp where you can find it, hollowed husks of dead trees, cordoning off the area with noise makers before you fall into fitful sleep on a bed of dead, dry leaves.

It’s difficult, grappling with the loss. There are no more moments in between – every breath spent covering as much ground as you can before nightfall and taking turns keeping watch. The cold cuts you deep out here, a knife that whittles you down to the bone. Selfish, you long for the cabin, longing for the stillness, for once. Ever in motion, you don’t linger in one place for too long. The woods are thick and you don’t intend to see winter through here.

Jason curls himself even tighter around you now. His body canvasses yours, nose pressed firm into your neck when you sleep. In the early mornings you wake in a vice grip and it becomes impossible to disentangle yourself from him without resorting to waking him, too. Always with a start, thrust violently into consciousness, he opens his eyes, alert. He seeks you out, first, before scanning your surroundings. Only when he’s satisfied there isn’t an active threat does he loosen his grip on you, following to keep guard as you relieve yourself.

He remains closer to your side than ever now, but he couldn’t feel further away.

There is a lifelessness in his eyes that only sparks when you chance upon walkers. Bloodshed sparks his adrenaline, and he takes a long time to come down, breathing heavily and eyes alight with a fire you haven’t seen since then.

Blood, always blood. You track it through the country, soles red. It cakes in your hair and darkens your clothes. This time around, there is no cabin, no wardrobe to replace your clothes. The fleece in your jacket is matted now, Jason’s shredded his further. 

You still with me? Jason asks you one night, when the two of you have curled close to a small fire. Chest at your back, all you can see of him is the white of his fingers, scarred digits curled against your own.

Still here. (Still yours, you think.)

And that is the end of it. You don’t bother with reassurances, not when his palm presses over your heart – he feels it for himself, a vow intact. The cords threading you together are silken, unbowing. As he shadows you, so do you follow in his stead, treading the path after him unthinkingly.

It makes sense, that the end comes soon, once more. 

It’s been a long year, and you’re weary. Down to the bone, you feel it, the heaviness of being. Of continuing, fighting against the grain to survive another day. You’re living on borrowed time and now, more than ever, it becomes apparent to you that it’s begun to run out. Perhaps the clock had started on that first day of it all, when the bridges had fallen. Or had it been when you’d found each other in the destroyed remains of your home city? You think it had been when you’d closed in on Georgia.

Death catches up to you. It had always been in the periphery of your lives, drawing closer with every staggered step, every brush of rotting breath, every encounter that got too close. Now, it drifts in, unbidden.

Bodies litter the forest ground, muddied, rotting. The clearing looks out on a cloudy sky, thick grey hanging low, the promise of a storm.

You and Jason fall last, staggering into the centre of the clearing. The wounds are deep this time, too deep. Copper, and the scent of petrichor. A thick mist that rolls in, a sheath for your bodies, a funeral shroud for a ceremony you won’t see. Side by side, you stare at the sky.

“I’m...” Heavy, gasping breaths. You use the last of your strength to turn your head. Fading green eyes find yours. “I’m...sorry.”

Your own burn with tears, and you brush your fingers against his. “Not your fault.”

Bloody lips press against your own, bitter against your tongue. Hand in yours, Jason goes first. His movements slacken, and then, it is only you. Time, more time. If you’d only had more of it. In the next life, perhaps. Jason goes first and, as you had promised, you follow.

The end of the world comes and goes and then you, too, join the horde.

fin.

i started this during finals season when all i could think about was the horror and tragedy of loving someone doomed to die.

'Do you still believe myths can save you? Foolish creature. Let me be clear: every version of this story ends with you being slaughtered' << this exactly.

anyway this was inspired by everywhere, everything by noah kahan but also, sort of: bones and all, the walking dead, ethel cain and the midwestern gothic ? maybe i'm misusing that term but i mean specifically location wise. the eeriness of how quiet the world would be after its end, how disconcerting it would be when all you knew was Gotham, too, never resting, always in motion. the end comes and you're driven out from a city you longed to leave, but now all you want is to go home.

at so many points throughout writing this, i wanted to keep jason (and reader) alive, even though i knew he was going to die well before i even started writing this. i struggled a lot with sticking to that decision, but i feel like in a lot of my writing i give them happier endings and i wanted to try something newer for a change. i don't think i'm as well versed in this sort of genre, i mostly write light-hearted romance. but i also think there is something beautiful in tragic romances that i don't explore enough. so here is my attempt at this.

anyway. this only makes sense 2 me, probably. i still hope you enjoyed reading it though

[starshipsofstarlord]

Prisoner

Summary-> (Early season 3 based) Winter had been a long journey for all of your group, especially you and Daryl given that there was always a lack of privacy. You find it difficult to feel at home in the prison, but Daryl is always there for you when you need him, and you have the chance to relish in a night alone - or as lonesome as a cell can be (2.9k)

Warnings-> 18+ mdni, smut, unprotected sex, fingering, established relationship, mentions of arrest and imprisonment, swearing

daryl dixon // norman reedus works masterlist

It was an adjustment, that much was clear. After having been locked up in a prison for a few years, the last place you had wanted to be was in one, but here you and your group were, in a cell block after having cleared it out.

Your knee bounced as you sat upon the steps, gnawing upon lip, staring at the familiar grey walls that brought bad memories back into your mind. It wasn’t something you wanted to voice as a problem, you’d spent all winter out on the road, enduring the cold nights, you should have been grateful like everyone else was.

“Y’ okay?” Daryl asked as he took a seat beside you, brushing his shoulders with your own with a comforting manner, reading with no doubt that something was bothering you. Most of the day you preferred to be outside, killing the walkers that clawed at the fences, and you jumped at the chance to go out on a run for supplies just to get out of this pit of misery.

“I’m fine. Just need a distraction from all of this.” You gestured around you, sending him a small smile, feeling far too conscious to even think about falling asleep. “I know it should be good that we’ve found somewhere, and it is, don’t get me wrong, but-“

“I know.” He told you, nodding in understanding, before he put his large hand over your smaller one, clasping it in his grip and bringing it up to his lips. “Don’t have to like it, none of us do, but we woulda died if we hadn’t found this place. And that’s the last thing that I wan’ to happen to ya. I’m grateful for everything you did, ya know.”

“I know Dare.” You decided to look at him rather than the tin you were sat in, meeting his softened blue eyes. “Think if I saw Merle again I’d kick his ass for abandoning me on that night which cost me months in the normal world with you.” He grunted in agreement, smiling when remembering that you had found their camp, and you’d done just that to his older brother.

“Ya got out, that’s all that matters. Especially before all this and the world goin to shit.” The thought of you trapped in somewhere like this and most likely being turned into walker chow or one of them had his heart bursting at the seams. It was a vulgar thought, and the last thing that he ever wanted to happen to you. He wanted to protect you, and he should have done that before, but he was petrified, and you were too stubborn and claimed that you had to pay for your mistakes.

He’d come to see you a few times when you were locked away, he hated that a panel of glass separated the both of you, all he had wanted to do was run his fingers through your hair and tell you everything was going to be okay. But he couldn’t, so instead he counted the days and hours until your release, he had this whole idea of collecting you from that place and driving you far away.

But your release day had been the same day that the entire planet was engulfed with the spreading news of a disease that turned people into monsters, and Merle wouldn’t let him go to see if you had made your sanctioned escape. He had no idea whether you were still alive until he saw Shane carrying you into the camp, exhausted from the lack of both food and fluids and running god knows how many miles just to survive.

“Guess you’re right.” He always was, even if he was too selfless to admit it. “Do you maybe want to try sleeping in a cell? I know we’ve got this whole thing of liking the floor, but I guess it’s worth a try.” Daryl surprising agreed, pulling you to your feet after he had stood, the two of you walking to an empty cell, passing by the other members of your group that were either asleep or lying down in isolation.

It was a big step for you to enter a cell after the months you had been holed up in one by the law, but Daryl kept his hand on your elbow, reminding you that he was there. And always would be. And so unsurely, despite it being your idea, you stepped within the cell, it was devoid of any personality, just a bunk and the normal silver basin and toilet, which all reminded you that this wasn’t home. You hoped that one day you’d find somewhere that felt less suffocating, there had to be a place out there, beyond the chain fence, where it was safe to breathe without the risk of walkers eating you in your sleep.

As you entered the room, you were strangely comforted by the sound of Glenn’s snoring from the cell over, he was no doubt laying beside Maggie, then both lulling in the chance to rest. “It’s not so bad.” You muttered, kicking off your mud accented boots, as Daryl remained close to the door, blocking the view from anyone that could pass as you shrugged out of your jeans, and lifted your shirt over your head, leaving you in just your underwear. It was something that you hadn’t been able to do in prison without the harassment of officers or other people fulfilling their sentences.

Daryl said nothing as you stood still for a moment, closing your eyes, before you reached back, unclipping your bra, his eyes danced over the expanse of your back, every scar traced by his pupils and every mole a target that he planned to pelt with gentle kisses. You turned around to face him, like a vixen testing his limits, tilting your head as you padded along the floor towards him, your fingers brushing against his sleeve butchered flannel. “I want your shirt.”

There was no resistance on his part as he helped you unbutton each button on it, shrugging it off of his broad shoulders as he handed it to you, watching you slip it on. You inhaled his scent as you did only a couple of the buttons on it, before testing the mattress with your hand on the bottom bunk, before sliding upon it and closing your eyes. “Aren’t you going to join me?” He said nothing as he silently kicked off his own boots, tossing the knives he carried out from his pockets onto the floor, them deliciously clattering upon the cement, as he readied himself to lay beside you.

“It’s been a long time since we had a bed.” Daryl spoke in hushed volume, not counting the time on Herschel’s farm after he had been scathed by a bullet in the left side of his head, no thanks to Andrea. He shuffled as he tried to get comfortable, deciding on laying on his side and facing you, trapping you in his arms as his nose brushed against your own. “At least it’s better than that one you had in your shitty old trailer.” He smirked, watching as you tapped his shoulder with your screwed up fist, rolling your eyes when you remembered why it hadn’t been so comfortable.

“It was perfect, we broke it in. Not my fault that the springs couldn’t hold up.” He shook his head at your words, clearly that sale you had got it from had been a scam, but you had insisted that it was better than sleeping on the floor. Truth be told, Daryl didn’t care where he slept, as long as he had you securely beside him, he never wanted you to be taken away from him again, and he was insistent that he wouldn’t allow that to happen.

“I think you’re the one tha’ couldn’t hold up. Or be quiet.” He remarked, causing a scoff to pass from your lips, as you attempted to turn away from him but he wouldn’t allow you. Instead his grip on you got tighter, as he raised a brow at your actions. “But if yar blamin’ it on the damn mattress, we migh’ as well see if this one is any better.” It wasn’t very often that Daryl would smirk, but when he did, you practically melted in a puddle in front of him and forgot where you were, which in this instance, was a blessing. His hand trailed down your sternum that was exposed by your lousy buttoning of his shirt that you wore, descending dangerously lower, so that his fingertip hit the top band of your panties.

Your breath hitched, as your body became almost immobile, frozen from his more that welcomed touch. He teased you, running his hand hand back to your stomach only to trail it back down to where his destination had been. “Damn it Daryl, do something.” You hissed, careful to keep your voice down. “I swear to- oh.” His hand had slipped into your underwear, rubbing against the outside of your cunt, causing your hips to jut up into his touch. He always knew how to make you sufficiently aggravated, you’d have cursed out from the bubbling annoyance in your chest if you had no worries that anybody could hear the two of you.

With that he slipped a finger into your walls, it felt like it had been a long time since the two of you had an opportunity to be physical. All through winter, after losing the farm to the mass of endless walkers, you’d had sex once out in the woods, when you were supposed to be hunting, and because of your lack of action you felt touch starved. Even despite Daryl proceeding to hold your hand when the pair of you rarely walked at the back of the group, and sleeping side by side with him. It just hadn’t been enough, but for now these taunting walls allowed you some release, ironically enough.

“Yer so fuckin’ tight.” Daryl muttered, kissing up your stomach all the way up to your lips, ushering and drinking your whimpers that threatened to escape. “Woulda fucked ya more if I’d had the chance baby, now I’m really gonna have to stretch ya out before I can put my cock in ya.” You could only moan into his mouth, hands clasping around his wrist as you ground yourself down on his hand, you let out a squeal as he unexpectedly entered another finger, alarmed by the welcomed intrusion, however Daryl stopped all movements. He spoke quietly to himself, eyes dancing around with a scheming glimmer in his eyes, as an idea revelled in his mind.

He yanked a pillow out from beneath your head, causing you to pant as you clenched desperately around his fingers, trying to allure him into continuing. Daryl raised your hips, fingers still in you, as he placed the pillow beneath them, your mouth making an O shape as he hit a new angle inside of you. If you hadn’t been in a prison, knowing that it was your worst nightmare, he would have calmed your sounds by placing the pillow over your head, but he knew where the line was drawn and he was never one to cross it if he was aware of your discomfort. “Good girl.” He drawled out, deciding to fasten the pace of his fingers as a wet spot began to leak onto your panties, he swiped his tongue across his bottom lip as he watched you. You were close, and it had come faster than expected, given how many months it had been.

“More.” You pleaded, wanting his cock, no matter how much it hurt when he stretched you out, but instead you were given another finger, and Daryl grunted as he rutted into the bed. “Dare, need you.” You huffed, feeling empty when he removed his fingers. The time dragged as he unbuckled his belt and pulled off his jeans, and finally he clambered on top of you, his naked form teasing every nerve in your entire body. “If you need me so bad, why don’ ya ride me?” He whispered, rolling the both of you over so that you were atop of him. You leant down, your hair falling in a cascade around both of your faces as you pressed your lips against his, sliding your cunt over his cock.

He was frighteningly hard, it had been months since the both of you had gotten this far, and there were no interceptions that could stop you this time, or so you hoped. Your slick coated his length as you ground yourself on him to fulfil your own insatiable drive of hunger, his hands bruising your hips as he attempted to keep you still so he could slip inside of you from beneath your trembling form. His tip grazed your clit, sending you into a frenzy, you couldn’t wait a second longer you mindlessly decided, grasping his erect cock in your hand to hold it still, as you slid him inside of you. It was an ethereal feeling, the two of you relished in the sensation of being so close, and not just emotionally.

Daryl’s head reached up, pulling you down flush on top of him, as he spread an array of butterfly kisses over your collarbones and the middle of your throat. “I love ya girl, you drive me absolutely crazy, but yar my kinda crazy.” He stroked your hair lovingly out of your face, distracting you from how he raised both of the weights of the lower halves of your bodies up, and before you could respond with your own spoken words of love to him, he began to thrust up into you, making the world around you drown into nothing more than a distant memory. Your breathing was messy as it mixed with your partner’s, you sturdied one hand on the pillow beneath his head, the other long discarded to the floor, as your opposite braced itself on the wall, clawing at the impenetrable surface.

“Fuck Dare.” Tears were glazing your eyes as you felt each vein of his cock within your cunt, and you began to move with his own thrusts, finding a rhythm that suited the position that you were in. You were careful not to raise your head too high so that you didn’t hit it on the bottom of the bunk above you, Daryl’s right hand left your hip and rested forcefully on your ass, squeezing the flesh as he tried and failed to hold in his grunts. Surely by morning, there was no doubt that someone would make a commotion about hearing you through the screen-less doors, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to care, not after how long it had been since you had evoked such passion with the man below you.

Sweat began to bead upon his forehead, slicking the growing locks onto his face, as you brushed them away. A heavy creak rattled from the bed as Daryl once again turned you over, and pounded in you from above, without allowing his cock to slip out from your sweet and wet pussy. From the red tint that had appeared on his face, and how he frowned as though he was on a mission, it was clear that he was getting close, which wasn’t a surprise considering the amount of time that had passed since your bodies had moulded together in such a way. You grasped him by the back of the neck, pulling him down to entrap him in a fiery kiss, your legs wrapping tightly around his waist as you approached your own high.

And there it was, the destination that you had been caving for, your own release. After all of those months that you had served as a resident in a prison, you’d missed his touch, and as soon as the two of you had reunited in Atlanta, you’d made the most of the time you could get together. Daryl’s thrusts began to get sloppy as he struggled to keep up his pace after feeling you clench around his cock and cum all over it, sending him into a delirium to chase his own high. He could feel his balls straining to be emptied, and when he was almost there, he pulled out, not wanting to further the risk anymore of getting you pregnant given the state of the world, and began thrusting himself in the apex of your thighs, until finally he allowed his seed to spill over your flesh.

He exhaled a deep sigh, leaning down to press a kiss against your sweaty hairline, before reaching down and grabbing your discarded shirt, wiping your upper legs clean. He wasted no more time to curl up next to you and bring you into his large arms, staring at your face, letting you know without words that you were the most important thing to him. He’d do anything for you and to keep you safe, nobody was going to separate the two of you again, he was stern on that. “Maybe this place isn’t so bad.” You muttered lovingly into his chest, brushing your nose against where his heart lay, and Daryl releases a small but real smile as he tugged the blanket out from tour forms, awkward as his manner was, and wrapped it around the two of you, so that you could drift off to sleep in his arms and pretend for a moment in your dreams that the world wasn’t as it was.

[tragedybunny]

Bedroom Hymns - Astarion x F!Reader - NSFW - Breeding / Sex Pollen

This is technically the second part of my wedding fic Dance With Me Under the Diamonds, See Me Like Breath in the Cold. I separated it out as it is just porn with a small tie-in to the plot. There will be another part that continues the story that doesn't require reading this. Reader is based on an Archfey Warlock. Tried some new things here and I'm not sure if they worked but oh well.

Reader and Astarion are happily married and celebrate their wedding night. But there may be more occurring than they realize.

Your hand fumbles for the handle of the door behind you, a difficult task with Astarion kissing and nipping your exposed skin. The door finally relents and swings open, to your endless relief. Maybe it was all the wine, but you feel as though there’s a fire stoking inside you, your skin radiating heat, to go along with the growing aching need between your legs for your now husband. You answer the door’s creak with a whimper. “Aren’t you in quite the state, my Love?” Astarion teases you, whispering against your ear. 

There’s a blank in your mind where a witty retort should be, answering instead with another hungry kiss, and gasping when your legs are swept out from under you. Astarion carries you over the threshold of your home, turning to kick the door shut. It slams loud enough for you to be grateful Scratch is with Shadowheart tonight. That’s the last thought you have to spare for anything that’s not him though. 

There’s no questions asked as Astarion starts for the stairs of your house, just your breathing, heavy with anticipation. The world around you has a haze to it, like it’s shimmering with summer heat. The need has turned to a feeling of emptiness that is almost painful. Arms looped around his neck to hold yourself steady, you whine in frustration you haven’t reached your bedroom yet. “Gods I need you.” 

His grip on you tightens and he growls in your ear, something wild in his voice you’ve never heard before, but it makes you want to spread your legs and beg for him. “Soon my Sweet.” 

Just beyond the last stair is the cozy bedroom the two of you share when you’re not adventuring beyond the walls of Baldur’s Gate. Safe and secure, the shutters block any sunlight when locked down, protecting your beloved while he sleeps next to you. It seems you’ll be needing it before either of you get any sleep tonight. Astarion sets your feet on the ground just before the bed and you open your mouth to protest, but he hushes you by grabbing your waist firmly. “Patience, Love, let's get this dress off.” Skilled fingers set to work unlacing you out of the dress that seems more like a prison, you lean into that touch, craving him. A cool finger bushes along your skin and the inferno inside you rises, hips rock back, the curve of your ass pushing against him, feeling how he’s already half hard. An arm wraps around your waist, locking you in place. “Behave or I’ll cut it off you, your choice Darling,” his voice is low as he speaks the words against your ear and you shiver. Somewhere in the back of your mind you recall it was an expensive dress and you were fond of it. You focus on holding yourself still. “Good girl,” he coos at you and you can feel your small clothes becoming damp with your arousal. 

By some miracle of some god somewhere, he manages to free you before you turn into a writhing mess. Frantically, the two of you work to rid you of your undergarments before turning to Astarion’s clothes, the sound of tearing fabric letting you know they don't survive his attentions. “Help me,” you all but beg, leaving searing kisses along his skin as you undo buttons and trouser laces. He obliges, aiding in removing the offending garments until he’s bare before you. The fire and wanting fade just enough for you to drink him in for a moment, and you feel a giddy smile come on that you can’t repress. So perfect, he’s yours and yours alone. “You’re so beautiful, my Love,” you breathe out, almost reverently, and pull him in for another kiss. 

Again he lifts you in his arms, finally settling you onto the bed and kneeling between your open thighs. One finger drags languidly along your slit. “Look at you all soaked and swollen already, needy little thing.” 

“P-please Astarion,” you thrust unthinkingly toward his hand, your own reaching out to stroke him, thumb swiping through the liquid beaded at his tip. A throaty moan is your reward. 

“Oh my Love, just you wait.” He sits back, content to let you touch him. Aching and still desperate for relief, you continue, wanting nothing more than to please him. Soft groans escape him as he rocks his hips into touch before finally taking mercy on you. 

Pushing your hands away, he grips your hips and you obey his wordless command, turning so that you're kneeling before him, elbows propping you up. “My gorgeous wife.” Lips trace their way from the base of your spine up to your shoulders, hands cup your breasts, kneading them, thumbs brushing over peaked nipples. With a whimper, you grind yourself against him, the barest teasing touch of his cock driving you mad. “You want to be fucked so badly, don’t you. But you want more than that, you want to be filled, to be bred, like a good little wife.” He’s so close to you, words speaking of desires unknown until this moment, but it’s there in you, the yearning for what he promises. Desperately, you writhe against him and he pushes your hips away. “Say it.” One hand grips your chin, thumb worrying your bottom lip. 

“I want to be filled with you,” his thumb slips between your lips and you suck at it gratefully, “bred by you.” 

The press of him into you grants blissful relief to the emptiness, and you both still for a moment, bound as one. And then he moves, slow and deliberate, burying himself again and again. There are no words from you, just sounds of need, of pleading for more. “My Love, taking me so good.”  His hand dips between your legs, finding your clit and tracing small circles over it as the rhythm of hips increases. A few more moments of those heady sensations and, with a keening sound, you clench around him, desperate for him to fulfill the promise of earlier. 

He’s there right after you, one hand digging into your hip, pulling you tight against him, the other still playing with you. The feel of his seed pumping into you is almost enough to send you over the edge again. Gasping, ragged breaths are the only sound as you obediently remain how he positioned you, taking all of him, crying out when he pulls out of you. 

The empty ache returns, but not for long. “Hmm,” fingers press inside you, spreading you. 

“Love,” you plead, the need burning again at his touch. 

“I don’t think I’m done with you yet, my desperate, sweet little thing.” His touch slips back around to your clit and you hiss at how sensitive it's become. The discomfort fades soon enough and you're lost in the euphoria of it. 

His body covers yours, and teeth lightly nip into your shoulder and lap at the little drips of blood that escape. “Astarion.” You lose yourself again.

The world blurs around you, the only constants, his touch and your own ragged breath. There are no thoughts, only the drive to be taken again, like a wild creature in heat. Pliantly, you let him guide you to your back, where you stare up at him, enraptured. “Gods you’re incredible,” you whisper, “my husband.” 

Leaning over you, he kisses your forehead gently. “Incredibly lucky.” Fingers brush your hair back and trace your cheeks, your lips, along your chin. “You’re the most amazing person in the whole world. And somehow you’re mine.” He ponders you for a moment, staring at you like you’re some holy thing, as though he’s engaged in an act of worship. Then his lips catch yours and you feel the length of his cock slide along you. Despite what you want, it’s painful as it presses against the exhausted bundle of nerves between your legs, leaving you whining. “One more for me, you can do that, can’t you?” His voice, sultry against your ear, is all the encouragement you need, and you nod. “Good girl.” 

Legs wrap around his waist as enters you one more time. “I…ohhhh…hells,” divine torment, pain flowing into pleasure, desperation driving away exhaustion. 

“Shhh, Darling, you’re doing so good,” he moves inside you, guiding you back to your precipice. Lips and teeth are everywhere all over you, fingers back to playing with you, you mewl and cry his name over and over until nothing makes sense. Your eyes are closed, all you know is the feeling of him, waves of rapture crash into one another and become one, and you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. 

Finally, with a jerk he stills and you feel at last gloriously sated, filled as promised. Collapsing next to you, he pulls you onto his chest and nuzzles your hair. “I love you.” 

“I love you too,” your eyes flutter close, your body finally succumbing to exhaustion, the strange need fading away. And then you remember, the woman at the park, the bottle, a gift from summer. Fuck, who knows what your patron gifted you with, you should really tell Astarion when you wake up. 

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