#me as that plank of wood he's knocking down

[writingoddess1125]

The old men of One Piece finding out they have a child with you. Final Part

Shanks, Buggy, Mihawk X FemReader

Healthy mix of Angst and Fluff.

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Author Note at End!-

Buggy

Dee woke up first, feeling the scratching of wood on his face. Sitting up quickly he saw they were in a cell- more accurately the brig of a ship. Sitting up quickly he felt his head throbbing in discomfort, he saw Bee also knocked out and shook him hard.

"Get up-" He hissed, smacking Bee across the cheek which snapped him away.

"What the h-" Dee slammed his hand against his brothers lips quickly. Bee noticing were they were and rubbing the side of his head. Dee carefully removing his hand-

"We have to be quiet..."

"Do you remeber what happened?" Bee questioned, Dee shaking his head. It was all too fuzzy for him to remeber.

"Doesnt matter.. we just gotta get out of here" Bee nodded at this and both kids stood up, Dee deciding to climb to the top of the cell greatful he had been in the crowsnest for a while and learned how to climb the mast.

"Hey this ship is old enough, I think if we push in this plank will pop up and we can try and shimmy our way up"

Bee followed his twins lead and climbed up next to him- Both beginning to push on the plank and pry it from its position. Dee greatful they were both skinny kids slipped his way through the open planking the dim space before pulling Bee up behind him. Once in they looked around.

They stared in awe- realizing this is must have been were they were stashing the treasure- it was small just big enough for the twins to stand with an inch of head space above them.

Bee grabbed some gold coins and shoved them into his pocket with a greedy smile. However Dee eyes went to a series of 3 boxes nearly stuck in a corner, kneeling down as he grabbed one and cracked it open seeing some odd looking fruit.

"Did you find food?" Bee said appearing like the Imp he was and peering down at it- it was boxes of fruit. Both boys groaned at the sight, You forced them to eat fruit most the time since they didn't really have a taste for healthy. Bee picked up the first one he saw and held it with one hand and frowned-

"That's it? Just some old fruit? They don't even have chocolate?" He grumbled figuring better tasting stuff was more valuable.

"Just shut up and eat it- We don't know if we will get food again" Dee argued back, Grabbing one from the box as well. Insync the two took a bite of their respective fruits and shivered in disgust as they tasted it. Bee barely able to swallow the first bite and quickly chucked it at a wall-

"What the hell was that!?" He yelled, Dee chewing his own in disgust before his eyes widened as he covered his brothers mouth. But it was far too late. Heavy footsteps quickly marched above them and both boys hit as the secret hatch above them opened- they saw a large pale man frowning as he looked at his secret treasures, he had a big purple fur coat, a wide brim hat that matched, way too small of eyes that made him look squashed like a pug. As he looked around clearly keeping an eye on his treasure Dee unfortunately was not keeping an eye on Bee who had grabbed a gold Dagger from the collection of goods and stabbed the captians hand. The large man yelled and jumped back-

Just like with all things- It seemed improve was Bee's go to!

Like two little rabbits both boys rushed out of the hiding hole and rushed out the Captian's Quarters while the blinged out Captian yelled and yanked the knife from his hand.

Dee and Bee ran through the halls of the ship, This wasn't like their dad's so it was difficult to navigate. However as if luck was on their side they rushed to the Main Deck- there they saw the ship and crew-

It was like they got flash banged by glitter- All the crew mates were wearing sequence in some way while the ship looked like someone had dunked it in cheap glitter and rhinestones.

"Did we get kidnapped by literally the lamest pirates?-" Bee questioned as the crew looked at the twins in shock.

"The hostages are escaping!!!" A crewmate yelled as all hell broke loose, The boys scrambled and darted in different directions. Dodging and lacing through the grown men at best they could- the boys were quite literally running laps around these idiots and having them knock into each other-

"Enough!!" What was assumed was the first mate held a gun up and fired directly at Dee clearly not caring about keeping a hostage for ransom anymore.

Dee stood in shock as the bullet came right at him- Before silence. Bee stood there in shock as Dee slowly looked down, There sat the bullet perfectly stuck to his chest. Carefully he pulled it off him and dropped it to the ground. Shocked just as much as the Crew members.

"THEY MUST HAVE EATEN A DEVIL FRUIT! THROW THEM OVERBOARD!!"

The Crew yelled before the grown men all charged at the boys- Dee picking up an oar and ready to defend himself. Till the oar didn't come off his hands- he started to wave it around wildly to get it off, Hitting the men in the process of doing so.

"Sorry!!" He yelled as he tried to kick off the oar from his hands but it smacked a guy in his teeth and landed perfectly back in his grasp sticking once again. His feet sticking to the ground as he bent backwards as a guy jumped at him and jumped into the sea around them.

"I-Im sorry!-" Dee cried as he spun around and the oar stuck to him swung and smacked another pirate inbetween the legs.

The oar finally unsticking from his hands and falling to the floor with a unflattering thud.

He looked to hear cackling as he watched Bee have the damn time of his life- He bounced like a spring everywhere, going incredibly fast as he punched different crewmates with the force of the abilities.

It seemed everytime Bee swung a wave of force would come out of him sending men flying at kicks and punches. He laughed loudly at this and looked on at the destruction he was causing.

Once all the crew mates were knocked out the hard steps and laughter from the Lower Deck caught their attention. The massive Captian clapping in praise as he walked up to the Main Deck.

"The Tack Tack fruit and the Bam Bam Fruit- Fitting you two would stumble upon it! One makes you Just sticky enough that nothing on the outside can harm you just stick, while the Bam Bam fruit lets you double your natural abilties every time you hit it twice"

The Captian bellowed as he stared down at the two boys- Pulling off his coat with a laugh revealing the many gold chains on his body and heavy rings on his fingers.

"Behold a true devil fruit! The Bling Bling Fruit!" He yelled as he clapped his hands and his whole body turned into glittering gold before punching the ground hard shattering thay part of the deck, The boys jumped out of the way of the impact.

"Too bad it won't keep you from being crusted to death!!" He yelled as he began to jump and use himself as a human Canonball- The boys barely dodging the attacks, the few times Bee tried to make a hit the mental just hurt his hands and made him jump away.

The Blinged out Captian continue to terrorize the boys, as well as landing blows on them that they barely were able to escape.

The Captian laughed loudly as the two boys were just trying a means to escape at this point, The older man hitting Dee who flung overboard barely able to stick to the side of the ship to keep from hitting the water.

"DANNY!" Bee called out as he rushed to pull his brother up. As he did so he saw the Captian power up and jump ready to crush to two under his weight.

"BLING BLING CRUSSH- OOF!-" He cried out as a Special Muggy Ball suddently smacked into his back exploding and propelled him into the ocean past the two kids. Both boys frozen as they saw The Big Top ship came into View, Buggy at the front as massive hooks came to the side of the blinged out ship and pulled it close.

"DAD!!!" Both boys cried out, Buggy and You rushing from the Big Top to the smaller pirate ship quickly and towards the twins. Buggy using his Chop Chop abilities to grab both twins from so close to the rails and pull them close.

"Oh thank Heavens you're alright!!" You cried out as you kissed their faces, tears rushing down your cheeks as you held them both close.

"How did you find us?" Bee fried out, As you smoothed your hand over his and Dee's face.

"You don't make your ship shiny cause you turn into a sailing Lighthouse thay anyone can track-" Buggy pointed out as he gestured to the glittery ship.

"Are you two hurt? Oh my goodness is that a busted lip!?" You cried as you looked at Dee's face.

"We are okay, we did most of the damage anyway! And the bullets didn't hurt me!"

"Yeah We were beating them all up too! And fought the whole crew with our awesome abilties!!" Bee yelled excitedly.

Buggy froze at this like a record scratch, staring at his sons with the most deadpan stare he could possibly muster as his eye twitched.

"Boys- Please elaborate on what the hell you mean by that?-" He asked as he put one of each hand on his shoulder and kneeled down to their eyelevel.

Bee grinned widely at this as he giggled excitedly, before snacking Dee and his hand sticking to his brothers face. Dee glared at this and yanked him off him aggressively before kicking his brother in the shin- making Bee cry out and hop on one leg, of course after that second jump he shot through the air.

Buggy giving his signature scream in shock before his hands flew out and grabbed Bee quickly before he flew into the ocean.

"YOU TWO ATE DEVIL FRUITS?!" He screamed out as he brought back bee carefully and proceeded to grill them on finding out how and why-

"Yeah the Tack Tack fruit and the Bam Bam fruit!!" Boy boys said in unison.

They ate a devil fruit- both ate a devil fruit... you turned away and felt your body stagger a bit as the words that Buggy was screaming in panic about to the twins was mumbled on you-

Both of them... Cursed to never swim... while you're out on sea... and both of them are pre-teen boys that don't listen...

You didn't remeber your face smashing into the main deck due to you fainting- However you sure as hell felt it when next thing you know Buggy is fanning your face and holding you in his lap in panic. Your boys standing around you as well and a few crewmates with a wet rag for you and a first aid kit.

"Buggy... please tell me your genes did not win and have not one...but both our twins eat a devil fruit"

You whimper out, Buggy wincing at your words a little and nodding that unfortunately it was true-

"Oh dear Gods..." You sigh- almost ready to faint again.

"Mommy I promise we won't cause any trouble" You heard Bee said, his voice softer then normal as he was clearly worried. Dee nodding in agreement as he too looked worried that you were mad at them.

"I know my loves- I... it's just very dangerous"

You say softly, Sitting up with the help of Biggy who rubs your back in comfort. Dee and Bee stand there nervous for a moment, before Dee whispers to his brother who grins and reach into his baggy pants pockets.

"Here Mommy! I have just the thing to show we will be okay- TAHA!" He yelled out as he pulled out two large handfuls of treasure.

Both you and Buggy's jaw drops at the sight. "Where did you get that!?" You yell and Dee smiles at this.

"On that ship we escaped" He said proudly, Buggy started in saying to bring it to the treasure room but the boys refused. Saying it was theirs and they would hide it in the best spot! Running from the both of you laughing as they plotted their treasure spot.

"I suppose a Pirates life is for them" You said with a tired chuckle, staring at the two as they ran away to the lower deck. Buggy helped you stand fully this time, not bothering to chase the kids for their nice lump of treasure.

"They will be amazing pirates for sure- and great men"

Feeling a arm around your waist, glancing up with a raised brow to see Buggy wide grin.

"You know, I haven't gotten that much time with the boys especially in those important younger years. I did miss so much and wish I got to experience those baby years as a Dad"

You slowly raised your brow as your eyes narrowed at the man who continued to grin with mischief in his eyes.

"What if we-"

You sent him a glare that made him smile nervously.

"Hell Fucking No-"

Shanks

It had been about 6 months since Shanks had returned into Vivians life. It had been slow going but getting there. The two had days were it was just them together and you could see that spark in Vivian's eye slowly coming back as her and Shanks hung out more-

Today was one of those days, Both having returned from a day out boating and having a picnic.

"Hey Mommy! We're home!" Vivian yelled put holding the empty picnic basket in her arms as Shanks smiled at you.

"Hey you two, How was today's boating adventure?" You ask, Smirking at the proud smile on Shanks face as Vivian began to mindlessly chatter about how much fun she had with Shanks. The man was clearly doing everything in his power to make it up to Vivian.

"I'm glad you two had fun"

As you speak this a wash off a odd feeling it you- You lean against the countertop, feeling lighthearted and dizzy. Assuming you had first thought you may have over worked yourself or not had enough water.

"(Y/N)?.." You hear Shanks call out to you as you felt odd. Closing your eyes as you staggered and fell being barely caught by a panic Shanks who called your name but the words warping before you feel unconscious.

When the doctor had arrived he had done every test imaginable and came out with grim results. An illness that couldn't be cursed and only be drawn out- he did everything he could in terms of medication however you all knew it was grim. Vivian took the news worse then anyone, insisting that you could improve if she did more. You and Shanks both having to slow her down and keep her from having a breakdown at that.

It had been a month since your diagnosis and you knew you were rapidly falling apart. Your legs being the first thing that went- you lips starting to get a sickly shade of blue and pain coursing through your form at all times. Vivian having decided to try and become a sort of care taker for you despite Shanks being there who helped you daily, she was desperate in wanting you to get better and it broke your heart to see-

"It's okay Mommy, you'll get better. Just takes time"

Laying in bed you watch Vivican fuss with your blankets talking about keeping you warm so you could get better. However you knew you wouldn't... your time was approaching and there wasn't anything to be done.

"Vi.. could you do me a favor and run to the market to get my favorite icecream?" You ask softly, watching her nod and run downstairs to do as you asked. Leaving you and Shanks alone, there was a few moments of silence before you sighed.

"Shanks... when I'm gone please take Vivian with you... she can't be alone" Shanks opened his mouth, most likely yo protest you dying but you held a hand up calmly.

"I know what will be happening to me... and in truth, I don't want to suffer either.. which is the second thing I need to ask of you-"

You saw his eyes water at this, bowing his head at the words. You knew you were asking too much of him- But he was the only one you trusted now and needed his help.

"What do you want done?..." He asked softly, his voice barely over a whisper.

"First... I want to have a nice dinner with all of you- And I want to tuck Vivian in... after she goes to bed.. me and you share one final drink together"

You say calmly, reaching over to grab the bottle of pain pills the doctor had given you. Holding the bottle out to him, his resolve cracking at this as tears rolled down his cheeks. Clutching the bottle hard and nodding.

"Okay... I can do that... And after?" He spoke between tears and trying to control his emotions. Tears running down your own cheeks at this point.

"Cremation.. and my ashes spread in the sea... the most beautiful place you can think of"

Shanks nodded at this tears running down his cheeks as he slipped the bottle into his jacket pocket for later.

When Vivian got back she was met with a surprising display, both her parents in the kitchen cooking. You seated on one of the chairs slowly and carefully cutting up ingredients while her father was stood adding it to different pots and mixing it with a spoon.

"Ah Vi, Thank you for the ice cream love. Wanna help us make dinner?"

Vivian smiled widely at this and nodded. It turned into a wonderful time together, the family making a wonderful curry dinner that was filled with laughter and nice stories- You and Shanks talking about your guys dating in the past, Vivian felt like she was in cloud nine. You were smiling and cheerful while Shanks was attentive and kind.

Once having your fill and eating the ice cream together Vivian watched you and Shanks together. After the family time Shanks carried you upstairs to Vivian's room were you read to her, kissing her forehead and tucking her in to the best of your abilities.

That evening once Vivian was put to bed Shanks laid you back in your own, careful in his task as he tucked you in with his hand and added several pillows to make you comforble.

Once laid out he grabbed two bottles of Rum. With shaking hands he added the crushed up pain pills in one and mixed it calmly before handing it to you.

Tears rolling down both of your guys cheeks as you both sat there together. Shanks leaned over and gently kisses your lips, sniffling as tears rushed down his cheek.

"I want to say I love you (Y/N)... and you have blessed me with not only your presence but our beautiful daughter.."

You smile at his kind words, returning the kiss and caressing his cheek.

"I love you too Shanks, you are a wonderful man who made me a Mother to a beautiful daughter.. I know you'll take wonderful care of her"

Holding your bottle up you both cheers and take the first sip of many, At this you two drink that night and for the final time.

When day rose, you were gone. Vivian had been woken up by the sound of the doctor talking, rushing out to see him and Shanks talking calmly his face red from crying. She rushed to him and peered into your room were a white sheet covered your form. Her eyes widening and her body running cold at the sight- She didn't even hear the words from Shanks as he laid a hand on her shoulder.

She stepped forward and he followed silently behind as she took a seat on the bed and touched the outline of your hand. Tears running down her cheeks as she looked on at your covered form, her hand hesitating in wanting to lift the shroud but stopped herself. Instead looking at Shanks who was silently crying while standing there.

"W-Was she in pain?" She asked, Shanks shook his head no at this. Vi nodded softly at this, before standing up from her seat and stepping towards Shanks and pressed her face against him- slowly her sobs began to fill the room as she wrapped her arms around his leg and cried. Shanks placing a hand on her head as he let her, she needed to cry.

The next few days had been a blur, Vivian had said her final goodbyes to you, crying by your side before the doctor took your body to he cremated. Shanks took control, he had organized the memorial, picked up the ashes to bring with him on his journey to sea and been with Vivian every step of the way. Vivian keeping the rights to the house and bakery when she wished to return, as well as packing up her room to be set onto his ship.

It was so much going on and all too quickly, yet it seemed like he was watching it in slow motion. Watching how Vivian looked out at sea or held the apron you always wore, it was hard for her yet she seemed to understand and accept it as well.

"Vivian.. are you ready?" Shanks called out, Stepping into her empty room as he crew took the last few boxes to his ship. She was standing there looking out the window holding your apron. Snapping from her thoughts she looked at him and nodded, folding the apron and putting it in her suitcase before following Shanks silently.

Once to the ship Vivian hesitated for a while, standing there as she watched the ship bustle to set sail as quickly as possible. She turned to look at the island, holding her suitcase still as the wind picked up through her red hair.

Vivian stood there, tears running down her cheeks as she looked out at what had once been her home with you.. her life that she knew with you was gone.

Feeling a hand on her back she looked up to see Shanks, looking as glum as her as he looked down at her. No words would be a comfort to her, they both knew that... but ironically they would only have each other from now on and the memories of you to keep them floating.

Mihawk

It was like clash of the titans in your home- Ever since you and Mihawk's tumble on the couch.

Mihawk and Alucare seemed to be constantly and silently fighting with each other. While they claimed it was training you were pretty sure Alucare taking a razor to the back of Mihawk's head was not apart of training or the need for Mihawk to quite literally toss his son to the other side of the island as punishment.

However it seemed in some way they were getting along- mainly when the two did real training in the orchard by your home. Since Alucare had a interest in blades Mihaek had taken up to training him- even procuring a curved sword he called a kilij to train him with. Alucare had taken up to this training well and had been getting better everyday. It had genuinely turned into a rather picturesque family envirment for the past few months much to your delight.

Today was just the same, Alucare and Mihawk up at dawn to train- Then silently fighting with each other, you cleaned up from breakfast and right on cue Mihawk walked in having let Alucare leave for school taking a seat at the dining room table.

You two shared a small conversation with each other as Mihawk unwined, you pausing however to take a break.

You rubbed your lower back in mild discomfort, you didn't notice Mihawk's gaze on you. How his eyes lingered on your form as you moved through the house.

"Dinner? Sure we can have dinner together next week, sounds like fun- Oh before I forget let me get you some tea-"

"Let me" You heard him say, and stand up quickly. Gesturing for you to take a seat quickly as he went to make the tea.

"It's okay Mih-"

"You're back hurts. It's more then acceptable to make my own tea and for you to rest.. You shouldn't work yourself so hard" Mihawk says calmly and surprises you by how he just took over the kitchen and sets down a cup of lavender tea, you raised a brow at this since he normally drank black.

"It's just mild back pain-" You pointed out, narrowing your eyes at him. Something was clearly up.

"Let's go to the doctors... if you are uncomfortable it's safer" He insisted as he took a seat and sipped his own tea ignoring your hard stares.

"...You know something don't you?-" You point out adding some honey to the lavender tea. But he stays quiet and continued to sip his tea.

At first you refuses to go to the doctors, hoping to prybit out of Mihawk what he was hiding- However the man just kept pestering you to go. It only took a few hours of his nagging for you to decide to go.

A few hours passing and Alucare returned, Clearly having decided to skip classes again to just return home. Walking in cautiously to see Mihawk in the kitchen and you nowhere to be found.

"Where is mom?" Alucare asked as he saw Mihawk quickly chopping vegetables-

"She will be returning shortly-" was all he said, but Alucare knew that tone. The old man was up to something.

The door slammed open and both men turned in surprise looking like two startled black cats with their fur raised- You were never one to flare your temper but oh boy did you look pissed. Holding a paper in your hand and glaring hard at Mihawk.

"You knew!!" You yelled pointing at him, Alucare stepping to the side out of the line of fire. Mihawk lowered the cooking knife and turned to look at you as you stomped forward.

"What did the doctor say?" He asked calmly, a almost playful tone on his face as you tossed the paper directly to his chest which he caught and began reading through carefully.

"You knew you got me pregnant again! You knew this whole damn time didn't you!!" You yelled, Alucare jaw dropping at the news and clearly now wanting to leave the room.

"I have no idea what you're talking about" He said calmly as he read through the paper, a smirk on his face as he read through it. You snatch the doctors paper from his hands that indicated you were in the early stages of pregnancy.

"You knew!- You ass!" You blush flustered as you hold the papers. Mihawk staring at you blankly and shrugging slightly like he didn't know what you were talking about- You placed your hand on your hips and narrowed your gaze.

"Damn it Mihawk we are both too old for a baby! Besides I can't fit a newborn in this house its-"

"Come move in with me" Mihawk said, this surprised you and Alucare together over how serious Mihawk seemed about this.

"I have missed the birth of one of my children already.. as well as you being forced to raise him on his own- I will not allow it a second time... I want both of you to move in with me" He explained, Gesturing to both of you with his hands. An air of silence followed.

"Mihawk- I couldn't just mooch off of you, I mean what would they think if just a random person moved into your home? I-I wou-" You were cut off again with a raised hand.

"You wouldnt be mooching off of me, you will be my wife and if anyone who dares come to my island has an issue with you as my wife they will learn quickly not to-"

Pause. Wife? Your eyebrows raised at hearing this, your cheeks feeling far too warm and chest fluttering.

Alucare looking slightly surprised by this as well.

"Wife? Since when have you married my mother?-" Alucare demanded as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"I planned on asking next week, however things have changed with the arrival of your sibling. So I'm asking now" He said bluntly.

That's when it clicked, thay dinner that Mihawk had asked you to join him at- That ment he was most likely going to propose then to you and ask you anyway to be his wife-

You covered your mouth in shock at this revolution. Mihawk smiled calmly at this, as he stepped closer to you. Alucare scrunched his face up in disgust at being caught in this sort of emotional situation.

"...If you're still interested I'd prefer to ask now. The ring order won't be ready till tommorow however..." Mihawk admitted as he placed his hands on your hips. Tears welling up in your eyes and you nodded.

"Yes, I will marry you-" You whisper out, Hugging the man you were so close to castrating just moments ago. Mihawk returning the gesture calmly as his hand settled on your waist.

"We will be moved out by the end of this week, it will be a bit of a sail to my Island so I will make sure everything is safe for the journey" He stated calmly, Alucare looking ready to barf at this point.

"I get no say in this do I-" Alucare asked as he stared at both of you.

"No."

"No-"

And that was that.

It seemed Mihawk really did manage to do as said, by the weeks end he had purchased a larger ship since he didn't think the Hitsugibune sea craft he usually used would carry you all comforbly and keep you safe. So he purchased a larger sea vessel, hiring also some local men to pack up the house and load everything onto the ship- Since your house was tiny it didn't take long.

Mihawk hadn't let you lift a finger- when you offered to help move things or even to cook lunch to bring on the journey he had refused and took the task himself. Alucare had also been weirdly okay with this all, he hadn't made a lot of friends in school so he wasnt attached to that- He'd explored all of the island and neighboring islands as well so he didn't care about the area-

Just like Mihawk had said, by the end of the week the small family was ready to depart- everything had been packed, enough food for up to 6 people to last a year instead of 3 as well as every supply imaginable.

You held Mihawk's had as he escorted you on the ship- still helicopering you. One hand on your lower back as he lead you on board.

"Mihawk Dear I'm not made of glass" You giggle softly, seeing the rather focused look on his eyes as he made sure you were fine while on board.

"I'm aware, but I wish for your safety only Darling" He says softly, Making you blush deeply and turn away in surprise. Alucare followed behind and rolled his eyed at the flirting between his parents.

Alucare looked at the island he had called home for the last time, feeling the tug of the small ship as it pulled from the docks ready to set sail.

This was the start of a new life.. and while he would never say it- he was excited for whatever was to come.

Author Note:

WOW! This sure has been one hell of a journey! I'm so glad that all of you have enjoyed these stories and have given me the chance to write for so many of you! These series has gifted me my first 800+ followers to my page and I couldn't be happier!

As a way to celebrate and yelp organize these stories I have organized them and put them on AO3! That and with some extra stories to go with them! They are also separated into individual stories as well!

Twice as Difficult Buggy x Reader and Twins

Memories that Wait Shanks x Reader and Vivian

Copy and Paste Mihawk x Reader and Alucare

Thank you all again and I hope to see you all soon!

Tag List-

@lunanight1021 @lolavegas20 @cuteastrash @thatcharmingmushroom @marsilis @thesadvampire @amecchii @zaphira-san @matronofthevoid @mothmans-left-nipple @hoe4fiction @manyimaginativemuses @alyholmes02 @arianyo @chaoticpercy-jacksonkid @lansy-4 @skeetyeetyote @untoldshortsofthefandoms @dank-memes19 @peachycuptea @kenqki @psycheflame @commanderfreethatdust

[buckys-little-belle]

Hi! This is my first time requesting so I’m really nervous and I’m sorry if my request sucks! I was just wondering if you could do another plus sized little reader but this time with Bucky? And she’s really embarrassed about being at the park because she gets hurt and so does peter but he gets picked up and she’s worried she can’t be picked up and snuggled because she’s too big and she’s just sad but then Bucky comes in and picks her up and reassures her that she’s still little and that he’s strong and that he still thinks she’s a little? Maybe she’s pretending to not be a little because she’s big again like you did in the last story but Bucky knows better and gives her a sweet band aid? Sorry this is so long you don’t have to do it! Have a good day!!!!!!!!

It's okay, Baby.

Warnings - Talks of swing accident, talks of scrapes, band aids are used, as well as ointment, there's a talk of snacks at the end, and both Bucky and Y/n have a habit of sneaking around each others apartments.

Notes - It's been so long again since I've written something, but I hope you love this anon! Thank you for the request, and I promise you did a great job requesting!

SFW - Please keep all interactions with this post, and this blog, SFW

. ☆ . ☾ . ☆ . ☽ . ☆ . ☾ . ☆ . ☽ . ☆ .

The park at the compound was huge, it had tons of slides, climbing areas, and more. It was the coolest place Y/n had ever seen. As her friends played some imagination game, running around across the wooden plank bridge and sliding down the fireman's pole, she sat on the bench with the bunch of caregivers.

Y/n hadn't identified as either little or caregiver when she showed up to the compound a year ago. She had gotten rude comments and mean looks in the past when she told people she was a little. And she wasn't ready to see what those she lived with might have to say.

Everyone on the playground was small, pickupable, even if they were tall, and it made her feel like she didn't belong by the side of her smaller friends in a smaller headspace. "Y/n!" Peter yelled, hanging off of the rope swing waving her over. "Push me!" He giggled, swinging his legs as he tried to get some air.

Y/n smiled as she walked over, pushing down the bit of her that wanted to be pushed on a swing too. "How high?" She asked, giving peter a few pushes, only ever getting "Higher" as a response.

"Wait!" Y/n could hear someone say from the playground, she turned to check it out but before she could see who had yelled Peter and the tire swing swung back and knocked her on her feet.

Both her and peter were laid on the mulch, scrapes from the wood gracing their hands, tears trailing down both their cheeks. "I'm so sorry!" Peter cried, missing one shoe.

"It's my fault, I wasn't looking." Y/n tried to smile, tried to not slip into her little headspace as she often did when hurt. "I didn' mean to!" She sobbed, her pain bearable but her worry for peter making her chest squeeze.

Tony and MJ walked over to peter, Tony picking him up and MJ checking his ankle to make sure it wasn't hurt.

Y/n stayed seated, tears still dripping down her cheeks as she tried to will herself to stand up and walk away, but the aching in her chest as she watched Peter be worried over made her feel worse. "It's okay, Baby." Bucky said quietly, approaching her like she was an animal ready to run at the first sign of danger. "You got a couple of owies, huh?" Bucky squatted down, now level with Y/n.

"'M fine Buck." She tried her hardest to sound big, to sound put together.

"You're bleeding, Baby." Bucky helped her stand, brushing the mulch off of her before he looked over her hands. "Let's go get these cleaned up, hm?" He asked, waiting for Y/n to agree.

Y/n wasn't sure what was happening, or why Bucky was acting so sweet and kind to her. And she couldn't get his use of 'Owie' out of her head. But she felt hazy, not sure if she could stay big too much longer, her hands stinging more and more as the minutes passed.

The moment she nodded her head in agreement Bucky picked her up, one arm acting as a seat for her, Y/n's arms quickly wrapping around his neck. "Bucky!" She squealed as he walked them towards the compound. "'m too heavy, put me down!"

"I feel offended, Baby." Bucky chuckled, not out of breath or even slightly winded as he held her close. "I'm a super soldier, I can carry you no problem."

Y/n tried her best to think of a comeback, think of something to say to make him understand that her being picked up wasn't right. Yet the warmth his arms and body gave her, and the few forehead kisses he planted on her forehead as he walked made her disputes die the moment she thought of them.

"Okay." Bucky whispered, walking into his room then his bathroom, turning on the light before setting Y/n on the counter. "Let's get these hands patched up, okay?" Y/n nodded her head absentmindedly.

"T'anks." She said in a quiet voice, hands held out as Bucky cleaned her scrapes. "'m sorry for falling."

"Look at me, Baby." Bucky said, his hand resting under her chin. "You didn't do anything wrong, you just looked away for a second, it's okay, sometimes little's get distracted." He said calmly, quickly getting back to dabbing ointment on her hands.

"'m not a little!" Y/n said defensively.

"Y/n." Bucky looked her in the eyes. "Do you want a regular band aid? Or a princess one?" His words were said with a serious tone, and the look in his eyes made Y/n think he would definitely know if she lied.

"Princess Band aid." She pouted, hating that he saw through her. "Bu' maybe I jus' like princesses." She shrugged her shoulders.

"I know you like princesses, you have Princess blankets, and princess barbies, you also have a princess stuffie that you hide behind your bookshelf." Bucky said nonchalantly.

"How do you know all of 'dat?" She shook her head, looking at Bucky confused.

"I snoop when you go to the bathroom when we have movie nights in your room." He shrugged.

"Dat's creeping, Buck." Y/n giggled.

"Where do I hide my favorite gum?"

"The top shelf of the cupboard beside your fridge!" She cheered.

"Yes you creep, you know that because you sneak around when we have movie night here." He tickled her sides, making her giggle and forget all about her scraped hands.

"Okay, we can be creep buddies den." She held out her pinky.

"Creep buddies." He smiles, linking his pinky with hers, helping her off the counter, promising to turn on her favorite Princess movie if she had a snack. With the way Y/n giggled and smiled and seemed to come out of her shell, Bucky knew that he and Little Y/n would get along just fine.

[pahtoosh]

the dreaded door

masterlist

18+

wc: 795 words

warnings: you get picked up by bucky. playful biting.

a/n: elephant in the room 🐘 (not my ellie stuffie) i have not been writing as much! it’s mostly because life is really good but also really busy for me right now. it’s also hard for me to get into the zone 🎯 for writing regression when i am not regressing that often. i know i don’t need to explain myself but this is for my fellow nosey 👃 nellies

pairing: mafia!bucky x gn!little!reader

summary: you wait for bucky to finish working

⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆ ⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆ ⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆

Never in your life had you been so angry at a plank of wood. It all began this morning when Bucky left a note on your nightstand.

“Good morning, my sweet angel. Daddy has a lot of very serious calls today. Please keep the noise down and don’t open or knock on the door if it’s shut. Use your special phone to call me if there’s an emergency. Do your chores for today and be a good baby for me. Love, Daddy.”

The door is where you are now. Sitting on the floor, glaring at the smooth oak that you can’t tap on and the shiny knob that you can’t shake. You finished your chores, played for a while, and ate both breakfast and lunch already. Bucky was still in his office and he hadn’t left all day.

Your daddy spoiled you in so many ways: with his gifts, with his love, with his words. The only thing he couldn’t give you enough of was his time. His job was a difficult one with long and sometimes unpredictable hours.

He was able to make some changes. He trusted Sam and Steve to handle his out of town meetings so he didn’t have to travel as much. He also promoted Natasha from head of security to essentially his right hand by helping him with his larger projects.

These changes were so important. They gave you so much more time with your daddy, but there were still days like today when he simply had to do the work himself. Bucky also worked from home as much as he could so he could see you for lunch or even work with you sitting quietly on the velvet loveseat in his office. Him working from home was almost worse for you on the days you couldn’t go see him.

You daddy is home. He’s sitting at his desk where you color sometimes, on the chair with the best spinning ability in the whole house. There was just this one door standing in your way. You wanted so badly to knock and call for him through the cracks, but you knew better. You daddy was a stickler for rules, and he would not appreciate you ignoring his boundaries.

You sighed and settled for glaring at the door. Maybe your anger would be enough to open it without touching and then Bucky would be so impressed he’d have to take the rest of the day off.

Pleased with your plan, you sat on the floor with your hands on your knees and continued glaring. It felt like hours were going by. You thought the doorknob was moving, but it was just Alpine’s reflection as she trotted past. You kept glaring. Still, nothing moved. Just when you were about to give up, the sound of a lock turning echoed through the hallway and your daddy opened the door with an amused smile.

“What’re you doing here, sweetheart?”

“Daddy!” You reached your arms out for cuddles and Bucky happily obliged, even pressing a noisy kiss to your cheek.

“Were you sitting on the floor and waiting for Daddy? I saw you on the cameras.”

“I wantedta knock on your door but you said no knocking so I was trying to open it with my eyes,” you explained.

Bucky laughed. “Oh yeah? How did that go?”

You pouted and hid your face in his neck. “It didn’t work.”

“Aww.” He rubbed your back to comfort you. “Maybe if you ate more carrots your eyes would be strong enough to open doors.”

“Daddyyy.”

“I’m kidding, baby. C’mere.” He pressed your foreheads together.

“Thank you for listening to Daddy’s instructions today. You were such a good baby and I’m so proud of you.” He gave you a gentle kiss while your face warmed from his praise and affection.

You thanked Bucky, earning you another kiss and more praise for being so polite.

Your daddy was beaming. Anyone who knew of his title and past would’ve been shocked at the way he grinned ear to ear while holding you in his lap as if you were the most precious thing in the world.

“How did I manage to capture the sweetest little baby in the whole world, huh?”

You giggled. “You didn’t ca’ture me, I got you!” You held his face in your hands. “My daddy.”

“You better feed your daddy now, angel. Daddies get hungry!” Bucky playfully shook free from your grasp and bit your hands.

“Nooo, daddy!” you squealed. “Eat the food downstairs, not me!”

He stopped thrashing and acted shocked. “There’s food downstairs? Why didn’t you say so?”

“Yeah! And we can watch a movie and cuddle after dinner! Can we, daddy?” You clasped your hands together and bounced excitedly.

“Anything you want, baby.”

[placeinthemiddleofnowhere]

What were you thinking about when that buzzer sounded?

Pairing: König x Reader

Summary: You’re determined to find out why everyone thinks König is so scary, afterall he’s just some guy that’s taller than most people right? He’s probably harmless! Well, he’s a little scary, but you still like him anyway.

(No use of y/n or mention of gender/race)

AN: The latest chapter is finally here, and it is the penultimate chapter of the series. I hope to update this soon so you aren't left hanging too long for the finale, so fear not, I will put every effort into getting it written! Love you guys, and appreciate all the asks and comments you send me 🥰

Part 9 of A Rocky Start - Full Masterlist Here

-☠️- 

For a moment, while you swam between waking and sleeping, everything was dark. The floor felt like it was shifting from underneath you. Piercing noise filled your ears and rattled throughout your entire body. Barely a few seconds later your retinas were scorched by sizzling orange light. 

This isn’t right.

What’s happening?

You felt yourself frown despite the crackling ache that hammered into your skull, the wrinkle in your brow was more like a molehill. Even in the brilliant glow of the light around you, you couldn’t make anything out. You were only seeing hazy shapes and thinking thoughts that were barely more coherent. The piercing noise turned into a low buzz, though the room still felt like it was on an unsteady foundation. 

What happened?

Where were the others?

You strained a moment, breathing heavily and stretching your body out. Were you lying down? You looked downward at your crumpled form and groaned. You’d confirmed it alright, as if the cold damp ground weren’t proof enough. It was difficult to tell how long you’d been laying like that, however if the prickling in your arms and legs were anything to go by it had clearly been a while. 

You were struggling to try and work out what had happened. It felt like you were fighting for the last plank of wood in a shipwreck, your head feeling like it had been knocked and rolling in the foaming waves for some time before you’d come to. Though finally through the spray of racing thoughts you were able to grasp onto something more, a dull thudding sound that rhythmically beat behind you. A groan of anguish followed not long after, and then something that sounded like a string of choked curses. 

“Looks like your friend has awakened, Captain. Shall we give you a break…?”

You frowned deeper, but you didn’t get long to work out who those words belonged to before you were seized. Suddenly Your body was being hoisted up by a pair of rough hands and you were all but thrown down in a deeply uncomfortable metal chair. As if that wasn’t enough to contend with, the unexpected movement sent your stomach and head roiling into green sickness. As you slowly started to snap out of it, you came to realise you were being bound to the chair that you’d been slammed into. A couple of pairs of hands were grabbing you and fastening you tightly to the cold metal, leaving you all bound up like a christmas turkey. 

“You don’t look so good, Sergeant,” the voice from before taunted, sounding from somewhere above you. “But that makes sense, ah? My men already gave you quite the head wound back at the market. I wonder…are you even hearing me right now? Has your head been cracked open too many times now?”

You choked down the lump that had sat heavy in your throat and jerked your head up, facing the dark shape that had cast such an oppressive shadow over your eyes. Whoever it was, was standing in front of the light. You had no hope of seeing them, trying as you were.  

“Fu-...fuck you,” you muttered, blinking your eyes up at the silhouette of your tormentor. 

The man chuckled, a raspy sound that came from deep within his chest. 

“You’re not lost to us yet, I see.”

You gritted your teeth and continued to desperately try and focus your eyes on the man. Something within you was burning, there was bile trying to force itself upwards the longer you held your head up, though intuition told you it wouldn’t be much of a shame if you spat up on whoever it was that had captured you. 

“Who-oo are you?” you demanded, throat too dry to carry the threat you wanted.

“Oh, Sergeant, your condition might be worse than we’d feared. Don’t you recognise me?”

You shook your head up at the shadow man, growing tired of your confused state. Even tied to a chair you still couldn’t seem to piece together how you got there. The last thing you could recall was telling Soap and Ghost to run, warning them of an oncoming party of men that were approaching the back of the truck.

The trucks. 

That’s right, you’d stolen yourselves away on the trucks - you’d all been waiting to see where they’d set up camp. Except…. They hadn’t stopped at any kind of base. The trucks had stopped so that they could get some respite after having to quickly pack up and leave their old haunt - it had been Soap that had said something about that. Soap had translated something they’d said. 

Then König had said something through the comms…what was it again? He’d said-

“Am I not keeping your attention, Sergeant? How rude.”

If the disembodied voice wasn’t enough to tear you out of your thoughts, the slap that knocked your teeth together was. 

Fresh pain blossomed over your cheek and you groaned out. It only served to make you even more acutely aware of the sorry state your body was in. Everything was hurting and nothing felt right. You’d been in some scrapes in your life, but for the second time you were sure this was going to be the end of you. Slowly but surely, whoever it was that held you captive was going to rip you to shreds. 

At the very least, you decided you weren’t going to give him the satisfaction of finding it pleasurable. You weren’t going to beg for him. 

“Maybe you need a familiar face to wake you up properly.”

You glared up at the man above you, ready to spew vitriol that could outspark a petrol fire, but you didn’t get the chance. The wind was knocked from you when the chair was kicked on its side and you’d gone tumbling with it. Back on the grimy floor again, you thought, maybe if I’m lucky I’ll fall in a puddle and drown. 

Self pity had stopped you from immediately looking ahead. Though the moment you managed to concentrate on anything other than the searing pain that was winding itself around your wrists, ankles and back, you were unpleasantly surprised to see a thunderous face over on the other side of the room. One that looked much like you felt. 

“Price?” you croaked, locking gazes with his wide eyed stare.

He couldn’t answer you back. Price’s mouth was gagged with a thick piece of cloth, something like an old tshirt scrap. The fabric was wrapped tightly around his face and it was trapping all the expletives he’d normally be hurling from exploding into the tiny room. You strained as you looked at him, what was that that was dripping from his face? Had he been bleeding that much? It looked too thin to be blood alone.

You’d never seen the Captain like this before, he was in a sorry state. His face was sporting a rainbow of different bruises, and, from below that, swollen skin that had bubbled up into painful lumps. His armour and his weapons had been stripped from him, his jacket and hat as well, his hair was limply slicked back on top of his head. His shirt had been partially torn and that too was wet, it looked like they’d used a knife on him - you could see the bloody evidence in the form of a thick cut that striped roughly through his pecks.

“Price,” you said again, not quite sure what else to say. “Captain!”

You’d never seen him look so vehemently possessed by rage. He hadn’t even been this angry when he’d called you out for the whole König debacle. No, now that he was faced with you lying on the ground and lost for words he was the most furious you’d seen him in his life. If it weren’t for the gag, you’d have been convinced that he’d have spit fire.

“Speaking more confidently, Sergeant. This is good. Maybe now we can begin, yes?” 

“Begin what?” you spat. “You think you can learn anything from me?”

The man chuckled, the sound emanating as if from a wide rocky cavern. The sound filled the room uncomfortably, squashing you, causing you to wince just before you were picked up by the back of the chair and set right upright again. 

It was when you finally widened your eyes, that you were more clearly able to see the man in front of you. The sight of him made your heart drop. It was John Rousseau himself. His determined gaze was set on you as if he’d ripped himself free out of the photographs on your briefing documents and sprung to life in all his terrible glory. Though unlike the photographs, - taken when he’d been captured earlier on in his life- he was smiling now. He held something of a more deadly glint in his eyes. 

You were left speechless then. What were you to say to the man you’d been chasing all that time? Now that he was standing in front of you in the flesh, tight black clothes showcasing his rippling arms and powerful legs. You weren’t going to last long if he was going to keep kicking and hitting you, you knew that then. 

“This isn’t an interrogation, soldier - I don’t need to learn anything from you. We’re in the middle of making a very special video, a little gift for your superiors. They will get the benefit of seeing that you are alive - mostly. And they will know we are serious in our demands. In return they will give us back my brothers. If not then…you will not remain alive for much longer, will you?”

Rousseau’s widening smile reminded you of a venomous snake slithering out a dark crevice for the hunt. If that weren’t enough to unnerve you, the sound of something metal being scraped across the ground and the following rush of sloshing water lapping against its edges was enough to do the trick. All at once you realised exactly what Rousseau intended to do. 

Price roared from the otherside of the room, in the corner of your vision, struggling futilely against his impossible bindings. Though you didn’t focus much on him. A shadow crossed the room and you painfully twisted your head to meet the barbarian that made it. You watched as another familiar face, the man from the market that had killed his associate, stood silently above you. He held a cheap old digital camera aloft in his hands and smiled slyly, giving you your last glimpse of cruelty before a cloth was forced over your face and the world went dark once more. 

They were going to do to you exactly what they had done to Price. Finally you knew why he was so wet. Your body shook.. You could hardly breathe. Though you had to. Your training demanded it. You’d been waterboarded before, though now it wasn’t going to be a test. This was the real deal, there was no end goal in sight. You could hear the bucket being lifted off the ground, it was almost too late to remedy your panic.

No, you had to steel yourself. 

Deep breath in, soldier. 

And Hold it.

Hold it.

-☠️-

Ghost and Soap stood over the group in front of them with expressions so solemn that they could've dropped birds from the sky. Soap kept wincing as he’d shift his weight and forget his bad leg, and Ghost couldn’t stop staring off to the side, clearly replaying what had happened, turning it over and over in his mind until his eyes glazed almost grey. It was clear to see that neither one could reconcile with what had just gone down. 

After a moment of empty silence, considering what to say, both the men eventually recounted what had happened to the others, facing Laswell and the rest of the men with their blank eyes and flat voices as they tried to stay professional. No matter how hard they tried though, their minds still lingered on the soldier they’d left behind, ceaselessly wondering what had happened to you.

Around halfway through your impromptu truck ride, with you on top while the two men hid inside, Gaz had reported that his group had reached exfil and regrouped with the rest of the team. Most of the remaining soldiers had made it there, along with a very rattled Laswell who’d explained to everyone that the safe house had been compromised and Price had been taken by surprise, caught in a trap laid out by the first rogue truck that had left the compound. Ghost, Soap and you of course had heard this through Gaz’s comms, one of the last lines to remain working - the other’s had faced multiple blasts and close combat bouts.

From that moment, now that they had contact and were aware of where Rousseau was headed, everyone was concentrating on regrouping with your team. They were tracking your signal and speeding along in the last of the working vehicles, hoping and praying they could reach the trucks and bring everyone back.

The men’s eyes flicked between each other as they let the story unfold, remembering what it was like standing in the almost pitch black of the cargo container while you lay above them. The tension that had yet to leave their bodies, only had them straining their tired muscles more. 

Soap told everyone about you hissing over the line from above, telling him and Ghost about the trucks slowing down. You’d asked for orders and Soap had looked warily at Ghost then, watching as the man loomed over him and quietly searched for an answer. He’d curtly told you to lay low and stay quiet, tell them if anyone got out. It wasn’t long before you reported just that, and Soap had plastered himself to the doorway, straining to try and hear what they could be saying out there. 

His French was rusty, rustier than his Spanish, but he was able to make out parts of a conversation that had broken out. They were talking about how glad they were that they could finally stop, one said something about needing to piss, the other laughed with him and said it was a wonder he’d managed to hold it in through the blasts. Another man had approached them and shouted over, saying that they needed to check the cargo first and ensure it wasn’t damaged or he’d make sure they’d never piss right again. 

It was at that point, that it was evident that you all had to move. Though none of you could think of a way to make it past the small army undetected, especially if Ghost and Soap were required to burst from the creaking metal doors. Therefore, they’d decided to go with the distraction that you’d come up with, not a great one, but one that gave them a semblance of a shot to get away nonetheless. 

König had intervened, he’d cut into the conversation with a new level of fury and demanded that you rethink your plan. ‘You can’t do this! Don’t you dare go ahead with this suicide mission!’ He thought it was sheer stupidity to throw a frag out into the middle of the group and just hope that they were too distracted by the fallout to track the direction it had come from. He’d all but ordered you to wait for the team to reach you all, but you’d argued back, saying that they couldn’t count on not being discovered until then. They were too far away. 

You’d told him you loved him over the line, seemingly uncaring what the rest of the team thought of it now, and said that he had to let you work. Next thing they knew, you were informing Ghost and Soap that you were sending the frag out. It was difficult to hear König’s frenzied screams after that, they were just higher notes floating on top of the discordant din that was soon to follow. 

When you’d pulled the pin all hell had broken loose.

Ghost and Soap clattered from out of the truck and you scrambled down from the top, rejoining the two men before sprinting like hell into the thin treeline. The wood’s were no longer as lush in the place they’d stopped, probably by design so they would know if they were being approached. Unfortunately it meant they were able to track your group running away as well. You could hear the distant sound of their cries start to get closer again. 

Gunfire had broken out, peppering the air with loud shots. What seemed like hundreds of soldiers but was probably a group of around twenty, chased you all down and shot at your feet. They were demanding that you all stop, shouting in English and French and possibly other languages too. 

For a wondrous minute it had seemed like you all might get away with your lives, but just as you hit a thicker portion of the woods, a single grenade was tossed in your direction and all of you were sent flying. 

Ghost took over the report then. Soap’s voice cut out as he remembered the sickening churn of his stomach just before he’d blacked out. He was struggling to keep aloft. Only the thought of you out there somewhere kept him standing, the thought of your determined eyes as you fought like hell for the two men that had been intent on icing you out. All because they thought you were going to break up the team from your fooling around… And what did all that matter now?

Ghost slyly knocked his elbow into Soap, getting him to stay out of his mangled thoughts before he continued. He told everyone how Soap had been knocked out when he’d hit the ground, but you and he were still awake. 

Soap had managed to rouse again, but he was hardly up to walking after his dodgy landing - never mind running unassisted on that bad right leg. Ghost wasn’t feeling a hundred percent either after being slammed into a thick tree trunk, but he was able to carry on. He’d tried to insist that you should help with Soap and you could all run together, but you’d shaken your head and denied him any assistance. You’d told him to take Soap and send the others forward, he had to direct them to you, or they’d never find you all in time you’d said. You could defend yourself from there, you’d assured them you could do it.

Ghost had tried to reason with you, pleaded with you not to be a fucking idiot, but you weren’t hearing any of it. You pulled out your gun, like a knight drawing their sword for the last stand, and told him simply that he could insult you after the job was done and you’d recovered Price. You’d reminded him that when you were all home safe, there would be a meeting to discuss your forbidden relationship, and he could get all of his famous remarks on record as well. Ghost’s face soured at the memory, but from there everyone was all caught up on what had happened. 

He and Soap had reached the others and then they had pushed forward. Only, they didn’t find you by the rocks, or in the place where the trucks had been. That spot was empty save for a few men that had stayed behind to try and fight them off and prevent anyone from following. It was then that they knew they’d lost you and Price and the mission was over. They had failed completely. 

König had heard enough. He’d been listening to their little tale with a curled lip that quickly turned to a full sneer and with every passing second that he spent revising over the details of their quest of incompetence, he felt his body temperature rise by another degree. He was so angry, he was shaking. 

He stormed forward, slicing through the team of men that stood between him and Ghost with precision, ramming the Lieutenant down before he could think to do anything. It wasn’t possible to stop him, he’d borne down on Ghost with an animal force and soon he was swiping and clawing at him like he might take out his throat. The screams that were bursting out of him were nothing short of feral. 

“It should have been you! You should’ve stayed behind, you rat fucking bastard. You lead your team on a suicide mission and yet here you stand telling us all about how we failed. You failed, you failed Ghost! You failed Sneak! Do you hear me? I will tear you apart! I will rip the skin from your bones and burn what’s left of you and then I will piss on your ashes, you fucking swine!”

“König!”

Horangi tried to be his voice of reason, but König was too far gone. He was incensed. 

As if it weren’t bad enough that the love of his life had professed their love while they actively ensured their own destruction, he now had to listen to the Lieutenant prattle on about what had happened as if you hadn’t been pressured into being the sacrificial lamb. It was too much to bear. His head was ringing with your love confession and with the thoughts of what those men could be doing to you even as he tried to tear Ghost apart. The images were inspiring him to further cruelty, echoes of past sins and future vows. 

König continued to pummel Ghost, trying to target his weak spots with prejudice, but he didn’t get to keep the upper hand for much longer. The Lieutenant wasn’t going to allow himself to be turned into mince. He wasn’t any good to Price or you if he let himself face König’s punishment.

Ghost grabbed out at König’s wildly swinging fists and caught one, using the moment of struggle to punch him in the ribs and swing round so that he was on top of the Austrian. König howled and flailed like a banshee, but he couldn’t do much of anything once he was on his back. Gaz and Horangi had joined Ghost, they assisted in pinning König down and now his shouts were reduced to heavy breaths as he stilled against the pressure. He was like an alligator with its mouth taped shut, the moment that the binding came off he was determined to strike again, bite through his prey in one clean motion. 

Soap stood watching in horror from above the little skirmish. His face was paling to an ill shade. It was then that it finally occurred to him that maybe you hadn’t thrown away your position on a stupid fling. You weren’t turning your back on your family, you had just found someone else worth letting in. Why else would König sound as if he was ready to face death itself for you? You both had to be far closer than anyone could have comprehended. 

Soap was left blinking silently as he gazed up at Ghost and then to Gaz, wondering, had they realised the same thing?

“König you need to calm down,” Ghost advised, voice straining as he fought through the pounding headache that blossomed in the base of his skull. 

“Ghost…” König trailed, thinking on his words for a moment. “Unless Sneak is returned safely, I will never be calm again. In fact, I will make it my personal mission to break you. I will take you to some god awful hole somewhere and make sure that you live long enough through your torture to forget what daylight looks like. Only once you’re empty, will I bury the shell of you alive!”

Ghost’s left eye twitched, the lid took a moment to settle. König could hardly have known that he’d strike a nerve, but as he saw Ghost’s expression behind his mask he let his mouth curve into a smug grin behind his hood. Even if he couldn’t hit him physically he could settle for mental warfare. 

Ghost struggled not to take his revenge. There was a brief moment of inner turmoil where he wanted to reach out and smash every tooth out of the mercenary’s head, but there was a voice in his head that demanded he didn’t. They needed every resource they had to retrieve their missing Sergeant and Captain. As much as he hated König, he couldn't deprive the team of an effective member, and loathe as he was to admit it he knew you’d need someone to come home to.

Ghost rose up off of König then, silently glaring down at him before he looked over at Laswell. His golden lashes caught the light, and then so did his eyes, showcasing the dangerous glint that settled just underneath the surface. 

“Well, until we find Sneak and Price, why don’t you just keep yourself under control. Yeah?” He said gruffly, stepping away from König before he got second thoughts about beating him to a pulp. 

König was allowed back up again, only when the others were sure he wouldn’t try and tackle Ghost. He hated having all their eyes on him. He’d never felt so afraid in all his life and now he was being put under a microscope by people that, as much as he tried not to for your benefit, he despised. 

Horangi was his saving grace. His old friend turned to the others and shooed them off with a jerk of his head before he turned back and gave König a sympathetic tilt of his head. He knew better than to try and offer any words of comfort or to try and stick around. König was beyond calming, it was obvious to see from his flexing hands and narrowed eyes. 

König’s mind was a storm of emotions. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so much, so deeply. He was furious with you, upset that you would throw your life away just to try and save the stupid teammates that had gotten you into such a predicament in the first place. His heart tore thinking of you trying to salvage your relationship with your brothers while they let you fall to the enemy.

Most of all though König felt terribly frightened. For once he had no control over the situation. He couldn’t smash his hulking body at the problem, nor threaten his way to the outcome he wanted. He just had to wait and hope that you would be alive somewhere and that you were ok. He could feel his breaths shorten at the thought of you being hurt by those awful men. Men just like him - men with no qualms about ignoring any sense of empathy in order to get a job done.

Was the world punishing him?

For some reason König couldn’t help but feel that whatever happened to you was his fault. Was it the divine justice? After all the people he’d torn through, all the faces he’d beat unrecognisably in the name of getting the job done, was one of his most treasured people going to be lost to him in exchange for his misdeeds? You were the one that had called him out on it all, how could you be the one to pay? 

König felt dizzy, as if the world were spinning double time and the sky was waving and distorting in his vision. The light blue and purple hues were starting to fade with the closing light, and soon enough the sky would fall completely to black. Were you being kept somewhere dark? Did they have you bound and screaming? 

He thought he was going to be sick. 

All of a sudden he was locked in a glass cage, everyone around him was muffled and his body was constricted. He couldn’t breathe. He was cursing internally, gasping for air all the while. 

Why couldn’t you have fucking taken me instead?

“König.”

König’s eyes flicked up, he jerked when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Suddenly he realised he’d been standing with his arms wrapped tightly around his body like a safety harness and let his hands drop to his sides. He peered down at the man connected to that stupidly brave hand and then locked eyes with Soap.He sneered, throwing the appendage away from himself before he gave into the compulsion to break it.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” König hissed.

“Laswell’s ordered us to move, mate,” Soap answered softly. 

König looked off to the spot that everyone had been gathered in before, and realised that they’d all begun dispersing into the transports. Everyone was heading along to the beaten up trucks and piling in like cartoon clowns. Ghost was at the head of them all, König didn’t miss him, keeping a wary eye on Soap and König  as he directed everyone else. 

König laughed darkly to himself and started walking. Ghost didn’t need to worry yet. There was still time to save you, they were all safe for the time being. While you remained alive. 

“Kind of you not to leave me behind,” König said, his voice coming out harshly through his gritted teeth. “Better you stay away though. You’ll convince me give into my temptations if you give me too much opportunity, Sergeant.”

König expected Soap to turn tail and run ahead of him then, but was surprised and annoyed when he noticed him keeping pace as they walked to the trucks together. It made König wonder if Soap wanted him to break again. 

“You and Sneak have been seeing each other off base, haven't you?”

König stopped in his tracks again and locked eyes with Soap, looking for whatever evil had to be lurking in the abyss of blue. However if there was any ill intent, he couldn’t see it in his body language. Soap looked at him in earnest.

“Why would you bring that up?”

Soap ran a hand through his frayed mohawk and looked away for a second, nervously meeting König’s eyes again once he gathered his courage. 

“Well you’ve been…” Soap paused for a moment, searching for the right word, “datin’, right?”

“This is hardly the time for your morbid fascination with our relationship,” König sneered, finally walking ahead again. 

“It’s not morbid fascination.”

“Then what?”

“This team has been Sneak’s life for a long time now - we’re a family. When I thought they’d gone behind our backs and fooled around, was going to break up the team for the sake of some fun I was angry…but I know that’s not what it was now. So I just wanted to say I'm sorry.”

“Sorry? You’re sorry are you? I would never ‘fool around’ with Sneak,” König growled. “You all wanted to see our relationship with each other as a stupid crush because none of you think of me as a person. I’m not some dog that they picked up off the side of the road, I’m a man the same as you. I love Sneak with everything that I have. And now you’re claiming to love them too after the way you acted? Sorry doesn’t cut it. You and Ghost, fuck, the whole 141 failed Sneak. Don’t come to me with your pathetic apologies, Sergeant.”

König didn’t give Soap any time to answer his verbal lashing, not that he had much of anything to say to that. How could he stand and defend himself when he’d been the cause of your guilt and the reason that you’d felt pushed to send him and Ghost to their safety while you fell? He was motionless as König picked a truck to settle into, picking a relatively empty section of the bed that only grew more sparse as the other men inside scrambled to keep their distance.

Soap stared a minute longer, but he was forced to move when he realised he was one of the last to load up. His feet marched automatically, but his head never left the conversation. He’d think about it until the moment he knew you were safe again. He had to be able to get his chance to apologise properly, he had to prove that he loved you no matter what, even if Price wouldn’t let you stay on the team. He could live without working with you, but he couldn’t go on knowing he’d been the cause of your death. 

König watched Soap trudge toward Ghost and closed his eyes, willing his breaths to remain steady and for his tears to stay safely welled behind his lids. He couldn’t let himself cry. It felt too much like admitting that you were dead already. Then where would that leave him?

Instead, he put his hand into his trouser pocket and clasped at the little wooden bird that had stayed safely hidden inside. His thumb traced along the smooth stretch of the swallow’s back and towards its beak, gently landing on the tip. He silently hoped that wherever you were, you’d feel the gentle kiss of his spirit and know that you would be safe again. However improbable that was - it was the only thing that could give him any thought of comfort.

-☠️-

It’d been a long and sweaty ride over to the next town, for the start of the journey anyway. Toward the end, night was falling and the temperatures cooled dramatically, suddenly leaving the soldiers glad for all of the heavy layers they were wearing. It made some of them look at König, Horangi and Ghost jealousy, for once, wishing that they too had full face coverage in the chill of the dark winds.

Ghost’s eyes had remained far away for the duration of the ride. No matter what Soap or Gaz said, they couldn’t get him to focus much on them. He was completely distant. It was as if his consciousness was held hostage from within his body, like his mind was replaying the days events over for him and holding him to his mistakes. Though when Soap had been brave enough to try to confirm his suspicions of Ghost’s guilt he was greeted with a ‘fuck off’ for his efforts. 

Gaz put his hand on Soap’s shoulder, then gave him a gentle look. It had Soap swallowing thickly at the lump in his throat and soon enough he was looking away, doing everything not to turn into a screaming wreck in the wake of his dark eyes. Gaz looked away too. 

“We’ll get them back,” Gaz mumbled, patting Soap’s shoulder again before he removed his hand. “At least for now, we know that they have each other.”

“Aye, and how do we know that?” Soap said bitterly.

“What do you mean?”

“We don’t know that they’re together. They could be holding them separately or could have them blindfolded and gagged. Hell, they could’ve killed one of them and only taken one back with them - there’s a lot more risk having two soldiers. We have no idea if Price and Sneak are-”

“Shut the fuck up, Soap,” Ghost growled. 

Gaz and Soap’s eyes flashed over to Ghost in an instant. His tone was hard, and his slouched posture straightened back and returned all of his missing height. 

“We’ll get em’ back,” he vowed. “Or we die trying.”

Ghost had no way of knowing quite how daunting that promise would be in light of things to come. Though when they finally reached a safe place to stop and reconnect with command back home, the severity of the situation landed upon all of them like a ton of bricks. 

Laswell and Ghost managed to wrangle an empty room and took a private call with General Morrison. It was then, in the dark of that claustrophobic room, that they learned about the ransom video that had been sent over during their journey to their makeshift base - a tiny village with a few homesteads and farm land. 

The general didn’t seem to want to give much detail about the video, he was shifty with them both. It was only from some not so polite prodding from Ghost, that the General revealed that they weren’t permitted to have any dealings with the terrorist group. 

“They’re going to splash this all over the fuckin’ press general. This is going to be a disaster, and you’re saying that our response to this is to just do nothing?” Ghost spat.

“It’s all about optics, Lieutenant, you know that. The Captain and Sergeant will be a great loss, but we can’t be seen to be releasing criminals like stray dogs after said dogs were convicted of kidnapping civilians and blowing up markets. We can’t make the deal.”

“Then fuck the deal!” Ghost said, glaring into the camera lens with hot fury.

Laswell baulked, quickly realising that Ghost was going to get himself into trouble if she didn’t step in. She put a hand on his arm and looked pointedly toward the laptop, hoping to appeal to any shred of decency that might be lingering in the greying general’s arsenal. 

“I think Ghost is trying to suggest that we put a team together and we track them down. We get our people back and take down that bastard Rousseau once and for all, sir.”

The harsh lines in the general’s old leathery face settled and his stare was neutral once again. Laswell untensed too. Only Ghost was left seething, he wasn’t going to be calmed at a time like this. The only thing that would put him at ease was knowing that you and Price were going to be returned safely. That wasn’t going to be anytime soon.

“John Price is a good man,” the general said after a long pause. “I can grant you a small team, but it can’t be on record. If this blows up, you’re on your own.”

“And if it goes well it was all a great effort organised by the cunning officers who sat bravely by their desks.” Ghost muttered. 

Laswell kicked out at Ghost from under the table and was grateful that the general didn’t seem to catch his snide remark from through the terrible connection. She quickly smiled toward the laptop and nodded curtly. She could work with a few men, and she was pretty sure she knew of where to get a few more. 

“Thank you, General Morrison. We’re grateful for the aid. I’ll have my people try to find out what we can and once we gather enough intelligence we’ll move in on the target.”

“Good luck, Laswell,” The general said warmly, face going cold when he stared to her left. “Ghost.”

From there the screen went black. Ghost and Laswell were left discussing plans, Laswell messaging her contacts as they talked, both agreeing that they would find a way to reach out to Farah while they formed a potential team. It was all a matter of muscle memory. They sparingly used your names while they were talking. It helped to keep emotion out of it. 

However, they didn’t get to remain like that for long. 

They had to find the video so that Laswell could send it to her intelligence sources and as soon as they were exposed to those first few painstaking seconds, it was all so real again. This wasn’t one of their usual jobs, this was a rescue effort to save two of their own. Two of their family members, that as they were speaking, were being hurt in all manner of horrible ways just to emphasise the sincerity of Rousseau’s threats. He was so morbidly calm as he stood making his demands from in front of the horrible abuses just inches behind him. 

When it came time to tell the others what was going on, Ghost and Laswell were practically as flat toned as the general. It was taking a lot for them to go through it all, to explain that at that present moment they had to sit tight and wait for transport to take them away so that they could go back to base and refresh and resupply while you and Price passed the hours in unknown amounts of agony. 

No matter how matter of fact they tried to keep things, it didn’t stop König from speaking up and forcing everyone into reality. He waited until everyone had been dismissed to reappear in front of Ghost. His steps were heavy and slow, his strides purposeful as he got into the Lieutenant’s face once again.

“I want to see the video.”

“No.”

Ghost’s answer was simple, no nonsense. There was no room for discussion. He folded his arms and straightened his back, ensuring that he was able to steady himself against the bigger man’s potential attacks. Luckily for him he could see Soap and Gaz nearby should he try to start a scrap again. His personal animal control unit. 

“What do you mean no?” König grit out.

“It’s not a good idea” Ghost reaffirmed. “You don’t need to see that.”

“I have to see it. I have to know what they’ve done! Show me the Video!”

“It won’t help, König,” Laswell said, appearing at Ghost’s side. “We watched it to the end and it was…it’s something that will haunt me for a long time. It was bad, but Sneak and Price don’t seem to have any permanent damage. Take that as a comfort and refrain from watching that awful thing.”

König clutched harder at the little bird inside his pocket, holding it so tightly that the beak felt like it was going to pierce a hole through him. He was so hot. Even despite the dreadful cold of the night, he felt like he was going to overheat and his limbs were going to vibrate out of their sockets.

“No permanent damage,” König repeated. “What have they done then?”

Ghost and Laswell exchanged a brief glance. The air was thick between them, like they were looking through water. 

“We need to know,” Soap said, coming to stand by König. “When we find them, we’ll need to know how bad they are.”

“Soap, don’t do this,” Ghost sighed.

“He’s right,” Gaz said, taking his stand between the two parties. “Tell us what happened.”

“Or show us,” König said darkly. 

Ghost glared through the dark hollows of his skull mask,  it really did feel like he was the grim reaper. He was the harbinger of doom. It chilled him to have to think about the horrible sounds and the terrible things he’d seen. He even wished he had just looked away at some point, but he couldn’t, he had to force himself to face it. It was his fault they were suffering, he’d thought to himself.

“They were waterboarding them,” Ghost revealed, “beating them too.”

Everyone was quiet, taking in the information. 

“That’s not all, is it?” König asked.

“They stripped them down with knives and left em’ tied up and naked on the chairs while Rousseau spoke. They posted it up on social media, the video is everywhere despite the efforts to get it deleted. They weren’t doing very well. I think Sneak had taken in a lot of water, they were covered in sick.”

König felt his palm slicken and looked down, tilting his head when he noticed his trouser pocket turn from beige to bright scarlet red. One of the swallow's wings had broken off under the stress of his grip and lodged itself splintered side down into his hand. Now he stood motionless, looking down at the mess with empty fascination. He didn’t even feel the sting of it. He couldn’t get past the sight of his blood, the same colour as the tint in his vision. 

He slowly withdrew his hand and inspected the tender flesh, gently pulling the wing from his cut and depositing it back into his ruined trousers with the rest of the broken bird. From there his plasma continued to drip, a flow of bright red washing over his hands like a tiny trickling fountain. 

“You said, your people are on this Laswell, yes?” König asked, not looking up to see the disconcerted stares of the 141. 

“...yes,” Kate confirmed, hesitating to answer. “They’re trying to see if they can find a source or get any clues from the room they’re in.”

She was scared that this was going to König’s final tipping point. The room was too quiet, there was too much electric energy charging through the air. It felt too much like the calm before an earthquake. 

“Ok,” König replied, his voice sounding far away. “I should go deal with this…I will clean this up. I will fix it. It will all get fixed”

With that he disappeared like a spectre, trailing out of the room and out into the night as if he might completely disperse into nothing. It was like watching a plastic bag float away in the wind, no one could be sure of where he was off to. 

“Should one of us…y’know?” Gaz asked, directing his head toward the open doorway. 

“Maybe go find Horangi and see what he says,” Ghost shrugged. “He knows König best.”

“And the rest of us?” Soap asked, feeling his own fists clench at the thought of the video. 

“We rest up and wait until we can give those cunts the pincushion treatment,” Ghost said, looking down to Soap’s leg. “You think you’ll be able to heal?”

“I feel better already knowing we’ll take those fuckers down,” Soap said, a ghost of a smile playing on his face. “Payback’s gonna be a bitch.”

-☠️-

“Bloody hell.”

Your eyes snapped open and you looked over to Price, watching as he slowly rose up against the wall and struggled to right himself. Your gaze flashed off to the side as soon as the ratty old blanket that’d been draped over him started to slip. Not that you hadn’t seen what was underneath it already, at that point you were just trying to do him a courtesy. 

“Good to know you haven’t left us,” you said weakly. 

From out of the corner of your eye you noticed him rush to fix his blanket, the whoosh of material sweeping up his body was like music to your ears. Knowing that he had the wherewithal to cover himself seemed like a good sign. You offered him the best smile that you could, more of a grimace really, and scanned over his face. It didn’t look much better than from when he’d been sleeping. His left eye was swollen almost completely shut and his mouth was still flecked with dried bits of blood and god knows what else that had stuck to his beard. 

If there was anything to be grateful for in that moment it was the fact that they’d dropped the buckets of water over you after they’d finished recording that awful video. It’d at least cleared the putrid sick from crusting into your battered bodies. Some relief. Not that it helped with the pain that pulsed through you like a lightning strike. 

“Where the fuck are we?” Price groaned, spitting out a clump of phlegm to his side. 

You winced.

“No idea. I only woke up maybe a few minutes ago,” you sighed. “I remember them dragging us down a hallway and then being outside…I dunno, things are spotty for me.”

Price nodded and cast his sore eyes around the cell, looking from the dark metal walls to the crackling painted floors, to the little lamp in the corner that cast long shadows from your bodies and to the few feet between you, and finally he looked to the solid door on both your right sides. He groaned then and shifted his position, almost fumbling and crashing forward as he forgot to account for the bindings on his wrists and ankles. 

“Fuck me!”

You remained quiet, glueing your eyes to the floor. There was something that felt so inherently disrespectful about looking at Price when he was like that. You’d never caught him in such a moment of vulnerability before. It was like seeing your father cry. 

“I think we’re on some kind of transport, a truck maybe,” you said quietly. “They probably have us on the move so that they can’t be infiltrated again.”

Price grunted, barely acknowledging you as he struggled piteously from his side of the tiny cabin. 

You tested your own restraints again, peering down at the cable ties that were painfully stretching around your wrists from over the scratchy blanket. The fabric was old and stained, a faint smell of fish emanated from it that you preferred not to think too much about. Nothing about the situation gave you any hope- it seemed awfully like you were the characters in the movie that wouldn’t make it. Maybe they’d give you both a few medals for your sacrifices.

You shivered at the thought.

“Have you tried to break the ties?” Price asked, pointedly breaking you out of your stupor. 

“I attempted it when I woke up, but I don’t have much strength,” you said. “My ribs feel fucked. They’ve bruised them, if they haven’t broken them all the way. Hurts to move.”

“Bloody mediaeval cunts!” Price cursed. “They must’ve been planning this for months now. We fucked ourselves listening to anything those animals had to say to us.”

“I guess we underestimated how far Rousseau was willing to go to get his brother back. All those other men too.”

“Didn’t count on a snake like him to get sentimental.”

“Well, he seems plenty sentimental. Got us back something bad for that little redecoration job we forced him to make,” you noted, seething as you tried to laugh off your predicament. 

“Some upgrade he got,” Price said sourly, “Wonder how the fuck he managed to set all this up. By all rights he should barely have any men left after what we’ve done.”

“I dunno, he had a whole lot of pick up trucks and a couple transports on the move. Probably had about one hundred men still loyal to him in just that group. No telling who else he has scattered around.”

“There were other trucks? I only saw two. The one that I was chasing and the one that came up behind us. How many did you see? Matter of fact, how’d you even end up here in the first place, Sneaky?”

You held your breath - though not for long. Your lungs still dully ached from doing that too much already. At the sound of the whooshing air leaving your body and bouncing off of the metal walls, Price immediately narrowed his one good eye. 

“What happened?”

“It’s…a long story,” you said quietly. 

“I have time,” Price snorted, looking around the cabin for effect.

You huffed out a breath at him and clutched at your side, feeling the pain shattering up your ribs like the crack of a whip. This was it. Who knew if you were going to live to even see the end of the day. You didn’t even know what day it was, or if it was even day time at all. You were finally going to tell him the truth.

“Me, Ghost and Soap were all tracking the trucks after they blew the old base. Gaz, König and Horangi went to exfil to try and regroup with the other teams. We were all supposed to reconvene and try to find you together but...we got held down by their forces and Soap took a bad hit to his leg.  I told Ghost to take him and go get the others. They didn’t make it in time though,” you said, voice cracking as you recalled the foggy events like a broken down projector.

“Why the hell would Ghost leave you by yourself against an entire force of men?” Price growled, body snapping to attention. 

“Because I forced him to.”

“Why?”

“Because they can go on and do some good, they’ll be able to avenge us and keep taking down the Rousseaus of the world. I wasn’t worth saving,” you said bitterly. 

“Don’t you fucking dare say that. Why the fuck would you say that, Sneak?”

The look in his eyes was enough to shatter a million hearts. His anger could’ve melted the walls down, it beat so palpably between you both. It only made you hang your head in shame to think you were going to disappoint him. To think that that fierce protectiveness was going to be overridden by disgust.

You couldn’t keep lying to him anymore. You couldn’t leave the world weighed down by your secret. 

“Because I was only going to be kicked off the team after this mission. I…I went against your orders. I’ve been seeing König for months now. The guys found out about the relationship. It wasted time and caused an argument that could’ve got us killed if we’d hung around the base much longer. I fucked up Price, I went against my word to you and I’ve only gone and gotten us killed! This is all my fault!”

You threw your head against the metal behind you, feeling the tears weigh you down like canon balls and sobbed. No matter how pathetic you felt, you were at a complete loss of control. Everything hurt, your throat constricted and dried like sand, the noises you emitted were barely human. 

It was all crashing down on you, the full weight of your cursed  fate coming to fall on your lap. 

This was all you deserved for going behind the team's back. You were probably going to die a slow horrible death, getting thrown in front of camera after camera until there wouldn’t be enough of you left to send back home. Every piece of you would be ripped away by whatever dark hole they chose to make a stop at, until you would become another part of the world’s fabric. Another soul for someone with willing hands to take.

Even despite that horrible line of thought, the thing that hurt you most was knowing that König would remember your last moments together spent in bitterness, and that would be all he’d have to hold onto. He’d think that you had turned on him again, he would be so full of hatred for what you’d done to him. You’d burst down his walls only to go and reinforce exactly why he’d had them in the first place. You wished you’d told him more than just that you’d loved him. You wished you could tell him that despite everything that had happened, he was worth it all, you loved every second that he shared himself with you. 

You would still rather walk willingly to your death a thousand times than put König or anyone else at risk. 

“...Sneaky. Hey! Are you listening to me…fuckin’ hell. Oi! Sneaky!”

Price’s voice somehow managed to break through the impassable swell of your emotion and soon his face was in front of yours, demanding to be looked at. You felt yourself frown, sniffling as you wondered how on earth he’d managed to shuffle all the way over to you in his condition. Even with his hands and feet tied, and his vision probably barely there, he had launched himself over to you and exploded through the barrier of your guilt. 

“Listen to me. Breathe. In and out. In and out. Breathe with me! In and out. In and out…”

You gulped sickened gasps of air and tasted the salt of Price’s body in the back of your throat. It didn’t matter though. You didn’t care that he, and probably you, fucking stank. It was just nice to have him there, bringing you back from the brink of a full on mental collapse. 

The same mental voice that had coached you through your torture, was the same that gruffly directed you now. Price always had your back. He didn’t let any of his soldiers go easily, and he had always tried to do his best for you. Even if you had spited him for keeping you from König, he was always going to be the man that felt like another father to you. 

“Sneak, do you really think that this is your fault?” Price asked, finally breaking from his instructional regime. “Do you think it really matters to me who you’ve been shagging right now? I need you to stay on the level with me here Sneak, you’re not to blame for any of this happening.”

“Why?” you asked, coughing harshly as your throat tried to adjust. 

“Why aren’t you to blame?”

“No, why aren’t you angry with me?” you wheezed.

You could hardly believe it. Your Captain was perched in front of you, a blanket barely covering his battered skin, and he was telling you that he was ok with the fact that you deliberately disobeyed an order. Had the torturers knocked a screw loose after all? You gawped him as if to convey just that. 

“We might very well die here. I’m not going to waste my last moments angry with you. Especially when the reason I warned you off of that man in the first place, was in case he got you killed…It already happened once. I already lost Alex to love on the field, I didn’t want to lose you too, not to a man with enemies in the numbers of god knows what. Now you’re trapped here with me because you were too stuck on your own guilt to save yourself. You didn’t fail me or anyone else. I failed you, Sneak,” Price affirmed, bowing his head in shame.

The rough spikes of his hair were glistening and the skin on the back of his neck was washed out by the pale white light. He looked like a ghost of himself already. You shivered and bit the flesh inside your cheek, trying to process everything that he’d said. 

Had you really been absolved? Just like that?

“Captain…”

He slowly lifted his head up and offered you a small smile, his grime speckled moustache lifting cartoonishly with it. You found yourself choking back your stupid tears and smiled at him in return, relaxing into the wall and soon into Price as he ambled to the wall and laid back with you, settling into your side. 

“On the off chance we do find a way to survive this, I need you with me, Sneak,” Price said, his hoarse voice buzzing through you. “You can’t check out on me, ok?”

“Is that an order, sir?” you deadpanned.

“Affirmative. And If you go against this one, just know that my Ghost is going to make your ghost move puddles and dig ditches in the afterlife. Got that sergeant?”

“Loud and clear, sir.”

-☠️-

“Do you understand what you’ve done! You are sending your precious special forces to their deaths! Know this; fellow brothers and sisters around the world,” Rousseau shouted, his voice booming off the dour cement walls. “Your government does not care about you, it is you the people that must rise up from nothing and take what is rightfully yours. I will continue to take down your soldiers until you give me back my family and allow us to take our territories without interference. Let's see how many deaths it will take until your governments take us seriously, uh!”

You winced as Rousseau grabbed you by the neck, though you could barely summon the strength to fight back. He’d taken you out from the transport and into dark deserted buildings more times than you’re sure that you can accurately collect. There was so little of you left anymore, you could barely hold onto your promise to Price. That last blow would be the one that ended you. 

You cast a weary eye over to Price, tilting your head slightly to your left, watching him as he struggled to stay upright. He’d been wheezing for days now. There was a time you’d become convinced he’d already died on you. You couldn’t really remember when that was. They hardly fed you or allowed you to drink. They didn’t want to deal with the toilet trips - or the open bucket trips more like. 

You’d both held on far longer than what you might’ve predicted, but now your time had run out.

You’d kept Price entertained with your stories about König, tried to force him to stay awake. After telling him a little about your relationship, they started flowing out of you like a great epic. You'd told him about the time you’d made him wear a bright floral surgical mask after he’d lost a bet to you, and then an old lady had approached him to say how stylish he was. You’d laughed till you’d fallen into a coughing fit when you remembered him surprising you back at your little apartment that you shared together with a rose in his mouth, and you’d had to clean the blood after he forgot to remove a thorn - he’d moaned for days about his stupid cut lip. You’d melted at the thought of him hugging you tightly after, not telling Price that König had huffed out to you in a pathetic whimper, telling you that he was sad he couldn’t kiss you with his mouth so sore. 

Oh, König.

You whined, closing your eyes as you watched Rousseau arcing his thick metal bar high above you. Rousseau was ready to strike, this was really it. For both of you. He was going to make Price watch his Sergeant die and then he would surely be next. 

You zoned out, falling back into the dark recesses of your mind.

Even if he was far away, it felt like König’s lips were whispering quietly in your ears. His spirit was with you, even if his form was elsewhere utterly devastated. 

Think of better things. Think of me, Schnuckiputzi, and how you’d threaten to slap me for calling you that. I love you.

There’s nowhere you can be sent to that I won’t find a way to reach you.

Just keep your eyes closed and think of me. 

Next Part Here

[blueboybot]

Ecto Infection: Part 1

Where ectoplasm acts like a sort of infection and those who had brushes with death have it worse.

The bats are no exception.

_______________

Day: 22nd

Month: June

Year: [REDACTED]

The following video you are about to watch was recorded by Dr. [REDACTED] of our research division from group Alpha which was stationed in the location Amity Park Illinois.

We at the Ghost Investigation Ward (G.I.W) advise you to know that these videos are not to be shared with any outside party unless given any permission to do so. Any Information which has been leaked without our consent will result in immediate termination.

_________

"Hello, my name is Dr. [REDACTED] and today I will be going over what me and my team have so far discovered."

*click*

"A few months ago the GIW discovered a huge spike in spectural energy emitting from a small space located in Illionois, we managed to pin down the location as Amity Park and sent troops to scout out the area to see what we could find. Upon our arrival it was clear to see that ectoplasm was abundant, further test showed that not only was it in the air but everywhere, from the water, earth, plants and even wildlife. It was clear that decontamination would not be easy but we are nothing but determined when it comes to our jobs."

*click*

"You already know this by now but ectoplasm appears in places most frequent in death or sometimes, in very rare cases, a portal will open up which it will then proceed to leak into our plane of existence."

"Under any other circumstances ectoplasm would be considered harmless but in large quantities its effects on our world could be dangerous and down right catastrophic, which brings us to the next topic."

*click*

"When large amounts of ectoplasm is introduce to an area the environment begins to warp, changing the land into something more than it should be. This also extends to any wildlife in the ecosystem. I will now show you some of the footage we have gathered."

*click*

A camera is powered on and begins recording with full charge. A small crew that consisted of three armed guards and two scientist march through the area will full caution. Leaves and twigs crunch beneath their feet, each step as careful as the next one.

The camera glitched.

The crew were now near a lake which was much bigger than it should be. A long board walk ventured out far until stopping when it was twenty steps far out. The two scientist got to work collecting sample of the water and soil, while the guards did their jobs.

After some time one of the guards broke off and began walking the board walk while the camera followed, heavy boots making the planks of wood underneath him speak against their will. His walk ended when he was on the last plank, tiltiing their head down to stare at the water.

And then they froze...

Not a single movement or sound could be heard, it was as if all noise just cease to exist. The camera got closer to where the guard was, the quality of the video getting glitchy and a bit staticky as it panned down and captured what the guard was seeing.

There. Right there in the dark waters were a dozen fish like figures, all eyes slightly glowing and looking at the guard.

With anticipation.

With hunger.

The sound of another gaurd calling to them was all that was needed to kickstart the chase.

The gaurd turned on their heel and began to ran back, the camera followed, missing the moment a dark figure leapt out of the water and chomped off an entire plank of wood.

They kept running.

They ducked as a dark shadow leapt from the side hoping to knock them down into the water.

They kept running.

They jumped into the air as jaws filled with rows of sharp needle like teeth came from below to try and take a bite.

They kept running.

All that could be heard behind them was splashed and the sound of wood breaking from whatever was in the water taking bites out of the board walk.

Eventually the guard was able to make it to land where they rejoined the rest of their party and left the area.

*click*

"As you have just witnessed ectoplasm infects the living and turns them into something monsterous. Those 'fish' were just some low leveled infected, dangerous to us still but not as dangerous as some of the other things we have encountered."

"It is important to know that just because something looks harmless you should never underestimate it, this is a lesson some members of our team had unfortunately learned a little too late."

*click*

The camera showed a different group of people, this time ten in total. Three scientist and seven guards entered a building, although the outside resembled any regular abandoned apartment the inside looked well cleaned and managed, as if people still lived here.

Somewhere along the way the group decided to spilt up with each scientist getting two guards and the remaining guards the front and back entrance.

A scream pierced through the air.

The camera which was recording the scientist inspect a strange plant captured the moment the trio jumped at the sound. They all exited the room, running downstairs only to find that both guards who were guarding the entrances were gone and all that was left were their protective armor.

Another scream tore through the air, this time coming from above where the group had just been, followed by echoes of curses before everything went silent again.

At this point it seemed the rest of them decided to leave but before they could open the door a tuft of vines covered the door. The camera panned up to a view of more vines, that hadn't been there before, now covering the ceilling.

One by one everyone was pulled into it. Yelling and screaming for help that they were never going to get.

Silence was returned to the building once again.

*click*

"That was a level two threat. When we recieved a distress signal more troops were sent out to the building and all they came back with was the drone with that recording. Despite our loses we were able to discover new knowledge about Amity. It is now known that certain buildings are alive and act as a sort of venus flytrap, crafted specifically to ensnare any human foolish enough to wander through its openings."

"The next anomoly on our list is a level–...It– Something's not– ....Oh God..."

An alarm could be heard going off, the video gltiching and audio distorting.

"It's here–..."

The video and audio continued to grow more staticky and distorted as some sort of black ooze bled from a corner of the room. It pooled onto the floor quickly, trapping the doctor who tried mercilessly to get out.

Suddenly a hand reached out of the ooze but there was no flesh covering it, it contined to pull itself out revealing its form.

A black skeleton watched the doctor struggle with no eyes.

"STAY AWAY! NOO،!"

*click*

_____________

Upcoming Chapter: The Residents

[dadsbongos]

The Lovers

word count - 4.8 k

warnings - ENEMIES to lovers..., non-graphic deaths and violence, i humanize and objectify pav in the same breath, fem reader (referred to by "girl" bc he's the worst)

first time capitalizing a fic title in months

DAY 2. NOON.

Blood splotches decorate the cobblestone floor, already drying into maroon against the wood planks of the train cars. The droplets lighten in shade the deeper into the train you go, and eventually, you find crimson. Pure cherry ink on dark wood. Cherry rots into a blackened smudge once again on the wheel of Olivia’s wheelchair. One hand settled over the thin black rim on her right, and the other twisting a roll of bandages around her fingers. She blinks up at you, bottom lip tucked so tight between her teeth that the rosy flesh is blistering white.

“I’m really sorry,” she sighs, abandoning the spool of cloth in her lap to push up her wiry glasses, “Terribly, I am, but I don’t- “ she pauses, “I’m worried that the others would be… biased in their care…”

Your gaze flits up from Olivia’s pensive face to the blonde man spread across the train’s cushy two-seater. His midsection is wrapped with reddish blooms vining all down the white crossings, arm bound in a sling over his chest. His eyes are scrunched up, brows furrowed towards the middle of his forehead; a fitful, delirious limbo overtaking him. Occasionally, he jerks himself awake in a wide-eyed panic before the pain knocks his brain topside again.

The Bremen lieutenant would hardly be a challenge to put down in his current state. You are one of few from the contestants that Olivia feels can be trusted not to undo her hard work of keeping the soldier alive. Combine your level-headedness with your lackadaisical attitude in searching Prehevil, and you make the perfect candidate to watch over Olivia’s patient.

Unfortunately.

“If he annoys me, can I press on his wounds?”

A wild grimace overtakes Olivia’s face, “No! No, please, please do not do that.”

“Fine,” you waltz past Olivia and study the blonde’s pinched face, “Go, go. I’ll watch the traitor.”

“Thank you!” she sighs in relief before exiting the train car, calling back hurriedly, “I’ll try to come with more bandages before sundown!”

When the lieutenant is not trapped under the rolling, ruthless waves of agony, you could almost mistake him for any other man. Maybe even a handsome one: with a strong nose and symmetrical bone structure. His lips are faintly the color of roses, too. Pale and pink. Dry, though. Not nearly as luscious as pretty petals.

Golden tresses, which you are mature enough to admit are alluring. His hat was off and his hair ruffled and fanning out over the magenta seat. Skin frail and pale - you could crush his ribs if you tried. Charming in a way you’ve only known real men to be.

Certainly, though, as soon as the pig squeals - the illusion of perky flowers and honey will melt away. Scorched by the moon as the villagers outside.

Foolishly, you agree to sit around waiting for the swine to be well enough to squeal. A smarter woman would’ve put it down (especially when it's previously shown a taste for blood), but you like Olivia and her tender heart so you do no such thing.

DAY 2. NIGHT.

As thanks for not murdering Pavel as soon as she’d turned her back, Olivia brought you fresh water and dried meats from scavenged homes alongside the fresh bandages. She left again soon after swapping the bloodied cloth for fresh ones.

“Do tell me when he wakes up,” she grins up at you. As if apologetic for having you carry out a duty you’d already agreed to, “I’m sure this isn’t an easy ask. I’m sorry.”

“If I wanted to make you feel bad for asking, I wouldn’t have said yes,” you wave off the concern, “Don’t die out there, Olivia. I’d miss you too much to do my job,” you gesture vaguely towards the immobile lieutenant.

She chuckles quietly before nodding, “I’ll do my best.”

Pavel’s groans are increasing both in frequency and throatiness - he’ll wake soon, you’re sure of it. He even turns onto his side, exhaling thickly - so harsh and ragged he actually coughs up bubbles of spit. Jittering with alert, he gasps sharply and rockets upward. Snapping at his waist and swiping out wildly with his unbound arm, clawing at the musty air directly in front of him; even attempting to swing out the arm wrapped and tied around his neck.

As soon as the hair-splittingly thin burst of adrenaline fades, he hisses in pain. Cupping the covered gash in his chest before curling his uninjured arm around the other, he throws his head back and gasps again. Suffocating under the re-stretching of closing wounds and fragile muscle.

Despite his uniform, you find yourself at Pavel’s side. You brush a hand down the length of his spine before patting between his shoulder blades, your other hand soothing down his navel to press him down into the cushions. Swiping aside curls of gold, you shush his groaning and search the care bag Olivia left behind. In your palm comes a bind of tobacco and a pipe that is smooth and cold against your skin.

“Quiet, quiet,” you coo, stuffing the chamber of the pipe with the almost sickly sweet, nutty-scented tobacco before raising Pavel’s head and sitting the lip into his mouth.

His eyes are still wrinkled shut, chest beginning to sporadically pop and shrink in a struggle to suck wind through his throat.

Part of you wants to tug his hair and call him stupid, but a larger part of you is consumed with pity. Pity for a creature so entrapped with torment that he cannot remember the second most basic function of his body.

“Breathe through your nose,” you continue to run your fingers through his sweat-matted hair while striking a match against the train’s floorboards and lighting the tobacco, “Smoke slow. It will ease you.”

Pavel’s neck cranes upward and remains there, head pushing against your stroking hand as he (rather noisily) inhales through his nostrils. Then, he fills his lungs with the sting of tobacco, blowing it back out through the pursed corner of his mouth.

Once you’re confident Pavel can breathe and smoke without choking himself to death, you turn again to rattle through Olivia’s care bag for herbs. Anything to aid the physical pain before the distraction of tobacco wears off.

Eyes fluttering open, Pavel stares down at you as he lifts an arm to pull the pipe from his mouth - blowing smoke down into your face. You pinch the exposed skin of his side harshly, only letting go when he jerkily arches his back to escape your cruel fingers.

“Unbelievable,” you shake your head, “No. A Bremen pig would, of course, disrespect someone trying to heal them.”

“If you wanted me dead, I already would be.”

“I still have time.”

You unplug a glass vial the shade of elderberries and press it to Pavel’s closed lips. When he stubbornly fastens his lips tighter, you glare directly into his eyes.

“Open. Or it’s being poured over your neck.”

Pavel groans in protest, but finally opens his mouth and allows you to dump the blue liquid into his throat. He gags at the bitterness of raw, untempered pressed herbs, almost gagging until he realizes you have no intention of stopping your pour. So he chooses to swallow down the vial as quickly as it comes instead of drowning to a mere glass of blue.

When you’re tucking the emptied glass away, Pavel replaces the pipe and huffs down at you, “You’re not a very courteous nurse.”

Instead of dignifying the jab with a response, you sit up fully on your knees to scour over the lieutenant below. From his tousled hair to his bloodied and wretched uniform to his muddied boots.

You reach up and contemplate digging a thumb somewhere in the center of his bandages before thinking better of it and snatching the pipe from his lips, “You should put away your breasts.”

Inhaling the smoke, you blow it down in Pavel’s annoyed face and grin when he coughs.

He glares up at you somehow harsher than before, “I could shoot you for that. I should shoot you for that.”

“Then who would protect you from all the other people that want you dead?”

Silently, he mulls over the question. If he reaches some sort of logical conclusion, he refuses to share. Most likely, though, you’re assuming he has no such answer. Aside from you, there is Olivia, but even she could not be swayed into staying on this train longer than necessary. It could drive one mad, bound inside this narrow tube of car after car after car with the same seats and floorboards and rolling rug. So she very politely requested you to stay behind instead.

You sit down on the hard floor below you, pulling your knees to your chest and winding both arms around your legs. Pavel turns his head to the side, lips in a pout. Drinking the blue liquid earlier has revived them, at least somewhat, they are even pinker. More full. Smoother. When you’ve had enough staring there, you stare at his eyes: so gray they shine like gun metal in the flitting moonlight.

Maybe Pavel would notice you examining him if he could tear his own eyes away from where they’re lingering by the sliver of exposed skin by your ankle. Classic: boarish pig lives up to his name. His gaze crawls up your shin to your bent knees, then a little lower as if to catch a glimpse of where your thighs and rear are squished against your chest and the floor (respectively). At least you have the decency to not objectify him during your observation - not that you even could. The lieutenant is leagues more off-putting than handsome.

Once he’s gathered the guts to bore his steely gaze into your face, he grins with a half-hearted shrug, “I haven’t seen a beautiful woman not kissing the piss lord’s ass in ages.”

You ignore the pass completely, “So, the temple square?”

Pavel sighs and extends a hand, palm up and fingers splayed wide in front of your face, “A failure.”

“You don’t say,” you bypass his hand and feed the lip of the pipe directly into his mouth, pressing it against his tongue and watching him firmly tuck it between his lips before letting go, “Why try?”

Puffing from the pipe, Pavel only shakes his head while exhaling thick plumes of slate-hued smoke. He swipes his tongue over his bottom lip and cradles the pipe in his hand, turning it delicately to inspect the body, “Why not?”

You make a show of looking from his face to his bandaged torso before snickering, “Serious question?”

Pavel takes one final draw of the pipe before balancing it atop the wooden frame of the seat. He lays his uninjured hand gently over his torso, blinking up at the ceiling with tired, wet eyes.

“You are cruel, you know this?”

“It’s a good defense,” you grin at the man innocently, “Especially against brutalist pigwhores.”

“Targeted,” again, he pouts, “Mean. You are a mean girl.”

“Maybe that’s what you need. I think Mama was too nice to you.”

Pavel withholds the wince at your words, merely pressing his tongue to the roof of his mouth and inhaling through his nose sharply. He shrugs when he really wants to bite, “You think so?”

Hopefully, he muses, he can rip out your throat when he finally snaps back.

“I do.”

“You know what I think?” you merely fold your arms, so he continues, “Nobody put the spoiled girl in her place. Now she’s a confident woman full of hot air,” he smiles, “I don’t do well with confident women like that. Make me jumpy.”

You ‘hmph’, but respond with nothing new before rising from the floor and snatching the care bag to squeeze against your chest like a child would their stuffed bear. Laying across the unoccupied, opposite seat, you turn so that you're faced away from the lieutenant.

Pavel stares at your back. He hadn’t been entirely teasing earlier - he truly hadn’t found a woman beautiful in a long while. Not that it was a problem to admit a girl was pretty, but there was always some dull ache to accompany the thought. Women riveted by his status in the Bremen army disgusted him, and women disgusted by him and his status were usually unwilling to bend to his charms. Even then, if he met a woman who was nurturing and sweet, undeterred by his enlistment, he was consumed with revenge.

Now that he’s officially gone and tried and horrendously failed, he can at least swim in the delusion that there is a chance for romance. Besides, he is in his thirties, that’s about the time when people begin settling down, right?

He reaches up for the pipe but finds that it’s gone out. No more vermillion embers to offer comfort.

“Oi,” he calls into the night. Not even crickets sing back. He shifts as if to sit up, but his entire waist flares with pain and sends him crashing back into the velvet cushions. So, he settles on raising his voice, “Hey!”

“Sleep, pig.”

“Pav.”

“Hm?”

“My name. My name is Pav,” he considers throwing the pipe at you altogether, but if the gold-encrusted bowl actually hits your skull then you’d likely leave and never return, “Call me by it.”

“Why should I?” you twist, scowling over your shoulder, “You signed up for the Bremen army, now take what comes with that in Prehevil.”

“You don’t strike me as a dull girl,” he grumbles, “So don’t pretend to be one.”

Suddenly, you’re sitting up again, the bag still clenched between both of your arms, “Do you know what the Bremen army has done to people? Has done to me?” you spit on the floor, right below where Pav rests, “Pigs! Horrible, wretched, rotten pigs!”

Pavel allows you to scream, allows you to finish, before returning, “Do you know what the Bremen army has done to me?”

He’s so quiet, he’s downright whispering. Voice husky and layered with years of buried terror and bloodlust.

“How should I care? You enlisted! Whatever they made you- !”

Now he cuts you off.

“They razed my home during the First Great War,” that once blinding sheen in gunmetal eyes is dark like obsidian, “My family. My mama,” he mocks you, “Dead. I joined to kill the Kaiser, I never wanted to be a Bremen pig. I never asked for this.”

“You came to kill the Kaiser as a lieutenant?”

“I did.”

“You must’ve known…” you swallow your words. A lieutenant to kill the commander? Even without the Kaiser’s other soldiers, Pavel wouldn’t possibly have been able to do that and get away with it. Not unless he wanted to hide out in Prehevil for the rest of his days.

“At least I will never die knowing I didn’t try,” he cackles sickly, “Great leader Kaiser spat the bullet out like it was nothing… Maybe he is some God sent back to torture us.”

“Maybe you missed,” you slump forward, elbows digging into your knees, “Couldn’t that be more likely?”

“No,” he looks at you with widened eyes, “No, no,” he shakes his head, “I don’t miss my shots.”

“If you’re sure,” you smile suddenly, shaking loose the stiffness in Pavel’s shoulders, “When you’re healed, we can try again, hm?”

“Really?” he’s shocked by the madness of your suggestion, “Did you miss the part where I said he took a bullet to the head and walked it off?”

“Apparently, we’ll die here anyway,” you shrug, yawning and fluttering back down onto the seat, “So, why not try again, Pav?”

A girl that nurtures despite his bloody uniform, and now despite his terrible need for revenge. You are as cruel as you are doting. Fiery and unfair and oh, he thinks he wants you to card your fingers in his hair again. Gentle only to him.

“As long as you don’t abandon me once you see for yourself,” Pavel can feel less burning in his chest when he breathes now, “Spat the bullet right out, I tell you.”

You shrug, “I guess I’ll die one way or another here.”

Pavel shakes his head, not bothering to tilt his head away from you as he drifts off.

…

DAY 3. MORNING.

He awakes to a great pressure around his throat. Snapping into consciousness, he finds you standing over him with shaking arms, and when he’s brave enough to follow the branches to where they’re stemmed - your hands are around his neck. Your breathing is shaky, and there’s wetness reflecting off your cheeks. Pavel claws at your wrists with his hand, twisting his body so his bottom half is hanging off the seat. Ignoring the scorching rage that sears over the fresh gash in his stomach, Pavel kicks out at you. His heeled boots dig into your gut, squishing intestines and fat and blood as he pushes you away.

Loudly, his boots thunk back against the floorboard when you’ve fallen away, throwing yourself dramatically across the opposite seat. Like a sick Europian lady from the Gilded Age, you drape over the frame with sniveling wails.

Pavel skims his fingers over where your own were clamping his throat shut as he shudders for breath. Ignoring your sobs, he shouts, “Did you hit your head or what?! Heal me, talk to me, just to end my life?! Are you- ?!”

“Enough!” you scream, voice snapping raw in the middle, completely fizzled out at the end. Wiping at the ceaseless tears gushing over your face, you scream again, “She should’ve gotten out of here! She should’ve gotten out and ran instead of… Instead of…” you cough out phlegm and despair trapped in your throat, “Instead of…”

Marina’s downcast face, moles decorating her frown as she twisted a cracked pair of Windsor glasses between her hands. She could barely look at you when she said it before handing over the glasses. I’m sorry, Marina whispered, Olivia… I just thought, maybe, you should know…

Pavel remains as he is, lumped against the back of the seat with both legs dangling onto the floor. Dried blood scraped up under his heels. He heaves for breath, watching as you cradle yourself in your arms and rock. You wither before him, babbling and wheezing and shrouded in shadow.

“What are you going on about?”

“Be quiet,” you snap, louring through puffy, red eyes and wobbly lips, “Be mournful. The woman that saved your life has died,” before Pavel can squeeze anything out from his gaping mouth, you stand and point down at him to command again, “Be nice. The war is over, and you’re not even a real lieutenant, you can show kindness when a person has died.”

He shuts his mouth. Opens it again. Shuts it. Then, finally,

“I didn’t know her.”

From the way you cross your arms and turn away, he can gather that that was the wrong thing to say.

“And yet she saved you,” your arms tighten around yourself, “She saved you, Pav… Be nice.”

You’re a sweet thing, Pavel thinks. You clearly hate him for not displaying the tenderness that you are around the woman’s death. At least at this moment, you hate him.

“I’m taking a walk,” you announce, flinging open the cabin door and slamming it behind you.

Pavel contemplates calling after you, but figures the sound of his voice could only make you stay away longer.

You’re a cruel, sweet thing.

Not even leaving the care bag closer for him to reach in and take from.

DAY 3. NOON.

When you return, the train car is silent sans the gentle hum of Pavel’s breathing. Almost reminiscent of clockwork, a well-oiled machine, his broad chest rises and falls smoothly as he’s rearranged himself sideways on the seat. With his slung arm over his chest and spare one tucked under his head as a makeshift pillow.

Having Pavel stretched out before you gives ample time for you to more thoroughly judge his physique - if you’d be able to strangle him while he’s awake. If he could fight back. If he could lift you with his pure muscle and restrain you with a single hand while the other…

Maybe, you think.

His arms are large, but not obnoxiously terrifying like the boxer. His waist is slim despite the broadness of his shoulders and chest.

Suddenly, he groans, nose twitching in his slumber. It draws your gaze up to his face. That unsettlingly symmetrical face with the strong nose bridge and soft, rosy lips.

Not to mention his flaxen hair - curled and tousled and forcefully in your sights with that Bremen hat off. And with his Bremen uniform (seemingly always) unbuttoned to his stomach, you make out his pectorals past his bandages. You make out two indentations over his heart: silvery scars.

He could almost be handsome. If he were more emotionally attuned.

You kneel by his side, swinging the care bag across the aisle and into your lap. His bleeding has visibly lessened, as only the lightest shade of pink has spread over the pale cloth. Sneaking scissors up by his soft skin, you avoid slicing him as you snip the bandages and begin unwinding them. Pulling gently so as to avoid waking the man, you successfully clear him from the restrictive cloth and assess his healing wound.

More coral pink than crimson red, now. You assume the mass improvement is thanks to the blue vial Olivia had provided. Even as the gnarly cut expands under Pavel’s breathing, it fails to start bleeding again. Which you’re grateful for since, as a precarious glance into the bag confirms, you have freshly run out of bandages. And you fear that snagging any old cloth from any old barrel could give Pavel an infection.

“What was it Alll-mer said? Pluck out your eyes if you cannot respect modesty?”

“I’m checking your wound,” you pinch his side. The skin is warm and fleshy and so, so soft between your fingertips. He whimpers and tries to evade your hand by squirming higher on the seat, “When did you wake up?”

“Not long ago,” he watches you reach into the bag and pull free another glass vial of blue liquid, “Only to see you ogling my body.”

“It’s a hideous one. Hard to look away.”

“You love to lie, mean girl?” he ‘tsk’s, “Shame. Lies are so ugly from a pretty mouth.”

“As if you would know.”

“Confident woman,” he sings to himself, grinning, “Confident, confident woman.”

Shoving the blue vial towards Pavel’s face, you square your shoulders and settle your face sternly, “Drink.”

“I liked it when you did it for me,” he opens his mouth then, refusing to break eye contact.

You comply, shifting onto your knees and pressing the chilled glass against Pavel’s lower lip; tipping it to flow into his warm mouth. He gulps down what you graciously offer, bringing his uninjured arm out from under his head and settling it over your hand around the vial. His thumb presses against your knuckles. You tangle your other hand into his hair and let the golden curls thread over your fingers. Once the vial is finished, you can’t explain it but there’s a sudden thundering in your chest. So vivid and hard in your ribs that it makes you nauseous.

Pavel blinks, lashes fluttering at you as his hand remains over yours.

Sunshine slants across his face. You see him more clearly now than this morning or last night or when he was wrought and warped with pain.

He looks pretty like this. Foul-mouthed and promiscuous and even forthright rude, but undoubtedly pretty.

His hand moves to your cheek, tenderly cupping the flesh with glass still pressed to his lips.

The thunder comes with lightning that strikes blazing fire. Heat fans through your chest and up to your forehead.

“If you want to go after the Kaiser, you should rest,” you whisper, as if speaking any louder could shatter the both of you from this moment, “We both should. Best to gather our strength before searching for him.”

Pavel shakes his head, obsessively smoothing the pad of his thumb over the apple of your cheek, “He will gut us both, cruel girl. I don’t want to see that for you. If I find him it’s alone,” he swallows thickly, “And I’m tired.”

“So,” you realize with a startled tremble that your internal combustion is affection for the former lieutenant, “you’ll stay?”

And with greater terror, you realize that you actually want to stay with him.

“I will die knowing I failed,” he sucks in a sharp breath, pressing his lips firmly before granting you sight of the rosy flesh again, “but I will have you to die with, cruel girl.”

At least even in humiliating defeat, Pavel can be loved.

“Are you scared to die, Pav?”

You’re a sweet one, he fondly recalls. Assuming he had much to live for outside his schlocky revenge scheme.

“Projecting, hm?”

You pinch his side. He lets you.

DAY 3. NIGHT.

“Now, bend it.”

Pavel hisses but manages to fully extend and curl his newly unwound arm with nothing more than a click in his elbow. He lays both hands in his lap as you bunch the bandages and sling into a ball and lay it off to the side.

“Good,” you utter softly, “You’ve healed a lot faster than I would’ve thought.”

“Right?” Pavel turns his head to stare down at you, tilting his head back, “You should sit with me.”

“You’re feeling charitable,” he scoffs at your tease, not moving to accommodate his invite, “Where should I even sit, then? You’re taking the entire seat.”

When he merely smirks, you get the idea.

“You’re gross.”

“Indulge me, cruel girl,” you rise to your feet, gnawing your bottom lip in contemplation, Pavel leans against the armrest and cinches his legs together, “Would you make a man die alone?”

“Yes,” you answer without hesitation.

But would you make Pavel die alone?

You swing a leg over his torso, careful to avoid the healing slash and straddle Pavel’s waist with both hands landing over his exposed chest. He cups your cheek again, now taking pleasure (and slight pain) in cradling your face with both hands. He hasn’t gotten to see a beautiful woman in ages, and he thinks maybe it isn’t so bad to go out staring at one.

Moonlight cascades over the both of you, so bright in the train cabin it almost burns.

“If we could still run, where would you go?” you ask.

“Where would you want me?”

“Flirt,” you’re leaning in, though, trailing a finger over his scarred chest. Your nails bite at the flesh, he grunts in disapproval, “How can I believe anything you say? You betrayed your leader. Would you shoot me, too?”

Pavel is sure you’re anything but serious in asking, but it's dangerous the way he feels compelled to answer genuinely, “Never. I’d miss your… What was it? Brutalism?”

“Enough,” the moonlight sears over where Pavel’s hands are curved around your cheeks. You lean down more until your lips brush his, “You call me rude, but you’re- “

He slices your derision short, pressing his petal soft lips against yours with a quiet, contented sigh.

Moonlight bares witness. And you cannot pull away even as the fire in your heart rages from affection to molten lava. You’re not even entirely sure you would want to.

…

Karin cannot feel her fingers as she stands in the open train car door. She’s seen many things - many terrible, awful things. Especially so in the past seventy-two hours than her entire career as a war journalist, but this may be what truly drives her mad. She can feel it - the need to retreat inside her mind and shut down completely; the need to give up hope of salvation. Maybe she can suppress it long enough to sit by that seashore, get a good view to wash out the image before her.

Wriggling on the train loveseat is a fleshy creature, almost like mushed peaches. Occasionally, pleased sighs and hums will escape one of its two smiling faces as the lumps slide and shift along the cushion. One face nuzzles closer to the other and the measly bread and meat Karin swiped from deserted kitchens lurches in her stomach.

None of the other monsters she’d encountered had been so undeniable in its previous humanity. It reminds her of the holed, broken, pliant corpses of uniformed soldiers dead in trenches, and it reminds her of the first time she ever saw a real dead body. She puked on its boot, unable to run back and spew bile elsewhere before it was spurting past her lips.

Karin’s stomach is stronger now, though. She has the time to turn and trudge on wobbly knees towards the seaside before she pukes - squirming flesh and smoldered limbs tangling in her mind.

Moonlight burns at the back of her neck as The Lovers moan and coo happily behind her.

[atxxokirina]

Can I make a request where the reader is to be mated with Aonung but Neteyam swoops in and steals her away? Bonus points if it's dark 🤤

Thank you!

Replacement (18+ MDNI) —

Neteyam x Fem Metkayina reader

Contains: ⚠️ CNC, dark/rough Neteyam, daddy kink, creampie, impact play, missionary, cheating reader (sorta). Let me now if I missed anything.

Plot: After finding out you're forced to be mated with Aounung, Neteyam does whatever he can to make sure it doesn't happen.

— 𓆉

You had just returned from your 3rd fitting session of the day with Ronal. Her, and many of the older women in the clan won't stop gushing about how you and Aounung would be such "beautiful mates". But in all honesty, you didn't want to be with him in the first place. The marriage was arranged by Aounung's parents and yours. But of course, you had no say in it.

Going through hours of being pricked by needles, pushed around, and squeezed by the attire she'd sewn for you. It felt endless. One outfit after the other, and if that one wasn't 1000% perfect? You had to stand still for Eywa knows how long, as the Tsahík and elders fit their fabrics on you. It was torture.

Exhausted, you stumble back into your Marui. Collapsing on your cot and laying on your back as you deeply sighed. The sound of wind blowing was like a soothing melody as you began to drift into a restless sleep, desperately seeking an escape from the overwhelming reality that'd been forced upon you.

Just as you were beginning to lose consciousness.. "Knock knock?" You hear a voice tap on the wood outside of your Marui. Shooting up from your cot, you quickly shuffle to the door, instantly smiling at who you see. "Neteyam!" You happily sigh, bringing him into a hug as you wrapped your arms around his neck. He stands still for a second, surprised by the sudden gesture, but still embraces you nonetheless.

Neteyam takes both of your shoulders and tilts your face up to look at his. "Something wrong? You look tired." His that gently holds your chin, runs down your face and rests on the top of your head. You frown, tilting your head with a pout, basically speaking with your eyes. "Was the Tsahík making you try on clothes again?" He let out a small laugh under his breath.

"Yeah," you sigh, rolling your eyes. "Every single day, nonstop. It's so tiring," You huff, turning around to sit on your cot as you burry your face in your knees. "I just want this to end," you groan again. "I didn't even wanna be with him in the first place." You complain about the same thing, for the hundredth time today- almost becoming annoyed with yourself.

Neteyam stood still, body leaning against your wooden walls as he stirred up an idea. "Hey," he starts, voice full of curiosity. "Your father wants just wants you to be mated the Olo'ekytan, right?" He asked. You bring your head up from your knees, peeking up at Neteyam. "Mm- yeah, why?" You mumble with a nod, unsure of what he's getting at.

A sly smirk curls on Neteyam's lips, he knew exactly how to curve you from Aounung. He moves away from the wooden plank, stopping in front of you and kneeling to your level. "W-What is it, Teyam?" You question as your body heat increased, heart beating faster. "Y/n," he sighs. "You do know that I'm going to be Olo'ekytan too, right?" You blink a few times. "Yes.." You reply, staring at him with growing curiosity and anticipation.

"No." You state once you finally understand. "No, I can't do that. My father would never approve, and I'm already expected to be-" He cups your chin, pitying a smile. "It's a shame that I'm not asking. I'm *telling." Neteyam sounds more serious than usual, and it worries you that he actually expects you to go through with this.

Neteyam is picture perfect, there's no doubt about that. He's an amazing warrior, responsible, attractive, muscular, and the list could go on and on. The only problem, is he's basically like family to you. The years you've known each other all you've done was mentor him. Teaching him the Metkayina ways, it almost felt like you were raising him up— which is why it felt so it felt wrong to consider mating with him.

"I-I can't, really Neteyam-" He stops you again. "Didn't you want a way out of this? I'm giving you one, and now you're trying to back out?" He raises his voice as he stood up, causing you to flinch. His large figure is towering over you now, you can see each pore and freckle on his chest.

Looking up at him, you hesitate to speak. "Neteyam, please calm down. I didn't mean to lead you on or anything, I swear." you try to explain, but his patience is visibly running thin.

Neteyam lets out a deep, exhaled sigh. "You may not want this, but you also don't want to be with Aounung, yes?" His voice was melodic and deep. Almost sympathetic.

Barely making eye contact as he loosens his loincloth. You sniffle, nodding in fear. "Mm, that's what I thought." You're practically trembling as you watch him untie his cloth. "I'm your only way out, y/n. It's me or him."

Your ears lay flat in fear. Worried about what he'll do next. "Oh, come on. Don't act all scared now," Neteyam teases. He pulls you closer by your chin, giving a single kitten lick to your neck. "Hmh.." You whine, completely cornered. Neteyam's firm hands wrap around your throat, only gently squeezing. You turn your head and try to avoid his eyes.

He spreads your thighs with his knee, making each move sensual and slow. "Look at me," he hums, weaving his fingers in between your top. You pretend not to hear him, but the slight twitch in your ears gave you away.

"You think you're funny, huh? I said, look at me." Neteyam growls, gripping your chin tighter and forcing it to face him. Your lips quiver, you've no choice but to lock eyes with him. "Don't make this harder than it has to be, y/n."

As his hands travel underneath your top, he groans. Feeling the warmth of your breasts while his index and middle finger roll in between your nipples. Without warning, he rips it your crochet top off. Fully exposing your tits. "Neteyam!" You gasp. "Shut up." He snarls.

After that, he goes for your loincloth. His sharp nails teasing your band before expertly untying it. He completely took his off, as well. Cock standing at attention, pulsing every once in awhile, just waiting to be touched. You reach your hand out, slowly going in for it. You're stopped as he smacks your hand away. "Did I give you permission to touch me?" Neteyam asks, tone stern. "N-No, but—"

He takes you by your neck, throwing you onto the cot as if you were nothing. Your pupils widen as you whimpered, jagged breaths escaping you. "I-I'm sorry, Neteyam. I won't touch you without permission." You whimper, leaning back on your arms as you attempt to shuffle away. He mockingly frowns, stepping over to you.

Your heart rate was at it's peak as he came closer. Crawling on top of you and pinning your arms back. His abs were tense and his breathing was so heavy. You've never seen him this way. Usually he's the sweetest, most careful man ever. But now? He was entirely different.

Your eyes meet each other, and you know he's yearning for something more. "I'm gonna fuck you until you're screaming." He promises "So loud that bitch Aounung will hear." Neteyam shines his fangs, slowly bringing his hands from your arms to your navel. "I bet you'd like that, huh?" He teased, pressing his thumb against your clit. "Mmh! Yes daddy. I-I would like it." You unknowingly mewl. It was almost like he forced the noise from your throat.

He holds his girthy cock with one full hand, making it look bigger than it already was. You gulp again after seeing what was going inside you, squeezing your eyes shut. He sharply inhales before easing his cock in, giving you a few seconds to prepare, before plummetting his dick inside you.

"Oh fuck! Oh f-fuck, stop! Too big, please!" Instinctively, you attempt to push him off. But his so much bigger than you, it was no use. You whine and cry, back arching as your body tries to adjust. "Don't fight it, baby. Take it for daddy, huh?" He shushes you, low moans escaping from him as he pushes the remaining 7 inches in.

Now this felt like actual torture. Like you were being ripped apart, but for some reason your body was begging for more.

Tears well in your eyes while Neteyam's cock stuffs your guts. "Mmmhh, there we go.." He groaned, giving your face a quick slap.

He was rough. And maybe you secretly loved every second. No man has ever made you feel this way. "N-No more," you hiccup. "Please!" His cock pulsed at your cries, only giving him more pleasure while he fucks you out, cock moving out halfway, slamming harder with each thrust.

"Yeah? You like that slut? Tell daddy." He plows into you deeper, your slick juices combined with his precum- making such nasty noises. "I do! I love it daddy!" You struggle another moan, absolutely hating that you're enjoying this. Neteyam holds onto the sides of your ass, clawing into them as his cock drills you. A new stream of tears roll down your face. Breathy sobs and mewls escape from your mouth.

"I like when you cry." He claws deeper, hands clutching the sides of your ass before he smacks it. Leaving faint, flush handprints. "Ah!" You yelp in pain. "You're hurting me, please!"

"Oh, yeah? It's hurting?" Neteyam mocks you again. Grunting as his hips gyrate in you, strokes becoming longer and deeper. You nod as a tear falls. "Yes.."

"It's hurting?" His single second of sympathy was over. His slaps have moved from your ass, to your tits. Leaving a stinging sensation as he pulls your body up— forcing you down on his dick. You scream out, wrapping your arms around his neck as you whimper and mewl. "Keep fucking acting like you don't want this," he thrusts once. Making you gasp for the air that's being knocked from you.

Neteyam snakes his hand to your neck, using it to pull you closer. "I'm gonna cum inside your pussy, and leave my scent on you." He whispers, fangs grazing your neck. "Everyone's gonna smell how much of a dirty slut you are." A newfound wave of arousal and pain runs through your body, you knew that you were gonna cum— no, squirt. It was so close, all you could do was stare into his eyes. Pupils fully blown as it builds up.

You cunt squeezes him, almost like a warning. "Daddy, I'm.." You sharply inhale, electricity moving throughout you. "I'm gonna cum, oh fuck!" He growls. Feeling his heavy load finally get ready to spurt. Fill your womb and invade your ovaries. "That's it. Cum on me, I'll cream this tight pussy and make you mine." Neteyam moaned, pulling you closer if it was even possible.

Tighter.

Tighter.

Tigh.. ter

Tight, tight..

Release

"I'm cu- cumming! Oh, fuck, daddy!" You scream, squirting over his cock. It came out like a waterfall, coating your plush thighs, to his balls. Your bodies were synced with each other. And just as you finished, he started.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck.. Take it. Take all my fucking cum." Neteyam moans, pantint as he holds your hips down on him, the veins in his forearms becoming prominent as he dumps his seed into your warm pussy. You cling into him, melting at the sudden warmish feeling in your tummy. "Nghhh.." You softly moan, weary and ready to pass out.

He notices and props your head up to look at him. "Uh uh, don't pass out on me now." Neteyam grins. "You're all mine now, and you have my scent. You know what that means?" Neteyam coos. "Hm..?" You lazily whine.

"I get to do what I want with you. We're mated for life now, y/n." He pulls out. Letting you fall back before moving around to your face. You're met with his still hard cock, the tip getting ready to part your lips as it's still slightly dipped in his cum and yours.

"Say 'ah'. Open wide for daddy.."

— 𓆉

taglist: @pandorxxx @sweethoneycn @neytirishottie @sullybrotherslover @tsireyafilms @teyamsgrl @encephalitis-on-sundays @sassypain @neongroves @rosyjn @hidingfrommanda @whore-for-hawks @ele-sme @lowryv @teyamsatan @majornaxxx

[theship-thewalrus]

This is My Idea || Benedict Bridgerton

benedict bridgerton x reader

based on the song 'this is my idea' from The Swan Princess

word count: 1682 words reading time: about 7 minutes warnings: none really

I can't believe I'm stuck with her all summer I bet she doesn't wrestle, hunt or box

The boy who stood in front of you looked conceited. The brown, untamable hair that looked similar to a bird's nest you had passed in the carriage. He looked rather unimpressed as his eyes scanned you, for someone so young he seemed to resemble a sour-faced mother.

"Where are you manners dear? Introduce yourself."

The voice of your father filled your eyes, causing your eyes to cast back to him for a moment. You were sure your face convey a look of uncertainty almost asking if you truly must indulge this idea. The carriage ride to the countryside had taken some time, Adurey Hall, they had called it. The best place to spend the summer, or so you were told.

"(Y/N), a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

As you bowed her head slightly to show respect there was a beat of silence. It caused your eyes to flick up, wondering what fool did not understand how to greet someone. You watched the shoulder of the boy in front of you get knocked forward, a puff of air leaving his chest. A scowl formed on his face as he stepped forward bowing his head and holding out his hand.

"Benedict."

As he took your hand in his there was a small pause again, both of you looking back to your parents. Almost pleading for them to intervene, asking them with your eyes if they were truly going to make you both do this. Yet, all that was returned were encouraging smiles. The kiss on the back of your hand was quick, you quickly retracted your hand to wipe it on your dress and him to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.

What a fun summer you had in store.

We've tried all summer but we just can't lose her

"Wait up! Anthony! Benedict! This isn't funny!"

Three pairs of footsteps could be heard running across the floors of Audrey Hall. Maids clinging to the walls of the halls as three children barrel through. The two boys were much fast than you, something you blamed on your skirt. You could hear their mutters of each other, encouraging the other to run faster in an attempt to lose them.

The doors flung open as the trio ran outside, the boys gaining ground against you. The wooden floor you had been running on quickly changed to stone and then uneven grass, that you were sure you were going to trip over. The ground only worsen as you trailed the boys to the forest that encased the grounds. Perhaps if you were in the first under better circumstances you would not be so annoyed.

"Quick, Anthony! Before she gets here."

You could hear Benedict urging his brother to climb the rope ladder to their little treehouse. Moving forward, your fingers just missed the rope of the ladder to the treehouse. The two boys are much too fast in pulling it up and away from you. Looking up at them with an angered and displeased expression you were only met with their smug ones. Having gotten out of having to spend any time with you for now.

"You'd think she'd take a hint a learn to read."

You could hear Benedict tease, waving a piece of paper at you from his higher position. Squinting you could make out 'no girls' in scratchy words and a terribly drawn picture of what you assumed to be you.

"This really isn't fair." "We really couldn't care."

With a huff, you picked a plank of wood that stood tall near the tree. Though it seemed to be the main support of the tree house as you heard the planks of wood groan and shift under the boy's weight. Before it all came crashing down around you, boys included.

She tries to talk me into playing dress-up She's always flirting with the castle guards

You don't quite remember when you had given up trying to befriend Benedict. It was clear the pair of you simply had no intention of ever wanting to get to know each other. Perhaps if you both had not been forced together for months, since you were both young, it would be different. Now you seemed to spend your time with the Bridgertons entertaining his younger siblings, gossiping with Daphne and talking to the various servants.

It was not unusual to find yourself outside, you enjoyed the time away from the ton and in the countryside. Yet, this particular time you seemed to be occupying your time talking with a footman. He was rather young and you must admit, easy on the eyes. You sparked up the conversation with him during your walk around the grounds. Asking him to accompany you on a quick walk in the nice weather.

"Why, I did not know you were so knowledgeable on the different Flora around Britain."

Your voice was smooth as you spoke, looking at the young man from the corner of your eyes. The pair of you stood a respectable distance apart. You heard him chuckle before he answered, turning his head to face you.

"Well, miss, I tend to find myself out in the forest in my free time." "How wonderful,"

You muse a small smile on your face as the pair of you turned to head back to the manor. Though a figure in one of the many windows caught your eye. Squinting slightly you attempt to figure out who happened to be spying, you assumed it would be Daphne, the girl would want to know everything as soon as you get inside. But much to your surprise the figure was none other than the man you were avoiding, Benedict. You could not make out his face, but you could tell by his body language that he was not in the greatest mood.

I'd like her better if she'd lose at cards

Sitting across from Benedict you peer over your cards at him. There was one thing you both agreed on, and that was a love for card games. At times you had both been known to wager something, a necklace here or a few coins there. But during your winning streak, Benedict was too fearful, having already lost too much. He already owed you one of his paintings and some poetry.

You pretended to not notice Colin peering over your shoulder, trying to grab a look at your cards. You doubted he could see much or even knew how to play. You watched Benedict's movements carefully, you doubted he would suddenly win this round, you weren't worried about losing.

"Four sevens and a ten." "I think I've won again."

Your words were covered in honey as you showed your card. Displaying them opposite his with a smirk playing on your lips. You could not help yourself, it felt nice to win against the boy. Considering you could never seem to win against his older brother. Small cheers from Daphne and Eloise were heard as Benedict groaned and leaned back in his chair unimpressed.

For as long as I remember We've been told we'd someday wed

Somewhere along the years you and Benedict had figured out the reason why you were both forced together every June until September. Your fathers had been friends and you guessed they desired a way to keep your families close. Unfortunately for you, you had simply been born close to Benedict. Thus, it seemed simple that the pair of you should wed. Though it was rare they spoke about it, there were always countless hints and pushes to shove you both together.

Being pushed around in this manner was not want you had expected during this visit to the Brigdertons. You could feel your father pulling and shoving you in all sorts of directions. Your unhappy grumbling going unheard by the man. That morning you had been shoved into a rather nice dress and your corset did up so tight you were sure you were going to pass out.

I see him smiling and my knees start buckling I see inside him and my doubts are gone

You heard the door shut behind you, your father leaving you in a room by yourself. Hearing another door slam shut on the other side of the room. Casting your eyes over you saw Benedict. He seemed to change over the last time you had seen him, matured a bit more. He did seem so brash and aloof as before, more refined and put together.

You watched his eyes as he scanned you as well, realising he was not alone. Confidently you took a few confident steps towards him. Though he seemed to stumble a little at the start he was quick to extend his hand as he meet you in the middle. Extending your hand he grabbed it softly, you took note of the charcoal on his fingertips that he had not seemed to clean yet. Though you did not seem to mind all that much. Softly kissing the back of your hand he would straighten up once more. Yet kept his hand on yours, it brought a smile to your face.

"How have you been these past months?"

Your question breaks whatever trace the man was under, bringing his attention back to you. There was a pause as you watched him think of a response. Perhaps not all that much had changed since you were young, the man still needed to be pulled through conversation.

"G-Good! I've been good." "That is good it hear."

There is another pause for a small moment before he seemed to catch on to what you were waiting for.

"And how have you been?" "Well, I spent the colder months inside by the fire." "Good, good. I had painted the manor in a winter setting. I would be happy to show it to you." "It would be my pleasure to see."

This is my idea This is my idea What a good idea, it's such a charming and romantic notion.

[marrijaydeboo]

!!!PAVIA BACKSTORY SPOILERS!!!

HEAR ME OUT PAVIA LOVERS

Imagine you and Pavia meeting as kids when he was still stuck in the basement.

You found a small window at the side of his aunties home, 3 feet from the ground. When you peaked in out of curiosity, you see him and several unrecognizable animals lurking behind him.

The sound of dripping water, breathing, the squeaks of rodents in the wood panels, and endless silence accompanied him.

He then noticed you and was quite startled. He had his guard up at first but warmed up since this was like a once in a blue moon experience for him.

Talk about making friends, he introduced you to his imaginary friends! Named Peter, Andrea, Maleificent, Tonika, and Leon.

Finding about how he stays in the basement every day, you took it upon yourself to hand him down the knowledge you would learn in class.

At night, you both needed to whisper quietly to talk to each other, which was a big struggle. You asked if he had any empty cans in the basement, and he replied yes after looking for one.

The same night, you got a can and a string from your home and came back to Pavia. You told him to make a hole at the center bottom of the can, slipped the string through the window, and 1, 2, 3 bang! You both got can telephones now.

Pavia was truly happy that he could hear you more closely. The first thing he asked was who invented the can telephone. He fell in love

Unfortunately, one day, when you came back from school, ready to teach him new things... he disappeared.

Layers of planks blocked the window, and when you knocked, there was no answer. Did she do this?

[ereardon]

His Best Friend's Wedding Epilogue [Bradley Bradshaw x Reader]

Overview: Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw has been your best friend for a decade. He’s also your fiancé’s best man. So when he shows up at your hotel room the night before your wedding, it’s just because he’s your friend, right? 

Pairing: Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw x Reader 

Chapter summary: Two years after confessing the night before your wedding that he was in love with you, Bradley is faced with major changes – your divorce, and the birth of your child. You have a confession for him: you always loved him, too.

Warnings: Angst, pregnancy, childbirth, mention of cheating, alcohol, violence

See the full masterlist for the miniseries here

WC: 4.5K

You stood in the doorway, hand frozen in midair. Fear tightened your chest. 

How many times had you knocked on Bradley’s door before? Mostly you let yourself in, key slipped in the lock as seamlessly as if it were your own house. The bungalow was warm and inviting and you knew practically every turn, every creaky hardwood plank, every scratch on the wall. 

The dent on your ring finger stared back at you as your hand hovered an inch from the wood door. It felt odd. Bare. And while at first, the rings had felt heavy, like an omen, you were surprised to find that the absence of them didn’t feel light or freeing. 

It felt like homeostasis. 

After a moment, your fingers landed against the soft wood of the door. It opened instantly. Bradley’s warm eyes met yours. 

You looked up. 

“Come inside, Ace.” 

***

Bradley watched you kiss Jeremy on the altar. He had to sit there and give his best man speech at the wedding even though his hands shook the entire time and he couldn’t look either of you in the eye. He felt the prickle of jealousy and anger under the collar of his tux as you and Jeremy ran through the crowd toward the vintage convertible your father had lent the two of you as your getaway car.

Through gritted teeth, Bradley watched the milestones in your life from a short distance. Photos of your honeymoon in Tahiti. Your first house as a married couple. 

He was there the day the stick turned pink. 

Jeremy, as it turns out, was on assignment. You called Bradley without a second thought. “Brad,” you whispered into the phone. “Come over.” 

He could hear the anxiety in your voice. He was in his car before he even had time to tie his shoes, driving the familiar route without really seeing it. He could find his way to you with his eyes closed. 

You were sitting on the edge of the bathtub when he arrived, barreling through the door without knocking, shoving into the bathroom. The door flung open. He dropped down to kneel in front of you.

“Ace?” 

You smiled gently. “I couldn’t do this on my own.” You pointed to the test, wrapped up on the counter. Bradley sucked in a breath. He had known this was coming. You and Jeremy had been married for two years. You had always wanted a family. 

“Want me to open it?” he asked. You nodded. Bradley reached for the rest, rotating the plastic wrapper in his hands, pinching the plastic end with his large fingertips before pulling it slowly out of the sheath, reading the tiny white oval face. 

“Brad?” you whispered. Every nerve in your body was on fire. Fear bubbled in your chest. 

He smiled softly. “You’re going to be an amazing mom.” 

You sagged and Bradley caught you immediately, the two of you crouched on the bathroom floor, your arms flung around Bradley’s neck, his fingertips pressing tightly against your skin. He could feel your tears soaking the cotton of his shirt where your face was scrunched against his shoulder, but he didn’t care. He had never cared. He knew they were tears of joy. 

Bradley was the first person you called for most things. The day you got a flat tire on I-5 headed to Santa Clarita for a girls trip. The time you twisted an ankle at the grocery store and he showed up fifteen minutes later with a pair of flat shoes and an ice pack. 

Bradley was the person you called when everything went to hell with Jeremy. 

“I can’t fucking do this anymore!” you screamed, throwing a cup across the room, letting it shatter into a million pieces. 

Jeremy’s face was hard like stone. “You’re being insane, Y/N,” he said. 

“Insane? Insane?” You whipped around to face him, cheeks red with anger. “You’re gone all the time, Jer. You don’t answer your phone. I hear from other wives that you’re hanging out at bars on the base with random people including women I don’t know. How do you think that makes me feel?” 

“That’s the fucking job, Y/N. I’m a Naval lieutenant commander. I have responsibilities. I have duties. I have people I owe my life to.” 

“To me!” you shouted. “You owe your life to me, Jer! We stood up in front of three hundred people and promised ourselves to each other. Our time, our energy, our commitment.” 

“I’m in the military, babe, I have commitments.” 

You shook your head, tears flooding your eyes. “Maybe you’re the kind of man who can only have one.” 

“What is that supposed to mean?” 

“It means,” you whispered, “that maybe I’m not your top priority anymore.” 

Jeremy was silent. His silence said more than words ever could. 

You wiped at your tears. “I’m going out.” 

“When will you be back?” 

“Maybe I won’t.” 

“Don’t you fucking do that,” he said and there was ice in his words. “Don’t you fucking throw all of this away.” 

“You’re the one throwing it away,” you said, opening the door. “I’m just following your lead.” 

***

Bradley hated when you showed up at his door, tears in your eyes, an overnight bag packed and sitting at your side. 

He hated it more when you didn’t show up at all. Because that meant he was just one more step from losing you, all over again. 

The night that you found out about the baby, with Jeremy overseas, you asked Bradley to stay at the house. The two of you sat on the floor in front of the coffee table, Buddy your rescue labrador’s head buried in Bradley’s lap, one of his large hands stroking the dog's velvety ears. 

“Brad?” you asked, leaning your head against one hand, elbow pressed against the overstuffed sofa cushion. 

“Hmm?” 

“We don’t talk about it,” you said. 

“Talk about what?” 

“The wedding,” you whispered. “Everything that happened the night before.” 

Bradley’s eyes widened. It had been two years, four months, and sixteen days. He had thought about it every single day since he watched you float down the aisle toward him, only to say yes to Jeremy. You were still the first thing he thought of when he woke up and the last thing on his mind as he drifted off to sleep. 

“I’m sorry,” you said. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.” 

“I still love you,” Bradley said and you sucked in a breath. That felt like a punch to the gut. You placed one hand over your stomach, which he misinterpreted. “I’m sorry,” he added. “I know you belong to Jer. And I want you to be happy, Ace. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” He paused. “I know you have everything you could ever want now. Maybe I don’t fit in to your life anymore.” 

“Don’t say that.” You were on your knees, wrapping your arms around his neck, pulling him into a hug. Buddy grunted and squeezed out from between the two of you, sulking off to his bed in the corner. You felt Bradley’s hands, warm, tighten on your back. He felt like coming home. “You will always fit into my life. Always. No matter what.” 

“I thought you’d hate me,” he whispered. “For saying all of that to you before the wedding.” 

You pulled back, tears in your eyes. “Bradley Bradshaw. I will never hate you a day in my life.” 

***

Your bare hand fell to your stomach, warm and round and hard, as you stood awkwardly in the foyer of Bradley’s house. 

He stood with his arms dangling at his sides. “So.” 

This wasn’t the reunion you wanted. You weren’t sure what you wanted. For everything to disappear. For the last decade to be erased. 

To have chosen Bradley that night in that Annapolis dive bar instead of Jeremy. 

You stepped closer. “I left.” 

“Ace,” he whispered. 

You shook your head. “For good. He signed the papers.” You swallowed the lump in your throat. “It’s over.” 

“Oh.” Bradley could barely breathe. He was afraid of moving, in case it was all a dream and you faded away into the background, out of his grasp. 

“Brad,” you whispered, reaching out, putting one hand against his cheek, soft cool skin against his warm flesh. You could feel the grittiness of his stubble beneath your fingertips. “I was wrong to choose Jeremy. At the wedding. That first night at the bar. Every night since.” 

“What are you saying, Y/N?” he murmured. 

“I’m saying I’m sorry,” you said quietly. “I’m saying that I still love you.”

***

The day it all came to a head was a year after the wedding. You and Bradley were in the living room when Jeremy stomped in, eyes wide with rage. He held up a credit card bill in one hand. 

“Y/N.” His voice boomed along the walls. You cowered. “What the fuck?” 

“What’s going on?” Bradley’s mouth was pulled into a tight line. 

“None of your business, Bradshaw,” Jeremy spat. “This is between me and my wife.” 

“Don’t like the tone you’re taking, Jer.” You were thankful for Bradley in that moment. 

Jeremy stepped closer. You could smell the sharp acidity of alcohol on his breath. “I said, back off, Bradshaw. This is between me and Y/N.” He turned to you. “What the fuck is this charge?” 

“What charge?” 

“This.” He shoved the paper right beneath your nose. “Some hotel in Miami.” 

You rolled your eyes. “That was for Kelly’s bachelorette.” 

He narrowed his eyes. “Don't lie to me.” 

“Why the fuck would I lie to you?” you demanded. “You’re the one who cheats in this relationship, not me.” 

You never saw his hand shoot out. But it didn’t land on your cheek like it was meant to. Instead, faster than you could even see, Bradley stepped between the two of you, Jeremy’s slap landing across his face. Bradley’s left arm wrapped back around you, making sure you were tucked safely behind him. 

A quietness enveloped the room. 

And then Bradley’s voice. “Y/N,” he said gruffly. “Get in the car.” 

“I—”

“Get in the car,” he repeated. You backed up, eyes on the two of them as you grabbed your phone and made your way for the door. 

As you were slipping your shoes on, you heard Bradley’s voice. Low and harsh. You had never heard him sound like that before. 

“You ever, I mean ever, lay a fucking hand on her, next time you see me I’ll be standing over your grave,” Bradley hissed. 

Jeremy’s shoulders sagged. They were practically brothers. But there was something definitive about Bradley’s tone. “Baby, I didn’t mean–”

“Get yourself together, Jer,” Bradley said, turning, his eyes falling on you. “You don’t deserve her.” 

***

“What happened?” Bradley whispered. 

You felt your shoulders droop. “I left him,” you said. “We both know I had to.” Your hands fell to your stomach: bloated, uncomfortable, eight months wide. “For me. And her. Or him.” 

Bradley ran one hand over his face, pulling at the small creases near the sides of his eyes. “Ace. I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m so sorry.” 

“I’m not.” You looked at the living room. “Can I sit? I’m huge.” 

“Oh, God, of course.” Bradley rushed to throw a pillow and blanket from the couch and make room for you. He held your hand, easing you down onto the couch. 

“I’m sorry it took so long to realize,” you said as Bradley settled into the seat next to you, his brown eyes warm and wide. 

“Realize what?” 

“I think you know.” 

***

“You’re making a mistake.” Bradley was drunk, and so were you. The diamond on your left hand glittered under the dim light outside the bar where the two of you had bummed stray cigarettes from one of the barbacks in the alley.

“What, this?” you asked, flicking the cigarette as ash fluttered to the ground. “I’m so fucking hammered I won’t remember this tomorrow so it doesn’t really count, right?” 

He shook his head, dropping the cigarette and stomping it out beneath one foot. “Marrying Jeremy.” 

You sucked in a breath. Too hard, choking on smoke. Bradley slapped your back, his fingertips warm across your bare skin, until you could breathe normally. You frowned up at him. “What’s gotten into you?” 

“He’s not good enough,” he said. 

“What the hell?” you demanded. “It’s been eight years, Bradley. You waited eight years to tell me that you think I shouldn’t marry him?” 

“I told you from day one,” he said, “that you were better off without him.” 

“This is cruel.” A tear slid from your eye and you felt the edge of the cigarette burning your skin. Instead of dropping it, you let the heat invade your fingertip. It wasn’t the only thing on fire. “You’re doing this to hurt me.” 

“Ace,” he whispered. “No. I’m doing this to keep you from getting hurt.” 

“The only thing that’s hurting me is you, Bradley.” You dropped the cigarette, letting it tumble to the ground, watching Bradley’s face fall alongside it. You stepped out of the light and into the shadows, disappearing into the night. 

***

The lights were hot. Your dress felt too tight and itchy. Jeremy’s hands were slick with sweat as the two of you twirled around the dance floor, messing up your choreographed dance not once but twice. You tried to laugh it off but it felt like an omen. No matter how much practice, you still couldn’t get it right. 

After a while, the song flowed into the next and other couples flooded the dance floor. 

A hand appeared on Jeremy’s shoulder. He turned, Bradley’s face hovering over his shoulder. “May I cut in?” 

Jeremy nodded, smile wide, innocence across his face. He had no idea that twenty-four hours before, his best friend had been confessing his love for you. 

He had no idea that you hesitated on that altar. 

“Of course.” Jeremy let his fingertips drop from your waist. He planted a kiss, chaste, on your lips. “Be good, babe. You’re a married woman now.” He turned to Bradley with a grin. “All yours, Bradshaw.” 

Bradley’s hands were warm. He guided you confidently in a loose circle around the dance floor. There was an effortless confidence to the way Bradley danced. But it wasn’t only dancing. There was confidence in everything about him. You trusted him, with everything. 

“Ace,” he said quietly. 

You looked up. “Don’t,” you whispered. “Let’s just dance, OK? There’s nothing else to say.” 

“OK.” 

You leaned your head against his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath his tux. When you closed your eyes, everything else — the lights, the music, the heat — faded away. 

It was just the sound of his heart beating in your ear, guiding you in the darkness. 

***

“You can stay here,” Bradley said, standing up. “For as long as you want.” 

You frowned. “I can’t ask you to do that. The baby is coming any day now. It’ll keep you awake, day and night.” 

“Your snoring does that already.” 

It was the first air of mirth in the conversation. You grinned. “Shut up.” 

Bradley’s mouth returned to its set shape, a thin line. “I’ll get the guest room ready for you.” 

“Brad.” You were on your feet, wobbling. He reached out instinctively, one hand on your arm, balancing you. “I don’t think you’re hearing me.” 

“I am,” he replied. “But you got divorced, what, fifteen minutes ago? I’ve waited fifteen years for you, Ace. I can wait another day or two or one hundred. I need to know that I’m not your backup. That I’m not just your plan B when everything else goes to shit.” 

“You’re not.” 

“I need to know that you actually want me,” he said quietly. “Because there’s nothing I want more in this world than you.” 

***

For three weeks, you slept in Bradley’s guest room. Sleeping was an exaggeration of what you were actually doing, which was grunting and turning over like a beached whale every five minutes, and going to the bathroom in between. 

And then, in the middle of the night, you felt it. 

“Brad!” you yelled. The door flung open a second later, shirtless Bradley standing in the doorway, the hallway light illuminating him from behind, hair a mess, eyes wide. 

“What?” 

You looked up with glee. “It’s happening. The baby’s coming.” 

The entire drive to the hospital, Bradley was death gripping the wheel. He looked so terrified that the nurses took one look at him and laughed before showing you to the L&D room. He paced across the room a thousand times as you went through all of the checks, breathed through the contractions, winced as they inserted your IV. 

“Bradley,” you said, tossing your head back against the flat pillow. “You need to stop. You’re making me sick.” 

“Fuck, sorry.” He sat down on the chair, bouncing his knee. “Honey? I gotta ask.” 

“Hmm?” 

“Should I call Jeremy?” 

The two of you hadn’t spoken since the divorce was finalized. But Bradley had a point. Jeremy was, technically, the baby’s father. He deserved to know. “Yeah. I guess.” 

“I’ll be right back.” He slipped out of the room and you laid back against the bed, eyes pressed shut. 

The pain started to increase and by the time Bradley returned you were sweating. 

“Ace? Should I call the nurse?” 

You shook your head. “No, I’m fine.” 

“You don’t look fine.” 

“Gee, thanks.” 

“You know what I mean,” he said. “You’re the most beautiful woman that ever existed.” 

“Even now?” 

He grinned. “Especially now.” 

Your fingertips closed around his, just as the door pressed open. Jeremy stood in the doorway with a bouquet of flowers. His eyes immediately landed on your fingers intertwined with Bradley’s. He stepped inside, setting the flowers down on the table against the wall. “Y/N.” 

“Jer.” 

“I’ll be outside,” Bradley said, letting his fingers slip away. You nodded. He gave Jeremy a wide berth. You frowned. The two of them had been so close. You had even watched them kiss each other once while drunk and as part of a draft bet. But there was an icy wall that surrounded the two of them now. 

All three of you. 

Jeremy sat in the chair that Bradley had vacated. He reached up to put his hand on your stomach and you let him. Under the fluorescent lights, his gold ring glinted. 

“How are you?” he asked. 

“Uncomfortable.” 

“Did they give you the epidural yet?” 

“No,” you replied. “And I wasn’t just talking about the labor.” 

He let out a sigh. “Listen, Y/N, I fucked up. I know that. But this is our baby.” Jeremy paused. “No matter what happened between us, I want to be a part of this child’s life.” 

“You’re the baby’s father,” you said. “Of course you’ll be in their life.” 

Jeremy paused. “And Bradshaw?” 

“What about him?” 

He cocked his head to one side. “So you two are a thing?” 

Your eyes widened. “What? No.” 

“Y/N.” 

“He’s my best friend. He’s always been my best friend.” 

“And mine,” Jeremy reminded you. “So trust me when I say, there were always three people in this marriage. And I was the odd one out.” 

“Nothing ever happened,” you whispered. “Not while we were married.”

“But after?” he asked. 

You grimaced. “Before. New Orleans. The wedding you couldn’t make.” 

He nodded. “I guess a part of me always knew. I had hoped you’d pick me. And you did, for a while. But you were always his.” 

“I wanted to be yours,” you whispered. “I was yours. And you blew it.” 

“I know.” Jeremy’s head hung low. He looked up at you through those dark lashes. “I should have stepped aside that first night, at the bar in Annapolis. I saw how he looked at you. But I wanted you for myself. And I never was good at turning down an opportunity.” 

“You are both going to be in my life,” you said. “Because you’re both in this baby’s life. So you’ll have to find a way to work it out.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Me too.” 

“Do you want me to stay?” he asked. Six months before, you would have scoffed at the thought that Jeremy wouldn’t be there for the birth of his child. But that was then. 

Everything had changed. You shook your head slowly, watching the color drain from Jeremy’s face. “I’ll call you after,” you whispered. “I just think this is something I have to do alone.” 

His face hardened. “But you’re not going to be alone, are you? Bradshaw will be here.” 

“Don’t be jealous of Bradley.” 

“It’s only fair,” he replied, standing up. “Bradshaw was jealous of me for the last fifteen years. I guess it’s my turn to be jealous.” 

“Jer.” 

He turned from where he stood at the doorway. His eyes roamed over you and you knew he was letting it all sink in. This was the last time he would ever look at you and see you carrying his child inside your womb. “Yeah, baby?” 

“I hope it’s a girl,” you confessed. 

“If she’s just like you, then we’ll be the luckiest parents in the world.” 

***

 “You got this, Ace. You’re doing amazing.” 

Bradley’s hand was being slowly crushed in your death grip. He pushed a few sweaty strands of hair out of your face. “I can’t do it,” you groaned, leaning back against the pillows. “Bowling ball-sized heads are not supposed to come out of your hooha. It’s just physics.” 

He chuckled. “I’m sorry, honey, but I think it’s a little late to turn around.” 

“I feel like I’m shitting out a block of explosives. Now I know what those fucking prisoners at Alcatraz felt like trying to dig their way out with spoons.” 

Bradley smirked at your side as the nurses around your ankles giggled. “At least you’re funny right now.” 

“Well you can be funny or hot and considering I have a baby wedged in my pelvis I would say I’m not exactly Bachelorette material right now.” 

“You’re doing great.” 

You squeezed Bradley’s hand, so tight his mustache twitched, but he didn’t complain. “Promise me something,” you gasped. 

“Anything.” 

“You’ll never leave us.” 

He frowned. “Of course not.” 

“Swear it.” 

“Ace.” He leaned in close, your faces only a few inches apart. “I haven’t stopped thinking of you since the night we met fifteen years ago. That’s not going to change anytime soon.” 

You looked at him. “OK. I’m ready.” 

“It’s time to push.” The doctor at the end of the bed slid on a pair of gloves. “Y/N, give me a big breath and then a push, OK?” 

You bared down, gripping Bradley’s hand. Hard. You had fought for a lot of things in your life.  A spot on the volleyball team in high school. Your MBA program. Your marriage. But this was a fight you had been preparing for. 

The moment the doctor held your screaming, crying daughter into the air, you burst into tears. She was covered in goo and wailing like a banshee and she was the most magnificent thing you had ever laid eyes on. 

They placed her on your chest, eyes scrunched shut, covered in blood and a number of other things but all you could do was stare at her in awe. 

“Would you like to cut the cord?” The doctor held up a pair of medical scissors. Bradley looked at you with wide eyes, waiting for permission. You nodded and he took the silver scissors in his large hands, practically shaking as she showed him how to cut the spongy cord. 

In your arms, your daughter squirmed. She was so impossibly small. And soft. The nurses took her away for a few minutes to run tests and wipe her off, and by the time you had her back in your arms the rest of the staff had cleared out of the room. 

You looked up at Bradley who hadn’t stopped staring at her since the moment she was born. 

“Brad?” He lifted his gaze to you, eyebrows raised. “Would you like to hold her?” 

He looked pale and nervous, but excited as you carefully shifted her into his arms as the two of you sat side-by-side on the hospital bed. She looked even smaller when cradled against Bradley’s chest. He held her tiny feet in one hand, stroking them slowly, her small mouth in a rounded “o” but no sound came out. There was a feeling of content to being in Bradley’s arms. 

You knew it well. 

“She’s perfect,” he whispered. “Have you picked a name?” 

You smiled. “Yes. Carolina. Carol for short.” 

When Bradley looked up, there was a glassy sheen to his brown eyes. You watched as his lips beneath his mustache trembled. “Thank you.” 

“Marry me.” It spilled out of your mouth. 

“Ace.” It was a whisper. Thin and pained. “Honey.” 

You shook your head. “I’m serious. Marry me. It’s always been you, Roo. Even when it wasn’t.” 

“You just had a baby,” he whispered. “You’re emotional and tired and it’s only been two months since the divorce.” 

“I know what I’m saying.” You looked down at your daughter. “She needs you in her life. Just as much as I do.” 

Bradley brushed his thumb along her forehead. “She’s half you. Which means she’s half me, too. You’ve owned a piece of me, Y/N, since the night we met.”

“So marry me.” 

“Don’t you need time to think?” he asked. “Don’t you need to heal? Find yourself? All that crap people talk about. Dye your hair purple. Go to Italy and meet some douchebag and learn how to fly helicopters and sell your house and buy a condo downtown.” 

You smiled at him softly. “You asked me once, on a very important night, if he made me as happy as you make me. And the truth is, Brad, there’s only one other person who makes me as happy as you. And she’s sitting right there against your chest.” As if on cue, Carolina cooed in Bradley’s arms. “All I know is that I wasted fifteen years without ever really having you. I don’t want to waste another minute.”

Gently, Bradley stood, placing your daughter into the bassinet next to the bed. He laid her down gently, hovering over her delicate body, making sure she didn’t fuss, before leaning over you, one large hand pushing back the hair that had fallen into your face. “I’ll marry you today, tomorrow, next year, in fifty years. As long as I know you’re mine.” 

“I’m yours,” you whispered as Bradley inched nearer, his lips grazing yours. “Today. Tomorrow. Forever.” 

His lips sealed around yours. For the first time in your life, you felt whole. 

Note: Special thanks to anyone who read parts 1 and 2 when I posted them last year. I got an itch to write an epilogue to this, hopefully it lives up! xx

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[isoldmysoulforcheese]

Stay Still

Paring: Daryl Dixon x Female Reader

Era: Season two

Summary: Daryl loses control once finally alone with the girl he’s been chasing for months.

Warnings: Swearing, smut, hand jobs, and oral (male receiving.)

Word count: 5,329 words.

(Sorry if this is bad, this is my first time writing any sort of smut.)

Daryl and I hadn't had a moment alone, practically sense we met one another, and our constant, discreet flirting, my fingers caressing his arm, his eyes scanning my figure, someones hands miraculously landing upon the others, all of it was becoming too much. I was starting to lose control over both my mind and body; I was constantly checking him out, my eyes were like magnets, always drawn to his figure. I would dream about the male at night, often waking up in a cold sweat, my palms clammy, and extremely turned on. I was sure, if we had a moment together, even just one second, unattended, we'd let our animistic instincts overcome us. 

“Carol,” I called out to the short haired woman as she came down the hall, and when she finally noticed me, glancing up towards the source of the unexpected noise, I continued my sentence “Daryl. How is he?” 

I couldn't lie, I was becoming slightly attached to the redneck, a thought that entirely grossed me out, finding a hick attractive. But God was he hot, that was an undeniable fact. 

I was always worrying when he went on supply runs alone, practically praying for his safe return home. I would pace around my tent, stressing about his well-being whenever he would practically disappear from the camp, wandering off to be left to his own devices whenever he wanted to become a recluse. 

“He's good. You can go in and see him if you'd like. I'm sure he'd appreciate that.” The woman said, a small smile slipping across her face. 

Her kind words shot straight through my heart.

Although Carol was most likely speaking just out of both the kindness and generosity of her soul, my brain insinuated her sentence in a completely different manner. 

My thoughts took her words and contorted them, thinking that the underlying tone in her statement was hinting towards that fact that Darly felt the same way towards me, absolutely smitten and lust driven. I pondered upon the idea that he possibly may have been telling Carol about me in passing, maybe dropping a few hints about his appreciation towards me, or secretly talking about how cute I was. But considering the fact that it was quiet, loner, Darly I was thinking about, the odds of that actually being accurate were very low.

I nodded politely, wiping away the remnants of my small, flustered smile with the back of my hand before sneaking down the dimly lit hall. 

I tiptoed towards Daryl's room until I finally arrived outside the door, and although I had no reason to be sneaking around, it still felt oddly necessary. I silently stood outside for a moment, eying the wooden door frame placed in front of me, sparks flying through my nerves as I struggled to reach up and turn the door knob, due to the fact that I knew what would happen the moment I entered the bedroom: it would start off civil, maybe we’d exchange courteous words back and forth, then we'd inch closer to one another, but that would just continue on into a ravenous make out session before finally ending with his dick stuffed inside me. The timeline was almost completely visible in my head, but, although I was almost 100% ready, I was still nervous. 

I peaked down towards the floor, noticing the light that flooded out from beneath the door, pooling across the ground as I reached up towards the paint chipped wood, letting my hands curl into a fist before carefully knocking upon the thick, wooden planks.

It was silent for a moment before he spoke:

“Come in.” 

His voice single handedly drew butterflies to my stomach, an infatuated warmth growing across my skin as his gruff voice echoed inside my ears before finally shooting straight through my heart. 

I ultimately allowed my hand to fall down to the doorknob, my fingers rubbing upon the metal oval before turning it, the door opening with a slight pop. I slowly pushed the door open, just enough to slip through before stepping inside.

“Hey.” I said timidly, shutting the door behind me before resting my back upon it.

A smirk drew across his face as his eyes landed upon me. Once again, I observed as his vision scanned my figure, as it always did; his eyes started on my face, circling around my features such as my eyes, nose, hair, and finally hovering over my mouth before sliding down my body, momentarily pausing upon places such as my waist, thighs, and especially my breasts. His shameless staring sent shockwaves coursing through my veins, ending directly between my legs. 

He didn't look too bad himself, he actually looked quite hot all bandaged up while resting comfortably upon the bed. His chest was exposed, the muscles were slightly toned, his buff stalkiness adding to my attraction towards the hunter. Darly obviously didn't bother covering his midriff when he noticed it was me entering the room. His shimmering skin was littered with scars and other sorts of marks covering his body, the rugged look was another aspect of the brunette that made me quite fond of him. His head was tightly wrapped in some sort of binding, an obvious attempt at helping his skull heal from the bullet that had just previously grazed him, and to be honest, the gauze was kind of adorable on him; short, thin strands were poking out from underneath the bandage, giving his hair a messy look. His arms were placed by his side, the muscles upon his limbs causing me to momentarily draw my bottom lip between my teeth as I observed his appendages. 

I wondered what else would be revealed underneath the sheets that were lazily draped across him.

“Hey.” He responded, his voice raspy but the grin upon his lips was still extremely evident as he picked up upon my obvious staring. 

I couldn't help but smile back at him, just the thought of finally being alone with the male had my cheeks turning a slight reddish hue. 

“How do you feel?” I asked, unsure how to make progress in this situation.

My eyes followed his arms as he drew them out from under the sheets, placing them behind his head. He knew what he was doing, the position he was currently laying in: arms placed confidently behind his head, cocky grin drawn sloppily upon his lips, and his strapping upper body exposed to my hungry, desperate eyes. 

“Amazing.” He responded sarcastically.

It was a stupid question to ask in the first place; getting knocked off a horse before falling down a cliff and landing upon his own arrow just to have to fall down once more and fight off walkers before successfully making it to the top just to have to limp all the way back to the farm before finally getting shot at obviously wasn't gonna make him feel “amazing,” as he jokingly said himself. 

The room was suddenly filled with an awkward silence, a tension so thick even a knife couldn't cut through it as we just stared at one another, our faces reflecting an overwhelming feeling of lust and desire as we gazed upon each other. 

We both knew what was soon going to conspire in the small, farm house room. It was like we could read one another's mind, hearing each other's thoughts as we fiddled with the idea of what we were gonna do to one another. I could practically read the devious look upon his face, staring at me as he prepared himself for future actions that were long overdue.

Daryl knew why I had come in here and I knew that he was absolutely ecstatic about it. 

“Can I sit?” I finally asked.

My question seemed to surprise him as his eyebrows raised in shock. He drew in a deep breath as he slightly nodded. 

“Yeah, sure.” 

I slowly made my way over to the side of the bed, my feet silently sliding across the old, wooden floorboards before I placed my palms upon the mattress, fiddling with the soft sheets between the pads of my fingers, allowing the fabric to slide between my skin. I took a seat on the bed, resting beside Daryl’s hips as I admired his stature, his arrogant smile began to slowly fade as he observed me. After a long moment of letting the two voices in my head have a war over whether or not I should go through with this: the angel on my shoulder advising that I should respect the man, to discover his actual feelings towards me before continuing with my distasteful intentions, while the devil upon my shoulder begged me to do it, pleading with me to finally let go of all my pent up sexual frustration and beseeching desire, to let it all out onto Daryl. I finally let my hands glide up his body, landing upon his chest.

At first, he drew away, his stomach concaved, jolting inwards in a violent motion in an attempt to avoid my touch as he seemed to strongly dislike physical connection. My fingers faltered, jerking backwards out of both fear and pity. I didn't want to make him uncomfortable.

My insecurities got the best of me when practically a gallon of doubtful thoughts came flooding into my mind; what if he didn't reciprocate my feelings? Were all of our passing glances and delicate interactions all just a figment of my imagination as he was just trying to be friendly and I had just overstepped his boundaries? Did I just ruin our friendship? 

And then he calmed, his abdomen returning to its original state as his stomach expanded and he relaxed into the mattress below him, inviting me to place my hands upon him as he joyfully watched from his position on the pillow. 

My digits moved forward with shaky movements as they approached his body once more, my heart pounding with a mix of both anticipation and nervousness as I neared his vicinity. And when my hands landed upon him, feeling his toned body as my fingers glided over his skin, I exhaled, letting out a quivering breath I didn't even know I was holding. My fingers skimmed across his flesh, making sure to avoid his bandages or any bruise in the process, no matter how big or how minor, so as not to hurt him in any possible way. I glanced up towards him, noticing that he had his eyes closed momentarily, most likely basking in my soothing touch, finally feeling my skin upon his. Either that or he was really just trying to get some sort of rest or relaxation after his accident.

My brain was cleared of all its previous thoughts; forgetting about all my insecurities, worries, and problems as I too relaxed, letting myself enjoy the moment. His body felt perfect in my grasp as I allowed myself to feel him up. I palmed his chest, allowed my fingers to sail upon his abs, evening letting my fingers graze into his happy trail for a short moment. The entire experience was like pure heaven to me, my underwear dampening while my lips were slightly parted, my breaths labored while I simultaneously observed every move my fingers made as I stared down in complete astonishment.

I slightly jumped when I felt one of his hands land upon my free arm, too entranced while marveling over his silhouette to even notice him remove his arm from its previous position. His fingers wrapped around my wrist, his nails slightly digging into my skin as his fist practically dominated my hand. I can't lie, the controlling grip he had upon me was both thrilling but also a bit petrifying. It went on like that for a minute or so, the two of us sitting in comfortable silence as I traced over his scars and other parts of his body, his hand calmly placed upon me before he finally used his strength, although it didn't take much, to move my limb elsewhere. 

In that moment, my heart started to pound afresh; it was rattling around in my chest so violently I was sure Daryl could hear it from his position as he used my wrist to trail my hand down towards his crotch. I thickly swallowed as I allowed him to do as such, my face becoming extremely hot as the situation got much more serious.

Soon, my palm was met with the feeling of his slowly hardening dick, half erect and twitching at the mere thought of finally being able to be intimate with me. I practically had to choke down a moan when we finally connected due to both his rapidly growing size and the flattering compliment he was unaware he had just given me. 

I glanced up towards Daryl once more just to find him already staring at me, licking his lips as he gazed at me through hooded eyes, staring in anticipation. I so desperately desired for his body to be rid of the blanket so I could finally admire him in all his glory. 

I licked my lips in suspense, I needed to see him, to feel him, to kiss him. 

I looked up towards him just then, my palm beginning to frantically grope at his, now fully stiff, groin, just to find him looking back at me. His bottom lip was pulled taunt in between his teeth as he stared down at me, relishing in the fact that he was finally being touched and grabbed by me, by my hands, with my passion. 

I leaned forward abruptly, stunning Daryl as I caught his lips between mine, kissing him with all my pent up covet. Our mouths were practically glued together as we frantically made out, sloppily smashing our lips together like it was our last day on Earth. It was a possibility. His mouth felt perfect on mine, like his kiss was made for me to receive as our lips fit together like puzzle pieces. His mouth was soft and inviting, luring me into his domain as I leaned in closer to him, wanting to taste every inch of his mouth as his light stubble tickled my jaw.

I needed to be closer to him, I desired to feel his heaving chest against my own, praying to feel his arms wrap around me and to be able to bury my head in the crook of his neck as I let my fingers card through what was available of his hair. I wanted to feel him all around me as I kissed his lips, jawline, neck, skin, everywhere. 

Daryl groaned as I pulled myself onto his lap, tossing my leg over his torso to effectively straddle him, to get adjacent with him as our kiss deepened, his hands finding their way to my hips, burrowing under my shirt before settling upon my warm skin. His touch sent a zap of pleasure through my body as I finally felt his hands upon me, touching more than just my arms or hands. My flesh was soft compared to his rugged finger tips, his work withered hands wrapped tightly around my torso as he helped guide me onto his lap, assisting me while I did my best to find the perfect position to sit upon his dick. 

He groaned when we finally found it. 

I attempted to begin to grind upon him, to relieve myself of, at least some, pressure by granting a little friction, dragging my aching and throbbing crotch down his own.

“Ahh!” He practically cried out.

His grip upon me grew stronger, his fingers secured themselves around my hips before pulling me up and off of him. He held me so I was hovering over his crotch, mere inches away as he winced in pain, his eyes slightly squinted and his jaw clenched causing his teeth to grind together. The pure force he used to yank me from his lap was enough to most likely leave bruises upon my skin, red and purple marks in the shape of his hands that I’d have to give a half assed excuse about if they were ever spotted by any of the others. That thought, the fact that he could probably throw me across the room or carry me in his arms with little to no effort, it both scared me while also making me so much more turned on than I already was. 

“I'm sorry, Daryl.” I said quickly, the words practically spilling from my lips, fear filling my brain as I stared worryingly down upon him “A-are you okay? Did I do something wrong?” 

I was scared that I had ruined our moment, stressing over that idea that I had somehow hurt him. Maybe I had possibly added too much pressure or accidentally pressed upon him in the wrong way. My heart aching at the idea that I’d have to get up from his lap and remove myself from the situation. Was I really that bad at this? 

“No,” he said, taking in a few small breaths as his eyes winced from the stinging pain “I got stitches.”

My eyes traveled down his body once more, tracing over the veins visible in his neck, skimming over his collar bones, down his chest, across his abs before finally landing upon the patch tapped over his ribs. Gauze was sticking out from underneath the slightly stained red bandages that were placed upon his body. I brought my fingers down to his wound, my nails lightly tracing over the medical tape causing Daryl to quietly hiss to himself.

The two of us were silent for a while, the fact that this was one of our only chances to be alone with one another and we couldnt even fuck like wild animals had dawned on us. He hadn’t healed enough to be doing that sort of rigorous work out, straining his muscles could possibly mess up the entire healing process. The sound of Daryl's delayed breaths were the only sound to be heard in the vicinity, his gravely gasps echoing throughout the room as an idea washed over me. A devious thought that caused a small smile to grow across my lips.

“Here, relax.” I said as I pulled myself from his lap, his fingers lost their grip upon my torso as I did so, loosely falling beside his body causing the bed to slightly rattle “Let me take care of you.” 

I maneuvered myself so I was perfectly settled in between his legs, creating a spot for me to comfortably sit before our future actions ensued. I took a deep breath in, allowing myself to relax, trying to quickly shed my nerves in the hopes that they would be replaced by confidence before bringing my hands up to the sheet just barely ending above his pelvic region. His V-line was now visible, his happy trail beginning around his belly button, thin and frivolous dark brown hairs growing from the skin circling the omphalos of his stomach before making its way towards his groin, disappearing underneath the blankets past what I could view. 

Daryl was still admiring me, his eyes practically burning holes into my head as he observed me from above, unable to pull his eyes away from me. I told myself that in that moment he was just overcome by my beauty, waves of lust splashing through his body as he watched me, but his attentiveness only caused me to become more nervous; the previous quivering returned to my hands. 

I once again tried to steady myself but irrational thoughts were over powering my comforting ones.

“Come on now, I'm not gonna bite.” He said in an attempt to reassure me. 

Overcome by embarrassment, just wanting to please the dominant male laying below me, I finally removed the cover, greeted by his straining cock; the tip was red and irritated, practically begging for me to relieve him of the aching pressure flowing through his dick. His shaft was twitching and throbbing as a result. The veins spotting his skin were extremely visible, pulsing underneath his flesh causing my mouth to water.

I marveled at the delightful sight in front of me; his cock was perfect in my eyes, considering the fact that it had been all I ever thought about for the past couple months, the idea littering my brain before I went to bed, when ever I took showers, and even when I was attending to other duties such as hunting or guarding, but it was much better than I could have ever dreamed of. I had spent numerous occasions shamelessly staring at the crotch of his pants, trying to decipher just what he could possibly look like under his clothing, and now it was finally being revealed to me. 

Darly suddenly cleared his throat, the abrupt noise echoing throughout the room and causing my eyes to dart towards him. He had a shy look upon his face, his cheeks a slight shade of pink and he was avidly chewing at the inside of his mouth, obviously embarrassed by the amount of time I had spent staring at his lower half in complete awe, practically drooling over him. 

I took his reaction into consideration as I was also finding it hard to wait much longer, my hands thrusting forward before finally landing upon his crotch; I needed to touch him. 

It was warm to the touch, pulsing in my hands as Daryl let out a quiet groan, one that was only audible due to our close proximity. He felt perfect in my grasp, my fingers barely wrapping entirely around him as I searched for a comfortable position to clasp my hand around him. I could feel myself getting wetter by the second when I finally situated myself, my hand placed towards his tip. My movements were slow at first, trying to figure out what made the Dixon above me feel the best, picking up on any sort of sound he made, whether it be a moan, groan or any sign of discomfort. 

Once I found the perfect pace, my hands worked at Daryl in a steady rhythm; one hand was wrapped around the base of dick as the other was swiftly pumping away at his shaft. The friction caused Daryl’s eyes to screw shut against his will even though it was evident that all he wanted to do was watch the girl, the female he had pined over for months, jerk him off with her seemingly magical hands. I kept purposely doing this thing with my palm, twisting my wrist as it met the head of his cock, an action that caused the biker's jaw to drop, small breaths being exhaled from the depths of his throat. 

This carried on for a couple minutes, my hand gliding up and down his shaft, successfully pumping him, before, just when the hunter thought it couldn't get any better, my mouth suddenly appeared upon his dick. I started with the tip, creating small circles with my tongue, swirling my saliva around his aching head caused a deep groan to escape from Daryl's mouth, a sound that was like heavenly music to my ears. 

 I lapped away at his pre-cum that had coated the head of his dick. It didn't have a really out of the ordinary taste, although it was slightly sweet, causing me to desire more, practically trying to suck it out of him. He was warm in the chambers of my mouth, heat radiating onto my tongue, spreading through my cheeks and bouncing towards the roof of my mouth. The fact that his cock was stuffed into my mouth caused my face to turn a deep red, my skin was burning, my ears were throbbing and the heart beat between my legs became much more intense. 

The warmth pooling around him was perfection to Daryl, a feeling he hadn't felt for what seemed like years, and that fact made the entire experience ten times more pleasurable. All the different sensations became extremely overwhelming for the male, my lips wrapped around him and my hands pumping at the base of his cock, he was already close to blowing his load before I had even taken more than an inch of him into my mouth. 

“Jesus.” He mumbled under his breath as his hand trailed down to my hair, tangling his fingers into my locks, lacing the strands between his digits in an attempt to help me find a rhythm, bobbing my head up and down.

I enjoyed his help for a while, his dominant movements causing a wetness to pool between my legs. I appreciated his hands upon me, directing me towards what he found pleasurable and what he disliked. I was absolutely basking in the moment, well that's until he attempted to force my head downwards onto his shaft.

“Daryl.” I scolded sternly, pulling my head from his cock.

He seemed to receive the memo, nodding frantically, most likely due to the fact that his body practically yearned for me, rything after going without me for just a few seconds. I stared at him momentarily, watching his distressed eyes dart around my face, focusing on all of my features separately, my eyes, nose, cheeks, but especially my mouth. I liked being dominant over him, being able to take control and make him distraught over losing me for just mere moments. I liked hearing his moans from above me as we went at my chosen pace. His blue eyes were practically begging for me, his eyebrows furrowed together while his eyelashes fluttered upon his skin caused me to finally return to my previous activity: blowing Daryl Dixon. 

I took his member into my mouth, another inch further than before while still following a slow and steady speed as I wanted to draw out this experience for as long as possible. I wanted this moment to be burned in my memory, engraved in my mind so I would have the delight of being able to reminisce upon it later; during late, sleepless nights when I was too horny to rest and all I could think of was him and his beautiful cock stuffed into my throat. 

But I also liked torturing and teasing the poor man; I wanted him to beg, to plead for me to make him cum. I desired to hear his moans and grunts from above me as I pleasured him. I wanted to make the experience so agonizingly amazing that it too would be burned into his mind as well. But with loner Daryl, it was highly unlikely.

Suddenly, he bucked his hips upwards, attempting to thrust himself further into my mouth as he became increasingly impatient, observing me from above as I took my time, practically ridiculing him as I kitten licked at his crotch. All he wanted was to have me choking and gagging upon his dick as he fucked my mouth until his cum flowed down my throat.

“Ah,” he hissed once more, a reaction to his attempt to fuck into my mouth, his wounds stinging and throbbing as a result “fuck. Go faster, would ya?...Please.” 

His words were like music to my ears. He was begging. I had to practically fight away the smile that was creeping upon my face, inching its way across my lips at this phenomenon. 

Next thing I knew, I was deep throating his member, slurping and sucking at him like he was the last meal I'd ever eat. I was practically unable to control myself as I shoved him between my lips and did my best to not gag upon him, composing my breathing and relaxing my mouth as he rammed into the back of my throat. I squeezed my legs together, hoping the pressure of my thighs would relieve me of some of the throbbing between my legs as my excitement was taking over, and although I had wanted to drag this out, to make him whine and plead, I couldn't help myself. 

My unexpected actions caused Daryl to practically break out into hysterics. His breath hitched in his throat before he let out a string of low groans. He became much more vocal in that moment, exclaiming things such as my name, vulgarities, and various types of moans, not taking a second thought about the other residents of the household as he groaned explicits and moaned my name under his breath. Even whimpers occasionally fell from his lips.

“Sh-shit, (Y/N). All I hadda do was b-beg?” He breathed out, his unsteady breath and stuttering caused me to practically moan around him, also hoping to get the point across that yes, all I wanted him to do was plead with me. 

 The sudden vibrations wrapping around his dick sent shivers crawling down his spine as a result. He let out a deep growl which merely made my pathetic excuse of trying to relieve myself of some pressure by rubbing my legs together no longer enough. His animalist groan caused me to moan again, which in turn caused him to let out another beautiful noise, it was practically a never ending cycle.

 “I-I’m…” He paused momentarily, like he was almost unable to form a proper sentence as the pure pleasure that washed over him became unbearable “gonna cum.” 

He huffed out the last part of his sentence, his voice practically made me melt. Not only were my sudden, erratic movements practically sending him over the edge, but I’m sure the fact that something of this nature hadn't happened to him in such a long time added to the satisfaction of it all, the effect hitting him ten times harder than it normally would. This was certainly much different compared to his own hand.

With one final bob of my head, successfully taking him all the way down my throat as my nose pushed plush up against his lower abdomen while I prepared myself for the evident outcome, he came. With his cock stuffed deep into my mouth, twitching while his tip poked and prodded at the back of my throat, warm liquid shot down my throat. The hot, white ropes spilt out in quick spirits as I lapped it up like I was a starving person who hadn't eaten in months. His seed filled my mouth, splashing against the inside of my cheeks as I did my best to swallow it all, but inevitably, some escaped the confines of my jaw, dripping from my lips before beading down towards my chin, dripping onto the sheets of the bed below us. He tasted practically the same as he did earlier, slightly sweet and amazingly delicious, my brain screaming for more as my mouth collected the most it possibly could. 

Due to the sheer amount, I concluded that this hadn't happened to him in quite a while. 

Daryl was moaning like a mad man, my name, and multiple different swears, tumbling from his lips as his hands yanked and pulled at my hair, finding it extremely challenging to lay absolutely motionless. The way he teared and pulled at my locks sent small shocks of pain stinging the skin of my skull, but I couldn't care less as I was too busy with the object still left twitching in my mouth.

Once I had successfully cleaned his dick spotless, I let my hands drop from his member, sliding down his thighs as my mouth fell from his cock. He spasmed slightly as a reaction to my hands gliding upon his skin, skimming dangerously close to his worn and highly sensitive crotch. I massaged his legs as I felt my jaw grow weak once it finally snapped shut, aching and throbbing as a result of being left in the same, tense position for the last ten minutes or so. 

“Dear lord,” He whimpered out once I was finally done with him “I think that's possibly the best blow job Ive ever gotten.” 

[grxmreaperx]

YOUR WRITING IS SO GOOD AAHHH 🥰🥰 If you’re still taking requests, could I get something for Hoffman x Female reader?? You can decide the main plot points, I’m just looking for something with maybe a hurt reader and fluffy ending and smut, if you’re okay writing that of course!!

I’m so glad there’s more people writing for Saw and Hoffman. 🫶🏻

Of course, lovely, you’re so sweet!! Y'all get to eat good tonight, fic writing has become my way of winding down at the end of the day, so the Hoffman stans get two smut fics in one night!

Also, I am working my way through my replies! If you have submitted a request, I promise I will get to you (don't worry Strahm babes, I haven't forgotten about you <3)

I wrote this from Hoffman’s POV, just for funsies.

Nurse Hoffman

Pairing: Mark Hoffman x female reader

Word count: 1.7k

Warnings: canon violence (gas house trap), hurt reader, Mark being angry and protective; smut 18+!! Mark making the reader feel better in more ways than one; oral sex (f! receiving), p in v penetration, Mark being filthy and cocky as fuck

Summary: You and Amanda go into the gas house to make sure the game goes smoothly. When Xavier goes on a rampage looking for everyone’s number, he gets a little too close to you for Mark’s comfort.

--

“Let me in the fucking house, John!” Hoffman yelled, slamming his fist against the table.

“Not until the game is finished. We need the recording for the police.”

The two men were watching the security cameras as the women made their way through the house, Amanda trying to protect Daniel, and you looking for something, anything to stop Xavier.

“This wasn’t part of the plan! Let me in the fucking house!” Mark felt like he was going to explode, watching the tank of a man stumble after you through the house of death. He paced around the room, fists clenched tight, eyes not once leaving the screens.

The toxin had started to show its effects on you: Mark could see the sweat coating your face, the blood you retched up into your hand. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He had told John not to pick Xavier, he was too much of a liability, too big of a wild card. But no. The fucking game.

He saw what you were doing. You lured Xavier away from the starting point, away from your point of escape, so Amanda and Daniel could have more time. He watched as you backed yourself into the needle pit room, Xavier moments behind you, and pried one of the broken floorboards off its final nails.

He knew they needed Daniel for the plan, they needed something to lure in Matthews. But he’d give everyone in that godforsaken house to have you sitting safely in that room with him.

His breathing stopped as Xavier entered the room, that taunting smile spreading across his face.

“You think that piece of wood is going to stop me, huh? Cmon sweetie, I just need the number on your neck. It’ll be quick, I promise.”

You stood, knees slightly bent, eyes boring into the man in front of you. Hoffman watched as you backed slowly closer to the pit of needles, plank raised in front of you. “Come get it then.”

Xavier lunged at you, knife swinging through the air. Mark’s heart stopped when he saw blood blooming on your shirt sleeve. Oh, he was going to kill him. He was going to kill him, and he was going to make it hurt.

You dropped to the ground and for a moment, Mark was ready to raise Hell and bring it into the abandoned house. Until he saw you slide between Xavier’s legs, jumping up behind him, and taking your shot.

He didn’t breathe again until he saw the blow land on the back of Xavier’s head, knocking him off balance just enough for him to teeter into the pit of needles.

“You bitch! You fucking bitch!” The man swam around, trying to get a grip on something besides the sharp point of a syringe.

You fell to the ground as, on another camera, Amanda and Daniel made their way into the old bathroom. Game over.

Mark hurried toward the door, ready to tear down the walls of that house if he needed to.

--

When Mark saw your eyes flutter open, it felt like the world began to spin again.

“Hey there, Detective,” you said softly, voice hoarse. “How long have I been out?”

“A couple of hours. I gave you the antidote and had to bandage up your arm.”

You looked down at your left arm, almost as if you had forgotten Xavier had even come close. “Ah, shit. Motherfucker.”

Mark let out a small laugh. “How you feeling?”

“Better than ever. You been here taking care of me?”

He gave a shallow nod and watched as you looked around, trying to get your bearings, before realizing you were safe in your apartment.

You looked over at him. “How did you know where I hide my key?”

He laughed. “I thought a smart woman like you would know not to hide her key under the mat.”

You rolled your eyes at him. You slowly sat up and before he even knew what he was doing he was right by your side. Your eyes met his as a smirk spread across your lips. “What, you worried about me or something, Hoffman?”

Pulling his gaze from your eyes, clearing his throat, the only words he could conjure were “I’m gonna get you something to drink, you need to rehydrate.”

He felt you reach up, wrapping your hand around his shirt collar. “I’m fine,” you muttered, before pulling his face down to meet his lips.

Something snapped deep in his stomach and suddenly he was on you, caging your body under his own, careful to avoid your bandaged arm. Your lips crashed together, his tongue forcing its way into your mouth. He felt your hands reach up, burying themselves in his hair. He reluctantly pulled away from your lips, dragging his down to your neck.

“You sure you’re up for this?”

You nodded, running your hands over his chest. He grabbed your wrists, pinning them down on either side of your head, lips making their way over your throat.

“You want me to make you feel good, sweetheart?”

“Yes,” you breathed, wrapping your legs around his waist.

A growl rumbled in his throat as he ran his hands down you body, pulling down the sweats he had dressed you in and your underwear in one tug. His eyes flicked to your shirt. “Take it off.”

You quickly complied, sitting up just enough to slip the shirt over your head and unhook your bra. His eyes roamed over your body, watching your chest rise and fall with each breath. His hands squeezed your thighs as his lips brushed over your stomach. “Tell me what you want, princess.”

You let out a soft sigh. “You, I want you.”

“Cmon, sweetheart, you can do better than that. Tell me what you want.”

“I want your fingers. And your tongue.” He felt your breathing speed up as his lips moved lower, gliding across your hip bones.

“Much better.” He buried his face between your legs, savoring the whimpers that fell from your mouth. His tongue drew circles around your clit as he slowly slides two fingers inside you, pumping them deeper each time.

“Oh, fuck,” you breathed, legs clamping shut around his head.

He pulled his lips away, drawing a whine from your mouth. “Spread your fuckin’ legs for me or I’ll stop.”

You forced your legs apart, sliding a hand behind each knee to keep yourself from closing them again.

He could tell you were already close by the way your legs were shaking, your breathing heavy. He began pumping his fingers faster, sucking on your clit harshly. “God, baby, already gonna cum for me? How long’s it been since someone’s touched you like this?”

“Too long,” you said softly, feeling the tension build in your stomach. “God, please don’t stop.”

He curled his fingers and felt you arch underneath him, legs shaking violently as your orgasm washed over you.

“Good girl,” he growled as he pulled away from you, making his way back up your body. He sat up, slowly unbuckling his pants, watching your face for your reaction. You were watching him intently, eyes clouded from pleasure.

He pulled his dress pants down just enough to free his dick, a cocky smile crossing his face as your eyes took him in. “You see something you like, baby?”

You nodded quickly, letting out a chorus of soft whimpers, begging him to do something.

Normally, he would force more out of you, teasing your cunt until you had tears in your eyes, but he figured you had already had a long enough day. He’d be nice, just this once.

He lifted one of your legs onto each shoulder, lining his cock up at your entrance before slowing sliding in. He savored the feeling of you pulsing around him, the look of euphoria on your pretty face as you took every damn inch. “So good for me, such a pretty whore, huh?”

Your moans were music to his ears, eyes drinking in the sight of your body bouncing with every stroke.

“God, you look so pretty, full of my cock. Such a good girl.” You cried out, throwing your head back, rolling your hips to meet his. He smiled, the only words falling from your lips were “please,” “fuck,” and moans of his name.

You were his.

He felt your legs shake against his shoulders as you rode out your second orgasm, so cock-drunk you couldn’t even form words. He grabbed your hips, picking up speed before his own euphoria rushed over him, emptying himself deep inside of you.

He stilled, both of you trying to catch your breath, before pulling out and lying down next to you. He wrapped an arm around your shoulders, gently pulling you to him and laying your head on his chest.

“Well, Detective,” you said softly. “You have to be the best nurse I’ve ever had.”

He chuckled, shaking his head, and pushing your hair off your forehead. “Dumbass.”

--

When Xaiver next opened his eyes, all he could see was the outline of a television.

He was painfully aware of each and every puncture in his skin, now soaked in citric acid.

The TV clicked on, a white doll with black hair staring at him through the screen.

“Hello Xaiver. You thought you were done after your little performance in the house? Oh, no.”

“I’d like to play a game.”

[itsagrimm]

He Who Comes from under the Water

Chapter 2 - A Caring Man

Monster!König x she/her afab reader

CN: patriarchy & sexism, arranged marriage, speaking animals, dead fish, mentions of cannibalism, harassment, ableist speech, woohoo another drowning reference, toxic masculinity village edition

eventuell smut.

Beta-read by the wonderful @queenquazar

Cultural context notes:

I’m basing a lot on central and eastern european fairy tales.

The heron is a figure from an old fairy tale called the heron & the fox.

Masterlist

“What’s it like being married?” the king asked.

“Lot’s of work if you are doing it right.” The old man leaned back and fixed his pipe. 

The wooden ceiling above your bed was familiar and simple. Since you were a child, you had woken up to this sight since you could remember. Now, it was the most fascinating thing to stare at.

Cracks, textures, knotholes in the old planks– all of it was better to look at than to face the world outside of your little room.

You closed your eyes. Maybe you could summon back the night, the past days, the… quite a lot of time actually since you last been happy.

A sunray danced over your face.

Saichiki – as your mother had called them, little sun rabbits jumping around and reminding you that it was indeed day no matter how much you tried to pretend otherwise.

You took a deep breath, opened your eyes and got up.

Swinging your legs over the edge of your bed before-

Wet.

You jolted back and peaked over the edge onto the floor.

A puddle of water covered the ground before your sleeping space. A trail of little puddles leading away from the water at your bed and out of the room. Careful not to step into the water again, you got up and traced the trail out of the room, into the empty kitchen and finally out of the door.

Confused, you looked into the garden.

In the middle of the path was a pile of freshly caught, still wriggling fish.

Quickly, you slammed the door.

König, you thought to yourself while sliding down the wood door, plopping on the floor.

You heard yourself choke as the memories as they returned: Your family was gone, your grandfather had promised your hand in marriage to a strange inhuman being from the swamps, you nearly drowned yesterday, and the people from the village you had grown up with, wanted you gone because bad things happened around you. Maybe they were right and you were cursed.

Maybe you were cursed not like in the old tales but as simple as an unlucky charm, drawing the worst lot out for everyone including yourself.

You buried your face in your hands, allowing yourself an honest moment to cry.

A knock on the door made you jolt back up again, jumping away from the door and staring at the tarnished knob

You listened.

Another knock.

“Go away!” you cried, hoping that König or whoever from the village had come to your house, would just leave.

Another knock.

Groaning, you got up and ripped open the door while reaching for the broom next to the door.

“I said go away!” you cried again, ready to swing the broom at whoever harassed you, before stopping in your tracks, the door bouncing slightly against the wall.

A heron stood before your door, next to the pile of fish.

“Huh?”

The bird looked at you before looking back at the pile of fish.

Confused, you raised the broom to shoo away the bird.

“Shoo! Shoo! Go away!”

It danced a few steps back before returning to its spot and looking from you to the fish and back again.

You grimaced, shivering in only your chemise in the early morning breeze.

“Listen, heron, if you want a fish, just take some. They are not mine!” you tried, feeling out of your debts. Why were you even trying to talk to an animal?

Naturally, the bird said nothing.

“Of course,” you mumbled, more to yourself than to the bird, as you turned to close the door.

The bird rattled, as if laughing.

“Girl,” it cackled, and you froze in horror at the sound of the speaking bird, “I’m not eating the fish the king caught you. He tasked me to make sure you eat them. ‘My bride is so light to carry,’ he said. ‘Make her eat some fish,’ he said.”

Horrified, you kept staring at the bird.

“Take the fish!” it cried, “Don’t make me wait on you, girl.”

You blinked in surprise at the slightly annoyed heron.

“R-right. Sorry,” you mumbled before remembering your grandfather’s tales and warning about speaking animals. Bowing slightly to the bird, “Can I get you something in return for looking out for me, master heron?”

Another rattle from the bird.

“You can leave me a chalice out in the garden with some of the fish you are going to cut. It would be much appreciated.”

“Will do.” You bowed again before putting down the broom and quickly grabbing a big bowl to collect the fish.

As you returned to get the fish, you were alone. The heron was gone. Alone in the garden, you picked up the fresh trout and one big carp from the ground, feeling the heavy weight of watching eyes on you.

You kept inside the house as much as you could for the rest of the morning, only leaving to get firewood and water to wash and cook the fish. The thought of having more eyes watching you made your stomach turn. And having to face one of the same villagers who thought you cursed? The thought alone sealed your convictions to keep to yourself. You traced the wooden chopping board before sliding your fingers over the used counter. Home, it was all home, even the slightest dent felt like it belonged there just like you belonged with this house.

You let yourself fall onto one of the chairs, taking a break.

Why did I take the fish?

You could not help but wonder why you had allowed a bird to intimidate you so much before getting up and filling a chalice with a bit of fish for the heron as promised.

Because it spoke and birds don’t speak.

You grimaced to yourself as you placed the chalice onto the windowsill. Better not test your luck with speaking animals.

The fish König got you was fatty, fresh, and delicious.

You could not help feeling slightly grateful for the food. Maybe König was not as bad as you had assumed, and he did not want you any harm.

Maybe-

You froze at the thought of König feeding and fattening you up only to eat you once it fit him. The memory of one of many of your grandfather's tales rose up in your mind, like the pieces of fish rose up in the cooking broth.

“Open up, Wench!”

You flinched under the harsh words as someone knocked against the wooden door.

“Open up!”It was Ivar. Back in the days, he had been a friend to your father. Now, he was the first to terrorize you as the cursed girl.

“What do you want, Ivar?” you called through the closed door while stepping closer, clutching the broom again. It was better to ask before letting the mob leader in. And it was better to be armed with a broom than regretting not to.

“What do you want, wench?” he shouted, “I told you to leave yesterday. Yet, here you are! Nobody wants you here, bitch!”

Bile rose in your throat. It was bitter to discover the people you had grown up with turned against you so easily.

“This is my home, Ivar!”

He snorted dismissively, “This was your grandfather’s home - an honorable man. And you cursed and killed him, just like you killed all the others! I am not waiting for you to kill the rest of the village!”

“I have not killed anyone!” you cried. Fear, sadness, and anger – a lot of anger – tinting your voice.

“Don’t lie to me, witch!” Ivar spat, “You killed them! You killed them all. And now all that is left is you in this once honorable house. Leave or I’ll make you!”

You flinched.

“This is my home,”you whispered before raising your voice, “This is my home, Ivar! I’ll never leave!”

Cold and hot shivers washed over you as you felt tears well up in your eyes.

“Ha! You are a woman!” Ivar retorted with spite, “Only men can own land. You are so vile that no one even wanted to marry you for your family’s land. You are cursed! Leave before you kill us all!”

Hot tears spilled over your face.

Anger boiled in your stomach. But sadness kept you from shouting back at Ivar, sadness, and betrayal. It was as if Ivar did not need to drag you from your own home to punch all fight out of your body. With shaky hands you gripped the broom, trying to calm your agitated breath.

“Why would anyone marry for land?” a different voice asked.

Your eyes widened in recognition.

König.

“Now, marrying for water that I would understand,” König mused, “but land?”

A confused pause transfused through the wood door to you.

“Are you an idiot?” Ivar finally asked angrily, “Who are you, stranger?”

“König. The question is rather who are you to shout at my fiancé, little man?”

Another powerful pause before Ivar broke with a loud and dismissing, “What? You are lying!”

This was it, you realized, this was your chance of getting rid of Ivar and the villagers.

With a swing, you opened the door, wiping away your tears.

Ivar nearly filled out the door frame, but König easily loomed over Ivar, standing a couple of steps away in the garden. He stared down with an amused smile, cold blue eyes transfixed on the smaller man.

“No, he is not,” you declared while pushing your way past Ivar and stepped close to König, “This is König, my fiancé. Leave us alone, Ivar.”

“As if anyone would marry the cursed girl,” Ivar remarked despairingly.

“A curse?” König peeped curiously while slightly leaning into the space between you and Ivar.

You shifted around uncomfortably. “They say I am cursed because my family died, König.”

He turned his head and eyed you for a moment. You returned his curious gaze, he looked different now – human.

 “Intriguing. I’m a truly lucky man.”

“Are you insane?” Ivar gasped.

A quick smile flashed over König’s face.

“Insane?” he asked with a friendly tone that indicated entirely not friendly intentions, while stalking closer to Ivar, “Tell me – Ivar, right? Tell me Ivar, is it smart to harass the girl that you say is so cursed, she brings death to anyone close? Yet, you can’t get enough of yelling at her from as close as possible?”

Another step closer.

“Or, tell me, is it smart to anger the stranger who is willing to marry this cursed girl? Am I not the dead-man-walking then who has nothing to lose according to you?”

He straightened up, towering massively and glaring down at Ivar. You couldn’t pry your eyes from König, large and imposing, silent as a whisper as he unfolded the foolishness of Ivar’s so-called reasoning. 

“Or is my fiancé not cursed and you have no reason to be here, making you nothing but a petty man preying on those he can target easily? Uh, Ivar, tell me? What will it be?”

Another quick smile danced over König’s face, dangerous, entirely inhuman.

You shivered.

Ivar, feet still firmly planted, had leaned his shoulders from König, trying to create distance, and in his attempts, shifted around slightly, before looking around and finally, to the ground.

“This is not over, Good day,” Ivar mumbled and stepped away before turning around and walking out of the garden.

You both stayed and watched him trott off until he vanished between the trees and bushes, breathing a slow exhale once out of sight.

“What kind of curse is it?”

You turned your head, facing König.

“I’m sorry?”

“What kind of curse is it?” He repeated, “is it by a witch or by another human or something else? And how does it work?”

“I don’t know?”, you huffed, stepping away and crossing your arms before you defensively while fighting the incoming tears. “I am not cursed. I think. I hope. It’s only what Ivar says to make me leave the village. He wants my family’s fields and my home. It could be nothing but a convenient lie.”

“How disappointing.”

You blinked in surprise. Disappointing?

“You would have preferred me to have a curse, König?”

He shrugged, “I certainly wouldn’t have minded it. How dangerous can a little human curse be after all? And it could be practical to have curses to keep annoying men like Ivar away, don’t you think?”

You considered his words. It’s not like you wanted to believe him, but the thought of keeping anyone away with a curse - real or not - felt more comforting than you would have wanted to admit.

“Maybe,” you conceded, “But I would prefer not to be cursed, or have Ivar show up at my doorstep claiming that I am.”

“Do not worry about Ivar anymore, my bride,” König said before turning to the house. “I smell fish cooking. Is that the fish I got you?”

Your head whipped around. The Soup!

“Oh no, I forgot it!”you cried before running back to the house and to the fire. Quickly, you grabbed a rag before taking the hot iron pod to move it off the hot flames. It smelled fine, not too burned. Yet, the bottom of the pot felt like it had started to burn slightly as you stirred and tasted the meal.

At least one good thing today, you thought to yourself while taking a deep breath.

A little knock on the door made you look up. König standing in the door frame, looking all green and tangled again like you remembered from the pond. Briefly, you wondered how he did that.

“Everything alright?” He asked, peeking into the house, his skin shimmering like water reflecting sunlight before appearing nearly human again.

“Uhm,” you tilted your head and looked away, “It’s fine. It’s all fine.”

He eyed you silently, clearly not believing you before finally mumbling, “Alright, you are as good of a liar as an otter. Don’t worry, my bride, I’ll have the heron watch your house in case Ivar returns.”

“Oh, so that’s how you knew he was here,” you stated dejectedly. Even the bird was watching. Was there any way to escape all this with so many eyes on you?

He grumbled before stalking into the room.

With a shriek you stepped back but he was before you, bowing down to you.

Terrified, you froze in your spot.

“Don’t worry, bride,” he said, “I may not know much about your human customs. But, I know that I am expected to keep you safe. No harm will befall you anymore.”

You stared up at him.

Blue, watery eyes you did not understand. Eyes, so profound. You felt like falling into deep waters. As you stared, it recalled the calming waters of the swamp, the gentle sway of laping rivers. Waters that carried the same oaths and secrets and security you were almost granted the day before as you stared and stared and stared-

He blinked and smiled, his eyes suddenly just blue eyes, the profane dissipating like fog in the bogland.

You gasped for air, suddenly feeling your lungs constricted and your skin going cold and damp.

“I’m glad you want to marry me,” he said and straightened up again, “I worried that I might have scared you yesterday. But you called me your fiance, so you must not fear me.”

He chuckled darkly while drawing your form into a hug.

“Ivar on the other hand, has plenty to fear now after picking a fight with the king of under the water.”

[ohforficsake]

The Margay: Chapter 11

What Happens in the After

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Summary: Santiago recruits Frankie to contract for a covert agency that pairs them with danger in more ways than one. A series of one-shot snippets taking place during and around missions.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x Sniper!OFC Audrey 'Moose' Goddard

Word Count: ~10.9K

WARNINGS: Triggers for discussion of childhood abandonment / absentee parents. Please read with care.

Rating: Explicit 18+ / language / oral (f receiving), dirty talk, unprotected piv, creampie / Minors DNI

A/N: And so we come to the end of this little story. Thank you to each and every one of you who have shown interest, shared, commented, and supported me in general throughout this little journey. I can't tell you how much I have looked forward to your comments on these, the beautifully phrased ones and the incoherent screaming ones alike. My inbox is always open for incoherent screaming about these two.

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A note: This chapter takes place in Jamaica, which was impacted this week by Hurricane Beryl. I'm always hesitant to tell people what to do with and where to send their money, but if you are so inclined, I would urge you to make even a small donation to a reputable organization that aligns with your beliefs to help provide aid to Jamaica and the wider Caribbean in the wake of that storm.

Dividers by @cafekitsune

There’s a soft shave and a haircut knocked against the door to the hut.

She has a backpack slung over her shoulder and one hand stuffed into the pockets of cargo shorts. 

The other hand’s wrapped around the dregs of her welcome drink. 

And to Frankie’s grief-sore eyes, Audrey looks like hope dredged from the bottom of his chest and given a heartbeat.

He steps aside and allows her in and as she slips past she doesn’t reach for him. 

“Hi,” he whispers when he shuts the door. 

“Hi,” she echoes.

She reflexively twists to avoid his hand when he reaches to help her out of her backpack. 

And it twists Frankie’s viscera.

“How was your flight?” He rakes a hand through his curls. He has the louvers shut and the hut is lit only by the faintest glow of sunlight through the cracks. 

“Yeah, was good.”

“Where were you coming from?”

“Why am I here, Frankie?” Audrey asks gently.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’ve already said that.”

“I’m trying to show you that I mean it.”

“Why.”

Because I need you.

You keep me from using.

You remind me who I am.

It all rattles around his brain. 

And yet none of it feels like it’s enough.

Because what about her…

What about her. What about him is worth anything to her. How could he ever be. The addict. The body.

She doesn’t need him to fix her car or make her come.

She doesn’t even need him to watch her six.

“Stay with me?” Is what he asks instead. “Here. For a few days.” 

In the smallest voice she’s ever heard him use. 

Not even languid words lazed across the velvet of her skin after she’s poured pleasure into his blood have ever reached this level of softness.

And she puts her backpack down on wood planks because she realizes he’s ready to apologize but hasn’t yet found the words.

She walks over to the doors that lead out to the balcony and flips both sets of louvers open. “You seen the beach yet?”

“Haven’t made it out.”

“It’s nice. Get changed,” she nods towards the bathroom door, stepping out of Frankie’s path.

His palms burn as he slips through to the bathroom.

She's no different with him as they laze in the sun.

No different except that she hasn't touched him, or reached out for him in kind.

Condensation drips from a chilled bottle of water and lands on her inner thigh, slipping because it’s pulled by gravity, and gravity taunts Frankie as his eyes follow the drop’s trajectory from behind dark lenses.

The dew of sweat highlights the curve of her breasts and Frankie catches a pale man who looks as though he considers mayonnaise a spice glare as he passes them on the sand.

Frankie taps on her chair to signal that he’s heading into the ocean and dives furiously the moment he makes it out far enough.

He can’t clear his head.

He can’t find the words.

Trevor, a benevolent bartender, attempts to give him a word of advice.

“You love that girl?”

And Frankie stares hard into his melting rum punch and then back up at kind, light brown eyes.

“I do.”

“Tell her, brother. Woman like that? Once in a lifetime and you’re gonna lose her.”

“She doesn’t need me.”

“No woman needs a man, brother.”

“She doesn’t love me.”

“She does.” He skates a rag over the bartop without looking up. Like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Audrey’s in the sea and doesn’t see Frankie staring with the beginnings of tears in his eyes.

He tips Trevor treble for the drink.

The bartender’s words rattle around Frankie’s brain the rest of the day.

That night Audrey’s cradled in white cotton with her nose in a book when he emerges from having brushed his teeth.

Frankie fishes the spare comforter out of the closet and moves to the left side of the bed, pulling a pillow from next to her.

“What are you doing?”

“I’ll sleep on the floor.”

And she offers half a laugh.

“Frankie—“

“It’s fine, I—“

“Frankie you’re not sleeping on the floor, that’s insane,” she gazes at him incredulously through the gauze of the mosquito net.

“I wanna give you your space.”

“It’s a king sized bed, Francisco, we’ve slept on far smaller…”

They’ve slept on far smaller under friendlier circumstances. Frankie’s broad, heavy form draped over her back, his nose nuzzled in her hair.

It flashes through his brain.

“I’ll sleep on the day bed.”

“Frankie you’re gonna get eaten alive by every biting insect in Jamaica, you’re not sleeping outside. You’re gonna get fucking Dengue. If it bothers you that much I can go down to reception and book another hut it’s fine,” she peels back the comforter and moves to climb off the bed.

“No.” It rushes from his mouth. “No, no don’t leave.”

He puts the pillow back on the bed.

Lengthwise.

Between them.

And grabs another for his head.

It irritates her enough that she nearly forgets that he still hasn’t apologized. She nearly reaches over the physical barrier between them to pull it from behind his teeth with her tongue.

She closes her eyes and breathes in and out through her nose.

And turns back to her book.

The next day they barely speak but to coordinate showers, which beach they’re going to visit, what one wants to drink when the other is heading to the beach bar.

Audrey burns through her second book and Frankie just burns with the heat of regret.

He’s the one dragging this out.

That night after dinner, they walk back to their hut in silence, both just this side of drunk on rum. A bartender mistook Frankie’s trepidatious buzzing and Audrey’s carefree chat as him being nervous to propose and kept free drinks flowing. They’ve put down more together before but Frankie is a tequila man and although rum is Audrey’s ancestral drink, she hardly touches dark liquor anymore.

Frankie stuffs his fists into the pockets of his linen pants as they navigate shell-laced concrete and figures drunk isn’t the state of mind to do this but drunk also won't let him wait any longer.

“Audrey.”

She looks to him without saying his name, but her pace doesn’t falter. She spins on her heel and starts walking backwards as a reggae version of One More Night starts playing from some far-off speaker mounted in a tree.

 There’s music in her step.

“Audrey, wait,” he reaches for her arm but thinks better of manhandling her again.

He replaces his fist in his pocket.

He kicks at a loose pebble.

He skates a hand through his hair.

“Audrey, I fucked up.”

Big green eyes meet his gaze.

“You did.”

“I was living in a fantasy that night and when I saw you. That night in DC.”

Her eyes soften now.

“You looked so beautiful. Perfect. So at ease in a place where I was so lost.”

“You always are. Beautiful.” 

“Everything just hit me at once. And it’s not an excuse, but I’ve thought about that night in Honduras every night since.”

“When Benny was out there with us.”

“When I called you mine. And you hesitated and I know you told me to drop it but I didn’t. I couldn’t.”

“Frankie,” she whispers as the ocean breeze whips through her curls.

“It got in my head, Aud.”

“And I didn’t know how to handle it, didn’t know how to just talk to you and I let it fester until I lashed out, like, like a fucking child.”

“It was wrong. I—I was wrong. I ripped at you because seeing you there—on someone else’s arm—someone smarter and richer and better than me tore me up even though you didn’t do anything. You didn’t do anything.”

She steps closer to him.

“You looked like a bride.”

It makes her heart drop from her chest. 

“You felt precious and unattainable and I ripped you off of your pedestal and broke you because I finally realized that maybe everything you said is true.”

“I can’t have you so I broke you. Into the most beautiful shards I’ve ever seen.”

There are tears streaming down his face now.

“And I’ve regretted it every moment since because I’m not a sculptor and I don’t know how to put you back together. Us. I don’t know how to put us back together.”

“I was cruel.”

“And I’ve deserved to sit in it like this," he gestures broadly over his torso, "with this—this this weight crushing my chest.”

“And it’s okay if you’re done, Audrey. I’m not going to beg you to stay if you don’t want to.”

He wipes an angry hand across one cheek.

“I’d understand it if you’re done.”

And Audrey stares back at him through eyes as big as saucers before she speaks.

“Do you want to be done, Francisco?”

“No. This is me trying not to be done, Audrey.”

And she considers him more carefully than she ever has before. 

Staring through him.

And when she blinks hard to clear it she must be satisfied with what she saw because she holds out her hand. 

“Can we keep talking back in the room?” She asks him softly, because tears are still streaming down his cheeks and another couple is heading down the path.

“Yeah,” he whispers, swiping a palm down his face. But he doesn’t take her hand. 

And it twists a piece of her heart. 

She starts off again and when the gravel ends and the cement begins she can’t hear him following her anymore.

She’s doesn’t look back.

She stops to love on the petite tabby cat that roams the resort and she supposes Frankie stops somewhere behind her. 

Audrey knows that Frankie loves cats and the fact that he’s not standing right beside her makes her stomach roil. 

When they make it to their hut she heads straight for the ice bucket, scooping a clean glass through it and grabbing the unopened bottle of complimentary rum before she heads out onto the porch. 

Frankie grabs a glass and flips on the porchlight.

It washes out color and bathes her in red. 

His weight falls heavy into the chair across from her, heels of his palms scrubbing his eyes as she splits the ice and fills his glass before her own. 

“Whatever happens,” she starts and Frankie's gaze falls heavy on her, “I want you to know. There is no one else. I wasn’t—“

The back of the chair creaks as she braces her form against teak.

“I wasn’t fucking anyone else before you and I haven’t fucked anyone else in the two years since Nicaragua.” 

She meets his eyes now. 

“I want you to know that. For you.”

And he offers the barest nod.

“I haven’t been able to think about anyone else since Nicaragua,” she tosses offhandedly. 

“And frankly— I don’t really know what to do with that. But it’s the truth.”

Frankie doesn’t dare let himself hang on it, swallowing a mouthful of rum to singe the hope that curls around his heart.

“And I know I should have picked up the phone, it works two ways, right? I shouldn’t have run the way I did, and I should have said something to you but—“

A ragged breath.

“I was scared. You deserved better than that, Frankie. And I’m sorry.”

They’re quiet for a long time. Each working up the courage to take this where it needs to go.

And it’s Audrey who finds it first.

“Frankie?”

“Yeah, babe,” he says weakly as he meets her gaze.

“What does ‘not being done’ look like to you?”

His glassy gaze doesn’t leave hers.

“You. Us? Some kind of future.”

“What is a future, Frankie?”

“Everything.”

“There is no white picket fence, barefoot and pregnant dream with me, Francisco. I’m not a nurturer. I can’t give you a normal life and a home and chi—”

“Where—why does this matter, Aud?”

“It’s what you deserve,” she murmurs.

“What?”

Her voice is monotone when she starts. “You deserve to return at the end of each day to a lovely warm home and a warm meal with your daughter and a beautiful wife who’s an amazing mother.” Rattling off what she believes to be fact as though it’s plain as day. “You deserve as many kids as you want because you’re an amazing dad. You deserve—a home that’s filled with laughter, Frankie. You deserve a safe home filled with love.”

“Is that what you think I want? Audrey, is that really your only blueprint for happiness? That suburban fuckin’ nightmare?”

“It’s what I thought I wanted,” she whispers in a voice so small that Frankie nearly reaches out to hold her before she shrinks into nothingness.

“Aud,” he coos.

“It’s what I thought I wanted as a girl. Something better than what I had.”

And he can tell she’s struggling against the lock that secures the box of her memories. The childhood hopes and dreams. The things she packed away to survive this long.

He can tell she’s struggling against tears.

“Tell me,” he whispers, leaning in across the small table. “You don’t have to carry it on your own anymore. I’m here. I’m going to be here. Talk to me, Aud.”

“I just wanted—a— a home.” She stutters. “With someone who loved me. Someone I could love. I didn’t— have that.”

“We moved a lot when I was a kid. Home was never anywhere for long. Didn’t really have time to make friends, stopped trying.”

“It always felt like no one ever wanted me around. And I mean, I was the perpetual new girl with the weird eyes and the frizzy hair, I can’t blame them.”

“Aud…”

“It doesn’t matter, Frankie,” she takes a rough sip of her rum. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does. It hurt you.”

She’s quiet for a beat, teeth sinking into her bottom lip to keep its tremor at bay. 

And Francisco sits with her, listening to frogs sing a midnight hymn.

“I just remember feeling like everything was my fault. When we had to move. When my parents fought—and that was a lot. Like, wake up in the morning to them yelling at each other kind of a lot. Just, all of it. I took all of it on myself.” She sniffs hard and runs fingers through her curls. “I didn’t really understand what else adults could fight about at the time.” A dismissive gesture of her hand.  “They became so distant. And it wasn’t always like that but life just got in the way., you know? They were doing their best with what they knew.”

“But I got in the way, I guess. I just grew up by myself,” she rubs at her nose with the back of her hand.  “Told myself I didn’t need anyone because I never had anyone. Not for a long time. I didn’t have anyone because I wasn’t enough to keep them around.”

“That’s not true,” he whispers.

It’s a different kind of grief to know a lover’s pain.

“I made my friends up,” she offers a weak smile, “I made them up just so I wouldn’t be alone.” 

“Because I was a person everyone abandoned.”

Audrey whispers, “and I just wanted to be loved so badly.”

And where she’s doing everything in her power to keep tears from breaking, they flow freely down Frankie’s cheeks.

She was a child. Frankie thinks. A child who needed love, needed to be held and told that she was someone’s whole world. And he can’t go back in time to change that but he wants so desperately to give it to her now.

“It’s why I ran. From you, that morning,” she meets his eyes now, “I fell back into a bad habit of running. I left you before you had a chance to leave me.”

And Frankie realizes the true weight of what he said all those weeks ago.

What he hissed into the face of a scared little girl.

He’d fuck you but he wouldn’t keep you. Yeah—I wouldn’t either.

She left because he said he would.

He has the briefest flash of his daughter’s face.

And it cracks him wide open.

“I wasn’t kind to you, Aud.”

He wants to reach out for her hand, but he isn’t sure if he can. If he’s allowed. “I wasn’t the safe place I should have been. But I want to be. I want to show you that everything you’ve felt isn’t true. I want to try.”

“I want to build a home that’s warm and safe. And I’m not talkin’ about having babies. I’m talking about us. A place that’s ours. Filled with laughter. Filled with love.”

“And I only want to do that—with you.”

“It’s not safe with me, Frankie. I don’t leave loose ends but I can’t—anywhere I am, anyone I’m with isn’t safe.”

“And you think I am? On my own, you think I am?”

He braces his elbows on his knees and leans in over the table.

“I made that choice a long time ago. Before you, Aud. I can’t unring that bell either.”

“Frankie,” she looks to him, eyes swimming with a gentle shake of her head, “I ca—I don’t. Know how.”

“Let’s figure it out together?"

“What do you want, Frankie?

“I want you.”

“You don’t know me, Frankie.”

Still she fights to push him away.

“You don’t know where my parents are from or the places that I lived. How many siblings I have. You don’t know what my favorite band is or or or my favorite fucking color. And I don’t know those things about you.”

He leans back in his chair, lips pressed into a hard line. “I know that you’re grasping at straws right now because these aren’t real questions, Audrey…”

“No, no of course they’re not. But that’s my point. We’ve known each other for two years in some fucked up, protracted honeymoon phase. Every few weeks we fly to a new country and fuck and maybe kill a few people in the process before we go our separate ways. I’ve never even slept in your bed, Francisco.”

“And I’ve barely slept in yours.”

He stares at her through wide eyes. Soft yet full of conviction.

“But I’ve cried in it.”

“I’ve seen you in crisis. I’ve seen the way you look when you’re lining up a shot. The pure determination on your face that one time you dragged Santi out of live fire because you had to get him somewhere safe. You were unshakable.”

He tips his head in an effort to catch her gaze where it’s locked on the floorboards.

“I’ve seen you look at me when you thought I was dying, Aud.”

“I’ve seen you.”

“You love in the sharpest corners of life. You love your people, Audrey. You care for their souls. You move the earth to keep them safe. To protect them. Because you care.”

“And there are people who care about you. People that love you. I love you.”

“You don’t even know my real name, Frankie.” She whispers low with glassy eyes, still trying to shake him from this delusion. 

And what should have dropped as a bombshell barely causes a ripple.

“You’ve always said that you couldn’t give me anything more than what we’ve had, but I think it’s because you don’t allow yourself to try, Audrey. I don’t want a nine to five with you. I don’t want coming home to dinner and a martini, or or or soccer game pickups and ballet practice drop-offs in a minivan. I just want you.”

“I have laughter with you. I have love with you in my life. Anywhere you are feels like home to me, and I know I haven’t lived up to being the same for you yet…”

And he thinks he hears “you are” fall from her lips as he finishes, “but I want to. I want to—with you.”

“I want to know you’ll be there in the morning and I want to get to hold you at night. I want to see you smile in city lights and I want to hold your hand in the rain. I want to go on dates and meet your friends. I want to close down bars with you. I want to do this properly. For real. I want to love you. And I want you to let yourself be loved.”

“Because I love you, Audrey.”

“I LOVE you.”

Frankie’s eyes are wide with sincerity when she looks up.

And a sudden rake of anger chafes over him.

“Don’t react.”

Firmly but kindly.

With salt on his cheeks.

“Don’t mask your shit with the lies you tell yourself. You’re not that kid anymore, Aud. You don’t have to make it up. I’m here. And I love you. And I’m not fucking going anywhere. Not if you don’t want me to.”

“And I don’t think you do.”

“And don’t tell me that you’re a horrible person who doesn’t deserve love because of what you’ve done, either. I’ve done it too. And I know you don’t think I’m a monster even after what I’ve done to you, so that dog don’t hunt.”

“So don’t spit out a lie right here to my face.”

“Please.” 

And Frankie knows this is it. 

She can forsake it now and it would be over. Over because she doesn’t want any of it. 

Whether out of fear. 

Denial. 

Overwhelm.

She could run again. Right in this moment. Leave knowing he loved her.

Leave because she can’t take it.

And that’s something Frankie can’t fix.

But he has one last plea.

“Whatever happens. Please don’t lie to me about that, Audrey.”

At least give me this to hold on to.

Something to remember you by.

The ghost in the trees. 

“I don’t stick around after making a shot.”

Maybe just this once.

And for all Francisco Morales has seen of the woman he knows as Audrey Goddard.

He’s never seen her cry.

But the red porch light catches the wet streak making its way down her cheekbone to drip off of her chin when she turns her head to meet his eyes.

“I love you, Audrey,” he repeats, as firmly as he dares.

“And I think you’re crying because yo—”

“I love you too.”

And Frankie’s heart stops in his chest.

Trevor was right. 

“I love you, Frankie. And I don’t know what to do with it.”

And the tears flow freely now. From both sets of eyes.

“And I’m sorry that I’m the one that loves you. Because I don’t know how. I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t know what normal is, what that looks like. I don’t know how much longer I can do this job, but I don’t know how to leave. I don’t know where I go. I don’t know what it looks like. In the after.”

“It looks like whatever we want, Audrey.”

“I don’t know how to live, Frankie. I only know how to not die.”

“And I’m sorry that that’s all I have to give to you. But I want to. If you’ll take it. I want to.”

“Can we figure it out together?" He asks, "Would that be okay?”

“Because I want all of it. All of you. Everything that hurts. Everything you’re scared of. I want to do everything in my power never to hurt you again.”

Don’t run away from me again.

He finally takes her hand that’s resting on the table between two massive, gentle fists because he can’t hold back anymore.

“And can we stop all of this, pretending like we’re strangers? Please can I kiss you and touch you and hold you again?” He pleads with a squeeze of his fingers. “I’m dying without you.”

“I didn’t know if you still wanted to.”

“Audrey, of course I want to.”

And he catches her where she leaps to her feet, chair clattering against the deck.

The force of her knocks the wind from his lungs as he folds her into his arms.

Pressing her against his heart. 

And Frankie breathes again for what feels like the first time in weeks.

And he feels Audrey breathe too.

Stuttering and damp against his collarbone.

And she pulls away, causing momentary panic before he feels her take his face in her hands.

One chaste kiss followed by one fervent one before she slips her tongue into his mouth.

Like she hasn’t tasted him in years.

“Frankie,” she sobs when she breaks the kiss, burying her nose against the thick column of his neck with her arms around his waist as the massive palm cupped at the base of her skull holds her tight there. “I love you."

“I love you, baby,” Frankie repeats as his eyes slip closed with the relief of reunion.

Of holding her right back here where she fits.

Of knowing he isn’t going to let her go again. 

Audrey presses her lips to his neck, feeling his pulse jump against her skin. 

And after a while she sniffles, “you taste like bug spray.”

And Frankie roars with laughter.

With relief.

“Come.”

He takes her hand and leads her through to the wet room-style bathroom. He starts up one of the shower heads, testing the temperature of the spray before shaking the drops from his hand.

“You can go first.”

She has one leg crossed in front of the other, one hand on the teak countertop. “Stay?” She whispers.

And a smile tugs at the corner of Frankie’s mouth as he kicks off his shoes and helps her from her sandals, shutting them on the outside of the bathroom door.

He cups her jaw gently, pressing his lips to hers once again as her fingers move under his collar, around to the buttons of his polo shirt as he does the same for her. Frankie’s eyes glitter in the low light as she slips fabric from her shoulders. They help each other undress, her hands at the hem of his shirt, his fingers carefully unfastening the zip at the back of her linen skirt.

Layer by layer they bare themselves to one another until Frankie takes her hand and leads her under the spray. 

“Let me?” He asks with soft eyes.

He starts with her hair, lathering shampoo at her scalp with strong but deft fingers, hand at her hairline to shield her eyes on the rinse, before slicking conditioner through midway to the ends.

Audrey smiles at his intentional attention to detail. 

His daughter has curly hair too. 

The humidity of the shower chokes out the humidity of the night as he quickly tends to his own hair because he won’t let her. 

He snatches shower gel from a corner shelf and a rolled washcloth from the sink, working up a lather before turning her to face him. 

He holds her chin between his thumb and forefinger, kissing her slowly at first and then more deeply with an impatient tongue. Audrey’s hands soothe over a stomach that’s more toned since last she held him, a consequence of losing himself for hours with Benny and Will at the gym.

“May I?” Frankie whispers against her lips and she nods, giving him permission to take the washcloth over her skin. 

And what began as a need to show care now turns to worship. Down her neck, over her arms and back, around her hips and thighs, down to her toes. She lets him, watching as he does the same for himself before flipping on the handheld shower head to rinse soap away.

It’s in this moment that he realizes he’s never actually seen the scars.

Because he’s never seen her until tonight.

He’s only ever seen her as perfect.

He’s never seen her pain.

He’s never actually seen her as fallible. As mortal.

He does now.

Frankie sees her skin anew. 

And it makes her all the more precious.

Frankie slots the handheld showerhead back into its spot, pressing his chest to her back, taking the brunt of the main spray as he sweeps wet hair to curl around her shoulder. Lips fall against the symbol at the back of her neck. Over the lines of moose antlers. 

The scars of her own making. 

He kneads the feathery stretch marks at the flare of her hips and the meat of her thighs, humming contentedly.

Where she grew into herself.

He runs two fingers reverently over a thread of lighter brown skin on her right shoulder before pressing a kiss there.

“Dislocated shoulder. Torn rotator cuff. Gordon patched me up.” She offers.

Bits of things she’s said in the past begin to echo in his mind. 

Frankie wants to ask what happened because he wants to know all of her stories. 

And Frankie figures that he shouldn’t hold back anymore. So he does.

“I’m sorry, you don’t have to—“ he immediately apologizes.

She cranes her neck, asking for his mouth and he obliges, allowing her to press a kiss soft to his lips. “I want to.”

“Warehouse raid,” she runs her hands over his forearms where they’re locked around her waist. “Was up on a catwalk, a newbie tripped an alarm, concussion grenade went off and I fell, dislocated it. Slammed it back into the joint before I passed out. FBI managed the extraction, actually.”

Frankie hums his understanding, hands moving around her waist and down her spine.

“Here?” He asks of the faint echo of a slash just over the wings of her hip bones.

“Caught the blade of a knife, can’t remember when. Just lucky it wasn’t the pointy end. I’d be out a kidney.”

She turns to face him and meets his gaze, sweeps wet hair from his forehead and thumbs his cheek.

Warm dark eyes map her face, thumb settling on a scar at her temple, half hidden by her hairline as his other hand smooths over the panes of her back. 

“This?” He murmurs, stomach churning preemptively.

“Assassination attempt.”

“You didn’t make your shot?”

“On me.”

And Frankie’s fingers stop their ministrations as his blood runs cold.

“Range Rover with a reinforced chassis smashed my car between itself and a tree at fifty miles an hour. On purpose. Shot the driver before he could finish the job.”

“This,” she holds her wet hair back off of the scar, “was some kind of mangled metal. My car or his, I’ve got no idea.”

She settles her hands at the small of his back, “but I uh,” she starts, eyes darting over his shoulder and back, “I wasn’t okay for a long while after that.”

Frankie pulls her tight to him, one palm holding the base of her skull, pressing her face to his neck. 

“Brain was pretty scrambled,” she whispers against his collarbone. 

Frankie lays a kiss to her hair, letting up the pressure on her head to press his lips against her neck.

Down her sternum.

Tongue laving over her skin as he sinks to his knees.

Water from the spray follows his path and he spits out what makes it into his mouth.

He only has a taste for her. 

Her waist fits in the span of his hands as his lips find a round scar with rough margins just under her left breast.

He already knows what would have caused this.

“Bogotá.” She whispers.

And he presses his forehead to her stomach, drawing a rough breath through his nose.

“Audrey—” he whimpers on a ragged breath.

“I’m here,” she murmurs, carding a hand through his wet hair. 

Thumbing one cheekbone. 

Frankie asks now with touch.

His thumb fits against a lighter patch of skin just below her kneecap.

“Tripped on a sidewalk.”

He smiles and presses a kiss there.

His palm splays up over her thigh and the faint, stuttering smatter of marks there as she shower pelts his shoulders.

“Road rash. Controlled motorbike crash.”

His tongue traces them. Locking their taste away.

Thumbs skim over two small, identical scars just below each hipbone. 

“Had my tubes removed.”

And Frankie has seen too many movies, because he stares up at her with a savagely protective look in his eyes.

She soothes a hand over his wet curls and reads him dead on when she answers, “my choice, Francisco.”

“Good,” he says firmly, pressing his lips to each before he takes the flat of his teeth and his tongue over one hipbone.

He presses her against the wall with his palms, the bridge of his nose catching against her slit before he presses a kiss to her mound.

“Fell in love with you,” Audrey breathes on a sigh as her head falls back.

Frankie hums low and it thrums straight through her.

He moves slowly despite his impatience. 

A kiss at the swell of flesh just above her clit. His tongue against the crease of her thigh. 

His nose against where she’s wet for him, catching her slick on his bottom lip. 

Humming as his tongue darts out for a taste. 

“Frankie,” Audrey lets go on a cracked sigh, both hands tangled in his curls. 

“Baby,” he answers, palms settling on her hip bones as he holds her against the wall and guides one leg over his shoulder.

Finally his tongue slips through her folds and she gasps and moans. Giving him the breath from her lungs as his tongue dips inside of her and he lets slip a growl.

She tastes of salvation.

Of every dream he’s had for the past three months. 

The past two years.

She tastes of the rest of his life. 

And he drinks until his thirst is quenched by trembling muscles and full throated moans.

He doesn’t even attempt to touch his cock, desperate and obscene in its insistence between his thighs. 

He gives her his fingers instead and her muscles clamp tight around them as her hands clutch at the roots of his hair and he brings her through with heaving lungs as she urges him back to her. 

The tang of relief on her lips as he plunges his tongue into her mouth. 

Frankie shuts the water off and lifts her up with legs quickly wrapped around his waist.

Mouth never leaving his. 

He holds her firm, one hand to protect the crown of her head as he walks through to the bedroom.

“The net, Frankie,” she warns.

“Get it, babe,” he murmurs, waiting for her to find the gap in mosquito netting as he occupies her mouth with his tongue.

When finally she parts gauze he lays her backwards onto the mattress, grinding his hard length against her weeping core.

He cranes to trail his tongue over her abs. Sucking on her hipbone. Thumb brushing over her clit. 

“Frankie,” she lets go on a ragged gasp, “wait, baby, wait.”

Immediately his heat leaves her, and mercifully she acts before panic can rise in his chest.

She sits up, hand coming to his jaw as the other snakes around his waist, sucking at the plush of his bottom lip. Frankie’s hands trail over her back as she lets out soft moans with each kiss.

They make his cock throb where its pressed to her stomach.

Audrey’s fingers wrapping around the thick base of him and he lets out a strangled groan. She gives him a few tentative strokes before he stops her in a hurry.

“Baby, don’t—I’m not—,” he traps her face between his palms, the tip of his nose brushing against hers. “I want—”

And she doesn’t need him to finish his half-panted thoughts, pressing a kiss to his lips and placing her hands over his own.

Frankie lets her go and she shifts further onto the bed. An invitation to join. He tracks her mouth, head spinning from having what he’s been so long without right within his grasp. He crawls over her form before he’s stopped by a hand on his shoulder, urging him onto his back.

Frankie complies, leaned against pillows as he reaches for her.

His fingers have been too long without her skin. Every second away from it carries the burn of eternity.

Audrey gently straddles his hips, palms braced on broad shoulders as his hands settle in the curves of her waist. 

There’s a gentle smile on Frankie’s flushed lips as he stares up at her though round, soft eyes.

“Is this okay?” She whispers, cradling his jaw.

“Yeah,” he sighs, lids fluttering closed as she presses her lips to his, tongue dipping inside his mouth. Frankie’s fingers skitter over her spine as she thumbs his cheek, head dropping back against the pillows. She traces the lines at the corners of his eyes. The smattering of freckles across his cheekbones called forth by the sun. One thumb fits gently against the divot in his bottom lip, pronounced as though hewn by the hand of something divine. She sees the grey at his temples that has caught in the scruff at his cheeks.

She sees him the moment that he opens his eyes. 

Rich brown shot through with flecks of love. 

She sees this man.

With a soul like water. 

That bends and rushes. Freezes and thaws. That carves mountains jagged and soothes stone smooth. 

That boils when left untended.

That envelops every inch of her. 

And she kisses him with the beginnings of different tears in her eyes. 

For this is water that’s found its own again. 

“I love you Frankie,” she whispers into his mouth.  She reaches back, giving his hard length a few strokes as Frankie’s breath hitches. His hips buck into her hand and she guides him inside of her.

Audrey gasps in the sigh that he exhales as her body adjusts to the stretch of him. 

His forehead thumps against hers and she smiles.

“Hermosa,” he gives a tentative roll of his hips and she hums, teeth sinking into her bottom lip. 

“Cariño,” whispered against the column of her neck as she meets his thrusts.

“Mi amor,” he nips at her chin as she grips the wet curls at his nape.

Frankie cranes to pepper her throat with kisses as they find a rhythm like language. 

The give of his hips and the eager pull of her cunt. His nose smashed against her cheek. Her tongue desperate for the salt of his skin.

And it is the greatest relief to be buried inside of her. To feel the flutter of her walls and the damp slip of her body against his.

But Frankie’s fingertips dig into the meat of her ass in an effort to gain some measure of composure. He wants to be delicate. To hold her with care. 

To show her how much he needs her. Tenderly.

But Frankie’s brain starts to melt.

He wants this to last. For her. Desperately. Wants to make her fall apart one more time before he does.

Wants to feel her pleasure before his own.

But her hips render him useless. Drunk on the way she grips him. 

He skates one hand up her sternum between her breasts before palming one and sucking on her flesh. The scratch of his beard sends a chill up her spine, drawing a moan from her throat. She shifts to brace her hands on his shoulders, slowing her pace. 

One hand traces her vertebrae up to grip her hair and bring her mouth back to his. Frankie breathes hot and damp against her cheek, nipping at her jaw.

“Quiero cogerte,” he ghosts over her skin.

“Cógeme, Francisco,” she breathes and her answer in the same tongue doesn’t help his cause.

He moves at a speed she can’t register, twisting around and landing her on her back before he braces a hand on either side of her head.

He thrusts deep and sinks his teeth into her shoulder, holding there as he slowly starts to roll his hips.

Frankie catches the backs of her knees over the insides of his elbows, tongue slipping into her mouth as he sets a languid pace that has her arching with impatience beneath him.

“Te he extrañado,” he tucks against the shell of her ear before he sits up. Frankie trails his fingertips down her ribs and fits them to the curve of her waist, murmuring as he thrusts. “Tu piel y tu boca…”

“¿Solamente esas cosas?” She teases with closed eyes, tipping her face into the pillow to smother a moan.

“Hey,” he says, slowing for a moment to press his chest to hers, “all of you, baby,” offering a sincere kiss before his pace picks up again. 

And as good as it feels to be filled like this.

Affirmed like this.

Something’s not quite right.

Their rhythm is off. 

And Frankie, usually so exacting in how he pulls her apart, thread by thread, is uncoordinated. Lost in his own head. 

“Francisco—” she calls out, twisting in his hold. “Wait. Wait wait wait, baby,” and he stops, panting as he runs a hand down his face.

There’s something incongruous here. 

Perhaps it’s the weight they’ve unconsciously assigned to the reunion of flesh.

Maybe it's the frogs and the air and the rum.

Maybe it’s that Frankie hasn’t been able to come in three months. 

And apart from their dalliance in the shower—

Neither has Audrey. 

But she can tell that he’s strung out on desire. Ripped in too many directions. 

She wants him to stop thinking.

She wants him back.

Frankie soothes a hand over her stomach and swallows hard, “what’s wrong, baby,” he pants, eyes suddenly round with concern, “what’s wrong?”

And he slips his dick from her heat and sits back on his haunches, swiping a hand down his face. 

He catches how her gaze flicks down to his cock, glossed with her slick. Thick and straining against the confines of his skin. 

“Frankie,” Audrey murmurs, voice dripping with mischief. 

She makes an exaggerated show of stretching.

Rolls over onto her stomach, parts her legs, and tips her hips forward.

And Frankie’s eyes lock on her pussy, tongue darting out to lick his bottom lip.

She tosses him a glance over her shoulder. 

“I need you to stop being so sweet.”

And he groans, low and fractured, and falls forward.

Mouth latching to her cunt before he hollows his cheeks.

And Audrey lets out a small yelp, letting her head drop onto her forearms.

Frankie grips the globes of her ass in each palm, the flat of his tongue running the length of her slit before it dips inside of her. 

She bucks away with sensitivity, but Frankie yanks her back against his face.

“Frankie—” she begins to whine but he lands his palm against one cheek to stop her squirming.

“Don’t give a man a meal and expect him not to eat,”  he murmurs, muffled by her flesh and the shameless need in searing through him.

He’s back.

“Fuuuck, ” she buries her face in the sheets and he fucks her with his tongue until he hears her breath go shallow.

Frankie tears his mouth from her, skimming his tongue over his wet bottom lip, reaching down to pump his cock as he fits himself between her legs. 

The slide of his foreskin made easy where he’s leaking precome.

He skates one hand down her spine, telegraphing what he’s about to do.

“¿Quieres mi verga, gatita?” he growls.

And Audrey lights him up. 

Spitting profanity that chastises him for making her wait so long.

Frankie thrusts inside of her without pretense, blanketing her with the breadth of his form, tucking his nose just behind her ear. 

“Nice girls don’t talk like that, gatita.”

She can feel his smile on her skin.

“If you wanted a nice girl,” she arches against his weight as best she can, tipping her mouth to meet his, “you shouldn’t have called.”

Frankie hums, sinking his teeth into the nape of her neck before kissing an apology against her skin as his hips rock against hers.

His lips laze over the curve of her shoulder. Up the side of her neck before teeth sink into her pulse, all the while hips picking up in speed. 

He sits up, fingers flared over her back, heels of his palms pressing her hips into the mattress as her fingers claw at whatever fabric she can reach. 

Frankie trails his tongue over her spine as he grunts with exertion before his hands palm her hips and pull, angling them to allow the head of his cock to slide against her g-spot. He spends a moment here, allowing pressure to build before he slams his hips hard against hers, pulling a cry from her throat. 

He hums as he grinds deep, the baritone of his voice thrumming through the hollow spaces in her chest.

“So deep, Frankie,” she whispers.

And Frankie starts to litter her skin with filth.

“—tan mojada, gatita, ohh—fuck, baby.”

“Si, asi, asi, asi, así tal cual—” he pants as she bucks back against him.

“¿Quieres más duro, bebita?” He murmurs and she gasps.

“Tell me,” he grits out.

She’s breathless when she sighs into a pillow, “yes, Frankie.”   

He grabs her by the upper arms, pulling her up off of the bed, pace punctuated by hard, deep strokes that bottom out. Frankie presses one hand low against her stomach and wraps the other over her shoulder as she scrambles to brace against the wide shelf of the headboard.

“Mira, gatita,” the hand on her stomach cups her chin, tipping it up to meet his eyes in the mirror that hangs above the headboard.

“Look at us.”

Still damp curls fall in her eyes. Jaw, nose, and chin reddened from the scrape of his beard. The whites of her top teeth flash in low light where her mouth has fallen open to fill her lungs with breath only for him to force it from between her ribs on a moan.

She thinks herself a disheveled, fucked-out mess and smiles.

But Frankie.

Frankie’s beautiful.

Eyes blown dark with adoration where they’re locked on her reflection. Sun-browned skin damp with a sheen of sweat that catches the low bedroom lights, bronzing the swell of muscle in his arms. Cheeks flush with heat and lips sucked plump.

Frankie that she pulls apart like this. Hissing through his teeth and grunting through the grip of her.

Frankie that hangs on her every word.

Frankie, buried deep, rocking against where her core molds to the shape of him. 

The sight of her Frankie is pleasure unadulterated. 

Audrey reaches back for him and he quickly obliges, tucking a kiss into the curve of her shoulder before burying his nose in her hair.

A particularly deep thrust makes her moan and her fingernails catch in the scruff of his beard before tangling in his hair and Frankie cups one breast and squeezes, making her buck back against him.

He can feel the slightest tremor in her limbs as her head falls into the crook of his shoulder as she gasps, “no te pares.”

“W– with me, baby,” he stutters as his hips snap against her flesh, the head of his cock nestled deep in her warmth, hammering against her favorite spot. 

His spot.

“Fuck, ’m so close,” he presses against the curve of her shoulder, mouth falling open, tongue trailing up the tendons of her neck as she arches against his chest.

“You own this cock, baby—” he growls in her ear. “It’s yours, it’s yours, it’s y—ours.”

She takes the hand that’s gripping her hip and brings it to her clit where Frankie immediately starts winding circles against nearly over-sensitive flesh.

“God, I’ve missed you inside of me, Francisco,” tipping her face to breathe against his flushed cheek and he moans into the curve of her shoulder. He holds her fast and ruts against her without pulling out as his fingers speed up.

He watches in the mirror as her mouth falls open and her eyes fall shut, strands of wet hair clinging to her neck.

“Come for me, baby,” he purs against the shell of her ear even as his voice starts to crack with desperation. “Please, baby, please—”

Audrey can’t answer him through the sobs of pleasure.

“Baby—” he hisses as he feels his balls tighten, pace growing frantic now. “Ohfuuck—”  

His fingers dig bruises into her flesh. “Come with me. Te ruego, hermosa.”

He pleads.

“Frankie,” she murmurs against his skin before she reaches back to curl fingers in his hair. “Frankie,” she repeats, tightening her grip as his lips find her jaw.

“Acábame adentro, Francisco.”

And Frankie sees white. 

His hips slam against hers and hold there, growling and hissing with every pulse of his cock as as he floods her with his come. She answers with a sobbing keen as she clenches around him, jostled by every twitch of his hips and his heaving chest at her back.

Audrey finally lets out a stuttering breath and Frankie answers with something between a moan and a wail and smashes his nose against her cheek.

And this is something entirely new. 

Frankie knows full well how to move to wring pleasure from her blood. Audrey knows how to hold him until she hears him. 

But this is nothing that they know.

This makes her legs go numb.

Makes his ears ring.

Makes both hearts beat in rhythm.

Causes lips to crash together and stay there. Breathing each other in as his forehead falls against the back of her shoulder.

This is love.

He holds her tight to him until panting evens out into gentle moans before slipping his softening cock from her heat.

Warm palms curve to her waist and her breastbone as Frankie guides her down with him.

He wraps her in his arms, peppering her jaw and neck with kisses.

When she moves to shift off of the bed, Frankie’s arms lock around her waist.

“Don’t. Don’t leave.”

And she lets out a throaty laugh and reaches a hand back to soothe over his hair. “Frankie, I just have to run to the bathroom.”

“You always run away from me,” breath coming in deep huffs, kissing at her jaw, “when I’ve just been inside you.”

“Maybe you always hit the right spot, Francisco,” she twists to kiss his chin.

He grins and glances off the side of the bed.

“Alright, let me—” he helps her over with a groan, turning onto his stomach as she shifts to the edge of the bed, ready to help her down.

“Frankie, I can—”

“Yeah, no. Between this height and that netting you’re gonna—”

She braces a palm against his chest as she moves to climb from the bed.

And her leg gives out the minute it hits the floor.

But Frankie is quick with an arm around her middle and a laugh he tries to stifle.

“You always do that too,” he whispers as he parts the mosquito netting for her. 

“Maybe you make my knees weak, Francisco,” she snarks and bends to kiss his nose.

He lightly smacks her on the butt with the back of his hand. 

“Hurry up, Bambi.”

She returns to him in two minutes, shutting the lights off and crawling under where he holds the comforter up for her.

Arms wrapping her in a tight embrace as he folds her into the warmth of his form.

He can’t keep his hands from her skin. One pulls her thigh to drape over his hips and the other skips over the damp skin of her back.

She settles her nose against his neck.

And for a long while they just breathe. 

Frankie lulled by the weight of her body and not of his grief.

Audrey soothed by the gentle rise and fall of his chest and his fingers over her spine.

She draws idle patterns over his chest as they listen to the singing of frogs in the night.

Before Frankie breaks the silence. 

“The Caribbean.”

“Hmm?”

She shifts to prop herself up on one elbow, but Frankie’s hand over her skin doesn’t stray from its path.

“Where your parents are from. An English-speaking country in the Caribbean. You don’t have much French and you tend towards Central and South American Spanish. I never lose you in a crowd, but I did all the time when we were in Trinidad, and you understand local accents on different islands far better than either Santi or I do, even though everyone is speaking English.” 

And it sends a prickle of fear up her spine. 

To be known like this.

Even though it’s all she’s ever wanted. 

“You grew up in the States though,” Frankie continues, “somewhere in the Southeast. It’s in the way you say ‘county’ and ‘nine, and ‘right quick.’” Frankie’s hand that rests on her thigh moves to cushion his head.

“You have one brother who’s married with two kids, and I’d love to meet him because I know you two are close.”

Audrey stares at the wall, biting the inside of her cheek.

He’s paid attention. For the last two years. Cobbled together half-fragments of information in the pursuit of pieces of her.

“Your favorite color is blue and your favorite band is Nine Inch Nails.”

“That’s only because I wore that—“

“You play them too loudly in your headphones sometimes,” Frankie interrupts, wrapping his hand around the nape of her neck, bringing her mouth back to his before he whispers, “and I’m absolutely going to fuck you to that song.”

She whispers against his mouth, “baby, I will make you a whole playlist.”

“Deal.” He releases his grip and she soothes one hand over the flare of his ribs and down across his stomach.

“And I know that you legally changed your name six years ago.”

Her fingers stop their path. 

That’s not something he could have deduced from a ratty t-shirt or the color of a water bottle.

Someone had to have told him.

“You’ve been going by Audrey for longer than you went by the name you were born with. And maybe some part of you wanted to leave that behind. I don’t blame you for that.”

She looks down at him now, where he lies with a hand tucked behind his head, soft eyes canted in her direction.

“I found Spencer.” Frankie answers the question she hasn’t asked. “Well, Santi did. In Oklahoma.”

Audrey’s eyebrows briefly tick up towards her hairline before she chews on the inside of her lip.

“Gave me a pretty good dressing down. Which I fully deserved.”

“But I needed to ask him,” Frankie shifts to his side now. “I needed to know if—” he eyes flit over her shoulder and back to green.

“If I needed to let you go.”

He swallows hard.

“If it would have been cruel to ask you back,” Frankie trails his knuckles over her collarbone. “If you were really done, after…after everything I did.”

And Audrey meets his eyes with tears in her own. 

“I wasn’t sure if you’d ever want to hear from me again. If I was—fucking delusional to think that there was anything I could do to make it right. And once I started working through my shit, I didn’t know. I didn’t know—” 

He swallows hard against the breaking of his own voice. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, Aud.”

“But he said if I asked you here, you’d come. And one way or another, I’d get an answer.”

“Because he knows I love this place,” she whispers, shifting to lay on her back. “Because this place put me back together.”

Audrey fits her palm to his cheek, slanting her eyes up at him.

“I lived here for a month after—” she lets her hand fall from his skin but he catches it, wrapping it in the warmth of his own.

“This is where he and I called off our engagement. And I knew it was the right thing, but I just needed time on my own. To figure out—”

“—what happens in the after," she finishes.

“What happens?” Frankie murmurs. “In the after?”

“You.”

And Frankie settles down into the sheets and curls into her, palm running over her stomach and down her hip.

“That’s why he sent you here.”

“He understands you, Aud.” His hand soothes over her ribs now. “The way that I want to.”

It travels up to brush softly at her jaw.

“He’s known me since I was nineteen, he knows all of my shit,” she swipes a fingertip under one eye. “But I guess that means he also knows when I’m in love.”

“He wasn’t going to let either of us throw it away.” Frankie kisses at her shoulder before nuzzling at her skin. “He wants you to be happy, Aud.”

And she buries her nose in the fluffy tufts of Frankie’s curls as he kisses softly at her neck.

“He said if I can’t recognize how precious it is to have your love then I don’t deserve it,” he whispers in her ear.

And she hums. 

“He’s right,” Frankie meets her eyes again. 

She kisses his forehead.

“He also made it clear that if I fumble you again—“

“He’s gonna rip your eyes out,” she finishes.

“I believe him,” Frankie turns serious for a moment. 

“You should. He isn’t kidding,” she smiles and Frankie rolls onto his back, pulling her tighter against his chest. 

“And he said to tell you that Hannibal is still alive?”

And Audrey laughs and tucks her face into the curve of Frankie’s neck.

“A dog that I rescued off the streets of Havana. Went to a friend of his. God, that little thing must be fourteen by now.”

“‘I’m not a nurturer’ my ass,” Frankie teases and tips his lips to kiss her forehead as her eyes start to fall heavy.

They give in to the lull of sleep like this—tangled in each other.

They stroll down to the beach early the next morning.

Hands clasped.

Trevor is already parked at the beach bar and Frankie throws him a salute that he returns with a grin.

They push two chairs together, each trying not to lay right on the gap.

They kiss. Audrey with salt-spun curls. Frankie with red-tinged cheeks.

Audrey squints against the sun and Frankie slips his hat on her head, gently pulling her ponytail through the back of the cap, closing out the action with a kiss on her shoulder.

They share stories about their pasts.

About his daughter. 

He thanks her for sending a gift.

They hold each other in the ocean. Frankie’s chest at Audrey’s back, folded around her as they watch a crab forage on the footing of a dock.

They wave from the water and thank Trevor for refreshing their drinks, moving closer to the beach to chat about the bonfire tonight. 

“Trevor?” Audrey starts. “Could you take a picture for us?”

“Of course, sweetheart, of course.”

“You can use that one, right there,” Frankie tips his chin towards his phone where it rests on top of his towel.

“Alright now, smile,” Trevor says, holding the phone up.

Frankie puts his arm around Audrey’s shoulders and she slips hers around his back.

“Oh come on now, you love each other?” Trevor teases.

And Audrey looks up at Frankie, wrapping both arms around his neck and her legs around his waist as he holds her against his chest. 

“There you go,” Trevor says. 

Audrey presses a kiss to Frankie’s cheek right as he snaps the picture. 

A big grin plastered to Frankie’s face. 

Three more days of bliss pass like this.

Filled with the press of humid, sleep-warm skin. The slick of sweat and the smell of sunscreen. The rich vanilla of rum on each others’ tongues. 

One afternoon the man Frankie caught leering at Audrey on their first day spots her at the beach bar and sidles up far too close. She’s as polite as she needs to be. She can handle herself.

But Frankie will have none of it. 

He springs from his lounger and jogs over to her, rumbling “baby” so as not to set her nerves firing. 

And Frankie does the the only thing that Frankie can think to do.

He presses his chest to her back and lays a kiss at the nape of her neck. 

And like a reflex, Audrey melts against him.

Brain shorted by the breadth of him.

By the safety of him.

“Hi,” she tips her head back with a grin.

“Hi, baby.”

“You two just meet or something?” The man quips. “A little vacation fling?”

“It’s our tenth wedding anniversary actually,” Audrey spins a yarn that Frankie tracks in an instant. 

He holds up his bare left hand, “saltwater does a number on the rings, so…”

“Oh yeah? Congrats, then. Not feelin’ the itch as they say?”

“Not even a little bit,” Audrey cranes her head back and nips at Frankie’s chin as the arm around her middle tightens. 

Frankie hums and slips her his tongue.

“Well, congrats again,” he holds up his drink in salute and heads off behind the bar. 

The moment he’s out of earshot Audrey turns around, attempting to smother a snorted laugh with his chest and Frankie grins into her hair. 

“Thank you,” she whispers. 

“Mmm, maybe we should come back here on our tenth anniversary,” Frankie muses. 

“Let’s make it to next year, yeah?”

“Deal.”

They again make use of the double shower in their room.

Frankie orders oxtail stew and Audrey falls all over again.

Frankie climbs a tree to pick her a mango, despite every one of her protests about his back. She peels it with a pocket knife that Frankie doesn’t ask how she took on a plane. They split it and pass the seed back and forth between them until it’s nearly bone-white. 

They share cigarettes on the porch. Frankie refuses to let her light a single one.

They pet every resort cat that will let them.

A bug lands on Frankie's bare shoulder one night as he's brushing his teeth and he lets out a noise that has Audrey racing in before nearly collapsing with laughter.

They make love on the daybed as an afternoon thunderstorm rages, drowning out her cries that Frankie muffles with his palm and the moans that he smothers with her breast.

They live. 

And for this brief moment, each of them surrenders to this possibility.

That there’s a chance.

That there’s life in the after.

The two of them.

Together.

When the valet knocks on their door that final morning, shouldering their bags and running them down the stairs to a waiting van, Frankie stops Audrey at the door to the hut, stealing one last moment for themselves.

“Aud? I want to tell you something.”

And she tips her head inquisitively, arms around his neck.

"My family is from—"

"Chile," she finishes. "You grew up in Texas and have two sisters."

He nods, finishing out her questions,"my favorite color is green, and my favorite band is the Rolling Stones."

And her eyes fill with the soft light that he's come to recognize as love.

"And moose have been my favorite animal since I was a kid."

Her smile drops.

“I’m serious.”

And he looks it. 

“Frankie—”

His fingers trail nervously over the back of her shoulder.

Over the lines of moose antlers.

“Frankie,” she pulls back a fraction now with a hand on his chest.

She sounds exhausted.

“If we’re doing this—just—this doesn’t have to be a rom-com, it can just be. Please, just, don’t lie to me. Not for a cute story, not to make me feel better, not to smooth things over, please let’s be hon—“

Frankie stops her with gentle fingers over her lips. He slips his phone from his pocket and her hands drop to his waist as they both glance down at the screen. He navigates to his texts and taps on “Mamá,” scrolling up past a few messages before tapping on a picture and turning his phone to landscape.

It’s a picture of a picture.

Baby Frankie.

Buckled into the back seat of a car, thumb jammed into his mouth, mop of straight blonde hair falling in the same big brown eyes that stare back at her now. 

Tiny arm clutching a stuffed moose to his chest.

He scrolls to another. Four-year-old Frankie on a beach, squinting against the sun. 

Fingers wrapped around the stuffed moose’s antler. 

And another.

He’s older in this one, maybe around eight or nine. Sitting on his bed, grinning with two of his front teeth missing.

And the same stuffed moose, now tired and tattered, resting on his lap. 

“Mr. Bear was a moose,” he murmurs.

“What?”

“Mr. Bear,” he kisses her cheek, “the most important thing I had as a child,” he presses a kiss to her lips and tucks his phone back into his pocket, “was a moose.”

And she stares up at him. Incredulous. 

“Weird coincidence I guess,” he pulls his cap from where it was tucked into his back pocket and fits it back onto his head. 

“Frankie,” she whispers as his hands fit to her waist. “I don’t believe in coincidences.”

And he grins.

“I don’t either,” he holds her tight to his form, burying his nose in her hair. “Aside from Lucia,” his arm wraps around her shoulders now, “the most important thing I have is still a Moose.”

He kisses her forehead.

Audrey looks up at him through huge green eyes.

And bursts with contagious laughter that fills his cheeks and calls forth the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.

“Corny,” she whispers against his lips.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she kisses him. Long and slow. With all the time in the world. “But I like it.”

“Well, then,” he hums, taking her hand, lacing thick fingers with hers.

“Let’s go, Moose.”

She stares up at him with a smile. 

“Let’s go, Frankie.”

“Let’s go.”

Taglist: @harriedandharassed @missladym1981 @sarcasm-theotherwhitemeat @toomanytookas @spookyxsam

@bloviating-vy @pimosworld

And tagging some of the lovely folks who keep me going on here and have left lovely comments (some of you from the very beginning of this series when I had no idea what this would become. 💚 As always, please do let me know if you'd prefer not to be tagged:

@tinytinymenace @legendary-pink-dot @for-a-longlongtime @theshensei @iamskyereads

@la-vie-est-une-fleur29 @soft-persephone @julesonrecord @criticalarchitecture @oliveksmoked

@jessthebaker @tanzthompson @youandmeand5bucks @ems-chaos-corner @thethirstwivesclub

@76bookworm76 @tuquoquebrute @jeewrites

Thank you all so very much for reading.

And as a little bonus: The Picture that Trevor Took

[flwoie]

LOVE IN DISGUISE — P. SH.

one : jetpack joyride

contains : profanities, sunghoon getting whacked and abducted twice, him almost dying, him also choosing a jetpack over his dignity.

word count : 969 (not proofread)

Sunghoon quickly ran to his desk after meeting up with his friends. He came back to the dormitory late, but none of his roommates questioned him, especially Junhan. He dropped his bag on the floor and kneeled to open it, pulling out a jetpack.

“Awesome!” He quietly exulted. He was wary of trying it out since his dorm was a bit small and might break the wall, so he shoved it under his desk. He lay on his bed, shocked by the realization of what had happened that afternoon. He couldn’t tell anyone.

Sunghoon wakes up sitting on a chair, his hands tied behind his back, and his eyes blindfolded. He doesn’t know how he ended up here. One minute he was playing basketball alone, and the next minute he got knocked out.

He shakes his head to get rid of the blindfold, the cloth successfully falling off and onto his collarbone. He glances around; the place is dim, empty, and dirty—most likely an abandoned warehouse.

“Very funny, guys!” He yells out. “You got your revenge, Beomgyu!” There are times when Sunghoon pranks Beomgyu, and he always says he will get revenge in return, so Sunghoon thinks this is payback. Except he doesn’t see his friend hiding anywhere.

He hears a faint voice and footsteps echoing. “I think the boy woke up,” the voice said. The steps get louder, and a second voice speaks up, making it clear for Sunghoon to hear.

“Ya think? He’s trying to escape.”

“Uh, hey, mind helping a guy out?” Sunghoon turns his head toward the two, budging his hands. One of them walks up to him, and in hopes of untying him, they tighten the knot. “What do you two even want from me?”

“Tell us where it is,” the other one said.

“What?”

“Don’t act dumb.”

“Dude, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Hey, if you let me go, I won’t ever speak a word about this,” he bargains.

“We’ll let you go if you tell us where the secret formula is. If you don’t, we’ll kill you,” he says, pulling out a gun. Before he can point it to Sunghoon, a plank of wood falls on him, causing him to collapse.

A group of people drop in from the roof, their backs facing Sunghoon. “I wasn’t planning for that to happen, but thanks for stepping on the roof, Red.”

One runs away as some of them chase them, while the other is attempting to get up from the floor, getting knocked out again by one of them and falling back on the floor.

Sunghoon’s eyes widen when one of them turns around and faces him. “Kazuha? You’re a spy?”

And once again, someone from behind whacks him in the face and is covered in cloth until Sunghoon blacks out.

“Beomgyu, I think you killed him.” Sunghoon felt himself lying down on a carpet; his eyes were still closed, but he could hear his friends speaking.

“Trust me, I did the same exact thing to Belle; he’s not dead.” He attempted to rub his eyes, but his arms fell asleep. His eyes crinkled and slowly opened. He was looking at a ceiling that was dark but covered with art.

"See, he’s not dead,” Beomgyu continued. His friends were facing him, watching him regain consciousness. “Goooooooood morning!” He chorused.

Sunghoon gets startled by them and sits up. “Where the hell am I?” He asked irately.

“L/N’s basement,” Minji answered. Sunghoon looks around the huge area; it doesn’t seem like your family’s basement. It was more of a laboratory with more machines and monitors. “Also known as I.R.I.S Team 5 Lair.”

“Lair? What the hell is going on?”

Kazuha sighs. “Dad is a well-known spymaster. Rival spies found out, and they were going to use you to spill the beans. Except you don’t know about the beans, and we didn’t think you’d be conscious by the time we arrived.”

“And you guys?”

“We work for Mr. Lee, the mastermind,” Belle answered.

“Lee? As in Mr. Lee Jihoon from Larkspur High School? Dude, I’m his favourite student! Wait, hold on, so you all are spies?” They all nod. “Guys, trust me, I promise not to tell.”

“It’s not that. Would you like to become a part of the team with us instead?” Beomgyu offers. The silence grew and became louder after his words.

“Hell no.”

Beomgyu scratches the back of his head. “What?! What do you mean 'no'? People sell their kidneys for this kind of job!”

“Too hard,” he deadpans.

Beomgyu is stunned by his responses. “We can train you, and we’ll give you fewer missions!” Sunghoon’s facial expression turns bitter, and he shakes his head. “I know you like jetpacks. How about a free jetpack?” He offers, going on his knees and clenching his fists together.

His face brightens, and he thinks. Should he or should he not join? He’s always wanted to try out a jetpack. “Now we’re talking,” he replied, with a complacent look on his face. Beomgyu sighs in relief and quickly gets up to reach for a contract and a pen on the table near him. He places the paper on the floor and tosses the pen to Sunghoon.

“Just sign here, and you’re free to leave!”

Sunghoon catches the pen and messily signs the contract. He drops the pen, and Beomgyu grabs the contract to look at the meaningful, messy signature. He jumps around in excitement. Sunghoon gets up from the ground and stretches his arms as he listens to Yeojin.

“From now on, when you walk into the halls of Salvia, Not only are you our friend, but you’re a spy—an I.R.I.S spy,” she reassured. Sunghoon smiled. This won’t be so hard after all for him.

“So where’s my jetpack?”

mlist — prev ; next

Secrets are meant to be kept. Sunghoon never keeps secrets though, well except one—his friends being members of a super secret spy team. He finds out on the night he gets kidnapped and is rescued by them. That night, his friend offers him to be a part of the team to stop an organization, SPY-DER LILLIES, from destroying their campus and agency, I.R.I.S (International Resource for Intellectual Spies). And like the goofy goober he is, he joins for a jetpack and to impress his longtime friend and crush, the black cat agent, in order to win her heart before the spiders come crawling up his back. 

spy! sunghoon x spy! f! reader

taglist is open ; send an ask or comment under main mlist

[ 🏷️ ] @hanniluvi @odxrilove @astrae4 @dimplewonie @asteriaskingdom @sakanelli-afc @en-kays @yeokii @kaykay11sworld @haknom (um guys don't ask why the tags don't work tumblr has something against me,.....)

[houndslayr]

Kinktober - Day 10 + 11

𝔐.𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱 | ℜ𝔲𝔩𝔢𝔰 | 𝔑𝔞𝔳𝔦. | 𝔎𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔱𝔬𝔟𝔢𝔯 𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱

Gender: Male reader

Prompt: Blindfolds + Breathplay

Character(s): Tartaglia (Ajax), Scaramouche

Warning(s): 18+, threesome, tops Tartaglia and Moochie, bottom reader, fucking on a desk, etc.

Words: 1000+ (This was only supposed to be under 400 words :'] )

A/N: We are gonna just unsee me being over 20 something days behind, I have been in and out of the hospital due to some recent shit. It's been very tiring so I really haven't felt comfortable writing lately. I promise I'll finish this but I will be throughout November, also thank you to the people who requested some days and gave me ideas.

Fem-aligned, yaoi/fujoshi supporters, pro/comshippers, mlm fetishizers dni you will be blocked

Your bruised knuckles knock on the splintered wooden door making the ugly black name plack ripple against the wood about to fall. An annoyed 'Who is it?' was barked through the door by the 11th harbinger. A shiver runs through your paranoid form, you were the captain of your team which had just failed an important mission to gather info on the blond traveler and his little companion.

"It's the captain of-" You were cut off when the door gets opened suddenly making you silently gasp as you stand before the 6th of the fatui harbingers. The glare that rested upon his face made you take a few steps back spooked. "Uh, I can come back.." You trail off gesturing behind you with your thumb slowly backing up.

Behind Scaramouche your boss Tartaglia stands up shaking his head 'no' and then beckoning you to come into the room. You were stunned not moving an inch which made Scaramouche get impatient. He reaches out gripping your coat and pulls you into the room with the two of them.

Now you stand stiff as a plank in front of your superior your sweaty hands desperately holding onto your coat, your gaze burning holes in the floor. "Report on your latest mission." Tartaglia steadily commanded before taking his seat again as the other harbinger leans against the only exit.

You are hesitant before swallowing all your fears that threaten to creep out. "My lord, I am afraid to report that the mission had gone sideways midway through-" You quickly bumble out, the feeling of Tartaglia seething with each word you spout. The air now hostile seems to slip into your gaping mouth and steal all your breath from your lungs but you still push forward with the report. "The traveler and his guide seemed to notice us and by we were quickly ambushed by them!"

By now the glare that the 11th harbinger was sending you could kill you if you meet his empty eyes. "This is the 4th time you and your team have failed me." His wrathful tone makes your knees almost buck under the pressure. You hear little giggles come from the other harbinger behind you but you don't dare to acknowledge them.

The coat that was on you to protect you from shezhnayas unforgiving elements felt too hot now; it was suffocating you. "What am I to do with you" You hear him fumingly huff. One of his gloved hands drums against the desk in thought for a moment before a sinister chuckle leaves him.

You dare to sneak a glance at him but soon regret it as the look on his face shakes you to your core, you wish you could just melt into the floor. "Come here," He lowly says motioning for you to stand in front of him behind his desk. You take slow strides towards him silently praying for any of the archons to give you hope that you would survive.

You finally stand before him with your head down submissively, trying to shrink into your lofty coat. From the corner of your eyes, you see Tartaglia shift in front of you. The touch of his gloved hands makes you jump with a little shriek escaping your cracked lips making the orange-haired harbinger snicker. His hands slid over your shoulders pushing off the large coat onto the floor only leaving you in your translucent shirt.

"My- My lord! What are you doing?!" You exclaim tripping over your words slightly as his hands roam over your chest. Your shaken eyes meet his cold blue ones, even through the sea that raged in his eyes mischief seemed to shine through right then.

"You see, I have been so very busy fixing my underling's mistakes that I haven't been able to have time for myself," His nails drag along your clothed breast making red lines under the fabric. "The stress has just got me pent up. Maybe if you help me with this pent-up stress then I'll let you off for this little fuck up." The tone he uses makes your cheeks flush as you anxiously nod.

"Good." You were forcefully pushed against the desk, your back scattering whatever was on it before. Your eyes meant the confused violet eyes of the 6th harbinger before shifting to the man who is now in between your legs.

"Childe, what are you doing?" Scaramouche hisses out from between his teeth. His face was almost as red as yours from just watching whatever was unfolding between the two of you. "Oh come on comrade! Lighten up!"

His hands traveled under your skin-tight shirt playing with your puffy nipples before dragging his nails down to rest on your hips. The bulge in his pants was more prominent now than ever as it pressed against your ass. He leans down so his chest touches yours, his ginger hair tickling your jaw. "You can call me Ajax for what we are about to do."

You nod watching him as he leans up to look through a drawer in his desk before pulling out a black cloth blindfold with the fatui symbol on it. The last thing you see before he tightens the piece of cloth around your eyes is his freckled face smiling while motioning for the other harbinger to come closer.

Now you were on high alert with your sight taken away, every touch that was laid on your body making you jump a little. A snap of fabric catches your attention as cold hands meet your skin, they were rough with calluses on them, an almost unnoticeable dip in the skin of the hand every so often from the old and new scars.

The rough hand's grip holds the edges of your shirt pulling it apart as the sound of fabric ripping draws a startled yelp from you. The cold air hitting your perky nipples before they get engulfed by warm touches and a wet mouth.

Next you feel a slender hand run over your cheek, it felt soft in contrast to the rough hand's that are pulling off your pants. The thumb of the hand rubs your lower lip before roughly prying opening your mouth. Thin fingers explore your wet mouth taking your attention off the ginger haired harbinger.

You could hear faint grumbling from the 6th harbinger above you. You didn't get to catch any of his words as you jerked forward. The feeling of Ajax taking your dick in his mouth sucking your soul out. One of his now ungloved hands hold down your hips while the other slick with what you think is lube teasing your rim.

"Ah- Ajax.. so good-" You moan out. Your bandaged knuckles gripping onto the edge of his desk.

Pleasure runs through your veins, almost covering the sudden sharp pain of your hair getting pulled back by Scaramouche.

"Open"

Being oh so obedient you immediately open your mouth at his command. Feeling his cock prod at you mouth you slack your jaw to open wider to accommodate his size. You could tell he wasn't huge, maybe just a bit above average.

He slides in with a delighted moan. Not even giving you time to adjust to the massive change. Your throat bulges slightly every time you tried to swallow. You let out small whimpers and moans from the long fingers that are spreading your ass while the loss of air makes you feel fuzzy.

Scaramouche gets bored of just the feeling of your mouth constricting on his cock. The short male starts to thrust rapidly constantly hitting the back of your throat. His hands feel under your jaw, the feeling of the lump appearing and disappearing constantly making him more horny.

Your body starts to feel high. Maybe it was the lack of air you were getting or maybe it was all the pleasure but you felt so out of it at that point. Everything felt so much. The feeling of being stuffed by two harbingers making you crazy.

Your ears ring and your skin feels on fire. The fuzzy feeling tickling your skin, it felt like static on your skin. The ringing in your ears blocked the sounds around you much like the blindfold did your sight. The sweltering heat around your body made it hard to concentrate on your situation. The cock stuffed down your throat cutting off your airways, thick purple hair itching your nose.

Stopping there before i go much farther. Again sorry for how late this is, just so much stuff has been happening, and going back and forth to the hospital is so stressful for me. Thankfully I should be out of the hospital for a bit so I'll try to post the rest of kinktober throughout the next two weeks.

Also, go check this post out to help me with my next series! {Link}

Last note on this fic but after I get kinktober done I might focus on some of my OCs in future fics for a month or two. I will still ofc write for other fandoms but I will focus on OCs for a little.