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ddejavvu · 1 year ago

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Love to Lie - Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw x Reader (Part 3) / Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 4 (Final Part)

Summary: Your worst fear is recognized when Bradley’s jet goes down with him in it. You’re not sure why you’re still his emergency contact, you’d broken up two weeks ago, but when you rush into the hospital room, you discover that you have a chance to fix the mistake you’d been cursing yourself for. The only problem is, you have to lie to Bradley, and you discover that you love doing it if it means you get to be with him again.

Contents/Warnings: fem!reader, Mitchell!reader, angst, angst with a fluffy/happy ending, amnesia trope, hospitals and their subsequent medical details, memory loss, goose and carole are still alive because i say so

WC: 16.1K (again...? somehow?) / navigation / inbox

A/N: ...surpriiiise! this is not the end 😭 i'm sorry to deviate from my original plan, but life got in the way a lot, so now there will be four parts to this series, this is the second-to-last. I'm sorry to keep you waiting, it just didn't work out the way I wanted it to. The real final part to this series will be posted one week from today. I hope you all understand, and I hope you enjoy this part and all of the drama that comes with it!

feedback is greatly appreciated! comment, reblog, talk in the tags, send me a message, tell me what you think!

Your eyes blink open far too early. It’s due to your side, there’s a draft that’s worked its way over your skin and raised tiny goosebumps over your thigh. You’ve woken up differently than how you’d fallen asleep ,and you suspect that you’d wormed your way into Bradley’s chest again in your slumber. You can’t blame yourself, it’s a comfortable place to be.

You push against his abdomen to wriggle your way out of his embrace and reclaim the blanket that’s fallen, but his hands tug you closer in an instant. Too fast, you decide, as you peer through the darkness of your bedroom, eyes adjusting groggily to the light.

“Brad?” You whisper, “Are you awake?”

He takes a moment to answer, and you think he might be pretending to be asleep. But eventually you feel him nod against his pillow, “Yeah.”

“Oh, honey,” You strain to reach the bedside lamp from your spot in his grip, especially considering any distance you create between the two of you, he closes. Once you finally click the light on you see his bloodshot eyes, red and rosy from their lack of sleep.

“What’s the matter?” You croon, your voice still thick with sleep as you cup his cheek in your palm, “Why are you awake, did you have a nightmare?”

“No,” He rasps, something desperately sad in his voice, “I never slept.”

“What-” You whirl your glance around to the bedside clock that reads 2:30, “Brad, you’ve been awake the whole time?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” He defends, his fingers curling around your waist, “I- I don’t know how anymore.”

“Baby,” You feel a thick wave of nausea rising in your belly at his state of distress, feeling nothing but anguish for the broken boy; your broken boy, “It’s okay. You’re okay, you’re safe now, you’re home. You don’t- uh, do you remember anything new?”

“No,” He shakes his head, eyes downcast as he swallows tightly in his throat, “No, but my brain is coming up with a thousand different ways it could have gone, and I can’t stop.”

You hope his brain hasn’t conjured the correct possibility. That he’d gone down truly alone.

“Poor baby,” You whimper, somehow more choked up than he is, “Come here.”

As he settles in your embrace, his head against your chest now, you reconsider: maybe you were made for holding him, and he was made to be held by you. Or maybe your roles are the same, each made to hold and be held by each other. Whatever the universe designed for you, it’s working, as his face presses into your collarbones like a puzzle piece snapping into place. He fits perfectly, and you feel the prickle of his mustache as he sniffles, once.

“You’re okay,” You hum, hoping that the vibrations of your voice through your throat sing him to sleep. Your nails scrape through his hair, long-since dried from his shower, though still smelling strongly of shampoo. You can feel him breathing, shakily so, against your skin, and the breeze fans through the neckline of your top, warm and soft in its rhythm.

In, out. He’s alive. In, out. He’s here. In, out. He loves you. In, out. He wants you to stay.

In, out. He doesn’t know. In, out. He could remember at any second. In, out. He could hate you.

In, out. He won’t hate you. In, out. He’ll want to work things out. In, out. He’ll want you to stay. In, out. He loves you.

“Baby,” You croak, your throat thick with tears that are part anxiety, and part anguish for your poor boy, “I love you.”

His hands tighten around your waist after a split second of silence, then he murmurs against your collarbone, “I love you, too.”

“Sleep,” You insist, resuming your soft strokes through his hair, “Sleep, Brad. You’re safe, you’re home.”

“You’re home, too.” He adds, and you realize it’s an affirmation on its own. That you're together; that he didn't die alone in a cockpit.

You nod, swallowing a sob, “Yeah, baby, I’m home too. And I’m not leaving, I’m gonna park my ass right here until you get eight hours of sleep, at least. Got it?”

He laughs weakly into your skin, “Got it, babe.”

“Good,” You whisper, keeping up a steady rhythm through his hair, “Good, honey, now sleep.”

You can’t seem to close your eyes until Bradley closes his own. You feel the flutter of his lashes against your skin, Then they cease their motions and the upper strands settle over the lower ones, brushing your chest in tandem. The longer you go without feeling them twitch, the better, and you don’t stop combing through his hair until his breathing has been soft and even for ten minutes minimum. Then exhaustion creeps back over you, and the knowledge that Bradley’s finally sleeping eases you into another few hours of your own slumber.

What wakes you up for the second time isn’t the series of knocks on the front door, but, yet again, a phone call. It's seemingly a pattern of late. This time your phone rings in the kitchen though, where you’d left it last night while eating. You’re surprised it hasn’t died, but you hear the ringing fade out while you lay in Bradley’s embrace. Your brain struggles to process the past 48 hours, but you know enough about the situation to know that it’s probably Carole knocking at the door, as well as calling you when you don’t answer.

Bradley’s still sleeping, thank god, serene when his eyes aren’t open to showcase the deep anxiety they hold. You can’t imagine how he feels, clueless and terrified, like a little kid. You’re glad he’s getting at least a few restful hours, even if you’re sure his dad and yours’ voices will boom far too loud through the house the second they step through the door.

Rushing to answer the door is hard to do silently, but when your face pops into the window panes set in the wood, you hold a finger over your lips.

Shush, you warn, then with a jerk of your thumb backwards towards the bedroom, he’s sleeping.

Carole, the one who needs your warning the least, nods jovially, a pretty smile already set on her face for the day. She’s a ray of sunshine, and you’re lucky to have her at this moment especially. Nick and your dad salute you, and you’ve never let out a more exasperated sigh than the one you greet them with.

“Mornin’, Sleeping Beauty,” Nick grins, barging in like he owns the place (which he did, for a while), “Brad still conked out?”

“Yeah,” You nod, opening the door wider to let everyone through. Carole’s carrying an insulated bag, your dad has a few totes of groceries, and Nick's got a heavy cooler strapped over his shoulder like a purse.

“My god,” You marvel, “Did you raid a Trader Joe’s?”

“You said there was nothin’ in the fridge,” Carole grins, “We brought stuff for breakfast, and whatever else you need, we can run out for later.”

“Thanks,” You gush, taking the bag from her despite her protests, “Is there milk in here?”

“And eggs,” Your dad nods, holding up his own bags, “And bread, and fruit, and-”

“And I wanna put this thing down,” Nick groans, heading for the kitchen with the cooler, “You talk too much, Mav.”

“Me- I talk too much?” His voice raises a hair as he heads for the kitchen in tow, and you and Carole shoot him the necessary disapproving looks, “This, from the guy who missed his flight to Hawaii because he was too busy telling the gate attendant that his son won student of the week in preschool.”

The two conveniently bicker, leaving you and Carole alone in the entryway. She sends you a questioning glance, no words needed.

“Not yet,” You mutter, and her eyes dim in disappointment, “I just- I wanted one night. One night to pretend like nothing happened at all, but I promised him we’d do it today. I told him,” You sigh shakily, pinching at the bridge of your nose, “I told him I wasn’t trying to hide from him, or anything like that, but- but that I just wanted a normal night. He said it was fine, he agreed. I wouldn’t have just gone to sleep if he pushed.”

“Honey!” She scolds, like there’s not a thought in your head, “Since when has he ever pushed you? Of course he said it was fine, you asked him for it! He'd let you run him over with a train if you asked to. You have got to stop this,” She narrows her eyes at you, the expression accompanied by various only-slightly-muffled banging sounds from the kitchen “I know it’s scary. I know it could go a lotta different ways. But you owe this to him now. Now that he knows, now that he’s askin’ questions, you’ve gotta answer ‘em. You’re the only one that can, you’re the only one that knows!”

Neither of you have noticed your dad standing in the kitchen doorway. But he’s not stealthy, and his broad frame catches your eye. You turn, panicked, but his face reads confusion.

“You’re the only one that knows what?” He queries, one thick brow raised. Carole waits for you to answer, and you build the courage in your chest.

“Nothing, dad. I’ll- I’ll talk to you about it later. In private.”

He remains concerned, his light eyes darkened in worry, but he trusts you, and Carole doesn’t fight back against your solution. He nods once, then clears his throat, “Nick can’t figure out how to work your stove. He wants to make pancakes.”

“Ooh, that man,” Carole huffs, more exasperated than upset, as she storms into the kitchen, “Honey, it’s the dial in the back!”

Technically, you’re in private now. Your dad seems to realize the same, shifting towards you, but before he can ask, there’s a thud from the bedroom.

Fear stabs your heart like a sword, blade sharp and venomous as you imagine an injured Bradley unable to get himself off of the floor. But you aren’t able to take two steps towards the bedroom before Bradley comes stumbling down the hall, nearly tripping over the too-long pajama pants you’re still matching in.

When he sees you and your dad, he freezes for a moment, posture tight. You hope he’s not embarrassed to be caught in his holiday pajamas, but you’re more concerned about why he was sprinting in the first place.

“Baby,” You call worriedly, making your way over to him across the carpet of the hallway, “Baby, what’s wrong? DId you fall? I heard a thud.”

“No, I-” He shakes his head, blinking hard for a moment, “I heard someone in the house. I don’t- I thought someone had broken in. Sweetheart, I- I didn't even realize you weren't in bed," He chuckles sheepishly, "I thought I was protecting you.”

You squeeze his arm with a fond smile, though you're still worried about him, adoration swelling in your chest alongside concern, "Poor baby."

“Sorry, Brad,” Your dad laughs softly, heading back towards the doorway to rejoin the others once he realizes you won’t be sharing just yet, “Your dad can’t find his way around a kitchen.”

“Should have known,” Bradley huffs, curling an arm around your waist, “If my mom ever left him he’d never eat again.”

You welcome the privacy that this gives you and Bradley, and your hands find the broad expanse of his chest as you stare worriedly up at him.

“Brad,” You hum, lifting one of your hands as his settle on your waist. You lay it over his cheek and he leans into the contact like a touch-starved puppy, “Are you sure you’re okay? You seemed really freaked out. And- and your ribs are still broken, don’t they hurt? I think you should get back in bed. We can-”

“Hey,” Bradley murmurs, mustache tickling your palm as he lays a kiss to the heel of your hand, “It’s alright. You’re spiraling, babe. I’m okay.”

You like that about him, the way he kisses you anywhere. It doesn’t seem to matter if he catches your lips, your hand, your elbow; it’s all there for him to love on.

“I am not spiraling,” You defend weakly, “I just want to make sure you’re alright. Did you hurt yourself?”

“No,” He shakes his head, and when you move to pull your hand away from his face, one of his own flies to catch it. His hand fits just as well against the back of yours as it does the front, and you let him cradle your palm to his cheek.

“I’m okay,” He repeats, a promise that reassures the deep ache of worry in your chest, “Thanks for helping me sleep last night, honey. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

You swallow the weight of his words, feeling them settle like boulders in your stomach. They’ve tangled strings around your heart, tugging and yanking at the organ until it sinks low in your body. Today’s the last day you can pretend you’d never walked away.

“You’ll have me forever,” You hum, leaning in to press a kiss to his lips that you hope distracts from the tears in your eyes. You sigh shakily against his mouth, relishing the feeling of his lips against your own. It’s comforting, and he keeps it chaste but meaningful, humming sweetly into you. When you break away only your lips part, foreheads and noses still flush like snapped-in puzzle pieces.

There’s some inexplicable force sticking you together, blood magnetized to each other’s from how long your hearts have beat as one. You let your eyes slip shut in his hold, hoping with everything in you that today isn’t the last time you’ll get to hold him like this. There’s a countdown ticking away in your brain, one that makes your blood run cold and your stomach churn, but the smell of pancake batter tears you away from watching the numbers run out.

“Pancakes,” You whisper softly against his lips, “You wanna eat?”

“Yeah,” He nods, but he makes no move towards the kitchen. He’s standing still, like you’re a cat that’s decided to snooze on his lap and he’s afraid of spooking you. His hands are still holding your waist, dragging you into him and supporting your weight against his own. It’s comfortable there, serene as you breathe in tandem, drinking each other in after a rough night. You’re glad Bradley’s gotten even a little bit of sleep, and with a nap later, you’re sure he’ll be well-rested enough to talk, even though you wish you didn’t have to. This is a fantasy you want to get lost in, one that you wish wasn’t starting to crack and splinter under his discerning gaze. It’s endearing that he knows you well enough to know that you’re lying to him, but not now that you want them to be the truth.

“You still haven’t remembered anything?” You ask, grateful to be cupping his cheek where his hand holds your own.

“Nope,” He shakes his head as much as he can with it pressed to your own, kissing at your top lip. It doesn’t require reciprocation, it’s barely-there and fleeting, “Doctor said it could be weeks.”

“He also said it could be minutes,” You mumble, voice hazy with worry, “Let’s go eat, Brad. Our parents brought along a buffet.”

It’s only now that either of you finally move, hands sliding across each others’ skin to join together. You walk as your fingers intertwine, and he holds back to let you step into the kitchen first.

“There he is!” Nick cheers at his son’s dramatic entrance, “Hey, Brad, watch this!”

He yanks the pan off of the stove, standing with his shoulders squared and his knees bent, like he’s preparing to bat at a softball. He jerks the pan up and out, dislodging the pancake from its resting place and sending it into the air when he pulls the pan back down again. It flips gracefully, but Nick catches it less so, half of the gooey side of the pancake landing on the rim of the pan and splattering onto his hand.

“Shit,” He hisses, and Carole buries her face in her hands with a sigh, “Mav, get me a paper towel.”

“Nice one, dad,” Bradley drawls, letting you stifle your laugh into his shoulder, “You could go pro with that.”

“If you make fun of me I’ll spit in the batter,” Nick grumbles as your dad swipes away the batter dripping inches away from his watch, “Thanks, Mav.”

The paper towel and pancake mishap are forgotten as you chat in the kitchen, standing around like a proper family. You’ve always been one, and you hope you always will be. You find an easy home tucked into Bradley’s side, feeling his thumb stroke at your waist and his lips press to your hair every few minutes. The pancakes go surprisingly fast, and Carole refuses to let anyone help her slice fruit, which is probably a good idea, at least for your dad, who’s fond of showing off knife tricks he hasn’t yet mastered.

Bradley’s perfectly capable of dressing his own pancakes up, but you feel the need to. Maybe it’s girlfriend duty, maybe it’s the fact that his ribs are still achy, or maybe it’s the fact that you’re trying to overcompensate, but whatever it is has your hand delving into the bowl of freshly washed blueberries, grabbing a handful and sprinkling them over Bradley’s buttered stack of pancakes. Then you take a banana, leaving Carole three more to slice up into the salad.

You slice the fruit towards your thumb, the blade pressing gently to your skin as it cuts through the banana. It doesn’t hurt, but Bradley reaches for your hands, pulling the knife away and holding the affected thumb.

“Don’t do it like that,” He explains, raising your thumb to his lips. He kisses it once, his lips pressing to the smooth pad of your finger, mustache tickling your skin, “I don’t want you to cut yourself.”

“I was careful,” You insist, but the last thing you want to do is pull away from Bradley, so you let him curl his fingers around your own, interlocking them as he holds your hand.

“I’ll cut it,” He squeezes your hand, leaning in to peck softly at your lips, “You’ve done a ton for me these past few days, babe. I can cut my own banana.”

You worry you’re coming off as smothering, that you’ve suffocated him with care. But the thought of never being able to do it again, and being deprived of the option to for weeks, has made you more of a helicopter girlfriend than anything.

You let him cut his own banana, just in case he’s feeling resentment towards you for being so overbearing. But you don’t think he’s angry, not as he slices the banana down onto the cutting board and takes it between his thumb and forefinger. He holds it out for you, right up to your lips like you shouldn’t even be asked the effort of leaning forwards to eat it. You take it carefully from his hand, and you lament the fact that you’ll get banana mush on his thumb if you try kissing it.

The fruit is flavorful on your tongue, but it’s a small slice, and you finish it quickly. You let the aftertaste linger in your mouth as you head for Bradley at the counter, pushing your face into his back and slinging your arms around his waist. You’re careful to keep pressure off of his aching ribs, and he leans into your touch instead of flinching away.

You settle your cheek against the soft fabric of his shirt, head turned so that you’re facing your houseguests. They’re all smiling at you, Carole most of all, and you offer them a sleepy one back.

“So, Brad,” Nick muses, plating the final pancake with a flourish that, thankfully, doesn’t send the stack toppling to the ground, “What are you gonna do today?”

“Nap,” Bradley blurts, and he uses the time that your family chuckles in unison to slip you another banana slice. It’s an awkward angle that his arm has to achieve, but you take it from him happily, jaw working to munch on the fruit while you nestle against his back once more.

“I dunno,” He hums, nearly through chopping the banana, “Maybe a movie or something. Hey, we could finish season 5 of The Office.”

“Mm,” You nod with a mouthful of banana against his back, “Yeah.”

You’ve been watching the series together, having finished Friends already. It’s a good show to watch before bed, because it gives you something to snuggle up together and giggle at. You’ve only got a few episodes left in the season, so you should be able to finish it in no time with Bradley’s extensive bedrest.

“Alright, my loves,” Carole croons, dropping the last two pieces of watermelon she’d been cutting into the bowl, “That’s the fruit! Are we ready to eat?”

A round of excitement circles the kitchen, and you cling to Bradley for as long as you can. He lets you, doesn’t try to shake you off as he drizzles syrup over his pancakes.

“You wanna split ‘em?” He offers, and you nod. He can’t see you, but he feels the movement against his back, and even if he wasn’t able to, he knows you well enough to know you’ll want bites of the food. You reluctantly let go of his waist when he picks the plate up, and you trail behind him to the dining room. He’s finally able to see the decorations you’d hung, and he stops to admire them in the doorway.

“Welcome home,” You coo, leaning your head on his shoulder.

Carole stands proud beneath the banner, “Do you like it, baby?”

“Guys-,” Bradley chuckles sheepishly, setting the pancakes down at his place just beside yours, “I love it. Thank you, even though I was only gone for two days.”

“It was the longest two days of my life,” You gripe, but you suppose your days have been unpleasantly long for weeks now, “That’s what I was referring to, by the way, when I said your mom was scarily agile. I came out from the bedroom to find her standing on both the couch and the table.”

“Jesus,” Bradley huffs, bewildered. Nick looks a little concerned, Carole bashful, and your dad impressed.

Eating around the table together reminds you of when you were younger, dinners and breakfasts and lunches alike being shared around the table. It didn’t matter who’s, you could turn a Denny’s booth into your home with a few plates of food and the laughter that’s never in short supply within your family.

Bradley cuts his pancakes himself, probably happy to have something to do with his hands. He’s eager to return the favor of feeding you, grabbing chunks of pancake on the end of his fork and guiding them into your mouth. You’re reminded of a picture you’d passed up in the photo album yesterday, of Bradley spoon-feeding you as a baby. His utensil-airplane impression was probably scarily accurate thanks to his dad; you wish you could remember it. Maybe, if you don't break up tonight, you'll see him feed your own kid that way.

You’re happy to sit and be fed, even letting him wipe syrup off of your chin like you’d done for him. You’re sure the only reason he doesn’t kiss it off of you is because your dad is there, and his, too. They have a tendency to make fun of you, even if it’s all good-natured.

“D’you need more groceries, baby?” Carole points her fork in your direction, pointedly swallowing her mouthful of watermelon before speaking.

Her husband doesn’t offer you the same courtesy, speaking through a messy mouthful of eggs, “Pro’lly not. We damn near bought out the store.”

Before Carole can reprimand him for his less-than-perfect etiquette, you nod, “We need produce. We might be okay on fruit if there’s any of this left,” You gesture to the bowl of fruit salad, “But we need vegetables. And eggs, we probably used them all. I’ll make a list later, once I clean up.”

“Once we clean up,” Bradley corrects you, “I’ve been in bed for two days straight, I need to do something.”

“You’re gonna need to be in bed for a lot longer than two days,” You narrow your eyes at him, “You need rest, baby,”

“I’m rested! And I’m gonna rest later when we watch our show,” He pleads, “Just let me help?”

“Why doesn’t he help me with the dishes?” Your dad intervenes, scraping his last bite of pancake through a sticky puddle of syrup on his plate. It’s boysenberry, and a drop nearly falls to your tablecloth as he brings it to his mouth.

“You wash, I’ll dry and put away. That way you can keep your arms down. Deal?”

“Fine by me,” Bradley nods, and you shoot your dad a thankful glance.

“I’ll sort through the fridge then,” You decide, “Nick, Carole, you’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like.”

“We’re gonna keep bummin’ ‘round here ‘til you stop feeding us,” Nick decides, “Whaddya say honey, ‘think we can move into the guest room?”

“Oh I’m sure they’d love that,” Carole plays along, a wry drawl in her voice, “They’d have to hear your snoring all night.”

“He snores, too,” You jerk an accusatory thumb at Bradley who doesn’t even try to deny the allegation, “Like father, like son. It must come with the mustache.”

“Speaking of my mustache,” Bradley’s hand flies to his lip, feeling cautiously at the patch of hair atop it, “Did they- shave part of my mustache?”

A guilty look is shared around the table. You speak up in a meek voice, “Yeah, baby. To get the breathing tube in there.”

He groans, “Next time, just let me die.”

“Don’t say that,” You hiss, stomping on his foot beneath the table. The yelp that he lets out is almost comical, but Carole’s face is still scrunched in a disapproving frown at her son.

“I’m sorry!” Bradley cries, “I’m sorry, jesus, are you wearing steel-toed boots under there?”

“No, but if you keep making jokes like that, I’ll put some on and kick you in the balls.” You threaten, and Bradley thinks it might be a promise.

“It’s not funny,” Carole insists, voice weaker than yours, “Brad, you- you almost did die.”

“Mom-” He sighs weakly, posture deflating, “I’m sorry. Really, it was a bad joke. I won’t do it again. Are you okay?”

She takes a minute to think, blinking at her plate instead of meeting anyone’s eyes. Then she stands, nodding hastily, “I’m alright. I just need a minute.”

Bradley tries to follow after her but Nick stands at the same moment, waving him back down into his seat.

“She’s okay,” He promises, smiling sadly at his son, “But she really was scared. I’ll handle it, you finish eating.”

Bradley slumps back into his seat, the sinking feeling in his gut at making his mom cry probably similar to the one in yours from lying to him. You’ve become scarily fond of this temporary life of yours, where you’re still dating Bradley, and you’ve got a family again. Lying comes easy now, and if you don’t think about it, you’ll forget you’re even doing it. You’re the actor most dedicated to their craft, believing even your own performance because it means you get Bradley back.

Lying is much easier when you love doing it.

You hear a rogue sniffle from Carole down the hall, and you clatter your fork against your plate to cover it up. It probably doesn’t work, as Bradley stares forlornly at his own almost-empty plate, and you don’t think he has the appetite to finish it.

“Are you done?” You nudge his knee, and he glances up dazedly at you.

“Yeah,” His throat is dry and his voice is weary, “You want the rest?”

“I’m okay,” You shake your head, turning to your dad, “Dad? You all finished?”

“Yeah,” He smiles weakly, trying to break the awkward silence, “Ready to clean up the kitchen, Brad?”

“Alright,” He hums, standing from his chair. His movements are slow and sluggish, and you don’t think he’ll be at his best until his mom comes out with dry cheeks and a smile. In the meantime, you dig in the cupboards for a tupperware to put the fruit salad in.

Cleaning is tense, even if you and your dad try acting like nothing is wrong. Bradley’s not talkative anymore, and you resort to going about your business silently, packing the fridge with what little leftovers there are and making sure Bradley isn’t straining himself at the sink.

When Nick and Carole emerge from the bathroom, peering tentatively into the kitchen, Bradley nearly drops the last plate he’s washing into the sink. He hastily dries his hands, moving in for a hug from his mother while she smiles sheepishly at him.

“I’m sorry,” He repeats, and Nick smiles on. You try not to stare, not to ruin their moment, but you can’t help it; you and your dad share a happy grin.

“I know, baby,” She promises, combing a hand through the back of his hair, “I know, I just- I just get worried about you, s’all. ‘Specially when you land yourself in the hospital.”

“No more jokes,” Bradley promises, and she gratefully parrots him, adding 'and no more crashes,'.

“Alright,” You hum, when it’s appropriate to speak, “I’m gonna run to the store. Brad, you should get back in bed, but- uh, again, you’re all welcome to stay for longer, if you’d like.”

“I’ll go with you,” Your dad steps in, almost too close to be casual. You realize why, and that sinking feeling you’d been trying to ignore the entire morning comes back; He wants to know your secret.

“Okay,” You nod, trying to keep your composure even if your hands suddenly feel sweaty, “We won’t be gone long. Babe, get some rest, I mean it.”

You narrow your eyes at Bradley, then turn to Nick and Carole, “If you stick around, will you be on babysitting duty? Don’t let him wander around too much.”

“Will do,” Nick nods once, firmly, “Come on, Lieutenant, you heard your orders.”

“Alright, alright,” He gripes, rolling his eyes exasperatedly as Nick pats his back. He moves towards you, stepping across the kitchen tile to kiss you goodbye.

“Get me some cheetos,” He pleads, face only inches away from your own. He leans in and his mouth moves against yours as he speaks, “The jalapeno ones?”

“Okay,” You giggle, dragging out the last syllable. You use his lips to chase away your nerves, letting his sweet touch drown out the thoughts in your head. You kiss him briefly once, then twice, and send him off to bed with a quick nudge of your nose against his own.

“Bye,” Your dad flashes one hand in a quick wave as you call, ‘Be back soon!’.”

He doesn’t make his move the second the door shuts, he waits until you get going down the road in Bradley’s Bronco before opening his mouth.

“So,” He tries coming off as casual but you wouldn’t buy it in a million years, “What was Carole talking about earlier?”

“I didn’t want to tell you,” You confess, suddenly very invested in checking your blind spot even though it’s clear, “I wanted to keep it private. I didn’t even want her to know.”

“Well, she knows everything,” Your dad shrugs, discerning eyes glancing at your own guarded ones through the mirror, “And I’m usually out of the loop. Can we change that just this once?”

“Dad-” You scoff at his persistence, running a hand over your face and slapping it back onto the wheel, “Something happened between Bradley and I before the crash.”

“Something happened,” Your dad muses, brain trekking heartbreakingly positive routes, “You… paid off the cars? You bought a pet? You- oh god, don’t tell me you’re pregnant.”

“No!” You gush, but it’s not for a lack of sex, merely your use of contraceptives, “I- um, he asked me to marry him.”

You feel cruel when you see his face light up. It’s like the inflation of a balloon, features rising in joy until his eyes shine like the sun, “Oh, honey, that’s amazing. Congratulations! Have you set a date, or- or a venue, or-”

“I said no.”

The balloon deflates slightly. A tiny puff of air escapes it, like you’ve released your fingers around its spout for only a second. His eyes dull slightly, and his smile is cautiously still stretching his cheeks.

“What?”

“I said no, dad.” You repeat, voice aching in your throat, “I said no, and I left him.”

“You left him?” Your dad’s voice mirrors your own, bordering on shaky as his brain reprograms its image of you two, “You- you said no and you left him?”

“Yeah,” You whimper, the word coming out far weaker than you wish it did. Your mouth turns down so that you can bite the inside of your bottom lip, desperately withholding a sob.

“Why?”

That’s the million dollar question. The one you know the answer to, but don’t want to admit to anyone. You left because you were scared of getting hurt, and now you’re lying to everyone because you’re scared they’ll see you as a coward. You’re scared they’ll think you’re scared.

You’re scared they’ll know you’re scared.

You want to tell your dad that you don’t know. You want to tell him that it had been a fit of insanity, that you’d been cured with a walk around the block and that you’d kissed and made up just that night. But you swallow your nerves, squaring your shoulders as you make a right turn, “I was scared.”

You’d admitted it to Carole in the hospital, but she’d seen right through you, she’d forced your confession. Doing it now, by choice, makes you feel like you’re taking a step forward. It’s like you’re actually cracking down on the promise you’d made to yourself days ago, that you’d stop running just to self-destruct. You’re not facing your dad in the seat but it feels like you’re facing off with some sort of formless, panic-driven entity that encapsulates him, and slowly you’re chipping away at it.

“I was scared because marriage seems so much more than dating does. We’ve been dating- forever. The only thing marriage would have changed was that we’d have a paper telling us we loved each other. I mean,” You laugh, but the sound is reminiscent of a sob, “-we always joked about being too lazy to get married. That we didn’t do it for 20 years because we already practically were, and we didn’t wanna waste gas money for some preacher to tell us we were. But- but anyways, after Javy’s crash, I was remembering Nick’s, and I started worrying about Bradley. I was sad and scared for Nick and Javy, I couldn’t imagine being in that situation with Bradley. So when he asked me to marry him, it felt like if I said yes I’d be signing onto that. I- I know that’s dumb, and that’s not what saying yes meant. But I had this awful panic running through my head; that he could crash at any point in time, and if I didn’t get out soon, I’d be heartbroken and terrified like everyone else was, and I didn’t wanna go through that again. So I- I said no, and I told him I couldn’t love him anymore, and I left, because I thought that I’d be okay if I just didn’t marry him. Like I could have- moved on in the two days I wasn’t living with him, or something. Like if I just wasn’t formally dating him, or married to him, I wouldn’t be hurt if he was.”

“And-” You break away, voice trembling and nose running, “It didn’t even work. I walked out, and he still crashed, and I still got hurt. I didn’t solve anything, I- I made it worse. I made it so much worse, dad.”

You’ve turned into the grocery store parking lot, and a terrible, stiff, heavy silence hangs over the car while you park it. You wait until you shut it off, engine puttering out and body no longer humming, to look at him.

He’s staring at his lap, crystal-clear tears sliding down his cheeks. He isn’t looking at you, but you’re sure he knows you’re looking at him, and it turns your stomach in a nauseous whirl.

You stare for five seconds before he speaks. Five agonizing, soul-crushing, terrifying seconds where you think you might be on the verge of being disowned.

“I was never good at commitment,” His small voice breaks the silence, and the breath that he drags in to push the words out is shaky, “And- neither was your mom. Obviously. So I shouldn’t be surprised that it runs in the family. But- but Y/N, you left? You have been in love with Bradley since before you could say the word, I mean he- he was the only one that could get you to stop crying before your naps as a kid! You wouldn’t sleep unless he was in the room, I’m surprised Nick and Carole didn’t move him in with us.”

“I know,” You croak, but he’s not finished.

“I- I understand your thought process.” He assures you, “It’s flawed, but I understand how your brain conjured it up. You were trying to save yourself, and I understand that instinct. I just can’t believe it happened between you two. I mean, you were fated, I thought you two would set the world record for longest relationship. You were gonna go gray together, you were gonna have a thousand kids, and-”

“Dad!’ You cry, a sob shaking your chest, “I know. I get it. You’re making this worse.”

“How could I possibly make this worse?” He laughs incredulously, but there’s not a shred of humor in his voice, “Y/N, I-” He lowers his voice, cutting some of the exasperation out of his tone, “I don’t even understand, why is he- oh.. my god.”

“He doesn’t know,” Your dad concludes, head knocked back against the headrest, “He doesn’t know you left him because he has amnesia.”

“Yeah,” You confirm, voice meek and shameful, “I- I was gonna leave after I knew he was okay. But then- then Carole figured us out, and she said it would be better if I pretended for now, because he was probably scared and he needed my comfort in the moment. She said to just let him remember on his own time and then address it, to- to not overwhelm him with a plane crash and a breakup.”

“But I- I thought he’d have his memory back by now,” You sniffle, wiping your nose with your hand, caring little about the mess, “The doctor said minutes, I didn’t think it’d go on for days. And now I’m starting to get worried, will- will he ever remember? Am I supposed to lie to him for the rest of my life? Or am I supposed to leave again, to confess and break his heart a second time? I don’t know what to do, dad!” You feel like a little girl, sobbing in her father’s lap, “Please, I- I don’t know what to do.”

You’re immensely relieved when he reaches over to take your hand. You’ve spent the last two weeks disgusted with yourself, and for your dad to react the way he did, you were afraid he felt the same. But he squeezes your hand tight, and you’d complain about how it squished your fingers together if it were any other situation.

“Honey,” His voice trembles, and you recall the only times you’ve ever seen him cry. After Goose’s accident, of course, when you’d broken your arm at the park when you were twelve, when the dog he’d gotten for you as a birthday present passed on. He’s a man of very little tears, so seeing them now moves you.

“I love you,” He promises, and you’re glad that hasn’t changed, “And I’m always going to, even if you do the wrong thing. And this was wrong, that- that was the wrong thing. But I think you can make it right again, and if you need my help doing that, it’s yours.”

“Thanks, dad,” You gush through a faceful of tears, a wet mess sliding down your chin and soaking through the neckline of your shirt, “I- I want to make it right. Carole thinks he’ll take me back if I apologize. And I want to, I want to apologize.”

“Yeah,” Your dad’s brows raise and he sniffles, wiping a tear from his face, “Yeah, that’s a good start. I think he’d forgive you for just about anything, I- I don’t know that you could ever drive him away.”

“That’s what Carole said," You recall, and you feel guilty for the hope it gives you.

“But that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt him.” Your dad reminds you, and you nod.

“I’m gonna grovel.” You decide, “Like, hardcore, begging on my knees, ‘I’ll-do-anything-for-you-to-forgive-me’ groveling.”

“I think that’s your best bet,” Your dad lets out a huff of laughter, smearing away another tear, “I think you can do it. But I can’t promise it’ll be easy.”

“I know,” You lament, “But- but I don’t care. I’ll do it even if it's hard. He’s worth fighting for.”

“That’s my girl,” Your dad grins, squeezing your hand. It feels like you’re back on the peewee soccer field at age four after scoring a goal. You squeeze back, and have a sudden hankering for orange slices.

“Okay, let’s stop fucking crying,” He breathes, wiping at his eyes overzealously and sniffling hard. You should have known he’d pump up the dramatics, even in serious situations.

“Alright,” You laugh wetly, the sound infused with hope you wouldn’t feel if it weren’t for your dad, “Do you think they’ll be able to tell we were crying?”

You share a quick once-over with your dad, clocking his red eyes, puffy towards the bottom, and equally rosy nose. You’re sure your face is just as swollen, and he cracks a grin.

“Nah,” He shakes his head, “Definitely not.”

The next thing you share is a laugh, cranking the car’s AC on high so that your tears dry up quicker. Maybe they’ll even freeze right on your cheeks, so that you can save them and defrost the memory later to feel your dad’s love again.

“You heard the lady,” Nick calls to Bradley when he reaches for the dish he’d abandoned in the sink, “Head to bed, Brad. I’ll finish the dishes.”

“It’s one plate!” Bradley gripes, but Carole’s dangerous glances towards him works just as effectively as it had when he was younger, and he grumbles, “Fine.”

“Sweet dreams,” Nick jeers after him as he shuffles back to your shared bedroom, but Carole nudges him towards the sink with a scoff.

“Stop teasin’ him, and get to work, busboy. I expect the counters wiped, too!”

“Call me goddamn Cinderella,” Goose grumbles, but he’d wipe down the floor before every step she took if she asked him to. He gets to work with no protest.

Carole treads carefully down the hallway, hoping her son is dressed sufficiently for her presence in the room. She finds him swapping out his pillow for yours, and she lingers in the doorway with a careful smile.

“Hey, babycakes. Gonna nap?”

“Maybe,” Bradley nods, hair already mussed from the pillow, “Thanks for staying, mom.”

“Of course, baby,” Her heart aches for her son, being on the brink of death and not even remembering it. Being so close to losing his life and not knowing how it felt. Just knowing that it happened; knowing that it didn’t happen.

“You told me when you were twelve that you were too old for me to tuck you in,” She pushes off of where she’s leaning against the doorway, coming around the bed to Bradley’s side to fuss with the blankets, “But you’re probably still weak from the crash, and you couldn’t push me away if you tried.”

He lets out a laugh, one that’s rife with exhaustion but genuine all the same, as she digs her hands beneath his sides, tucking the comforter beneath him. She braces her hands on the mattress to lean down and kiss his forehead, and when she does, the tips of her fingers are pricked by the sharp corner of something she can’t see under the pillow beside him.

“Ouch! What-” She hisses, nearly face-planting over Bradley’s shoulder as she lifts the pillow. She stiffens when she realizes it’s a picture of you, framed in black wood and probably missing from his nightstand.

“I- I’m sorry.” She mumbles as he lays frozen and awkward in place, “I didn’t mean to pry. It just- it was sharp, and I was confused. If I'd known-”

“It’s alright, mom.” Bradley promises weakly, clearly embarrassed by her discovery, “Don’t worry about it.”

Carole is worried. She moves in again for the forehead kiss, letting it linger against Bradley’s forehead for a second longer than she needs to. She fights back tears when she pulls away, barely able to muster a smile.

“She’s just goin’ to the store,” She teases sweetly, “She’s not shippin’ off to war. That’s your job.”

“Yeah,” He laughs weakly, “I know. I just miss her.”

She agrees as she combs through his caramel-colored hair with one hand, “Yeah? Tell me about it, baby. What’s going on?”

She wants to hear it from him. She wants to know exactly what he’s thought of your careful deception, and see if she can offer him even miniscule relief towards your possibly suspicious behavior. It’s hard playing a double agent, but she loves you both too much to pick a side.

“Mom,” He takes a long pause before speaking, gnawing on the inside of his cheek like it’s gristle he’s working through, “I lied.”

She racks her brain, were the pancakes not good? Did he not want her to tuck him in? Does he wish they’d gone home so that he could have a moment of silence?

“Oh, yeah? About what, baby?”

“I…” Bradley starts, looking like the words are making him nauseous, rolling his stomach as they crawl out of his mouth, “I remember everything.”

Carole’s the one that’s going to be sick. Her stomach has only dropped so fast twice in her life, receiving the news of both of her boys’ crashes. It’s the hardest thing in the world to keep a straight face, but she allows it to drop slightly so that it looks like she’s just shocked by the news.

“What?" Perhaps her voice is louder than it should be, but she can't control it, "Your memories are back?’

“Yeah. I- I remember it all. And Mom-”

“Brad,” Nick calls from down the hallway, barreling into the room in his typical dramatic , “You- she said your memories are back?”

They freeze like he’s torn an irreparable hole in the delicate conversation. He’s always had a habit of bringing life into a room, but the subject matter had been killing them both, and his energy is the opposite of what they both need to finish it.

“Yeah, dad.” Bradley breathes, a sheen of uncontrollable tears glazing over his eyes that he prays no one sees, “I remember everything.”

“That’s great!” Nick cheers, giddy demeanor slowly dying as no one else smiles, “...Isn’t it? What’s- why are you crying, Brad?”

Carole turns to see for herself, and swallows a sob as she reaches over to wipe the single tear away that had managed to escape down his left cheek. At her touch his face crumples, and what must be a million more tears flood his face.

“Woah, hey,” Nick sits at the end of the bed, face finally drained of all happiness, “What’s the matter, Brad?”

“S’okay baby,” Carole promises, her own voice shaky, “You’re okay, Bradley. You can talk to us, you can tell us anything. What’s the trouble?”

“She left.” Bradley whimpers, overhead light illuminating every single crystalline tear that rushes in a waterfall down his face. He gasps for breath, choking on a cry when he tries to speak over it, “She- she left me!”

“Bradley,” Carole rushes to soothe him, smoothing her hands over his cheeks and slipping one behind his neck, “Sit up baby. Come here, sit up, talk to us.”

He lets Nick help her tug him off of the mattress, and he slumps forward into Carole’s embrace when she pulls him into a hug. He doesn’t even turn his head to bury his face into her shoulder, he just cries against her, limp like a ragdoll.

She presses rapidfire kisses to his temple, tears flowing down her own cheeks. She heard your side of the story first, she knows you had your reasons and your fears and your regrets, but watching Bradley fall apart is planting an ugly seed of anger towards you within her chest. She hates it because she loves you, but she wants her son to be okay again.

“Brad-man,” Nick splutters warily, “Y/N? Bud, she just went to the store. She’ll be back in, like, an hour, tops. No need for tears, son.”

“Nick,” Carole hisses, wishing she wasn’t so angry with him for not knowing the truth. She shouldn’t either, so she pets Bradley’s hair down to distract herself from giving anything away, “Baby, what do you mean?”

“She left,” Bradley repeats, crying defeatedly, his posture slumped and his tears thick and plentiful, “I asked her to- to marry me, and she left.”

Nick is finally silent. His spine stiffens, and Carole guesses a shiver ran up it. He looks at her bewilderedly, bordering on horrified, and she stares back, wishing for the third time in her life that she could turn back time.

“Brad,” Nick starts carefully, voice weak, “Do you- do you think you might be misremembering things, bud? I trust you, and- and obviously this means a lot to you. But that- maybe your concussion’s messin’ with your head. Are you sure that happened?”

“I’m sure, dad.” Bradley had the option to respond with a lot more malice than he chooses to, the words coming out miserable instead, “She left me, and now she’s pretending she never did, because she thinks I don’t remember.”

“She left you,” NIck repeats, still skeptical, “And she’s- she’s lying? Why would she-”

“I hope she never stops,” Bradley croaks, throat raw from sobs, “I hope she lies to me forever.”

Carole’s breath is knocked out of her chest. She manages a soft, teary, ‘What?’, and Bradley straightens up from where he’d been lying in her embrace.

“She left two weeks ago,” Bradley recalls, a stray sob bouncin his chest, “And- and it was hell. I lived in hell for two weeks. I thought she’d stay with Phoenix or something, but I- I checked, and her location was always some cheap motel. At first I thought- well, I was worried she was seeing someone else, or something. Y’know, motels have,” He sniffles, “-bad reputations. So I didn’t go see her. I thought she was over me or something. But she’s- that’s not her. That’s not my girl. So I was going to show up on Friday, give her until the end of the week to cool off, and bring her flowers. Chocolates, ice cream, movies-” He rambles, “Whatever. I wanted to make her fall in love with me again. But- I mean, that didn’t fucking work, did it?”

Carole’s too distraught to scold him for his language. He deserves it, he deserves to climb onto the roof and shout ‘fuck!’ as loud as he wants. The situation is truly fucked, there’s no other word for it.

Her chest ripples with a sob, and Nick’s hand comes to rub her back. Up and down, in soft, soothing motions that remind her why she fell for him.

“And- and then I woke up in the hospital, and my head was fuzzy, and my memories were gone. And the doctor told me I had amnesia, and she- she freaked. She ran off, she made that shitty bathroom excuse. I thought she was just going to cry, and- and didn’t want anyone seeing her. But everything came back to me while you two were outside,” Bradley glances guiltily at Carole, “-and- and I was gonna beg her to stay when she came back. But then- she asked to kiss me,” He whimpers, face held tight in a twisted grimace as he tries not to sob again, “-and I had a choice. I realized she was pretending, that- that it never happened. And I could choose to confess to remembering the truth, and lose her all over again, or-” Bradley shuts his eyes, squeezing a tear out of the left one, “Or pretend I didn’t know. And I wanted her- I needed her, so I pretended. I let her kiss me, and I let her-” He sniffles hard, “I let her hold my hand, and I let her feed me, and I let her lie to me. I loved it,” He cries, shoulders shaking with sobs, “I loved it when she lied to me. And I don’t want her to stop. At- at first, I thought she’d confess. That she’d tell me so that we could forgive and forget, or- or at least move forward. Because I want to, I want to forgive her, I already have, but she just won’t tell me anything happened. She was so-” He considers, voice heavy with despair, “So sweet in the hospital. It felt like nothing had happened at all, and I thought we could go back to that. We got so damn close,” He recalls, “We were- we were in the hospital room, alone, and she was just starting to tell me, and a fucking nurse walked in. We were this close!” Bradley sobs, fingers held a few tantalizing centimeters apart, “But now- now she keeps dodging the questions, and I started realizing that she-” He sniffles roughly, “-she might not want me back. She might leave if she knows I know. She’s doing it out of pity,” He chokes on his words, “So now I can’t tell her. Now I have to lie unless I want to lose her.”

Nick looks sick to his stomach, and Carole feels the same. They’re sharing horrified glances, but neither wants to berate him for lying to them. Nick reaches out to hold Bradley’s hand, and he squeezes it reassuringly.

“I get it, Brad. I do. I- if you don’t mind me asking, why did she leave? I thought-” He trails off, picking back up with even less confidence, “I thought you were soulmates, or something.”

“Yeah.” Bradley breathes, nodding, “I did, too. But she- she told me she couldn’t love me anymore. And I didn’t want to make her.”

“She told you she couldn’t love you anymore?” Nick rears back to stare questioningly at Carole, “What does that mean?”

“She’d been weird lately,” Bradley admits, “Sort of withdrawn. She wasn’t as enthusiastic in the mornings, when I’d go to work. But she always seemed fine when I came back- great, even. And I just figured she wasn’t sleeping right. But- but since Coyote crashed, I've been... scared. I had this sort of epiphany, that I could die any day and she’d be left all alone. I could die before we got married, I could die before we had kids, I could die before I got to grow old with her. I mean, I knew it was a risk,” He reasons, “But that was real. I watched that happen, and I watched his girlfriend sob in the waiting room, and I realized that could be Y/N. And I didn’t want my girlfriend terrified outside my hospital room, I wanted to say goodbye to my wife. So I thought-” He wipes a tear from his cheek, rough enough to leave it stained red, “I thought if I married her, things would be better. More secure. And she’d know that even if I died, I’d love her forever. Because that’s what marriage is, that’s- that’s what we were.”

“So I ignored the way she was acting,” Bradley laments, “I- I pushed it aside as sleep deprivation, and I pulled out a ring, and I asked her if she’d marry me. And she- she just flipped. Her eyes got all wide, and I kept waiting for her to say ‘yes’, but- but she stood up instead, and she said no. She said she wasn’t ready, that- that she couldn’t do this. That she couldn’t marry me, that she couldn’t love me anymore. And I was-” He breaks into a sob, “I was so confused. I was so hurt, because- because what? What- where did that come from? I thought she loved me,” He cries, “I thought she’d love me forever. And all of a sudden, she just can’t anymore? What happened, did- did she not want to be with me forever? Was twenty years not enough? To convince her that I was enough? I was so terrified, and I had this disgusting, sinking feeling as she was rambling about it, and she headed for the door, and I- I panicked.”

Bradley pants between sentences, breathing heavy and labored as tears spill down his cheeks. “I followed her, and I caught her by the door, and I- I begged her not to go, I told her that we could work it out, that we didn’t have to get married, that I’d make everything okay again. But she still left,” Bradley cries, “She still left me, and she didn’t come back.”

“Bradley,” Nick breathes, a hand on his knee, “Shit, Brad. I’m sorry.”

“Baby,” Carole croons, leaning in to brace her forehead against his temple, “Baby, I’m so sorry. She’s- I wish she hadn’t done that.”

“Me too,” Bradley laughs, a humorless huff after he’s gotten enough control of himself to where he doesn’t sob, “But- but she’s pretending now. And if I confess to remembering, she’ll stop. And she’ll leave. She’s- she’s doing it out of pity,” Bradley drearily repeats, “Because she doesn’t want to drop a bomb on me after I fell out of the sky. And I know it’s not right to take advantage of it, to- to lie, but if it’s what I have to do to keep her with me-”

“No,” Nick shakes his head, “Brad, you can’t lie forever.”

“I can,” Bradley insists, “Dad, I have to.”

“You can’t,” Nick urges, “Brad, think about it. You really think she’d be kissin’ you if she didn’t love you? You think she’d have slept in here with you last night if she didn’t want to? You listen to me, boy. I don’t know why she left. I don’t know why she ‘couldn’t’ love you all of a sudden. But I know it’s bullshit, ‘cause she does. Something happened, and you need to talk about it with her. But spending your entire life living a lie isn’t right. That ain’t fair, to you or her. Tell her, Brad. Tell her you know.”

“I can’t! Not yet. I’ll- I’ll make her fall in love with me again. I know I can do it, I know I can convince her I’m worth it. That she can keep loving me. I’m not going to hold her captive, I just- I just want enough time to make her fall for me again, and then she won’t be lying about the love, then it’ll be real love, and that’s what I want. I can’t tell her yet, not until she really loves me again.”

“You have to tell her now, baby,” Carole concludes softly, gentle with her son’s broken heart and panicked brain, “Wouldn’t it be better if she knew? Then you could talk, and- and kiss and make up, that sort of thing. This is- a lie, Bradley, even if it's only temporary in your mind. You’re both lying to each other, and that’s not love."

“It’s all I’ve got,” Bradley breathes, tilting his tear-stained, blotchy face towards the light overhead. His eyes are shut, delicately so, and his lashes are clumped with tears. He sniffles, nose scrunching, and takes a deep breath before looking back at his parents.

“I know she said she can’t love me anymore, whatever that means. But like I said, I’m gonna win her over again, mom. I need her to love me, and if my options are letting her lie to me, or losing her, then I’m gonna let her lie to me until she doesn’t have to anymore. Until it’s real.”

Carole wants to scream at her son. She wants to sit you down beside him and scream something along the lines of ‘Would you confess already? Tell each other the truth, and get married!’. But she chooses a gentler approach, leaning in to wipe away what she hopes is the last of Bradley’s tears.

“I don’t think you should avoid it, baby,” She hums, keeping her voice soft and sweet so that Bradley takes it as friendly advice, and not a mother’s nagging, “I think you should tell her that you remember it all, and ask her what went wrong. Ask her why she felt like she couldn’t love you anymore, figure out what the problem was. Because if you know what the problem was, you can fix it.”

“But what if I can't-?” Bradley hums, and Carole snaps.

“Oh, of course you can fix it.” A residual dry sob splits her thought in half, “You two could fix world hunger if you did it together. Your dad’s right. She still loves you, even if she thinks she can’t. You might have to help her see that she still can, Brad. That she still does.”

“But I could lose her.” Bradley concludes glumly, “And I can’t lose her. So I can’t tell her the truth. I- I thought I lost her today." His shoulders tighten as he remembers, "I was trying to stay awake the whole night, just in case she tried slipping out before morning. But she caught me, and she-” He lets out a sob that hurts his throat, “She held me, and she lulled me to sleep, and I’ve never felt safer. But then I woke up, and she was gone, and the bed was empty, and- and I ran out to see if I could find her, and she was just in the hall. Talking to Mav. But I thought-” He can’t finish his sentence, shaking his head instead and starting over, “I can’t tell her the truth yet. I’ll lose her.”

They’re all running in circles, and it’s making Carole insane. She bites her lip to stop from confessing, then rises to her feet, Nick following after her.

“Sleep on it,” She suggests, smoothing out the bedsheets where she’d sat, “And she’ll be back by the time you wake up. I think you should tell her,” She repeats, “She loves you, Brad. Goodnight.”

Nick takes his leave as well, nodding at his wife’s words. Bradley slumps back against his- your pillow, one hand already snaking beneath the opposite one to retrieve your picture.

Nick barely waits until Carole’s shut the door behind her before turning on her, “What the fuck?”

“Move,” She urges in a hissing whisper. She grabs his bicep, dragging him away from the door. She doesn’t feel safe talking anywhere in the house, paranoid that Bradley could hear, but she pushes NIck down into a seat at the table, and huddles close to him to murmur, “I knew.”

“You- you what?” Nick’s voice goes up in volume, and Carole is sure she spits a little bit when she shushes him.

“I knew,” She repeats, “I knew she left him. She told me at the hospital.”

“Why am I never in the loop?” NIck groans, looking thoroughly confused, “Wait, so you knew the entire time? Like, from day 1?”

“Day one of the hospital,” She nods, “She didn’t tell me when it happened, she waited until I asked where her ring was after his crash. I knew he was gonna ask her, but he told me to keep it a secret ‘cause he wanted to do a big reveal. But I noticed she didn’t have it on in the hospital, and I asked, and she burst into tears. Started ramblin’ about how she was freaked out, and how she fled, and wasn’t ever brave enough to come back.”

“Why,” Nick presses, “Why was she freaking out? What’s the ‘can’t love you anymore’ bullshit?”

“She got scared after Javy went down,” Carole recalls, “She said it took her back to your crash, and she realized all of a sudden that it could happen to Brad, too. And she didn’t wanna do that again, 'didn’t wanna sit in a hospital chair and wait to see if someone she loved had stopped breathing. So she’d been freakin’ out since Javy crashed, then all of a sudden Bradley proposes, and- bam,” She sighs, “Everything fell apart. I mean it was a recipe for disaster, the crash made her pull away, and it made him want to be closer than ever, and they never addressed it, so when they clashed, it just-” She rubs her temples, staring up at Nick through her lashes, “Unraveled. But this is good. This is- this is really good, Nick. He wants her back, he wants another shot. And so does she. We’ve been talkin’, and she wishes she’d never left in the first place. I told her she should confess later tonight, now- that was before I knew he already knows, of course. But- but they’ll talk tonight, and she’ll tell him what happened, and she’ll ask to fix things, and he’ll want that, too. It’s gonna be okay, Nick, they’re gonna be okay. They’ll be fine by the end of the night, I guarantee it.”

“My head is spinning,” Nick scoffs, dragging a hand down his mustache and tugging lightly on the ends, “So- so they both know, they just don’t know they know, but we know that they know, and we know that they don’t know they know, and-” He gives up, “I don’t know.”

“That’s about right,” Carole nods, eyes bugging for a moment before she heaves another sigh, “I think she’s tellin’ Mav about it now. He overheard us talking about a secret, that secret. So when he volunteered to go shopping with her I figured he was gonna ask. And I don’t think she’d lie to him, I don’t think she could if she tried.”

“This is all so goddamn complicated,” Nick laments, clearing a crumb off of the table, but ultimately just flicking it onto the floor, “We were easy, babe. I mean, we locked eyes and I was having visions of you in a white dress.”

“Stop,” Carole gushes, but a smile is growing on her face, “Love is complicated sometimes! Doesn’t mean it’s bad.”

“I’m just glad none of this shit happens to us,” Nick grins, holding out a hand, “You and me, honey, we’re easy love.”

“Don’t say it like that!” Carole gushes, though she gives him her hand willingly, “What are we, hippies?”

“I said easy, not free,” Nick laughs, “Nothin’ about our wedding was free, baby.”

“But you’d pay it all again, for me, wouldn’t you?” She narrows her eyes unamused at him, and he squeezes her hand.

“Honey, I’d spend every cent to my name just to be able to marry you over again.” Nick swears, and it’s the truth, they both know it. Carole gives him one of her sweet smiles, the one he’d fallen in love with, and each has renewed hope for you and Bradley. You’re in love just the same as them, and if they’ve got it worked out, so will you.

Grocery shopping with your dad is harder than you’d remembered, because now you’re the adult paying with your own money, and he’s the child throwing cookies and chips galore into the cart. You’re surprised you have any money left when you exit the supermarket, but you’re sure to pack 3 bags of Bradley’s cheetos into your stash. You wonder how he’s doing; if he’s asleep, if he’s fighting his parents to stay upright while they try to get him to rest, if he’s suddenly remembered everything he’d forgotten and now they’re helping him pack his things.

The thought of him leaving you makes your stomach burn white hot with fear, and you consider speeding home. But the load of groceries you’d gotten might have depleted any money you’d be able to pay the fine with, and you’re not keen on going to prison. So you and your dad drive home within the speed limit, and he helps you carry the bulging bags inside.

You’re simultaneously desperate to see Bradley, and hoping that you don’t when you walk in. On one hand, you hope he’s resting, napping in your bed like you’d asked him to. But on the other, if you don’t see him when you walk in, that means he might not even be in the house, and maybe you were right to catastrophize, maybe he’s gone, maybe he’s left you and asked his parents to drive him to the airport, and maybe he’s blocked you and told his teammates how awful you are, and-

And his parents are sitting on the couch. They turn back to smile at you when you come in, and both stand to help you with your bags. Your dad insists that he can manage all five that he’d lifted out of the car, but you’re eager to let Nick steal two of yours, and Carole takes the last one even though you tell her you can manage.

You busy yourself with putting the groceries away, and your dad busies himself with raiding the bags for the snacks he’d picked out. You’re sure he’ll slip a $20 into your purse later, he’s never let you pay for him, but he loves teasing you like he’ll dine and dash.

“Alright,” He announces, with hands full of junk food, “I’m outta here. I’m gonna head back home, I need to stock my pantry, then make dinner.”

“And that dinner wouldn’t be mint chip oreos, would it?” Carole raises an unimpressed brow at him and his junk food stash, and he rolls his eyes fondly at the woman.

“No. Penny has requested a very complicated pasta dish for tonight that I need at least three hours to make in case I mess up the first batch and need to restock ingredients to try it again. I think she’s testing me.”

“Good luck, buddy.” Nick claps your dad on the back, “Hope you pass.”

“Yeah,” Your dad’s eyes go wide, a sigh escaping him, “Me too. Y/N, uh-”

“Tell him.” Carole cuts in, eyes as intense as you’ve ever seen them despite the smile on her face. You know she means business, and you don’t blame her.

Nick doesn't look confused by her cryptic, vague statement, and you assume she’s filled him in. You suppose it’s only fair, because your dad knows now, too, but you hadn’t planned on making it a public affair. Nick doesn’t seem to despise you, though, in fact he sends you a reassuring smile as he herds Carole to the door.

“We’re going, too. He’s asleep,” He nods toward your bedroom, “Tell him, honey.”

Your suspicions are confirmed; he knows. You nod hesitantly, watching them pile into the entryway and take their empty grocery bags with them. All except for your dad, of course, who packs his snacks into one. You’re hit with an overwhelming sense of being blessed, not necessarily with divine miracles, but with people who just might be them. They’ve come, they’ve given you food, love, and encouragement, and they’re leaving so that you can have a chance at fixing up the best part of your life.

If they notice your teary eyes when you wave goodbye, they don’t mention it.

The groceries are put away, and you have no desire to take down the decorations. Not when you’re aching with fatigue, not when your emotions have gotten the best of you for two weeks. You don’t have much energy for anything anymore, and you haven’t since you’d left Bradley. You wonder, if the worst happens, and he doesn’t forgive you, will you ever stop being tired? Is it Bradley that energizes you, is it the love that he’s so ready and willing to give you that keeps you going?

You’d like to think you’d be able to pick yourself back up, dust yourself off, and move on with your life, but after twenty years of loving Bradley and being loved back by him, you know this is the only life worth living.

You drag your exhausted limbs down the hallway, cracking open the door to find that Nick was telling the truth - he’s fast asleep.

He’s on his stomach, his cheek squished sideways against the pillow. He’s snoring lightly, a sound that you should despise, but that prompts a grin over your face. You feel nothing but soft, sweet love for him in this moment, your snoozy boy.

You’re more than happy to crawl in beside him, barely remembering to take your shoes off before getting beneath the sheets. It’s warm beneath the blanket, the safe kind of warmth that draws you in with the promise of drowsy cuddles and whispered proclamations of love. You do just that as you snuggle up to Bradley’s side, adoring the way that he moves in his sleep to curl around you even if he doesn’t know you’re there.

“I love you, Brad,” You whisper against his temple, kissing his hairline and the prickly whisps that sit at its border. He’s roused from his sleep from how close you’d spoken to his ear, and it looks physically painful for him to open his eyes. He does, though, lifting his face so that his chin perches on your chest. He blinks blearily at you, once, twice, probably drowsy out of his mind.

“Hm?”

His voice is groggy, thick with sleep. It’s the most endearing sound you’ve ever heard, and you crane your neck forwards to bump your nose into his as you repeat it: “I love you, Brad.”

His typical puppyish aura becomes more cat-like as he smushes his face into your own, nose smearing against your skin and forehead bumping into yours. He hums deep in his throat, happy to have you beside him as his hands wind tightly around your waist.

“Love you too, babe.” He rasps, “Gonna sleep w’me?”

“Yeah,” You whisper, smoothing his hair out of his face, “Lay down, baby, I’ll rub your back.”

His only reply is plopping his face back down into your chest, cheek chubbed up where it rests on your shirt. He’s out like a light almost as soon as you start raking your fingers up and down his back, ghosting them over his skin like you’re trying to do it without him knowing.

You know he’s sleeping by now, you know he doesn’t need you to keep doing it, but the fact that you get to feels like a gift, and you occupy yourself with the task of scrawling random designs over his back for a few minutes longer. Swirls and waves turn into a curve down his spine, and then you connect it with an identical one over his other side; a heart. One heart becomes two, then three, and all of a sudden he’s covered in them. You’re carving paths into his skin, digging heart-shaped trenches down his back like you’re walking the same path in a dirt road every single day. You wonder if he’d look good with them tattooed, an expansive mural of your love on his back for only you to see.

All of a sudden hearts aren’t enough.

LOVE

YOU

You trace letters into his back, your nail scraping slightly on every curve of your finger. He shivers slightly at the bottom half of the ‘y’, and you bite back a giggle as he nestles further into you.

You don’t stop there.

YOU

ARE

CUTE

It seems only appropriate with the way he’s snuggled up to you like a sleepy puppy, desperate to press every inch of his body against your own.

LOVE

YOU

Again, then- your breath catches in your throat as you remember.

I’M

SORRY

Tears prick at your eyes when his arms tighten infinitesimally around your waist, a sleepy hum oozing from his throat like sweet honey, slow and sugary. You’re worried he’s awake, that he’s caught onto what you’re doing, and wants to talk. You know you have to tell him, you just don’t want to.

But he settles without so much as the blink of an eye, and you wait only a quick second to start using his back as your diary once more.

I’M

SORRY

WISH

I’D

STAYED

LOVE

YOU

You feel absolutely pathetic. Tears have leaked down your face, sideways into the bases of your ears, creating an uncomfortable wet sensation that you’d rather there not be. You’re trying to hold in a sob so that you don’t wake him, but it hurts. Your throat aches from holding in your anguish, and your chest aches with the knowledge that everything you’ve done with Bradley over the past few days could be your last time doing it with him. This morning could have been your last morning with him, this nap could be your last nap with him, the kiss you strain to press to his forehead could be the last kiss you ever give him. It’s all too much, and your finger tapers off in its pursuit of tracing your love letters onto his back.

You wrap your arms around him instead, a difficult position to maintain while simultaneously trying to sleep, but all you want is to drift off in his embrace, just in case this is the last time you’ll ever do it.

Between your exhaustion and your despair, the former wins out. You finally drift off into a dreamless sleep, burdened by the ever-present threat of this being the last day you can pretend like this. You’re talking tonight, whether you like it or not, and the thought plagues what could have been a very relaxing, rejuvenating nap with your lover.

Instead you wake up possibly less refreshed than before, bleary eyes blinking despite a pounding headache behind your eyes. The sun has shifted over the blankets you’re under, and Bradley isn’t on top of you anymore, he’s by your side. You’ve swapped positions, and you don’t know how he’d managed to maneuver you onto his chest without waking you, but he’s always exceptionally careful with you, so you’re sure you’d slept like a baby the entire time.

He’s still in his fuzzy pajamas, and you wish you were, too. He’s holding his phone above your head, presumably scrolling through social media, or news headlines he’s forgotten about since his accident, and his eyes are fixed on the phone screen. You have a quick second to admire him before he realizes you’re up, and your eyes rove over his features. His lips are quirked up delicately in the corners, his mustache dipping down ever-so-slightly over his bottom lip. His eyes hold a fond look that reminds you of honey, paired excellently with his caramel-colored bedhead.

His color has returned completely; if you didn’t get the call that he’d been an inch from death, you wouldn’t know now. But you know his injuries are more internal, and you’re worried about how he’s laid you over his chest.

You’re in no rush to let him know you’re awake, so you ogle him some more. He swipes left a few times at the screen, and you think he might be looking between pictures. Of what, you’re not sure, maybe a tiktok slideshow of cute cats or of Hangman’s nieces at the playground. You’ve never met them, but the amount of pictures he sends of them makes it feel like you yourself gave birth to them.

He gets a notification and glances at it, but when his eyes drop back to the subject on the screen, they go lower than he’d intended, and he sees your open eyes blinking owlishly at him. In a second he’s forgotten about his phone, but he keeps it in his hand to avoid dropping it on your head.

His face doesn’t light up, it blooms. There’s no jarring explosion of happiness, no sudden firework show of joy, but his grin widens smooth and steady, like a vine crawling a garden wall. His eyes ooze with adoration, and you’d kiss them if that wouldn’t hurt him. His free hand tightens where it had been thrown around your waist, and he looks residually sleepy as he smiles down at you. He must not have woken very long ago.

“Hi, angel,” He hums, and you feel his slightly raspy voice vibrate through his chest. He leans forward to nudge his nose against yours, and you reciprocate like a cat in need of affection. You wriggle up by his side, peering at his screen while simultaneously nestling yourself against him.

It’s a picture of the two of you together.

You’re at the zoo, and there’s a giraffe behind you, eager to see if Bradley’s phone contained any lettuce. It didn’t, but after the animal had tested its theory Bradley’s right speaker wouldn’t work until he got it replaced. It was a very pricey snack. He gives you a moment to admire it, then swipes to the right, back to one of the pictures he’d been looking at before. It’s you pressed up against the glass at the penguin exhibit, one of the little birds curiously following your finger against the glass. He swipes rapidly now, all through photos of you, most containing him as well.

You realize he’s looking only at pictures of you, and your heart just about stops in your chest. It doesn’t know whether to swell with love for the boy, or shrivel at the knowledge that he might delete them when he knows the truth.

“Oh, Brad,” You breathe, “You’re looking at pictures of us?”

“Mostly us. A lot of just you, though,” He admits, “I’m trying to jog my memory.”

Oh.

“Oh.” You nod, “Is it-” You break off with a yawn, “Is it working?”

“No,” His smile dims, “Uh, not really. I don’t know. It’s like- I want them back, so this chunk of my life isn’t just missing. But I almost died- and,” He stops, eyes no longer focused on the screen, merely staring through it, “I don’t think I want to remember that.”

“I’m sorry, Brad.’ You tell hum, because you are. You’re sorry he can’t remember anything, you’re sorry he will remember everything, and you’re sorry you remember everything. “I’d swap with you in a second,” You promise, but it means more than you let on. You yearn for amnesia, you wish you didn’t have to remember making the stupidest mistake of your life and losing your love. You’d fall out of the sky if it meant you could forget what you’d done to him that night.

“I wouldn’t want you to,” He smiles sadly at you, kissing the crown of your head. “I’ll get through it. Whatever happens, s’long as I’ve got you.”

You hope he doesn't hear your voice tremble when you reply, “Yeah. You've got me.”

Bradley resumes scrolling through pictures, and his lips quirk up more at each image he sees.

“Remember this?” He angles the phone further towards you, “When Mav almost fell off of that fishing boat, and my dad almost fell in trying to stop him?”

“And your mom almost fell in laughing,” You grin, tucking the expression into his neck, “We should go fishing again, sometime.”

Hope blooms in his chest at your suggestion. He’s being extra endearing today, intent on reminding you just how much you used to love him. He wants to make himself worth it for you, he wants you to want to love him again, and the fact that you’ve suggested a future outing gives him hope that you might share that future together.

“We should,” He agrees, swiping to see a photo of you in his baseball cap, holding up a fish you’d caught with a giddy grin.

“Good catch,” He praises you, rubbing his arm up and down your side, “He looks surprised.”

“I would be too, if I ate a worm and it dragged me to some giants in a boat,” You shrug, “Plus, I let him go after. He was fine.”

“You’re a very ethical fisherman,” Bradley muses, “My dad only let his go because it flopped out of his hand.”

“He’s accidentally ethical,” You giggle, “The tail almost slapped him in the face.”

“I would have paid a fortune to see that,” Bradley gushes, his fingers digging ticklishly into your side, “Let’s hope he fishes up an old boot or something this time.”

“Like in a cartoon?” You rear back to laugh incredulously at Bradley, “I don’t think people really fish up boots, Brad.”

“I’ll chuck a boot in the lake just to see his face,” Bradley promises, and the giggles you two share harmonize the twang of your heartstrings.

The next photo Bradley swipes to is a New Year’s Eve one, your traditional pose with a much more confident kiss, this time around. It’s from this past year, and you marvel at how much you’ve both grown since the awkward teens you’d seen earlier.

“Oh, that reminds me,” You gush, almost kneeing him in the already-cracked ribs as you scramble for the photo album on the bookshelf, “Let’s look at these, Brad, they’re so cute.”

He almost points out the failure in your logic, even if he does want to see the pictures. He nearly asks you why you’d look at incredibly old pictures to jog recent memories, but then all of a sudden he’s hit with the thought that those might help his case, and he shuts up. He wants you to remember how much you used to love him, or, if you still do, how it was once worth it for you to do so. How once upon a time, you could love him, and maybe if you see enough baby pictures of the two of you together, loving each other since you’d opened your eyes for the first time, that maybe you’d decide you could love him again.

You rush back to the bed with the cover already cracked, though you show it off with a gooey grin, “You were enamored with me from the moment you saw me, Brad.”

“Of course I was,” He laughs, ringing his arm around your neck to hug you tight to his side while you flip to the first page. He peers at your scrunched-up baby face, vague memories of kissing your nose flashing through his mind from when you were younger, and it was the only thing that could get you to stop crying.

“You’ve always been the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” He swipes a finger over a photo of you together, stroking it along your cheek where he was feeding you mushed-up green beans. “See? I was so entranced I didn’t even notice you were about to kick me.”

He points to your tiny foot, clothed in a onesie with dogs on it, and poised ready to fire. You’d bet money that right after the photo had been taken, you had launched your foot into his knee, and you hope little Bradley wasn’t brought to tears over it.

“Sorry, baby,” You hum, voice just as sticky-sweet as your kiss is against his cheek. He leans into it, but you’re not expecting it, so you smear a bit more spit over his face than you’d intended to. However, when you laugh incredulously and try to wipe it off, he wriggles away from your shirtsleeve, insisting on keeping the mark.

“No! I fell out of the sky three days ago,” Bradley gripes, head held high, “I get to keep all of the gross kisses you give me.”

“I’d launch a gross kiss attack if I wasn’t worried about hurting your ribs,” You lament, settling back into his side, “Oh, Brad, look at this one!”

It was your first Halloween together. Bradley’s sporting a yellow hat in the picture, with bear ears on top, and a red shirt over his chubby baby belly. His pants are the same shade as his hat, and you’re the Piglet to his Winnie the Pooh as you sit in a pink onesie and matching ear-hat in his little lap.

You tug the photo out of its sleeve, reading Carole’s neat inscription on the back: Bradley cried just a few minutes after we took this, because we looked away for a second and when we turned back he was feeding Y/N a snickers bar. We didn’t mean to yell, but we freaked out and spooked him, and he wouldn’t stop crying unless we told him he could finish the rest of the bar. Winnie the Pooh does NOT like raised voices.

“Crybaby,” You tease, and Bradley groans.

“I was a kid! They yelled at me! Of course I cried!”

“Poor baby, you just wanted to feed me chocolate,” You croon, turning sympathetic at the sight of his exasperated brown eyes, “You’ve always been good to me, Brad.”

“Always,” He promises, squeezing you tighter, then pointing at the next page over, “Aw, look at this one. They dressed you up as the turkey for thanksgiving.”

“We fell asleep in front of the fire,” You recall, not from memory but from the stories you’ve been told, and the pictures you’d seen, “We were both milk drunk and stuffed from dinner.”

“Still nappin’ together all these years later,” Bradley grins, leaning in to brush his nose against yours.

“Let’s nap together forever,” You sigh as you nestle your cheek back against his arm. His confidence builds the more you suggest a future together, and he thinks that what his dad had been telling him might have been right; maybe you do still love him, maybe it’s not a lie. Maybe you do just need a little convincing, and he’s happy to show you how great he can be for you.

“Here’s my first snowman,” Bradley hums, pointing to a picture that’s exactly as it was described. You’re on vacation together and he’s the snowman, bundled in a thousand layers of winter gear and still shivering from the cold as Nick piles snow around him in three tiers. You're sitting off to his left, eating a chunk out of his icy side.

“Your little nose is so red!” You croon, nearly melting in fondness for baby Bradley, “He was so mean!”

“I’m surprised I didn’t get frostbite. I bet my mom gave him the lecture of a lifetime for that one.” Bradley snickers, “Mav probably had to take us both into the other room so she could swear.”

“She swore at me the other day,” You recall, and Bradley’s eyes nearly bug out of his head.

“What? Why?”

You realize too late that you can’t really tell him the reason, but you shake your head dismissively, “It was when we were at the hospital. She was just stressed, ‘s all.”

Bradley’s half worried about his mom, and half worried about you. He’s concerned that his accident had stressed her out enough to swear, something she never did, but he’s concerned that it had been at the wrong time for you, that she’d only made your secret situation worse by snapping at you for something unrelated.

You just hope he never finds out that she’d known from the start.

“Look,” You prompt, “There’s another picture of us napping in here, right-” You flip through a substantial amount of pages, “Here.”

Your finger lands on a photo of you and Bradley at fifteen, harboring crushes on each other almost too big to hide. It seems like everyone but yourselves had known you were going to get together, and you flash your dad’s inscription on the back at him with an exasperated smile.

Next time, I’m making them leave the door open when they study.

You’re definitely not doing anything scandalous, but years in the navy had taught your father to be hypervigilant around men. He’d rather you be with Bradley than absolutely anyone else in the world, of course, he knew the boy was kind-hearted, but he was still a boy, and it was difficult for him to be one-hundred percent on board with the situation while you were still teenagers.

You’re slumped against each other on the bed, being held up only by the other’s opposite weight. You’re balanced precariously, and if either of you had shifted slightly, you’d both have toppled. But it seems you’d dozed off while reading a Physics textbook, and you don’t blame yourself at all.

You’re not sure you’ve ever felt the phrase ‘walking down memory lane’ to be more accurate. Each turn of the page, each rectangular piece of photo paper tucked beneath its cellophane sleeve really does transport you back in time, and you feel like you’re holding Bradley’s hand while strolling through your memories. You want to steer clear of the dark, gaping hole on his own lane, and to do so, you flip to his twenty-first birthday photo.

It’s not one that your parents had taken; they don’t know it exists. Bradley’s crouched beneath you as you spit a shot into his mouth, probably spilling some onto the gray fabric of his t-shirt. You had still technically been twenty at the time, and you’d had his birthday party at your mutual friends’ apartment, with much less strict of a bouncer than the one at the bar. You’d both gotten hammered that night, and he doesn’t remember much, but Bradley can confidently say no one else got their shots by drinking them out of your mouth.

“That was hot,” Bradley informs you, “We should do that again soon.”

“Yeah, I don’t think concussions and alcohol mix,” You scoff, knocking your head against his own, “Ease up on the booze, Brad.”

“Oh, you’re such a worrier,” He teases, knowing full well you’re correct, “Look, there’s graduation.”

The college photo of you two is printed smaller here, and if you were an artist, you could draw it from memory. Every detail, the sprig of grass stuck to Bradley’s left sleeve, the slight squint to your eyes from the sun, everything is memorable because you’ve stared at it so many times.

“This is the one I keep under your pillow when you’re deployed,” You admit in a soft murmur, “It’s my favorite.”

Bradley means to respond to that, he really does. But there’s nothing he can think of saying that would be sufficient, nothing that could possibly convey the love and adoration he feels for you. Nothing that could tell you how lucky he is to love you, and to have been loved by you for all these years. And how terrified he is to lose you. The word deployment strikes a sour chord in his chest, and all of a sudden he’s wondering how he ever left you in the first place. Being at home while you were at the grocery store sent him into a spiral, he doesn’t know how he ever made it months without seeing you, hearing you, holding you.

“You gave up the Naval Academy for me,” You recall when he doesn’t respond, your voice quivering like a thin rope stretched tight, “I told you I was scared to go by myself, that I'd miss you, and you withheld your application from the academy. For me. Brad, you gave up your dream for me.”

It doesn’t take him any time at all to respond this time around, because the answer is easy and honest: “That’s not true. You were my dream, angel. You still are.”

“Brad,” Your face crumples, and you have to bury your face in his shoulder to withhold a sob. You clutch at the fabric of his shirt sleeve, heaving a heavy sigh once you’ve collected yourself, “I love you, Bradley. I- I want to fill out the rest of this book with you,” You reach for the pages, sticking your thumb into the spot between them where the album goes thin. You flip to the empty pages, “I want to sit in a home with you and stuff this book full with pictures of us all old and gray.” You sniffle, “I want to be with you forever, I- I want our grandchildren- no, our great-grandchildren to take the last pictures in this book,” You blubber, “I- I just love you so much.”

I love you.

I want to fill out the rest of this book with you.

I want to be with you forever.

I love you so much.

He hadn’t planned on rushing it. He wanted to draw it out, spend the next few days, weeks even, showing you how loved you are, and hoping you crawl out of your shell again, reciprocate the way you used to. But he can’t wait anymore, not now that you’ve told him you’re in this for life.

“Sweetheart,” Bradley gropes for the first drawer of his dresser with a blind, frantic hand. He locates the ring in no time flat, his other arm nearly crushing you into his side as he yanks the jewelry free of the sock it had been hidden under. He shoves it towards you, unceremonious, rushed, and messy, but with all the tender sweetness in his heart: “Y/N- Marry me?”

just a reminder in case you didn't read my author's note: life got in the way and I wasn't able to include their big talk in this part, but i've just extended it to a fourth part that will be posted next week! i'm sorry to keep you waiting longer, some very heavy stuff has gone on in my life lately and it was very hard to work on this. i hope you enjoyed, and i hope you understand! i'm sorry again for not finishing it when i said i would </3 buttt did you see the plot twist coming? i'm eager to hear what you think >:))))

feedback is greatly appreciated! comment, reblog, talk in the tags, send me a message, tell me what you think!

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hausofmamadas · 1 year ago

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OH BROOOOOIKDUCJFIDKSKSJS IM FUCKING CAAAAAAAAAAAAAACKLINF AND KICKING MY FEET TOGETHER TBIS IS AMAZING

[X]

#so like just for pure transparency purposes #I have watched this 70 times #just scream laughing and kicking my feet togetherjsjsjse #like I have laughed so hard at this the ab workout is such that I know have a 4 pack (lies)#(lies about the four pack not the amount of laughter)#bro and like when you said his ass was out like you really meant his ass was out #like it’s so out how tf have I never noticed that before😂😂😂#FUCJINFJDJS PACHO TOUCHING HIS MUSTACHE IM LITERALLYTKTJRJDB #INCONSOLABLE RN #AND THEN HOLDING HIS HANDS UP AT ‘we can take it slow’ SKSKSKSKSKS BRO I FUCKEN SEE YOU #I SEE WHAT TF YOU DID THERR #AND THEN FUCKIGJDDJEUWJW THE TIMING OF AMADO ON THE PHONE WITH ‘inside of me’ HAS ACTUALLY KILT ME DEAD #LIKE I LIFERALYYJDJDJD INCANNOT HANDLE THIS #and as I predicted the way you TIMED ALL THE ACTION IN THE SHOTS BC YOU GOT A NATURAL EYE FOR THID SHITTTTTTTT I TOLD YALL #this is how this is done🤌🏽🤌🏽🤌🏽#narcos #narcos mexico #pacho herrera #amado carrillo fuentes #also id argue this is art but its fine sksjsjsjs #also fucking obsessed with the first shot #that slow pan up from the ground GOD YOU JUST JNOW HOW TO DO THIS HOW #also why is the character consistency of Amado between S3 of OG and all of Nmx more consistent than it is in the actual show #is it the thirst for Pacho than makes it consistent or your wizardry or both?

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damagedcoda6669 · 3 months ago

Note

What do you think about being apart of iceberg lists! I recently watched an iceberg video about “disturbing/problematic artists” and they had mentioned you in the very top tier :0 (I also hope this question doesn’t offend :( )

live f☹ggot reaction (also i felt the way i draw chibi/doodle pessi is inconsistent so i gave it a fake mustache 2 balance it out)

BTW U DID NOT OFFEND ME i personally think its disgusting when ppl milk my trauma/infamy 4 content or push the narrative that im problematic and weird BECUZ OF STUFF I DID AS A DIRECT RESULT OF ABUSE AS A CHILD, but im so accustomed 2 it that i can just be Silly abt it ^o^ if the person in the vid was respectful and didnt spread misinfo then idgaf

#jack.png #birdie #damagedcoda6669

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iwanty0uu · 1 year ago

Text

Pussy Monster

Pt 4┊͙✧˖*°࿐

His tongue glided against your lips, asking permission to enter, you slightly opened your mouth, swirling your tongue around his. The sweet taste of him marinating of your tongue made you desperate for more. Your hands found their way to his wife beater, lifting it off of him. He raised his hands, watching the thin piece of material glide off of his body, revealing his tatted chest and abdomen.

His lips met your neck, sucking and biting your sweet spots, not afraid to leave a trail, he kissed your supple breasts, and licked the piercings in your buds. He massaged the one that wasn’t in his mouth, making sure to not neglect any part of your body.

“Mm sorry mama” he moaned out between kisses, your clit now throbbing caused your shorts to dampen, you rubbed your pearl against it’s stitching, trying to stimulate yourself in some way.

But Connie didn’t let this go unnoticed, he slid his hand under your waist band and massaged your clit, rubbing his initials all over your pretty pussy.

Your breasts were now a shade of purple due to the love bites, and the room filled with your soft harmonious moans, they were enough to make him nut right then and there, you bit your plump lips, grinding your hips to enhance the pleasure.

But your impatience grew, and eventually, you threw the shorts aside, and mounted Connie, pulling his sweats down to his knees, and pulling his hard ,pink, wet dick out his ethicas.

your ass better be grateful for menstrual cups.

“You been feenin for this pussy huh papa?”His eyes refused to meet yours, grabbing his neck to look at you, his hazel eyes now glued on yours ,” How you know?” His sharp canine teeth poking out of his mouth,

His tongue licked his grillz that rested and fit perfectly in his mouth, studded with diamonds and gold, you admired the mustache you gave him after he begged for you to sit on his face.

At the end of the day he was your man and yours only, no matter how annoying he was.

You forced his dick into your tight hole, squeezing him in every right place,

“Fuckkkk” he whispered out, gripping your plush thighs, slowly pumping in and out of your pussy, but you planted your hips on his dick, not moving an inch.

“You think imma let YOU fuck me after today?” You asked slowly lifting,then slamming down on his dick, which earned you a shudder from an overstimulated Connie.

He forced his eyes open as you slammed down harder each time, while gripping on his bedsheets for balance, “Oh fuuuckk Ma , baby I’m so sorry,” he moaned nearly whimpered.

You felt yourself coming close, the euphoric feeling about to arrive as your clit rubbed against his abdomen, you grabbed his neck, tightening as you felt his dick twitch,

“How dat pussy feel baby?” you asked speeding up your pace. You were determined to make him cum before you, “Mmh baby I’m boutta-“

You lifted yourself off his dick for the last time and quickly took his member into your mouth, your tongue explored his pink tip, licking over his long and warm shaft.

Your tongue picked up the mixture of both of you, and swirled around his tip again, you held the rest of his length in your hands as you swallowed his tip.

You felt him pushing your head away from him, but he couldn’t get off that easy, you hummed into his dick, while your hand mindlessly found its way back to your hole, thrusting in and out as you worked your magic.

You felt your boyfriend’s legs shaking beneath you, cum dripped out of your mouth, you slowly lifted your head up to take on the pornographic scene above of you.

Connie was a moaning mess, whimpering, eyes watering, toes curling, gripping the sheets and all, you took his dick in your mouth one more time, and let go.

“Damn i did my shit huh” you giggled as he jumped from the sensation, licking the remaining fluid off your hands. He was still sensitive, but the way his head rolled back, and how his dick tensed up even minutes after you sucked him off proved he learned his lesson.

“Now don’t ever do that shit again,” brushing the dust off your knees, picking up the pillows that ended up on the floor, you turned your attention to a barley conscious Constance.

“I promise Mami.. I won’t”

~ ✧˖*°࿐

Kinktober Special-

I hope you liked thisss, i’m a lil rusty but i missed writing have a good time my babies <3 ~ lele

~ ✧˖*°࿐

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respectthepetty · 3 months ago

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Give me merch, BoC!

Before I freak out about colors in episode three of 4 Minutes, just know that if this was a time-traveling show on GMMTV, the cats in the claw machine would've been merch yesterday!

BoC, why don't you want our money?!

But even without making them merch, these cats made my day!

And it's all because Great gave Tyme the white one.

Tyme is color-coded black and Great is color-coded white.

So each cat represents them in this time-shifting story, and Great gave himself to Tyme by giving him the white cat.

And strangely enough, these color-coded boys won several cats which is a successful date, but also something something about several versions of themselves existing within the story . . .

But what really makes me happy is each cat has a heart in the other color on its side, so when held together, those heart patches form a dual-colored heart!

And although I think Tyme approached Great because he wanted information on Great's family, the boys got hit with a tiny blinding light of love right before they were supposed to kiss.

And Tyme did expose himself to Great instead of fighting him even though he could have easily overpowered Great, which is something we saw when Tyme fought Title.

Because this story is really about the gray area everyone is existing in.

When Win showed up the first time, Tonkla was guarded with a boundary firmly planted between them and Win was light.

But this episode, Tonkla removed his barrier, and let Win in, but Win, in his dark colors, definitely crossed a line he shouldn't have.

Win is a good guy.

And so is Korn.

But circumstances and choices change people.

And even the best people are capable of doing bad.

So it's interesting that Tyme has been positioned in black from the beginning even though he is a doctor.

And Great is positioned as white even though we have seen him run away from doing what's right several times.

Yet when Tyme went to ask Great out and Great confessed to seeing the future, Tyme was in gray as he shifts between the two colors.

Great's interactions with Tyme advance the clock a minute closer to 11:04 from 11:00, but the number four is special, as many people have pointed out because it represents death.

And Great keeps getting closer and closer.

So him throwing down his phone causing the number four ball to roll into the pocket was perhaps telling that it's not all Tyme moving the clock, but just like Win and Korn and their colors, Great's choices are moving the clock and impacting his life.

Doctors save lives, but we have been shown through the woman who tried to die by suicide and the patient this episode in Bed #4, that doctors also need to know when to listen and end a patient's suffering.

(Spare Me Your Mercy, I'm so ready for you and your color-coded boys in love to give us a story about these specific ethics! I'm going to watch you so hard!)

Tyme continues to say he isn't a doctor but a surgeon. Tyme doesn't listen to his patients, which is why Den is upset at him. And Tyme isn't listening to Great because if he was he'd hear exactly what is being said - "these symptoms happened when [the] heart stopped"

Tyme needs Great to remind him, that regardless of the past, it's important to listen and care, and Great needs Tyme to listen to his sad rich boy stories. They need each other to save each other. Triage, is that you homie in a trench coat and mustache glasses?!

But more importantly, they need each other to save each other's hearts! Great needs Tyme to literally save his life by saving his heart, but Tyme was hardening his heart. He had stated several times that he is in his career for the money, but Great reminded Tyme that money was irrelevant if the love was missing with his story of a 1,000 baht toy. They have both good and bad in them, but they need the other color-coded person to be complete. They need the other person to live.

Since I still believe Tyme is the one having cardiac arrest in the first episode, if one of them actually gives up his heart to save the other, I'm gonna be unwell about it.

Random Thoughts:

The friend calling Tyme a "pale guy, very handsome, and kinda brooding" hit me personally because I call characters who are black color-coded Black Brooders and Tyme is the Black Brooder in this story.

Great seeing the message on the tea cup change from "Don't forget to get your wound checked at the hospital" to "Can you forgive me, Great?" has me thinking this won't just be about Tyme trying to get dirt on Great's family and Great being upset about. That question feels heavier. That question feels like both their lives are changed by Tyme.

The female patient who experiences the same symptoms as Great was wearing white and black when she was being interviewed, but when Great envisioned a woman on the bed, red lights were flashing, like they were meeting while coding.

The way the red reflects on Great's shirt in the car makes it look like a heart on his sleeve when he looks at Tyme.

MY BOY MIO!

#4 minutes #4 minutes the series #long post #I'm unwell about those cats #give the props department a raise #color coded boys in love #the colors mean things #nobody better be giving up a heart in this show

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sillyjpeg · 3 months ago

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BOOK OF BILL WEBSITE P2

This contains MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE BOOK OF BILL WEBSITE REFRESH. if you want to find and decode things by yourself do not read this!!

this is gonna be long bc im a yapper and all ive done the past 4 hours is sit on this website. strap in folks.

connecting to my last post, where we left off with the message from bill saying "IM STILL ON YOUR MIND" (if you havent read it, its pinned on my page and i will be referencing it a bit in this post)

If we plug this into the computer we get this video of the beach with Stanley talking, and from the sides it looks like hes on a boat, probably the Stan O War.

On the same note, if you type in "KINGS OF NEW JERSEY" you get a zip file sent to you labled SECRET CODE, which contains the bros code shown in the book of bill! nothing new but i thought it was pretty cute :)

I also wanted to share some code i found in different images. if you type in "BAAAAA" you get this:

I found this incredibly interesting, because a large part of bills backstory is that he wanted to "show his dimension the stars" he wanted to show them freedom. He was the shepherd. In the first part, i feel like it really shows bills feelings. "Tired of trotting around aimlessly, munching on whatevers near your mouth, sleeping on whatevers under your haunches." Bill knew there was more out there, he wasnt going to sit around doing nothing. He describes his massacre as "liberation."

The last verse of the poem stuck out to me. "It's time to fit in." but when i decoded the message at the bottom it made sense. It says "BLACK SHEEP" this suggests that Bill never fit in his home dimension.

more bill stuff, if you type in irregular you get his mugshot.

The code underneath reads : "NO PRISON OR ATTENTION SPAN CAN HOLD HIM" which may be hinting that he escapes his rehabilitation. hopefully not :/

The only reason i found this one was because it was in the code. it probably relates to something in a different code or book, but if you enter "BOOBERRY," you get this:

labled: "The Meaning Of Life," its a nice little tidbit i wanted to share.

"glue knives to your body and run around the buffet" true poetry.

and the last bill cipher bit of this post, if you type "ADASTRAPERASPERA" you get another page of the journal about bills corpse.

ford and mable bonding time my babies...

also the triangluar spots in the mushrooms?? the disease spreads...

onto fiddauthor we only eat fiddauthor in this house. this isnt decoding but i needed to share because they are my everythings. if you plug in "SORRY", it blesses you with the complete photo of fiddleford and stanford :( and if you flip it its a note from fidds

FIDDLEFORD BEING THE FIRST MCGUCKET TO GO TO COLLEGE

also his mustache getting caught in a pencil sharpener??? shave that shit boy

also ford being the only one who believed in his theory, then spent 9 hours with him proving it??? they r soulmates, and also the fact that mcgucket was about to go home when stanford came in.

also fiddleford never noticing his hands

thats all for now, im tired. if you read all of this i love you

#gravity falls #book of bill #bill cipher #fiddleford mcgucket #stanford pines #fiddauthor #thisisnotawebsitedotcom #thisisnotawebsitedotcom spoilers

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 5 months ago

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A special sort of craving 4

Warnings: non/dubcon, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Characters: Lloyd Hansen

Summary: A stranger appears at your cafe and leaves you unsettled.

Part of the Backwood AU

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

The quiet one goes out with another tray for the lively partygoers. You’ve permitted Katherine to join the furor as she was much too distracted to be of any true help. As it is, you’re about to send your second helper home to get her out of the frenzy. She’s ill-equipped for it and you can handle things just fine on your own.

As you wait for her to return, you continue to clear and stack the trays. You’re certain Frigga won’t mind if you leave them and return to pick them up tomorrow. Little good you’re doing here as Thor sows the last of his wild oats. Yet, you hardly think a number is going to change much.

The door swings open and you look up, expecting that quiet girl and her doleful eyes. Its not her. Shit. Of course he’s there.

“Ah, there you are, sweetie pie,” Lloyd calls with a keen smirk at his lazy pun. “I’ve been looking for you all night.”

“I’m working,” you continue your work, setting a stack on the cart. “Go, enjoy the party--”

“I didn’t come to deal with the drunken idiot,” he insists as he looms on the other side of the able, “I came for the dessert.”

“Those aren’t out yet, you’ll have to wait,” you ignore him for your work.

You can sense him as he inches towards the corner of the big metal table. You try not to react. It’s exactly what he’s looking for. You might not know much of city folk but you have a good idea. You don’t want to feed his ego, he might just hurt himself if it inflates any bigger.

“I’m not talking about cake, well, not like that,” he snickers as he comes closer and closer.

“Ew, would you not? I really don’t have time--” you begin as you slice berries.

“Sure ya do. Everyone’s off their head. They don’t care about your shortcake, sweetheart.”

“Not interested, for the last time--”

He reaches for you and you turn, pointing the paring knife at him. His eye glints and he tilts his head. He takes a deep breath and lets out a sinister laugh.

“Don’t be stupid. You shouldn’t pull a knife unless you’re prepared to use it,” his face turns sober and his brow arches. You can see along the edge of your vision how his fingers twitch, “should put that away before you cut yourself.”

“Leave me alone,” you force out, heart racing. “I don’t know how they do it in the city but when someone says no, the answer is--”

“Boring,” he swipes at your hand and knocks the knife from it. The blade bounces off the table and skitters over to the other side, falling onto the floor.

In a moment, he has you in his grip; one hand on the back of your skull, the other on your jaw. You whimper and clutch at his wrists. You grit your teeth and stomp around blindly, trying to crush his toes.

“Hey, get the hell off of me!” You hiss as he squeezes enough to make your head throb.

“What you don’t understand, sweet cheeks,” he walks you backwards, “is that in the city, we take what we want,” he continues on, keeping you on your heels, “I want the rest of that cherry pie, baby.”

“No, urgh, stop,” you scratch and slap at him helplessly as he marches you around the fridge, “let go--”

“Shh, baby, it don’t gotta be bad,” he coaxes as he takes you through a doorway, “in fact, I wanna make it real good for you.” He pokes out his tongue and lewdly licks along the bristle of his mustache, “I bet you’re sweet. Taste like sugar... melt like it too, won’t you?”

“N-no,” you grunt as he kicks the door to the storage room closed, “Lloyd, I’ll scream--”

“Listen, baby, shhhh,” he hushes you again, “you hear that?”

Your eyes round as you stare at him. He pushes you against a shelf as you listen. You can hear the music, the voices, and the sheer chaos brewing on the other side of the walls. A scream breaks out and is met only by raucous laughter. He presses his thumb behind your jaw until you squirm.

“Think they’ll come find you? If they do, you think they’ll find you before I got your cherry?”

“Get--” you wisp as you writhe and claw helplessly. “Stop, no--”

He pushes his knee between both of yours. He keeps his hand around your jaw as he crosses his other arm across your chest. He pins you to the shelf as it rattles. He leans into you until your bones ache and lets his hand trail away from your chin.

“Just relax,” he snarls, “it’ll be good if you just let it happen,” he feels along the side of your apron and dips his hand beneath. His fingertips dance along the top of your pants as you wriggle and gnash your teeth, “I don’t usually like to play with my food but you need a little extra kneading, baby.”

He shoves his hand down the front of your pants, your chest straining against his weight. Your ribs ache and your head swims. The walls seems to slant around you as the futility paralyses you.

His forearm draws your waistband so tie it cuts into you. The apron string snaps, then the button of your fly. He angles his hand against your vee as you try to close your knees against his. He growls and presses against the front of your panties, rubbing heat through fabric as you whine.

“Trust me when I say the stache feels better,” he winks, “but you’re gonna have to earn that, baby face,” he grins and curls his fingers under, covering your clit with his thumb as he uses his index to edge aside your panties.

He glides against your folds and along your entrance, letting out a dramatic gasp, “oh no, sweetie pie,” he flicks his finger through your slickness and you squirm, “you’re fucking wet.” He clicks his tongue and shakes his head, “you can drop the act already ‘cause we both know you’re gonna love this,” he pokes at your entrance until he dips inside, “you’re never gonna forget the way you feel right fucking now.”

#lloyd hansen #dark lloyd hansen #lloyd hansen x reader #drabble #series #a special sort of craving #backwoods #au #the gray man #dark!lloyd hansen

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lovelykil · 8 months ago

Note

killua hcs for reader who is really sleepy and likes cuddling all the time (kinda like a koala lmao) like on days with no work/school they sleep for like 18 hours (yes it’s possible)

headcanons—

: ➛killua

hc; sleepy reader

note; literally me

Imagine it's a wonderful day outside, the sun has made its arrival, the grass is greener than usual, nature's lovely scent still in the air as birds soar through the blue skyline.

everyone has gotten up for the day and up to do their daily activities while YOU remain in those messy sheets. Your leg dangling off the bed, a hand on the other side, your hair all over your pillow and drool seeping out through your open mouth.

or If you aren't a messy sleeper,, your sheets hugging your fatigued body as you sleep on your side or back with your bed hair on the pillow case.

your phone has been buzzing, someone is trying to contact you but you're too inlove with slumber to respond.

but once you finally awake from your rest it's about 4 in the afternoon.. though this was usual so you didn't care but once you checked your phone...

10 missed calls from 'shithead :3' (killua)

and TONS of text messages from him aswell.

you go to finally call him back after a brief moment to collect your sleepy self.

"hey sorry I was asleep—"

"YOU IDIOT I THOUGHT YOU DIED"

he gets so concerned about how long you can stay asleep... like are okay?? lmao???

one time he actually came over to check if you were ALIVE, thank God he has a spare key 😭🙏🏾

kil doesn't really need to sleep so he's usually up and wake WAYY before you

he picks at your face, pokes your cheek, nose really just plays with your unconscious self till he gets a reaction but he usually doesn't since you are one heavy ass sleeper

he does get lonely ngl so he tries to fall back asleep or calls Gon over to do something

anywayy

most times you find yourself weary around him.. you don't know why just his presence makes you feel safe and calm so you usually crash on him, either laying your head on his shoulder or just laying your head on his lap with the blanket covering you on the couch.

sometimes you don't even do it on purpose it just happens so naturally you crash somewhere on his body and stay there for awhile.

like once you unconsciously crawled on his lap to rest, it only took a few seconds before you passed out. He's so tense every time too 😭

but he sighs, and holds you close anyway. he lowers the volume down on the TV so not to disturb you and watches the show with his arms around you.

"you comfortable?" He mumbles, wanting to come off annoyed but secretly he was enjoying this.

you muttered something that sounded like a 'yeah' even nodding your head slightly, his annoyed eyes focus back on the TV from there the hunter smiles delicately.

sometimes you'll wake up in your bed with him facing the other way in the middle of the night. He most likely carried your fatigued body to bed, it's the only logical explanation you could come up with at the moment.

not like it matters anyway, he was there and he was warmmm. You inch closer, hands reaching, and soon you hold him from behind softly though. Killua is obviously aware you have captured him and his face burns but he doesn't say anything.

you plant tired kisses to the back of his neck which had his heart RACIN

but soon you close your eyes yet again , whispering..

"...night kil.."

his response was delayed but he delivered it nonetheless, flustered-ly like.

"..night." He hovers his hand over yours which was on his waist and he keeps it there for the night.

here's a silly one

killua DEFINITELY at some point has drawn on your face while you have been asleep

he was bored and you were in his sight 😈

prob has drawn a penis.. maybe a cat or two..

but most importantly has a drawn a mustache.

he's such an ass but it's okay cs it's killua 🎀❤️

#𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙡𝙮𝙠𝙞𝙡⋆ ★#real cause i said so also me fr #killua #killua x reader #hxh x reader #hunter x hunter #:33

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swee7dream · 4 months ago

Note

how would the dreamies react to their s/o regressing for the first time in front of them after being super stressed and not being able to be a little ? ^^

it’s been a long time caregiver!nct dream x gender-neutral!regressor!reader

genres sfw age regression content, established relationship, hurt / comfort, angst in some, bits of fluff in all warnings involuntary / vent regression, regression block, negative self-talk, haechan's is long sry dni if you sexualize age regression. not only blocking but also reporting.

author’s note i'm SO sorry this took so long for me to get out. i promise i didn't forget about you, nonnie! i might've geared a little bit ( a lot ) off the prompt at times but i still hope you like it ! thx 4 requesting !

mark lee (ᓀ‸ᓂ) wc 642

With all your responsibilities lately, Mark finds it logical that you don’t regress as often as you used to. The last time he remembers was over three months ago. He misses taking care of you, hearing your sweet voice call out for your 'Mack!'. But he doesn’t want to burden you even more with any expectations to do anything you weren’t feeling up to do. He wasn’t planning to bring it up. Honest.

That was until you started coming home to avoid his kisses and go straight to bed. That moment left a pang in his heart.

In the silence and tension of your apartment, Mark finds himself in your little corner of tiny things, picking up your toys and dusting off your coloring books with longing. He misses his baby, so he’s going to get his baby back, he decides, no matter what it takes.

“Oh look, that new Disney movie came out you said you wanted to go see it, right?”

“I’m tired, Mark.”

“…okay.” He bites the inside of his cheek.

Just keep trying, Mark. You got this.

“Babe, I’m doing laundry. You want me to wash Cheese Doodle?” He knocks at your office door.

“Huh?” You raise your head as if you were a fish out of water. “Uh, yeah. That’s fine. Thank you.”

Hmph.

“What is that?” You give the box in Mark’s hand a look.

“It’s a game. Picked it up at the store. It’s like… Twister? But there’s something different about it. I dunno, I didn’t pay attention to the label and just bought it. Chenle asked that we bring some kind of board game for his party on Saturday.”

“Oh. Well, I have a thing on Saturday so tell him I can’t go but I hope everyone has fun.”

As the saying goes, the fourth time’s a charm.

“You’re not going to bed?” You rub your eyes, already in your night clothes and under the sheets.

“Not really tired,” he replies with a shrug as he makes his way out into the kitchen. “I think I’m gonna make myself some angel milk to get the sleeping juices going. That always worked for you. You want some?”

You’re already pretty tired, the events of the day had sucked every last drop of potential energy from you. Still, some angel milk in all its sweet, vanilla-tasting glory makes you lick your lips.

“…yeah. Please,” you answer.

When he comes back from the kitchen, he has your warm drink in one hand and Cheese Doodle—your orange puppy stuffie—in the other.

“Sit up for me, baby,” he says softly as he sits down on the edge of the bed, not wanting to spill anything from your favorite mug.

“Unicorn…!” You notice, taking the pink and rainbow cup in your two sleeve-clad hands. “Thank you.”

“Mhm.” Mark smiles. “and I just took cheese doodle out of the laundry too. Used the fabric softener that you like. Wanna feel?”

“Oh.” In a second, you’re like a cat rubbing your cheek against Cheese Doodle’s fur. “Smells good, Markie. Thank you.”

”Of course, baby. Feeling tiny?” He asks only now that he’s 95% sure you are.

”Little bit,” you admit into your mug, slurping quietly to not burn yourself.

”Aw.” He pouts. “That’s good. You know, Markie missed you, baby. I haven’t held my baby in such a long time.”

”Missed Markie too.” You blink at him with sleepy eyes and a milk mustache. “Lot.”

”Wanna cuddle for a little then?”

”Just for a lil' bit.” You nod, placing your angel milk on the bedside table.

Mark knows the mug will be forgotten by the morning but he'd rather make and waste a million angel milks than for you to forget him and Cheese Doodle again.

huang renjun ૮ ˙Ⱉ˙ ა wc 594

“Oh that’s a nice painting, Jun,” you praise, resting your chin on his shoulder as he sits on a stool. “Very pretty.”

“I feel like it’s missing something, though,” he says with a frown. “Here. You paint something.”

“On your canvas?” You look at him. “No way, love. I’ll ruin it.”

“You won’t. Now take the brush.”

“I won’t.” You step back and cross your arms. “I’m not gonna mess up this painting you’ve been working so hard on with my clumsiness.”

“What are you talking about? You always add something to my paintings.” Renjun gives you a look. The look that makes you want to roll your eyes.

“And they’re always so much better before me.”

“You don’t think that.”

“I do.”

“Why are you talking about yourself in this way all of a sudden?”

“Because it’s true!” You explode. There’s a burning in the backs of your eyes as you keep talking. “All I’ve been doing lately is messing up stuff for other people. I’m no good, Renjun.”

“…”

“My boss thinks it, my team members think it. I know you think it too!” You sob.

“Darling-”

“Stop it, Jun.”

“Darling,” he repeats, taking your hand in his. “come here.”

He pulls you in with one hand and wipes your tears with another, so careful he almost makes you think you are glass.

“What’s in that green binder in the bookshelf over there?” he asks.

“What?” You furrow your brows. “I don’t know.”

“Go check.”

You give him a look but make your way to the oak bookshelf; filled with sketchbooks, novels, and a singular green binder. You look at Renjun when your fingers touch the spine and take it out only after he nods. Your knees wobble as you flip through the pages so you let your bottom hit the floor.

In the binder are the handwritten notes from back before the two of you even started dating; flirtatious exchanges recorded on coffee shop napkins, gum wrappers, and ripped-up bits of college notes. The next stage of your relationship is at the flip of a page; rushed post-it notes of domestic living with 'I love you!'s and 'Don't forget to eat!'s kept safe in the plastic sheets.

You look up at him with surprise but he only nods his head for you to keep flipping pages. You flip through empty slips until you almost reach the back cover and find all the drawings you’ve made for Renjun over the years while in regression. Each and every one. Even the ones where you're mad at him and have him eaten by monsters.

“You kept them…” You pass a finger over a drawing you made of the two of you, your stickmen-selves holding hands and smiling in a rocket ship.

“Of course I did, baby. How could I throw away something so perfect?” You hear his voice next to you, having gotten up from his seat to crouch next to you on the floor. He gently pulls your head into his chest and his lips drop to kiss the top of your head. “I don’t think you mess up things, my love. Ever. You simply change their direction. My Lovebug is the most creative, innovative person in the whole wide world, didn’t you know?”

“Junnie…” You sob, the dam of pent-up emotions finally seeking release.

“Hi there, babybug.” He whispers. “I’m right here, lovey. Right here. Let it all out.”

lee jeno ૮ .◜◡◝ა wc 655

“Babe, the ice is melting and your coke is turning into gross, brown, sweet-tasting water,” Jeno warns.

“One second, baby. I just need to finish this assignment real quick,” you mutter with your bottom lip bit in place.

It seems you’re still in the same clothes from three days ago, the same amount of time Jeno’s seen you stay in bed studying. He’s beginning to think your butt might be attached permanently to the mattress at this point. When it comes to your bedside table, your 5-hour energy from lunchtime being the latest addition to the food trash and empty water bottle pile doesn’t fill him with any more positive thoughts.

“When’s it for?” He sighs. “Your assignment.”

“…what?” You turn your head to him but your eyes stay on the screen. “Oh, um, Friday.”

“It’s Monday. Come on.” Jeno pulls at your arm like a spoiled child. “I’m not even making you shower or anything. I just wanna hang out with my hermit, stinky, computer nerd. Will you grant me my wish please?”

You look up with a half-offended, half-amused expression and your jaw dropped.

“I’m not stinky!” You fail to shake off your arm from his hold. “I told you I’m coming! I just really need to finish this.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Ye- ah!” You squeal as Jeno pulls at your arm, throwing you over his shoulder. “Jeno! I’m serious!”

“I’m serious too. Monday to Friday is five days-”

“Four days!”

“-and that’s more than enough time to finish your assignment.” He refuses to acknowledge your interruption. “You are going to eat a proper dinner with me on the couch as we watch TV and you’re gonna like it, you got that?”

“Augh…!” You groan, going limp on him.

“Oh, I know.” Jeno pouts as he sets you on the couch, covering you in your train-print fleece blanket. “I’m so mean, aren’t I? Asking you to take a break when all you wanna do is work, work, work.”

You just stare at him, squinting your eyes as you fail to hide a smile.

“Well unfortunately for you, gumdrop, babies don’t work! So I’m afraid I can’t let you do that. The police will come after me if I do. Child labor laws or something like that.”

He leaves a quick kiss on your forehead right before speeding to the kitchen. Jeno’s eyebrows wiggle in a wave when he returns with your food; apple slices, chicken nuggets, and fries all in their respective spots in your divided plate.

The original pasta and movie date night plan being scrapped for a Nono-Gumdrop night doesn’t phase Jeno. In fact, it excites him. Your projects and exams and assignments and professors... he tries so hard not to hold resentment against them all as they pull his baby away from him. But tonight? Tonight is different, and for once in his life, caregiver Jeno is triumphant.

“Thank you…” Your fingers wrap around the blue silicone and Jeno engulfs you in a bear hug when he sits down. Tight but not so tight it obstructs your arms when eating. “What are we watching, Nono?”

“Max and Ruby.” He smiles when you gasp.

“Love Max and Ruby!” You gush with a mouthful of apples.

“Do you?” Jeno drops his head to the side. “You do? You do? Nuh-uh. I do. It’s my favorite show in the whole wide world.”

“Well, ’s my favorite show in the whole galaxy!”

“Yeah? Well-”

You squeal, feeling ticklish when he nuzzles his stubble on your face.

“Nono, stop!” You giggle.

“Eat up, gumdrop.” He sighs, the feeling of his baby in his arms and eating a proper meal for the first time in days is an incomparable joy. “Two episodes and then it’s bathtime.”

“Ah, boo, Nono!” you whine but it turns back to giggles when he compresses you in his arms.

lee donghyuck ʕ˙Ⱉ˙‧:ʔ wc 994

“You there, Angel?”

You shake your head.

It feels strange, like your body isn’t yours, as you hold on tight to your dolls in your hands and see none of the lively sparkle in their eyes you usually do when you’re small.

“I’m broken, Hyuck,” you say with such a lack of emotions that you can’t tell if it’s actually you who is speaking. “I did everything right. I got dressed, I put on the music box, I’m trying to play for God’s sake. And nothing is working still. I feel ridiculous. A grown adult trying to act like a child.” You scoff.

“Hey, stop.” Donghyuck’s firm tone sends a shiver down your spine and you pull away. His shoulders drop when he notices; you’re scared and he’s only making it worse.

“That’s my baby you’re talking about, you know?” He tries again, with a softer tone this time. “Don’t talk about yourself like that. You are not broken.” He holds your cheek.

“I’m just so tired, Hyuck.” Tears come up and blur your vision. “Everything has been going on for so long at the exact same time and I just- I can’t anymore. I need to just step away from reality for a little bit but I can’t even do that. My brain is just locking me in here in this state of suffering for who knows how long and I have no way of getting out. Not even for an hour.” You sob.

“I know, lovely.” He wraps his arms around you, letting you in turn wrap your arms around his legs from your seat on the floor. “It’s been so much for so long. You deserve a little break. Take a deep breath. Let’s try to let go of all these grownup worries, okay? We can pick them back up later. Come on, Angel, breathe.”

Angel.

Channie called you Angel and you still don’t feel small. The realization makes for more tears to come up but you refuse to let another defeated cry leave you. The denim of his jeans is rough on your face but not rough enough to make you stop using it as a tissue for your tears.

“…okay,” you creak out. “Breathe in. Breathing in…”

“There we go.” Haechan passes a hand over your head, the sensation soothing you somewhat. “And out. one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Good job, Angel. Nice long deep breaths.”

You repeat the action several times, following his counts and pushing yourself to feel his jeans under your fingertips and smell the woodsy notes of his cologne to ground yourself.

“Everything sucks,” you say after some moments of silence. “Everything sucks. I didn’t even ask for any of this. I just want to be small,” your voice breaks.

“And you will be.” Donghyuck’s touch is gentle, encouraging you without words to look up at him. The pad of his thumb is warm when it wipes the tears from your face, brushing against your damp lashes. “You will be. I promise.”

“I don’t know what to do, Hyuck. I’m all out of ideas at this point,” you admit.

“How about just trying to feel not sucky?” He scrunches his nose, the most tender of smiles painted on his face. “How about… just drawing a picture? Just one. Doesn’t have to be with crayon or marker like when you’re feeling tiny. It can be whatever you want it to be. Don’t think about being small, just about drawing.”

“…draw what?”

“Hm… what about your dolls?”

When you unwrap yourself from his legs to look at said dolls, it gives Donghyuck the chance to go grab your art supplies. Your dolls don’t have that lively aura you see them with when you’re small but you can almost feel a sort of pity and empathy from them. It reminds you of the type of support your friends give you in their messages despite the country lines separating you.

“And I’ll draw… a car. Jeno’s been getting me into Formula One.” Donghyuck pulls you out of your thoughts when his voice is so close it makes you turn to see he’s taken a seat next to you on the floor. He opens a pencil case right in front of you two and takes a black pencil for himself to begin sketching on some paper.

“Really?” You opt a red pencil.

“Yeah. It’s pretty interesting.” He shrugs.

“But ’s so boring.” You sniffle up some snot from your lightning-fast crying session. You didn’t even cry for that long, how come you can feel your eyes swelling? So annoying. “They just go around in circles.”

“It’s not just that though. There’s—pass me the red? Oh, you have it. No, it’s okay. I can wait—there’s like a ton of beef between them. I like watching the interviews and stuff. It’s like watching basketball or football.” Haechan lets out a groan as he lays on his stomach, resting a cheek on his fist. “That’s really pretty, baby.”

“Y’like it?” You move to mirror him, turning your drawing for him to see better. “Think I’m gonna add some other stuff too.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know yet,” you admit. “Probably you. I always like drawing you. And then… your red car. You can take me and the dollies on a road trip. I like it when we have fun together.”

Affection floods out of Donghyuck, letting out an adoring ‘aw’ as he hugs you, leaving kisses on all the spots he knows won’t lead to a tickle fight.

“So cute! I always have fun with you. My Angel...” he hums into your temple.

“My Channie…” you mutter under your breath, sketching his head four times bigger than the rest.

na jaemin ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭ wc 664

“I’m okay.” You rub your nose. “Just a couple sneezes, Jaem. It’s not a big deal. I can keep studying for a little while longer.”

“You sneezed four times in a row.” Jaemin stands next to your desk chair with his arms crossed. “Do you know what that means?”

“What?” You sigh, knowing he won’t leave until you entertain him.

“You have the plague.”

“The what?”

“The plague.”

“Baby, I don’t have the-” Achoo! “the-” Achoo! “the plague…”

You move your mouse around your screen and click away at it but it doesn’t hide the reflection of Jaemin’s intense stare into your skull. He’s not amused. You spin your chair around.

“I don’t have the plague,” you repeat with a clogged nose, not even convincing yourself this time. “…I just have a little cold.”

“I wonder where you could have gotten that from, hm?” He turns you toward him by the chair’s arms and traps you by holding onto both of them and leaning in until your foreheads almost touch. “Maybe from studying a little too much? From stretching yourself too thin? Pushing yourself past your limits? Hm? Hm? hm?” He turns his head at an angle with each question, being obnoxious about his accurate statements.

“Five minutes.”

“No.”

“I just need to email this professor.”

“No.”

“I have a group project.”

“Good thing you have groupmates, huh? Come on, get off your pretty little butt.” He grabs you from under the armpits, placing your feet on the ground as if you were merely a bag of rice. “We’re playing hospital.”

“No…” you whine with dragging feet the whole time Jaemin guides you to the kitchen, his gentlemanly hand giving you no chance to run as it rests on the small of your back.

“Yes…” He pouts at you as he fills up the syringe with orange medicinal syrup. “Babies need be good and take their medicine when they are sick, okay?”

“Jaemin-” You pull your head the other way, holding his wrist away from you.

“Baby…” he sings, dodging your attempts. “Say ‘ah’, pumpkin.”

Pressing your lips tight doesn’t do anything, the plastic tip of the syringe still slipping in and filling your mouth with bitter medicine that makes a lame attempt at orange flavoring. You shake your head, still rejecting the cold syrup as it goes down, but it does regardless, chilling your throat when it does.

“Bleh!”

“Drink some water, baby.” Jaemin holds up a cup (when did he fill that up?) and you take it as if it were the key to eternal life.

“Taste so icky,” you say with your face scrunched up like a raisin. “Hate it!”

You’re sick and suffering from forced consumption of medicine. Jaemin knows this. Jaemin shouldn’t smile. But he just can’t help it! His baby is finally back after such a long, long time. he thought he was gonna die from BWS (Baby Withdrawal Symptoms).

“Aw…” His hands reach out to hold your face and squish your cheeks together. “Baby doesn’t like medicine? Babies don’t like yucky bitter things. Babies like… sweet yummy things! How about some hot chocolate, lovey-dovey?”

“Chocwate?” you ask with raised eyebrows.

“Hot chocwate.” His nose scrunches as he pinches your cheeks. “Does that sound good?”

“Yeah!” You hop free of his crab claws. “Hot chocolate! Wanna, wanna, wanna!”

“Be careful, sugarplum!” Jaemin laughs, twirling you with such ease it feels as if you were in a dance. “Why don’t you go put something on the TV while I make us the chocolate? Whatever you want, baby,” he says, but you’re already out of the kitchen and looking under blankets and cushions for the remote.

“Spongebob!” You hold it up to the ceiling like it were the sword in the stone.

“Except Spongebob. You know that shrinks your brain.”

“Aw!” You slump but quickly straighten up like a ruler. “Ah- Ah- Achoo!”

zhong chenle (ᯟ︿ᯏ) wc 622

“I’m so proud of you.” Chenle pecks your head as you hold his waist from behind. The smells coming from the stove you two stand in front of are nothing if not heavenly. “Pretty, funny, kind, graduated. How’d I bag you?”

“Mmm, I dunno.” You shrug smugly, as you look out the window. A content sigh leaves you as your eyes follow the raindrops that slide down your window. “Must’ve done something good in your past life.”

“Must have,” he hums. “Set the table for me? I’m basically almost done.”

“You got it.” You peck his cheek. “Smells delicious. Jaemin give you cooking lessons while I was gone?”

“I’ll have you know I’m a great cook. I don’t need any cooking lessons. Never have.”

“Ah…” You roll out the placemats with a sarcastic nod.

“But if I did, I would go to Donghyuck.”

“If you did, I would approve. His soups are good.”

“Mine are better.”

“…”

“Right?”

“Sure.”

The music playing from the speakers and lights in the apartment all shut off at once, not even the hum of the refrigerator sounding in the silence, the darkness. The thunder is so close it feels like footsteps. Heavy, angry footsteps coming close. Closer and closer to you.

The power comes back as soon as it left but you can’t seem to recover as fast. You don’t even remember dropping down to hold your knees, and in the dark you didn’t see how many tears came up to overflow from your eyes. Chenle calls out your name but it sounds so distant it doesn’t even register. It feels like you’re running out of oxygen like a deep sea diver falling hopelessly down to the ocean floor.

“Hey,” you take a sharp inhale at Chenle’s warm hands holding your cheeks ground you back to reality. “Hey, the power went out. Everything’s fine. You’re okay. You’re home, you’re with me. Nothing is gonna hurt you here, you hear me? You are safe.”

You almost knock Chenle over from his crouching position when you throw yourself on him, but he reads your body language just in time to catch you. His lips press into your hair, your temples, your shoulders, the softest of touches as you wail into his shirt. His heart breaks at how fragile you seem in the moment, like a porcelain doll with a chip. You sob and babble to the point that Chenle can’t understand what you’re saying. All he can catch is one word.

“Daddy…”

There’s nothing for you to do but cry, Chenle’s learned with time, so he lets you do just that. He lets you cry in his arms there on the floor and when you’re finally willing he attaches you to his hip as he walks around. He wipes your tears with a paper towel and makes sure you get a bottle of water to drink from to rehydrate.

His eyebrows furrow when you turn your head to dodge his spoon, rejecting the meal you were so looking forward to less than twenty minutes ago. This meal which was meant to be a celebration of not just the end of your education but of all your life up to this point. Of your growth, your endurance; of all the stress you put yourself through to come out victorious in the end.

You’re still victorious, he thinks. Even now as you fill up the apartment with tears, he’s so proud of you. His partner, his baby, the strongest person he’s ever met.

“Come on, dollface. Just one spoonful, yeah? Need you to eat,” he tries again.

park jisung (∩˃o˂∩) wc 668

“What’s that giant box?”

“What giant box?” He looks at you on the couch. “...I thought you were napping.”

“I woke up. What’s with that giant box you’re pushing into our house?”

“Oh, this?” Jisung looks down. “It's… a box.”

You blink, irritation in your tight-lipped smile at your boyfriend’s lack of cooperation.

“I know it’s a box, Ji. I'm asking what’s inside the box?”

“Box… stuff…”

“Jisung!”

“That’s not my name!” He whines as he shuts the front door. “My name to you is Ji! Or Baby! Not Jisung! It’s so scary when you call me that...” He sighs. “It was supposed to come before you started your vacation time, while you were at work.”

“Why?” Your eyebrows come together into a questioning frown.

“Because- just- you’ll see soon. Pass me the scissors? Thanks.” He pecks your lips, taking the scissors from your hands and pushing your back away with little force. “Now go. Get! Your surprise will be ready in a minute. Go… brush your dolls’ hair or something. It’ll be super quick.”

“Doll hairs? is it a Little gift?”

“Shoot.” Jisung bites his fist. “...can you just go in the bedroom already? It’s not a Little gift. It’s not.”

The instructions that came in the box of the not-Little gift said construction would only take thirty minutes. Not to fear, with super handyman Park Jisung to the rescue it only took three hours and two people.

“We’re done!” You clap, looking in awe at your brand new play kitchen, pink and wooden and creaky and yours. “Jiji, finish!”

“Yeah.” He sits back on the floor, wiping the sweat from his brow. “We’re finished. D’you like it?”

“It’s so pretty, jiji!” You beam, hugging his head and squeezing the brains out of him.

“I’m glad you like it, bub.” He nods at his work in approval. “You deserve it. Worked so hard recently.”

“Thankie!” You get up quickly, running barefoot into the bedroom to come back with a box of play food in all colors and sizes.

“Make you a lenonade, bubby!” You begin adding ice to a cup and add a lemon to it. “Ice cold lenonade.”

“Oh, I love your lenonade. Thanks, baby.” He takes the cup, making gulping noises and finishing it off with a loud and satisfied ‘ah!’. “Actually, are we playing restaurant right now?”

“Um… yeah!” you decide. “Welcome to my rest’rant! What would you like to order?”

“I would kill for a good burger.” Jisung pats his stomach like a starved man. “I hear you guys have some good ones, is that true?”

“The truest!” You smile. “One burger, comin’ up!”

You turn back to your kitchen and hum to yourself as you place a burger patty on the stove.

“No pans for that?”

“No pans!” You shake your head. “Special burger.”

“Ah, must be.” He mutters behind you.

When it comes to building time, Jisung acts like a to-be-blacklisted customer.

“Could I have no onions in my burger? I’m allergic.”

“No, you’re not.”

“It’s just play pretend, honey.”

“Oh. Then, yes you can, sir! No onions.”

“And no tomatoes please. I don’t like how the seeds get stuck between my teeth.”

“No tomatoes!”

“And could you cut the cheese? It kind of sends me to the bathroom.”

“Ew… okay, no cheese, either!” You toss the slice of play cheese to the side.

“…could you also remove the meat? I’m vegetarian.”

That’s the final straw. No meat? You look down at his ‘burger’: bread, lettuce, bread.

“This is what you want?” You turn to show him his order.

“Oh yes.” He smiles, clasping his hands together in anticipation. “That’s my burger! So tasty. Thank you, shop owner.”

“You’re welcome…” You give him a look. “Ketchup?”

“No thanks.”

“Mayo?”

“Bleh! Pass.”

“…barbeque sauce?”

“Oh, that’s my favorite! Lettuce and barbeque sauce burger, my favorite.” He licks his lips.

“Jiji, ew!” you whine.

tag list ( ask / comment to join ! ) @mystarsohee @cupofwyn @iwontlettheselittlethingsslip @aeriaeri

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writings-ofthe-heart · 1 year ago

Text

Blue Lips

༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

❀ ; König had never really known you, but after a tricky mission and being left alone with you for a whole night, he might want to know more ...

❀ ; After being terrified of your colonel, you gain the confidence (and privacy) to talk to him once more, things go unplanned when you're attacked by a rogue soldier.

────── 〔✿〕──────

♡ Warnings? : None! Just some fluff, idk, xd

♡ Word Count : A little over 1.6K words

♡ POV In : First person, I got lazy rewriting all the pronouns to "you," soz :(

♡ Author's Note - Umm sorry I haven't done anything atsv i swear its rotting in my brain rn but i just did this one shot in under a couple days during my travelling :3 i hope you enjoy !!

(p.s my next writing thing WILL be ganke related x3)

(p.p.s.s? I hope the formatting is ok I'm new to tumblr xD)

"Sorry, we'll try to reach-- morning--" The radio stammered out, I shook it frustrated as we walked. The mission had gone successfully but we were left behind. Unfortunately, I was left behind with the Colonel. He was silent, the sound of his steps barely noticeable. My hand was shaking, upon realizing, I shoved it into my pocket. The Lt had told us to reach the safe house and stay put. It was 4 KM away from where we were so we have been walking most part of the evening and the sun had just set. A blanket of quiet settled over the forest, the only "loud" sounds being my footsteps.

The Colonel and I were never close, it could've been because of my general fear of authority and the such or just how eerily quiet he was, never awkward just silent. The only time I had really spoke to him was during missions and those fleeting moments never told me much about him, all other information about him I heard from rumours, that he was a cold blooded soldier and a weapon for KorTac. He had bouts of going far away for weeks and months at a time, on so called "private enlistings." I never got curious, too frightened by him to try and find out more about him. But that's changing now, as he walks behind me I can't help but wonder about him.

My voice breaks the silence. "Where are you from, König? You have quite the accent,"

He seemed a little startled when I spoke, and he flatly replied, "Austria, German is the national language there."

I clicked my tongue, teeth chattering. "Cool." The next few minutes were silent and I veered off into the trees, hearing a creek bubbling. I called out to König quietly, "I'm going to fill my canteen. There's a creek over here." He hummed his acknowledgement. I got to the body of water and crouched down. Unscrewing the canteen, I put it down in the water. It was freezing, I tried to ignore the stinging in my knuckles and the tips of my fingers. From behind, I heard a knife unsheath. I tried to turn swiftly, grabbing my pistol from the holster but the attacker was too fast, pinning me down on the hard rocks.

They held the knife to my throat, breathing heavily. As my eyes adjusted from the stars in my vision, I realized it was a man. He had a beard, a mustache accompanying it. The man didn't need to speak for me to understand his intentions, a savage glint in his eyes. He seemed to be injured, desperate for anything. I look down at his tactical vest, but my movement provokes him and he shoves me under the water. I kick and thrash but he's taller, bigger than me. My pistol is taken and my knife is in my pant leg. The coldness grips me tightly.

König had been surprised I had even talked to him, after all, he knew I was scared of him, everyone was. It gave him a rush, but sometimes he wished they weren't terrified of König. He was sitting at the base of a tall, frosted tree, sipping at his own canteen. The Austrian man took note of the time, realizing I've been gone for longer then he felt comfortable with. Even if he had no feelings tied to me, he was a colonel and had to take care of his soldiers. König dusted his jeans off and calmly made his way to the creek. Upon seeing me being forcefully submerged in the creek by a strange man, he went livid.

Everything was a blur already as the man had started to choke me, shaking me and throwing me on the rock bed again and again. A vignette settled around my vision and I weakly yelled out in pain. Blood swirled in the water I was shoved in, my attacker showing no sign of stopping. König ran in long strides, ripping the man off me. With his bulk and strength, he had him easily in a chokehold.

The man fought him, as he had grabbed his knife I wrestled off him from the dirt. I could only sit up and take gulps of cold air, they were like daggers in my lungs but I couldn't help it. I was shaking violently, standing up and wobbling over to help König. He had already taken out his pistol and after shoving the man to the ground, he aimed point blank. His eyes were narrowed, and if he had no mask on, you'd be able to see the haunting smile as the bullet wrecked the mans head. Blowing his brains out was nothing to König.

I had barely been able to register the gun shot as more than the ringing in my ears after. The snowfall was heavier then ever, cold wind freezing my clothes and along with it my body. After the kill had been delivered, König rushed over to me. He crouched down the slightest bit, his accent thick in his words, "Liebe, are you okay?" I wrapped my arms around myself, teeth chattering. I could barely mumble a reply without stammering half the sentence but I tried. "N.. No." My scowl at him took all my remaining energy and I nearly collapsed on him.

"Oh, sheiße!" He hissed, holding me in place. The only sound being my grunts of pain, the cold feeling like I was shattering into pieces.

"We've got to get you to the safe house. It's so close to here! Can you walk schatz?" He panics, holding my frozen hands. "Ah, you're like ice." König comments. I take a couple steps with him, another breeze blows by and my knees give out. I cry out painfully, grabbing Königs arm. He hushes me sympathetically, pulling me close.

"Ok, meine liebe, i need you to listen to me, ja? I'm going to carry you, but you can't, please, you cannot," He firmly talks to me taking a breath, making sure my lidded eyes stay open. "You cannot fall asleep, stay awake, ok? We'll get to the safe house in no time."

König knew he had a timer, it started to tick down as soon as I got out of water, breathing heavily. It was now or never, or else I'd slip into the afterlife. He couldn't let that happen. Now he was running as quick as he could, his long legs lunging forward. If their lieutenants information was correct, the safe house should be around the corner from these birch trees, and like the heavens opened for him, there was a run down, abandoned looking house covered in sheets of white.

König slammed the door open and kicked it closed as he rushed in, his heart pounding and the blood roaring in his ears. I was shivering in Königs arms, fighting every nerve in my body begging me to let go, but I knew I couldn't, I couldn't leave him alone, alone here. Those were my only coherent thoughts as König set me down in front of the fire, rummaging desperately through each drawer in the living room. My puffs of air coming out as thick clouds in the room, I could hear Königs quickened breathing as he searched around. When I heard him sigh out a noise of victory, it was a telltale sign he found matches.

I looked at him through my heavy eyes, König flicked it and it caught on fire. He tidyed the logs in the fireplace and threw the match in, blowing it softly so it'd grow faster. My teeth chattered vigorously but I couldn't feel my lips, or my legs. König carefully peeled my tactical vest off, looking at me gently. "Schatz, I need to take your clothes.. off..." His eyes seemed to be pleading with me and all I could do was nod slightly. König worked fast while still being so gentle with my freezing body, and in a matter of minutes, I was bare, stripped to my undergarments. He swallowed, trying to stop his eyes wandering.

König took his vest off, basically stripping himself as well. Now, I couldn't help but stare. He was built like an ox, along with being huge, his muscles were just daunting. I screwed my eyes shut to keep out the indecent thoughts.

"You're tired, no? It's ok, meine liebe. Let me get some blankets and we will sleep." He reassured me and I could only nod, whimpering quietly trying not to tremble with everything in me. My arms were wrapped around my body tightly. After a few minutes, he came back with a pillow and blankets. König sat down next to me, gently sliding a blanket below me and then the rest on top.

His hands were warm.. so warm. I could feel my mind shutting down and König noticed, of course he did. My sleepy eyes, the red tint of my cheeks and nose. He could hear me mumbling, but was too dazed in my appearance, "Sorry, what'd you say?"

"Can you come closer? You're really, really warm." I whisper. König looked at me, silent like always. After a long pause, he nodded.

Shifting closer to me, he (awkwardly) put his arms around me. I leaned on him, contently sighing. He couldn't believe what was happening, König was never typically a 'ladies man' and now that it was happening, he froze up. König looked down at me, feeling a warmth touch his chest. I had fallen asleep on him. He couldn't do anything but sit there, cocooning me in his arms with his gun by his side in case of an emergency.

He didn't sleep at all, if only to keep me safe.

#könig x reader #konig x reader #könig cod #könig mw2 #konig mw2 #konig cod #konig call of duty #könig call of duty #x reader #writers on tumblr #fanfiction

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suzdin · 1 year ago

Text

DATURA

Summary: Dave and his team have been sent to kill you, but the night pans out differently than you anticipate.

Warnings: ¡SEX POLLEN! Implied noncon due to sex pollen. Fictional drug use. Mentions of weapons/guns/murder (duh). Threeway sex. Gun play, unprotected p in v, creampies, masturbation (f), fingering, spit roasting, oral (m receiving), use of sex toy on reader, anal, spitting, light degradation, choking, spanking, rough sex, squirting, let me know if I missed anything. No use of y/n. Picture is for aesthetics only, as reader is not given a physical description.

This fic is extremely feral and not for everyone, and that’s okay. <3

Word Count: 4,800-ish

Taglist: @kellybelly1978 @ohheypedrito @darkheartgatita @laughing-in-th3-purple-rain @sonderosa @missladym1981

And of course I dedicate this to @survivingandenduring and @kateispunk for holding a gun to my head until I wrote this inspiring me to write this 😘

——

Dave prods his index finger at the highlighted portions of the floor plans on the tablet, which he presents to his compatriots.

“There are entrances here, here…and here,” he points out, tapping the third for emphasis. “She’ll be expecting those. Watching them.”

Dave brushes his bottom lip with his thumb, brow creasing in contemplation.

“Ari and Resnik can head off the two main entrances. Joel, you take the side. And I’ll enter…here.” He places a finger where there’s a hastily drawn ‘X’ facing a private alley and courtyard.

“Don’t see a door or window,” the tall, tan man to his left drawls, placing a hand on his hip.

“Right. There’s a secret entrance there which leads to a crawl space left over from the city’s bootlegging days. None of the residents know. And guess where it exits?” Dave asks, eyes darting between the three men.

He places a finger where the bedroom closet would be.

A smirk twists Joel’s mustache. “Shit,” he says, scratching thick, weathered fingers through his scruff. “Gonna hit ‘er from all sides.”

“Exactly,” Dave responds, mirroring the way his companion places his hands on his hips. “We’ll strike at 10 PM sharp. That’s when the main festivities begin. No one will hear a thing.”

——

Dave crouches next to the hatch that leads to the secret door beneath the building, long since defunct due to the city’s proclivity for flooding.

A crackle resonates through his ear piece.

“Miller. Anything?” Dave asks.

“Nothin’,” Joel answers in a low southern lilt, positioned at the bottom of the narrow stairwell on the east side of the building, clicking the safety off on his Glock.

“Ari, Resnik? Station yourselves. Miller, I’m going in.”

“10-4,” Joel returns.

Dave yanks up on the metal hatch and it opens with a jarring creak, drowned out by the roar of the crowds on Bourbon Street and another jazz band playing their rendition of Oh When The Saints Go Marching In for probably the 1,000th time that evening.

He slips in easily and finds a peeling red door, which is shockingly ajar. A stray cat rushes out with a shriek, spitting feline obscenities at him.

“Fuck!” Dave snarls as the dark, furry void streaks past him and into the night.

“What’s goin’ on?” Joel’s voice.

“Nothing. Fucking cat. I’m inside.”

A low, throaty chortle sounds through Dave’s ear piece.

“Eat shit, Miller. Start heading up. I should reach her apartment in five.”

“Unless there’s more cats guarding the place.” This time it’s Ari’s voice. Dave pointedly ignores him.

The crawl space is narrow and damp, crushing in at him from all sides and choked with cobwebs and god knows what else, but it’s surprisingly not the worst place he’s ever been.

The space quickly dead ends into a ladder that looks like it’s seen far better days, rusting from the bolts outward. Dave can’t help but wonder if it will support his full body weight.

“‘M at her front door,” Joel remarks through the ear piece.

“Climbing the ladder now,” Dave responds as he begins his ascent, gripping the bottom rung and giving it a hard jostle to test its integrity.

The metal rungs protest and groan under his weight, but the structure holds true.

The boys had thought it absolutely ludicrous when Dave had come to them for their help with the hit. Four men for one single woman?

Bullshit. A waste of time and resources.

That is until they’d familiarized themselves with your rap sheet. Just shy of forty murders in less than a decade, and a weapons and ballistics specialist to boot.

But it would all end tonight, and that price on your pretty little head would be a nice cherry on top.

He reaches the hatch leading into your closet a moment later, twisting the mechanism that holds it flush to the wooden floor above.

He draws the Beretta from the holster on his hip, clicking off the safety as he strains his hearing to listen for something, anything, that would give him pause; that would make him abort the mission.

He hears nothing but the music seeping in from the streets through the century old brick.

“I’m in, Joel. I’m in,” Dave whispers, lifting the hatch as he silently crawls inside your closet, the scent of you overwhelming his senses, making his nostrils flair. Cock already half hard in his dark denim jeans at the prospect of another name scratched off his list.

Your name.

——

Joel makes short work of unlocking your door, pushing it open with his foot as he replaces the Glock with the heavier semi-automatic at his back, holstering the pistol on his hip.

His face pinches. You hadn’t even locked the deadbolt, despite having one, a feeling of dread slithering up the crease of his scrotum, perspiration pricking at his skin.

You’ve been waiting for them.

You register Joel first, his heavy footfalls impossible to conceal under the creak of the original wooden flooring. It’s almost laughable how loud they’re being, Joel making a ruckus behind you and the other rustling somewhere in your closet, probably smelling your panties for all you know.

Joel finds you at an open window, back facing him as some loud pop song he doesn’t recognize drifts up from the Quarter below. You’re naked aside from a short, black pleated skirt that barely ghosts the lower curve of your ass, a silver and white fox tail peeking out from beneath the hem of said skirt.

Though he can’t see it from his current vantage, a gun rests on the window sill in front of you. You’re starting to think you won’t be needing it. Not when the man at your back could have already taken a clear shot at you and didn’t.

You lean slightly forward, revealing more of your ass to Joel and cheering as you catch a handful of colorful Mardi Gras beads from one of hundreds of floats below, waving your arms triumphantly over your head before you slip the necklaces around the lovely column of your neck.

Joel spots Dave then, mocha brown eyes shifting to his comrade, his expression unreadable. The Beretta drawn to shoulder height, trained at your head, but he isn’t pulling the trigger. Not yet.

Lowering the rifle, Joel lifts a fist in the air to signal to Dave, take the shot, asshole.

But he doesn’t, and neither does Joel, staring at your bared skin, the exposed hills and valleys of your body. Two men reduced to little more than their base desires in mere seconds. Exactly what you were expecting.

You finally shut the window and turn to face them when they do nothing but stand there, transfixed by your beauty. You’re wearing a masquerade mask in royal purple that’s trimmed with gold lace, cinched tightly behind your head.

You won’t be needing a gun when you can use sexuality as a weapon. It wasn’t the first time, and certainly wouldn’t be the last.

“Took you long enough,” you admonish, eyes drifting back and forth between the two men.

The larger one is broad and older, unkempt curls swirling away from his head, dusted with silver. The beard tracing his jaw is dark and patchy, a thick mustache framing his upper lip.

A red and black flannel stretches across the expanse of his upper body, tucked into dark wash jeans, ending with heavy work boots. His eyes darken in their regard of you.

His companion is also broad, only just less so, and younger than his comrade by what you guess to be ten or fifteen years. His face is clean and smooth with the barest hint of shadow, plush lips pushed outward in bewilderment, a black beanie pulled down to conceal his dark hair, matching the rest of his attire.

“Love the outfit, but a bit on the nose, don’t you think?” you ask the younger of the two men. The edges of his lips twitch upward in amusement.

You sway your hips slightly, making the tail between your legs wag to and fro, enticing the two men to ease closer. And they do. Exactly where you want them.

Dave notices your fingers dancing across the lid of a small metal box in the nick of time.

A new party drug originating from Ibiza, its purpose intended to act as a powerful aphrodisiac amongst the most experimental, but as with most things, too much could be dangerous, in rare cases fatal. It usually came in tab form, but it had been sold to you as a fine powder, and your plan was to drug them senseless until they fucked each other to death or you killed them, depending on how bored you got.

You grasp the ornate metal box in your fingers and flick your wrist outward, hurling the contents in a direct trajectory at Dave’s face, which would have hit the intended target had he not been ready to deflect the strike with a hastily lobbed pillow from the nearby sofa.

The cloud the hit produces is magnificent, a shimmery white mist which coats your face and lips and everything else in its path, inhaled through your sinuses and entered through your bloodstream as traces of the powder land on your tastebuds.

You spit and claw at your face, but it’s too late, and you know it.

You’re fucked in more ways than one.

The affects are almost instantaneous, a fiery hot inferno that builds low in your core, a lance of pain sawing through you from the inside out. Your pupils dilate and everything is suddenly too bright, too painful, every source of illumination having a halo that almost resembles a mushroom cloud in its brilliance, its potency.

You feel the sticky slick coating the inside of your thighs and you double over, clutching your guts, tears pricking at your eyes.

“Whatsa matter, darlin’?” Joel asks, your show of pain bringing him immense joy. “Can’t handle what you dish out?”

His cock strains against his jeans as he watches you and you groan, spreading your legs as you slip a finger between your folds in a bid to quell some of the ache. “Fuck…” you grit.

“Jesus, York, the hell’s wrong with her?” Joel questions.

Dave can only stare, transfixed, palming himself over his jeans.

Both men can’t help but jump when Resnik’s voice comes through the ear piece, so lost in your body they almost forgot why they were there to begin with.

“Everything alright?” he asks.

“Good,” Dave responds. “We’re…negotiating.”

“Negoti— fucking seriously?”

“Yes,” Dave answers firmly, his voice a low and husky. “I’ll explain later. For now, stay in a holding pattern, and make sure no one enters the building.”

Resnik starts to say something else, but Dave flicks off the ear piece and tosses it to the floor before he can finish, already forgotten. Joel follows suit.

“Help, please,” you whimper, stepping toward Joel as you fumble in desperation at his jeans. “Need it bad. It hurts.”

Joel abandons his weapons, drunk at the sight of you. His massive hands circle your waist, squeezing, desirous, lifting your skirt to cup your ass, exposing the tail tucked between your cheeks to Dave. You keen and without thinking, Joel bends forward to press his lips to yours.

“Miller, stop —“ Dave spits sharply, but it’s too late. Joel kisses you, deep and wanton, tongue swiping hungrily at your lips, and within seconds he receives his own dose of the drug, though not nearly as much as you.

He spins you in his grasp and hikes your skirt even higher up your waist, revealing your pussy to Dave, dragging two thick, callused digits between your dripping folds, bumping your clit. You moan and press your ass against him, the hard line of his cock nudging at the plug, heightening your pleasure.

“Y’like that, darlin’?” Joel murmurs into the shell of your ear.

“Yes,” you answer too quickly. “But I need your cock.”

“That so?” he answers gruffly, making quick work of his jeans as he shucks them off like a second skin, the drug already firmly rooting itself in his brain.

He tugs his boxers down, fat cock springing free from its confines as he shoves you forward, folding you in half over the couch with a broad palm pressed between your shoulder blades, notching himself at your entrance and pushing himself inward with reckless abandon.

You grunt at the reprieve, the sting of how forcefully he invades you, how he fills you.

Dave watches the events unfold in stunned silence, lips parted and skewed, unbuckling his belt as his eyes fixate on your face, your lovely sparkling eyes. The way your mouth hangs open when Joel begins railing into you with everything he has to give.

He reaches forward and plucks the mask from your face, discarding it, so he can see you. See how well you take it.

He drags the pad of his thumb along your succulent bottom lip, pressing it against your tongue, to the back of your throat, teasing. Testing.

He exhales a groan when you don’t gag.

He quickly steps out of his jeans and boxers, climbing onto the couch in front of you, roughly gripping the sides of your face so that your lips pop open for him.

You take him into your mouth without question, mewling softly, your throat and jaw burning with effort as he sinks himself into you.

Dave presses the barrel of the gun against your temple, his voice a snarl as he says, “Try anything and I’ll spray your pretty little brains all over these walls, sweetheart. Understood?”

You nod around him in affirmation as he begins rutting into your mouth, his other hand fisted tightly in your hair.

It isn’t long before Joel drags your first orgasm out of you, every muscle in your body constricting, relieving the pain only temporarily before it flares up again, white hot and slithering through your veins like molten metal.

“Thassit, darlin’. Takin’ that dick like a champ,” Joel praises, giving your ass a sharp slap. Every thrust of his hips knocking against the plug secured firmly in your ring of muscle.

“Fucking whore, letting two men enter you,” Dave growls, the gun pressed so squarely against your skull, it’s sure to leave an indentation.

Joel finishes inside you expeditiously with a low growl, panting into the small of your back as he collapses forward, knees smarting.

“Quick on the draw as always, Miller,” Dave tuts, clicking his tongue.

Dave’s fingers twist at your roots as he pulls you further onto his length, bottoming out with a shudder at the back of your throat.

“Fuck off, York,” Joel retorts, still fully hard inside of you. He tugs at the end of the tail, smirking playfully, causing you to moan.

“What if I shoved my dick up your ass next, sweet girl?”

You whimper around Dave in reverence. For both of them.

“Not a chance. That ass is mine,” Dave snorts. “Soon as I’m done with this mouth.”

Joel doesn’t argue. Your pussy feels too good, the way you squeeze him, and it isn’t long before he’s railing you hard again, never having gone soft, even at his age.

You cum a second time, soaking Joel, your release splashing down his muscular thighs. Your moans reverberating through Dave’s cock.

“Fuck, I’m not going to last like this…” Dave grunts as he pulls himself free from you with a pop of your lips, jaw hanging slack as Joel’s unforgiving pace doesn’t falter behind you.

“Trade places, Joel,” Dave demands.

“Not a chance,” Joel growls, the sounds of his hips slamming against your ass lewd and depraved.

“Now, Miller,” Dave reiterates, eyes deepening a shade as he lifts the gun away from your head to aim it at Joel.

“Fuck,” Joel spits, extricating himself from you as he and Dave exchange places. “Fine.”

Joel’s wide palms cup your face and he doesn’t waste time stretching your jaw and throat beyond their limits because fuck, he’s girthy. You taste the cocktail of you and him on your tongue.

He circles the outside of your throat with his hand and squeezes, feeling himself moving in your esophagus, grunting deeply as he watches you take him.

You jolt when you feel something cold, rigid and foreign dashing through your folds a second later, realizing in abject horror what is happening just as Dave pushes it inside of you and begins fucking you with it.

You moan, eyelids fluttering closed and Joel grunts deep in his chest, hand tightening around the cradle of your throat.

“Yeah, you like that, don’t you, slut? You like being fucked with my gun?” Dave grits from behind you.

You make a sound of supplication that tells Dave yes, yes you do.

He grins in satisfaction and drives the gun deeper, angling it just right, making you keen. The resulting squelch is deafening and obscene.

He pulls another orgasm out of you almost immediately, once again temporarily relieving the bubbling pain, sobbing around Joel, who’s already filling your mouth with more of his seed, spilling down your throat with a snarl.

He slows only for a moment, still hard as iron, ready to go again. And again.

Dave drags his lips up the curve of your ass and sinks his teeth into the meat of one of your plump cheeks, clamping down. You writhe against him at the small dagger of pain that courses through you.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” Dave purrs, giving the smarting cheek a slap.

As he continues to fuck you with the barrel of the pistol, his other hand skirts your tight star of muscle, fingers dancing around it.

His hand curls into the synthetic material of the tail, reveling the softness against his fingertips, and begins to tug slowly, lightly, testing.

You initially clench out of instinct, but relax your muscles as understanding settles over you, allowing him to pull it free from your puckered hole, letting it drop to the couch.

“Such a good girl,” Dave croons, tilting his face forward to place a chaste kiss there, the tip of his tongue darting out to circle your rim. You whine and arch into his touch.

“You should have some of this drug, York. Y’won’t have to worry about lastin’ then.”

“No,” Dave says as he lifts his head above your ass to lock eyes with Joel. “One of us needs to keep a clear head.”

“C’mon,” Joel taunts, swiping a finger through the mix of powder and tears still on your face. “Have a taste. Live for once.”

Joel extends his offering to Dave, hovering just over your lower back, inches from Dave’s lips. The men stare each other down, each of their movements slowing, much to your displeasure.

Dave eventually resigns himself, taking Joel’s fingers into his mouth and giving them a good laving with his tongue, tasting the sweetness of the drug, the saltiness of your tears.

Without warning, Joel succumbs to another high, exhaling a sputtered groan as you swallow what he gives you — what little of it there is at this point.

The drug makes quick work of Dave, twisting him into some kind of untethered beast as he drags multiple orgasms out of you with the barrel of the gun, his tongue flicking hungrily against your ring of muscle.

There isn’t a part of you that isn’t on fire. With desire, pain, fear. Fear that this will never end, that these two men will rip you apart from the inside out before all is said and done, but in spite of yourself, in spite of everything, you don’t want it to end.

“Lie back, Joel,” Dave commands and Joel does so without hesitation, his age getting the better of him, welcoming the relief he’ll receive as he makes himself comfortable on your couch.

Likewise, you’re happy for your jaw to have a momentary reprieve, as well, rubbing your tired muscles with your fingers as you catch your breath.

“Get on top of him,” Dave barks at you.

You willingly climb atop Joel, panting, lining yourself up with the slick head of his shaft. Joel’s heavy arm comes up to bar across your hips, pushing you down onto him until you sink all the way to his curls. The new angle making you keen and arch.

Dave presses you forward until your chest is flush with Joel’s, flattening you out before him. Joel doesn’t miss the opportunity to wrap his lips around yours again, kissing you sloppily, roving the wet heat of your mouth with his tongue, making you whimper as you begin riding him.

Dave spreads your cheeks apart and spits a globule of saliva at your puckered entrance, pressing two digits inside easily.

“Good thing you already loosened up that ass for me. You can take both of us, can’t you, sweetheart?” Dave murmurs and you simply nod, not wanting to tear your mouth away from Joel.

He lines himself up, placing the weeping slit of his head against your muscle as he begins pushing inward, inch by agonizing inch. Though you’re properly loosened up, there’s still a slight sting as your muscles contract and pulsate around him, stretching to accommodate his size.

You pant in hitched breaths, never having felt so full, so sated, before. It’s like they’re everywhere inside of you, consuming every inch of you like rabid jackals. Joel’s arms lacing around both you and Dave as both men begin to move independently within you.

You soon discover why they work so well as a team. Within minutes their movements are synchronized, a coordinated dance with you placed right in the middle, every downward thrust from Dave immediately proceeded by an upward lance from Joel. And they somehow manage to maintain said synchronicity for quite some time, even as they’re filling you to the brim with their cum.

They pump you full of themselves and you continue to drench them with every orgasm they drag out of you, your shared fluids sluicing down your bodies, soaking the cushions of the couch below.

It’s okay, you can just burn it if you actually end up surviving this. But hey, if you don’t, what a way to go, right?

Everything begins to meld together after a while, lines and vision blurred, your bodies practically stitched together at the seams, a perilous dance between the three of you in the throes of passion when the drug reaches its peak.

Their hands paw at you, knead you, your flesh supple and malleable under their large palms. They dig their fingers in, branding you, bruising marks left in their wake. Your head twists to and fro, tongue snaking between your teeth as you alternate between locking lips with both of them. You aren’t certain, but you think you see Joel and Dave link lips a few times as well, but it’s difficult to ascertain for sure, each scene of debauchery bleeding right into the next.

It goes on like that for hours, Dave and Joel occasionally switching roles, manipulating your overwrought body into a host of varying positions.

You have to stop a few times. For water, or just to take a break and a quick breather before you’re at it again, both men claiming your body like the primitive animals they are.

Dave has to call off his two remaining men when they practically try to beat down your door, understandably mystified and concerned, drinking in the vision laid out before them when Dave answers the door naked as the day he was born.

He sends them away when their motives shift and they make a sudden plea to join, letting them know in no uncertain terms that you are for him and Joel only.

You pout as you watch them leave, ever eager for more, but you don’t allow yourself to dwell on it, the three of you getting right back into the swing of things the moment they’re gone.

——

You must have shifted to the bedroom at some point during the night, as you rouse from sleep between two massive furnaces of men, a thin sheen of perspiration coating your still naked bodies.

You extricate yourself from the tangle of limbs and climb out from beneath them. You could easily put an end to them right now, if you were so inclined. But there’s something oddly endearing about the way they’re passed out in your bed, practically cuddling one another, Joel snoring like a chainsaw, that gives you pause. You’re amazed you were able to get any sleep at all with them in your bed.

You give them a final glance before you hastily make your way to the bathroom to clean up.

——

After your shower, you slip into a set of loose and comfortable sweats — a stark contrast from last night — tucking your pistol into the band of your sweatpants. You know, just in case.

You sweep up the remaining powder, making sure to wear proper PPE this time, salvaging as much of it as you can, should you ever need it again. As a weapon next time, you tell yourself.

Once done, you wander into the kitchen, chewing on two naproxen tablets before chugging what seems like a gallon of water to alleviate your dehydration and the various aches and pains riddling your body.

You’re starving so you put on a pot of coffee and whip up a simple breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast, enough to share. You plate the eggs and bacon on a platter and place them in the center of the table while you finish up the toast.

Your back is to Dave when he enters the kitchen. You feel the boards shift and you spin on the balls of your feet, drawing and raising your gun. You aren’t at all surprised when you find him doing the same — holding the same gun he fucked you with — dressed only in his boxers, your eyes locked, staring each other down in a deadly game of chicken.

“Easy now, kids. Thought ya worked out your differences last night,” Joel chides as he steps into the kitchen next to Dave, adjusting himself in his boxers.

You swallow, eyes blown wide, and you lower your gun first, even though you shouldn’t. After an uncomfortable beat, Dave does the same.

“We good?” you ask him.

“Yeah. Good.” Dave furrows his brow at you, unconvinced, but willing to play nice. For now.

“Smells great, sweetheart,” Joel says, seating himself at the table, helping himself to a plate.

You make a motion for Dave to sit.

“Could be poisoned,” he warns Joel, who flashes him and incredulous slant of his eyes.

“Fuck sake—“ you grit, scooping up a spoonful of eggs and shoving them into your mouth, canting your eyebrows at Dave as you inhale them. “Satisfied?”

Neither of them says a thing, but you catch a glimpse of Joel’s smirk below his mustache as he begins shoveling food into his mouth.

You finish preparing the toast and pour each of them a cup of coffee before serving yourself.

“Thanks,” Dave says, quietly, his eyes sliding down your body, tongue trailing his lips.

“You know, I don’t even know your names,” you say, glancing between the two men.

“Dave,” he replies. “And this is Joel.”

“Well, you already know my name. Nice to meet you, Dave and Joel,” you say.

Silence settles between the three of you while you eat, you seated between them, pouring more coffee when their cups inevitably empty.

You stay like that for a while, mulling over what to say next.

Dave is the first to break the silence.

“Thank you. For breakfast. And for…last night,” he says, averting his gaze.

You smirk.

“I’m not a bad person, you know.”

“Never said you were,” he responds.

“Just a name on a piece of paper.”

“That’s right. The infamous Datura.”

“I don’t kill indiscriminately like you do. I kill bad people. Corrupt politicians. Crooked cops. Genocidal maniacs.” You swallow down a swig of coffee. “But I guess I should have known better than to take out a senator’s son this time.”

“You know, we’re all putting our lives on the line, too, by not completing the contract,” Dave explains. “Should probably get the fuck out of dodge. Maybe you, too.”

His lips skew into a ghost of a smirk, eyes mapping the gentle slopes of your face.

“Yeah, I figured as much.”

“We might need an extra set of eyes, if that’s the case.”

You smile, leaning across the table, resting your chin in the bowl of your palm. Your eyes sparkle sweetly as they shift between Dave and Joel.

“Dave, are you offering me a job?”

His hand comes up to hook around the back of your neck, lips crashing into yours as his other hand grips and squeezes your hip, making you whine when his fingers graze one of many tender spots.

You hear a throaty chuckle rise from Joel next to you.

“Take it that’s a yes, darlin’.”

FIN.

#pedro pascal #writing #fanfic #romance #smut #author #pedro fanfic #dark romance #dave york #joel miller

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