#me: *about to tell a lie that will inevitably come back to bite me in the ass later*

[valtsv]

one of these days someone is going to ask me to name a woman who inspires me and i'll be just not mentally engaged enough to say james fitzjames and only realise what i've done when they pull out their phone, look something up, and then look back at me with a baffled expression and say "the 19th century naval officer?"

[youryanderedaddy]

Yandere! Best friend

Tw: female reader, emotional manipulation, jealousy, toxicity, crude language, implied parental abuse/neglect, implied drugs, non - consensual touching, i love manipulative men too much for my own good :((

Summary: Toxic, codependent friendship turns sour. But that's really no surprise.

You love Lauren's flat. You know he's renting it for cheap because his dad is friends with the landlord - and he doesn't give a fuck about the place. You know by the wrappers on the ground and the cigarettes stacked burnt inside the drawers, the stench of weed stuck to the ceiling for what feels like forever - and it's no surprise. Lauren doesn't care about all the good things in his life. And you know by the broken mirror pieces never to be swept away and the pills hidden behind the sink.

Still, you like his flat. The kitchen alone is bigger than your mom's entire house. The fridge is never empty - full from top to bottom, to the very brim, bursting with everything from your favourite chocolate candy to cheap vodka, from top shelf whiskey to pickled onions and fancy imported foreign items you have never seen before with your own two eyes. All colorful, all set in alphabetical order - he's a neat freak like that, and it's no surprise. The central heating never stops, and it's never cold. It's a land of dreams, and some days you wish you could stay forever.

***

"Haha, aw." You whisper to yourself, shoulders moving slowly up and down in sync. You try to stop the slight blush from reaching your face, but it's inevitable, truly. You barely notice when your best friend sneaks behind you, quiet as a snake ready to bite into your open vein.

"You look awfully happy." He observes with certain distaste, almost grimacing - you don't have to look up from your phone, you know him too well, he must be grimacing, and clicking his tongue. "Did the old hag kick the bucket or somethin'?" His lips twist in a cruel little smile as he wraps his arms around your frame - which never ceases to make you feel as if you have a tiny mischievous demon on your shoulder. "No, wait, don't tell me you're getting fired from the burger place. That's even better!" His eyes glow with childish joy as he teases you, and you can feel your cheeks heating up.

"N-no, it's nothing like that. It's really stupid..." You try to look anywhere but at him, fiddling with your phone nervously. "Just go back to reading your book and leave me alone, jerk." You attempt to joke back, but your anxiety gives you away. It's foolish to lie to him to begin with - he's known you for years. He's known you since your father died, since your mother stopped caring whether you're alive or not. He's known you since you broke down in his arms for the first time. He's known you in nothing but smeared mascara and torn bottomless pockets, though empty wallets; he's known you, body and soul (and lips too, all those years ago). So of course he knows that you're lying.

"What is it?" He humms playfully leaning over your shoulder, chin resting on top of your breast. You feel the sweat sticking to his neck (was he in a fight again?), the heavy colognue coming off his black shirt as he tries to read the words on your screen. You quickly turn off your phone, and Lauren pouts, pretending to be upset. "What's so damn important that you can't even tell your best friend?" His voice is light and airy, privy, overwhelmingly sweet and sticky like burnt caramel.

You open your mouth, but no speech comes out. You feel embarrassed. You don't even know where to start. Then the man raises an eyebrow expectantly, eyes prompting Well?, growls in irritation quickly after, and reaches for a new thin cigarette, all in the same breath. He's always been like this - quick to set aflame. Impossible to predict. Hard to resist. Soft, sometimes. In your arms, mostly.

"Fine." He snaps at last, brows furrowed like an angered father as he stands up to get his keys from the table, heading towards the door. "Do whatever the fuck you want. It's not like I'm the only person in this ugly, shitty world who, like, dunno, gives a fuck about yo-"

"You'll just mock me!" You squeak out, crossing your arms together - regretting even laughing in the first place. Then, even more quietly. "If I tell you."

Lauren stills completely, slowly turning back towards you. Your heartbeat speeds up even more, if possible.

"What the fuck happened?" He remains serious, although slightly less aggravated now. "You know I hate this cryptic bullshit you do. Just speak up, you're not a child anymore." He gets closer to you, pointing at your chest. "M not your mommy, ain't gonna hit ya if you say the wrong thing."

You take a deep breath, eyes focused on the cigar hanging off his mouth - together with the sport hoodie and the cheap black beanie he looks like a small fish delinquent, and you have to stop yourself from laughing. But then you remember why you even fought in the first place, and you feel flustered all over again.

"I met someone." You blurt out in a rush to get it over with, averting your eyes to the TV still playing somewhere in the background. The sound has been turned to low - he says the commercials make him want to scratch his head from the inside.

"Huh?" His cigarette falls off. Ash all over the dirty wooden tiles.

"I met someon-

"Yes, I heard you the first time." Lauren pronounces slowly, lips stretching into his oh - so characteristic smile again. "I just couldn't believe it." He stomps over the half lit cigar, burning a hole into the floor. It doesn't look out of order with all the filth. "Who would have known. Heh." He stares at you for entirely too long - until you squirm with discomfort. "Who's the lucky guy?"

You want to ask him why it's so unbelievable for you to meet someone - but it's hard to find the words to. At the same time you know he's just joking, he'd never do anything to hurt you. He's just... rough around the edges.

"You don't know him." Warm heat travels through your body as you think about your secret admirer. "We met online."

"Of course you did." Your friend scoffs, rolling his eyes at you. Then he claps sardonically, lighting up another cigarette. He must have hundreds, if not thousands lying around. "Well, congratulations, princess. You may finally get pounded like a real bitch in heat. Isn't that nice?" The more you look at him, the more crooked his smirk seems to get.

"You're fucking disgusting." You hiss, standing up - ready to collect your things and leave.

You hate when he gets like this.

"Oh, not so fast. We're still talking, baby. Tell me everything." Lauren grabs your elbow, pulling you in with ease, and if he wasn't your best friend, you'd be terrified by how strong he is despite his seemingly slim build. "Does he tell you that you're beautiful? That you're just the most precious thing in the entire world?" His voice lowers down to a whisper in your ear. "Or is he even less creative with his lies?"

You pull away, eyes widening with disbelief.

"He's not like this! How can you even say all th-" You blurt out incoherently, but he stops you in the tracks with a single sharp glare. "He's not like that?" The man snorts in a rather nasty way, pulling you back in while you're too shocked to resist. "You're even dumber that I thought." His eyes narrow to two slits bleeding bile. "Did he fuck you already? Is that why you're acting so naive? You get some mediocre dick and now you're all star - eyed." He laughs with unhinged madness, orbs mudded with pure craze.

Before you can respond, your phone buzzes. You both stare at it for what feels like eternity - but he's faster, always. Ever since you were children. And as you're jumping away, fighting with teeth and nail to get your phone back, he's reading away at your most intimate thoughts and feelings.

"I feel like I've known you for ages." He reads out loud, trying to imitate the voice of the sender. "You must be my other half. I'd love to hold you and cherish you forever." The mocking nasal tone sinks with each word, and once he reaches "forever", it's almost silent. His hands are shaking, eyes blurry. The ink drowns the screen as if trying to get under his own fingernails.

And when he smashes the phone in the ground, it's really no surprise.

"Lauren!" You gasp, falling down to collect the pieces, grabbing at the broken plastic with feral grip. But there's just too many of them, and not enough glue in the whole wide world.

"I should have known you were up to no good in that miserable house. That crack-whore mother of yours is putting these... ideas in your head." He chuckles coldly, staring at you from aboving with unreadable expression - and from so low on the ground he looks like the sun. "She made you believe someone could actually love... you."

He suddenly squats down to your level.

"News-fucking-flash, sweetheart." His fist wraps around your hair, pulling at will. It burns your scalp, but you can't look away, hypnotized by the motion of his lips, the silky cruelty of his voice teasing your ears. "Nobody loves you. Nobody will ever love you - not your poor dead bum of a father, not that bitch you call mother and certainly not this fool you think you love. How could they love you? You're a fucking mess!"

He's laughing at the tears slowly pouring down your cheeks. You're so beautiful when you cry.

"How could they love you?" He repeats softly, stroking your cold wet cheek with two slender fingers - the same fingers that always dry your tears. Then his lips touch your eyelids, slowly, torturously - the same lips that always bring you to tears. "They wouldn't know what to do with you. Such a fragile girl." His nose rubs against your collarbone and suddenly you're drowning in your sadness like a sailor lost at sea. "Such a fragile, broken little girl."

And yet you still love Lauren's apartment, it's never cold, and it's always silent. So silent you can hear your own heartbeat - and so lonely you can taste your tears on his lips.

[lovebugism]

ok what about virgin!eddie x reader -- "when he wears THAT flannel" i just want to see him getting showered in compliments and fawning over the attention, he deserves it !!

thanks for ur request angel :D — eddie tries to wear something new and you can't stop ogling at him (established relationship, fluff, part of the tcar universe, 0.8k)

fictober (㇏(•̀ᵥᵥ•́)ノ)

Eddie attempts to hang ghost lights on the ceiling of the living room. It’s made only slightly difficult by the rickety step stool he stands on. It’s damn near impossible with the thick flannel constricting his arms.

“Fuck…” he grumbles like a storm cloud, face scrunched in a subtle pout.

You squint up at him from where you untangle the string lights. You watch him rotate his shoulders in distant discomfort, still trying to get used to the new shirt Uncle Wayne bought him.

“You okay, Eds?”

“Yeah, it just… fits weird.”

He squirms in his skin again, and you bite back a laugh. 

Your gaze falls to his pale tummy when his arms raise to pin the lights to the wall. His skin is milky white, powder-soft. A tuft of chestnut hair peeks out from the hem of his sweatpants. It suddenly becomes dreadfully difficult to look away from his happy trail.

“I don’t know…” you hum, shrugging as your fingers work a knot from the tangled wire. “I think it fits perfect.”

His chocolate eyes narrow down at you. He playfully jerks at the inch of string lights you give him, tugging down the bottom of his flannel with his free hand. “Keep it in your pants, freak,” he mumbles, a crooked smile hinting at his lips.

You pull yours between your teeth to conceal its brightness.

Eddie keeps working but grows bitterly aware of the fabric weighing on his torso. He’s not used to wearing something so heavy, so dreadfully un-lived in. It’s thick and itchy, so overwhelmingly overstimulating that it’s almost impossible to move in.

Then he feels your eyes on him, and there’s nothing he loves more than your attention, but he still feels a bit like a teenage boy. He’s lanky and clumsy and insecure in just about every aspect, but especially in his body.

It’s weird to have someone who loves him and thinks he’s pretty. It’s good, amazing even, but weird nonetheless. It should make him feel better about himself, and it does a lot of the time, but it also makes him extremely hyperaware of what he looks like and how you must see him.

So when he lifts his arms too high and his pale, pudgy midriff flashes for a second, he huffs all dramatic and stomps down the ladder. “Alright, I’m gonna go change—”

“What? No,” you whine instantaneously, pouting more sincerely than he’s ever seen you. “You look so cute, Eds. Don’t take it off.”

“I look like a lumberjack,” the boy scoffs.

“A very sexy lumberjack,” you correct with a pretty smile.

Eddie grins back, all wide and rosy. He cups your face with warm, calloused palms. “You’re real cute when you lie to me, you know that?” he teases with a scrunched nose.

“I’m not lying! I wouldn’t tell you that if it wasn’t true!”

“No?”

“Nope,” you answer, popping the ‘p’ and shaking your head in his hands. “I’m obsessed with you, and I’m a terrible liar. So you’d definitely know if I wasn’t telling the truth.”

Eddie hopes his cheeks aren’t as red as they feel. “Fair enough,” he mumbles with a curt shrug.

“I, for one, think you look very, very handsome.” You grin and lean forward to kiss the very tip of his nose. It’s warm and pink like the rest of his crumbled-up face. 

“Thanks, mom…”

“And I think you look super cozy, too,” you confess, spreading your palms along his covered stomach.

“Cozy?”

“Yeah. You know, like soft— nostalgic. Like a house—”

His chin falls to his chest as he flashes you an incredulous, deadpanned look. “You’re saying I look like a house?”

“No, dummy! You don’t look like a house! You… I don’t know, you feel like a house,” you stammer, then inevitably start to ramble. “Like, you look like where I wanna come home after a long day at work and throw down my keys and take a nap, you know?”

You feel safe, is what you’re really telling him. You feel like where I wanna spend the rest of my life.

Eddie grins so brightly his blushed cheeks start to ache. He can’t help but tease you, anyway. “You got… all that… from a flannel?” he jokes slowly.

“No!” you scoff with the roll of your eyes, perhaps too quickly to be true. “…Not totally. But I do love the easy access, though.”

A tingle rushes up Eddie’s spine when your fingers migrate beneath his flannel. Your touch is soft and cold compared to the warmth of his belly. Your nails scratch at the sparse tuft of hair of his happy trail. He swears his vision goes white for a blink.

He doesn’t get the obsession you have — with his stomach or with him at all — but he revels in it, anyway. He feels like he should. Most people don’t get to find their soulmate, and he gets an entire lifetime with his.

“You’re crazy,” he says, shaking his head and beaming wide.

“For you,” you croon, lovesick and honeyed.

He laughs. “And cheesy."

You shrug and smile, his hands on your cheeks. “What can I say? You bring out the worst in me.”

And if this is the worst, Eddie can’t fucking wait for a lifetime of evil.

[candiiee]

ᴅᴇᴋᴜᴛᴏʙᴇʀ ᴅᴀʏ ᴇɪɢʜᴛ: ꜱʟᴇᴇᴘʏ

summary: izuku falls asleep in your arms after returning from his vigilante shenanigans

warnings: sleepy boi, maybe angst, swearing, anger issues, maybe blurring the line between friends and lovers

an: diskxjcjf, this was rushed

Getting Izuku to come back home, back to you, had been a big pile of angst and depression.

But it was worth it. He was back. He had come back to you.

The other guys had gone through the great trouble of bathing him, and now here he sat, bundled in blankets in the common area.

Everyone surrounded him, watching the sweet boy look so sleepy, and cooing how adorable he looked. Well, mostly you.

And maybe he looked a bit unnerved that everyone (you) was (were) watching him.

“You guys don’t have to watch me..” he said, looking a bit more alert, perhaps deciding to save you the embarrassment.

“Can’t risk you bolting for it.” You answered, tilting your head.

“…really Y/N?” He pouted. He looked adorable. But you weren’t gonna tell him that.

“I can’t believe you thought a simple letter was enough to satisfy m-us. You just had to be all high and mighty and run away.” You say, slightly glaring at him.

He swallowed, “W-Well..” you don’t let him finish.

“Quite frankly, I’m very pissed at you. Like, very.” Everyone had noticed that you seemed to truly miss him, but wasn’t going to let him escape your wrath. You weren’t even gonna let the boy rest. They had all started ever so slowly inching towards the door, sensing the inevitable maybe shit-show.

“Oh that’s true.” Kirishima spoke up, deciding to be the damage control.

He smiled uneasily, “When they got that goodbye note, they were practically ready to go look for you. All while they cursed and looking quite murderous.”

You shot a glare in his direction, signalling him to can it. Whether he saw it or not, he didn’t stop.

“And they-“

Thank goodness Izuku cut him off. “I said I was sorry..”

You glared at him, flicking his forehead. “Sorry or not, you were very stupid.”

He pouted, looking a bit ashamed. It made you feel a bit guilty, but you pushed those feelings down.

“M’ sorry..” he looked like he was going to cry, like the little baby he was.

“I don’t understand how you defeated villains after they tried to capture you, then get all blubbery once anger issues here points out how dangerous and stupid that was.” Bakugo spoke up.

You glare at him, “Stop calling me that.”

He scoffs, then utters, “Make me.”

With a growl, almost launch yourself at him, and find yourself restrained by icythot.

“Fucking icythot let me go!”

“You’re going to hurt Bakugo, and as his friend and yours, I can’t let you do that.” He says calmly.

“We are not friends Icyhot!” Bakugo said, even that was practically a lie.

You tried to free yourself, even thinking about biting him.

“Y/N…” Izuku said, getting off the couch. “I-“

Yaoyorozu cuts in, “L/N, please don’t attack Bakugo-san, and I’m sure Todoroki will let you go.”

You grumbled, but nodded. Todoroki slowly loosened his grip, and because you respected Yaoyorozu, Bakugo didn’t get his face clawed off.

You cross your arms, momentarily forgetting Izuku existed, when he taps your shoulder.

“I really am sorry Y/N..” you eye him, then sigh.

“I know you are. Just..don’t do that again or else I’ll kill you. And go to sleep.” You flick his forehead.

He winces, but nods. He glances towards the couch, then everyone around him.

“Everyone fucking leave.” You say, and while they are used to your swearing, they start to leave. Bakugo glances at Izuku and you, looking like he wants to say something, anything, but sets his jaw and leaves.

You start to follow him, when Izuku tugs on your arm. “Um..could you sleep with me?”

While you would tease him for his choice of words, you cut him some slack, pretending to think about it then nod. “Don‘t see why not.”

He smiles, relieved. “Just don’t expect me to cuddle you.” You tease, and he blushes.

“W-well-I’m n-not s-saying you s-should c-cuddle me, but I’m n-not saying y-you shouldn’t!”

You smirk, tousling his messy hair, messing it up even more. “I’m just teasing.”

He blushes, “I know..”

You lie down on the couch, and he crawls in next to you. He blushes, despite having slept in your arms multiple times before.

You spoon him, your head resting on his shoulder as he pulls the blanket over you two.

You wait a while, and when you’re sure he fell asleep, you whisper, “I did miss you..and I do still feel like throttling you..but I’m glad you’re back.”

You gather your courage, and peck his neck, as it was the closest. You sigh, and doze off, unaware that Izuku was still awake.

@candiiee 2024

dekutober prompts made by @getstarried

taglist: @dokidokidraft @mo0nforme

[gtgbabie0]

{After distancing yourself from Cregan the truth finally comes out}

Hope you enjoy as always lovelies! 💕

CW// reader is pregnant

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Cregan grew up in the North, he became acclimatised to the cold weather as he grew, but yet he’s never felt so cold then he does right now in your shared bedchambers, despite the warmth of the fire. It’s a type of feeling that completely renders him numb. An aching feeling that sits heavy against his chest, it’s almost as if he can’t breathe.

He watches you climb into bed slipping underneath the many furs. His heart freezes as the realisation slowly sets in, he’s in for another night of silence, and like every other night for the past few weeks you’ll sleep as far away as possible, shrugging off his touch.

It's not that you didn't want him to touch you, quite the opposite actually. You just couldn't risk his wandering hands grazing against your tiny bump, you wouldn't let him find out, not that way.

He doesn’t think he can go another night of isolation. So he reaches out to you in hopes you’ll reopen your caged heart to him once again, just as you did all those moons ago when he confessed his feelings to you.

“Love, will you please tell me what’s bothering you? I can’t stand this silence” he says, a gentle hand against your shoulder and he winces when he feels you go rigid under his palm.

He retreats his hand not wanting to be the cause of your discomfort. You don’t look at him, far too afraid of the pain that will stain his face.

It’s not that you don’t want to tell him, in all honesty, you so desperately wanted to share the news, but you’ve heard so my awful stories from other ladies about their husbands seeking pleasure through other means, how they are completely abandoned by them simply because they were ‘undesirable’ it hurt to hear. You couldn’t imagine going through that.

So maybe that’s why you push Cregan away, because if you do it first it’ll hurt less when does inevitably happen.

“Nothing is wrong Cregan, I’m tired,” you say, wrapping your arms around yourself in search of comfort.

He likes to think that he is a calm man, never quick to anger but right now in this moment, anger is quick to warm his heart.

“Do not lie to me” he says, tone firm. You have only ever heard that when some lord made the mistake of insulting you in front of him, you remember thinking how you never wanted to be on the receiving end of that, yet here you are.

You sigh, biting back the tears that sting the back of your throat. “I just want to sleep Cregan” you whisper and he doesn’t miss the way your voice quivers.

You hear him let out a deep breath, then the bed shifts and he’s getting ready. The sudden change in the atmosphere makes you sit up, bringing the furs up with you, protecting yourself from the bitter cold.

“Where are you going?” You ask, watching as he laces up his boots, his eyes flicker to yours for a moment but they don’t linger long.

“I have work to do. Don’t wait up for me” he tells you and before you even have time to try and even think of what to say he’s gone.

You don’t bother stopping the tears that fall so effortlessly from your eyes. A regretful sob broke through your lips as you feel yourself engulfed by unwavering guilt, the type that pinches at your heart leaving bruises in its wake.

You can’t find solace in sleep, not without Cregan beside you. So you wait, and wait a book in your lap but you pay it no mind as your eyes stay fixed on the door.

You questioned whether or not he had already found another woman. Filthy thoughts tainting your mind, and you know it’s silly. Cregan would never break your trust or heart like that, never.

The hours seem to drag, and you contemplate if you should go out and find him yourself to say your sorries and give him a well-earned explanation, but the Maesters told you rest is the best thing for the babe.

Then the heavy wooden door opens, and there he is. “I told you not to wait up,” he says, and you watch him intently as he takes off his furs and leather.

You want to speak but you haven’t the slightest idea of where to even begin, there are so many words that rattle around in your brain but none of them seem good enough.

He looks over at you, and if it weren’t for the anger that still tingles his skin he would’ve felt sorry for the way you seemed to go in on yourself.

“Have I done something? Offended you somehow?— hurt you?” He wonders, wincing at the way his voice trembles, and the sound brings tears to your eyes.

You shake your head, trying to string a sentence together but the only thing that comes out is a pitiful sob. Emotions collide in your chest.

“Then what is it y/n? Why are you treating me as if I’m a stranger?” He asks, sitting at the end of the bed.

You study the scars that litter his chest, the one that travels across his ribcage that you love to you trace with gentle fingers, and you yearn to be held by him once again.

“I’m so sorry,” you tell him, your hand splayed against your collarbones. You can’t stop the cries that escape you. You shuffle down to where he’s sitting, a careful hand against his shoulder. “I’m sorry Cregan- I can explain” you gasp.

His slightly calloused hand soothes the expanse of your back, he hates seeing you so upset. The painful expression that paints your face, how your eyebrows furrow together. He promised himself that he’d do anything in his power to prevent this.

He wants to be mad, but he can't not when your shoulders shake as you try to stifle your cries behind a shaky hand.

“Love, breathe,” he says, taking your hand in his as he guides you through deep breaths. He’s always been so good at that.

He brings your hand to his lips, kissing your knuckles gently and you sigh at the feeling of his beard against your skin.

“Cregan, I-” you look up at him as he urges you to continue, worry laced through his eyes, “I am with child” you whisper, your eyes flickering down to where your hands lay against his lap entwined with his own.

“The ladies have said- told stories of how their bodies change, how they no longer look the same as before- their husbands, they-” you sob, not being able to finish the sentence, a desperate need to get him to understand. And he does, he knows what you’re trying to say, and it hurts him beyond words that you would ever even consider the possibility.

His hands gently cup your tearful face, and he gives you the most endearing look he could muster. “My precious wife” he starts, pressing a kiss to your forehead, “You are the light of my life, my heart is yours entirely,” he tells you, a sense of relief washing over him as you fling yourself into his arms.

It was silly of you to doubt his love, especially for you. “I know- I’m sorry,” you tell him, kissing his shoulder.

“How long have you known?” He asks, his hands grasping at your hips.

“I had a suspicion for a while” you confess, bringing his hands to your belly. You let out a breathy giggle at the way his eyes light up with excitement as his hand soothe the expanse of your stomach.

He presses a gentle kiss to your lips before wiping away the stray tears that fall from your lashes, “A pup of our own eh?” He says, a teasing look flashing through his eyes as he urges you to lay against the pillows.

His hand dips underneath your nightdress grazing along your thigh travelling to rest at the curve of your stomach, your bump was barely there but yet he knows the difference. He smiles at you softly, enjoying the way your breath hitches at his touch.

“I promise I’ll take such good care of you, and our little one” he says, love bleeding into his tone as he peppers your neck with kisses. Your fingers thread through his hair as you urge him closer to you, you had missed him more than you thought.

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[godmadeaterribleerror]

Chapter 8 - I Just Find My Way Back

Series Masterlist

Author's Note: I have heard the unanimous pro-long chapter response, and present you with 9.3k words of plot progression and 10k words of banter, backstory, and a secret third thing. Enjoy! Chapter Title is from Cinnamon Girl by Lana Del Ray

Word Count: 19k

Chapter Summary/Warnings: Ben makes a choice, and you try something new. Self-inflicted starvation and unhealthy contraceptives.

Tags: Soldier Boy/Supe!Female Reader, canon divergence, enemies to friends to lovers, canon divergence, slow burn, fluff, angst, light smut, pining

Read on A03!

Chapter 7 - Chapter 9

Taglist: @lordofthunderthr @kritara @sukunassfinger, @justiceforquentin @acciditties

@c1gs-coffee @manicjk

Want to be tagged? Just ask!

The sun had long risen into the sky before Ben moved from her side. He hadn’t slept, only watched her chest rise and fall in smooth movements and failed to smother the thing in his chest—how it would've been content there forever—before realizing he needed to piss, and no amount of stupid, confusing fucking feelings could make him hold it longer.

After, instead of returning to the bed, Ben left her room and made his way down to the kitchen. He put the coffee on, roughly spreading something called “strawberry cream cheese” She’d introduced him to across a bagel—it was almost as good as crack, and given that the CIA was full of uptight pussies who wouldn’t buy him the real shit, it had to do—as he waited for it to brew. When it finished, Ben poured half into a mug—leaving the rest for Her to find—before dropping himself at the counter.

He ate in silence, listening to Her heartbeat upstairs, and thought once more about Butcher’s offer. Homelander’s offer. He’d wanted to tell Her, ask for whatever inevitable fucking opinion she would have about how he should answer. She was good at it, this planning and thinking shit, and Ben had yet to see her falter at any useless moral hurdles. He’d figured out Her hard line—no innocents—but when it came to the opposition, she didn’t pull punches. Metaphorical punches. Despite Ben’s best efforts, She was still far more fucking bark than bite.

He hadn’t mentioned it though, because she’d shut down and it suddenly hadn’t felt that fucking important anymore. And now, after the shitshow last night, Ben wasn’t going to. He could make the fucking call himself, because he was a grown ass fucking man. Because Ben was more than damn capable of meeting with Homelander and coming out unscathed.

It wasn’t because Ben fucking knew She’d tell him to do it, and then bitch at him until she’d weaseled her way into the meeting.

It wasn’t because he didn’t want Her anywhere fucking near the meeting and the star-spangled pussy in attendance.

So—when he heard Her start to shuffle in her room, moving around for a few minutes before the door opened and she made her way downstairs—Ben decided he’d figure it out, call Butcher by his own goddamn self, and She wouldn’t have to know anything about it until well fucking after.

“Morning, Pretty Boy.” She mumbled, shuffling into the kitchen and trying to blink herself awake.

“Mornin’ Sunshine,” Ben tried—and failed—not to smile at her less-than-ladylike demeanor and let out a low chuckle as She ran fully into the counter with a yelp. “Sleep well?” He knew She had, but he enjoyed her still-sleepy scowl too much not to ask.

“Fuck off.” She grumbled, and he laughed.

“Welcome back, bitch.”

“Cunt,” she mumbled half-heartedly, rubbing her eyes. “Coffee?”

Ben pointed to the pot, and She let out a satisfied noise that made the Thing in his chest fucking whine like a pussy.

“All for me?” She asked with a slack smile at Ben.

“All for you,” he grumbled. “But it’s getting cold, and I’m not making you fucking more.”

She shrugged, grabbing a mug from the shelves. “Any news from the Boys?”

“Nope,” Ben watched Her pour the coffee, and something squeezed around his ribs as the lie left him. “They fucking benched us until they figure out what to do with the news.”

“About what Firecracker said?” She said softly, staring down at her now full mug.

Ben grunted an affirmation, She let out a sad little sigh, and the damn fucking Thing wanted to grab her again. “Maybe Butcher will finally fucking use the information the red-haired broad gave him, and it’ll get shit moving again.”

She frowned at him, and her heart skipped a single beat. “You mean Ashley?”

“Sure,” Ben said with an eye roll. “There’s a lot of fucking people, Sunshine. I can’t be expected to remember every pussy idiot I meet.”

She let out a low laugh, and the Thing was insufferably fucking pleased. “Fair enough.”

Ben waited for Her to share whatever thoughts he’d been certain she’d have about Ashley and the information, but She only sat at his side, looking up at him with a small smile. The Thing in Ben’s chest was starting to be fucking problem, because it was so goddamn satisfied that She was talking to him again it didn’t want to push her for answers. Ben only barely managed to overpower it and ask, “The fuck you think is taking that pussy so long?”

She raised her brows. “Which pussy are we talking about now?”

“Butcher. And the information.” He didn’t miss the slightest increase in Her heart rate, despite her bored shrug.

“Dunno.” Before Ben could ask more questions, she continued. “Does everyone know I’m awake?”

“No,” Ben scowled. “How would I have fucking told them?”

She let out a hum. “Touché.” She stood once more, taking her mug with her. “I’m gonna go call Annie and get changed, I’ll meet you back here after.”

“Get changed?” Ben grabbed Her arm before she could leave his side. “For fucking what?”

“Training.” She grinned down at him. “I’m going to kick your fucking ass for calling me a ‘goddamn idiot’ while I was crying.”

“I got you to stop fucking wallowing. And fucking stayed with you all goddamn night like you begged me to.” Ben jabbed, and Her smile grew.

She leaned forward, holding his gaze with her own.

“I’ve never begged you for anything, Pretty Boy. It’s going to take a fucking miracle for me to start now.” The Thing roared so loud at her words that Ben’s grip grew slack, and She pulled her arm away. “This will take twenty minutes, and then I’m going to wipe the floor with your fucking face.”

She left the room, leaving Ben in the kitchen, alone, trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened. He almost stood from the counter, ready to march after Her and demand some sort of fucking elaboration—he wasn’t even sure for what, just that She wasn’t fucking allowed to say shit like that and walk away—but Ben had barely shifted before he realized his dick was fucking hard, and chasing after Her was no longer an option.

Ben had twenty minutes. Twenty minutes to take care of his boner, figure out how to smother the Thing for good, and get his fucking shit in order. She was just another woman, just another pretty face. He’d gotten hard-ons from a lot less and jerked himself off a lot faster. This was no fucking different. She was no fucking different. Just another fucking pretty face.

Beautiful, the Thing reminded him. She’s not just pretty. She’s beautiful.

If his boner wasn’t starting to be fucking painful, Ben would’ve spent the entire twenty minutes trying to figure out how to make the Thing shut the fuck up.

He made his way upstairs, steps faltering outside Her door as he listened to her move around inside like a fucking creep.

“I’m fine,” she was saying to someone, probably fucking Starlight or Cocksucker. It hadn’t escaped Ben how they were the only fuckers who really ever asked Her. “I promise. Don’t worry about me, Annie, I’m really okay.”

Ben scowled at the door, almost forgetting about his angry hard-on as the memory of Her curled up, shaking with despair less than twelve hours ago, flashed in his head.

“Are you sure?” Starlight’s voice was slightly static. “Because if you need a break from Soldier Boy to deal with this we can figure something out.”

Ben was going to kill the bitch, consequences be fucking damned. He was only fucking seconds away from barging into the room, from giving Starlight a descriptive warning of how he was going to fuck her face up so much Cocksucker left her, when he heard Her sharp, quick answer.

“No.” Her voice sounded almost panicked. “I’m staying here. I don’t need a break from Ben. Please, I’m good, he’s good, everything is fine. I don’t want-“ She cut herself off slightly, and Ben heard the flutter of her heart. “It’s good here. Ben’s good. Don’t worry about us.”

Ben’s good, Her voice echoed in his head, and the Thing was pounding against him. Ben’s good.

He needed to fucking move before he barged into Her room and demanded to know what the fuck she meant by Ben’s good. He needed to take care of himself before She saw him, and he had to come up with a lie about why he was standing outside her door with a boner.

Ben barely managed not to slam his door behind him—an action he knew She’d hear and barge in to demand what was making him so pissy—and dropped onto his bed, practically ripping his own pants and underwear off. He closed his eyes, took a strong breath, and began to fucking his fist with rough abandon. It just had to be fucking fast, he just had to find fucking relief before She came looking for him.

The Thing had other plans. The Thing wanted to take its time, to listen to Her heartbeat only doors away, and to imagine her there, how her heartbeat would race as he fucked her. The Thing was offering Ben countless fantasies to choose from. Her under him as he fucked her stupid. Her on his lap, tits bouncing as he slammed up into her. Her on her knees, mouth wide open, drool falling down her chin, his hand in her hair. In every one She moaned and whined, but the one that made him almost feral, made his hand move faster along his length than Ben had thought possible, was the one where She was up against his wall, legs around his waist, begging.

Ben, a phantom of Her voice moaned into his ear. Please.

This feel like a fucking miracle, Sunshine? Ben’s own voice growled through his head. I feel fucking good?

“Ben?” Her voice, her real voice, sounded from outside his door, and Ben bucked up into his fist. “You in there?”

“I’m-“ He bit down a groan. “I’m busy, Sunshine.” Then, just to keep Her there, maybe hear her voice again, he called out again. “What?”

“Can I come in?”

“No!” He shouted, struggling to come up with a fucking reason for Her not to come in, an effort not made any damn easier by the Thing practically straining for Her. “I’m- fuck. ” Ben swore under his breath, feeling real damn thankful she didn’t have supe-hearing. “I’m fucking changing!”

“Oh,” Her voice had an edge Ben didn’t understand, but her heart stammered into a faster pace, and the Thing grabbed onto the sound and dragged him closer to the edge. “The call went faster than I thought. I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re done.” Even as her tone returned to its usual amused droll, her heart didn’t slow. “Get fucking ready, Pretty Boy. I’m going to make you regret being born.”

Ben bit down another groan. He was so fucking close, just a little fucking further- “I’ll make you fucking beg, Sunshine.” The words were low, through gritted teeth as he hovered on that edge- He didn’t even fully mean for Her to hear-

“I’d like to see you try, Ben.” She said, and that fucking did it. Her words, her heartbeat, her tone as she drawled his name, the smug grin Ben could see fucking perfectly in his head—they all grabbed him and yanked him over.

“ Brat,” he grunted as his relief burst from him, finding every fucking surface in the room.

“Cunt,” She pushed back, and Ben wasn’t sure if it was the Thing simply making him a fucking idiot or not, but the edge in her voice sounded fucking breathy. Her heart fucking faltered. For a very long second, Ben waited fucking pathetically for her to say something more, praying like a goddamn pussy for Her to burst into the room and fulfill all those fantasies still lingering in his head, but her heart faded down the hall with her steps, and Ben was left with only himself and his mess.

It took Ben ten minutes to clean up and change, but it felt like a fucking hour. Though his body was satiated, the Thing was hungry. He had given it a taste of something he didn’t want to fucking think about, and now it wanted more. Ben didn’t fucking get it, couldn’t fucking understand why it was—he was—being so fucking pathetic about this. He wasn’t a fucking uptight choir boy, he’d jerked off probably more times than She’d even had sex. He’d had sex more times than any other fucker in history. He’d done things that would make Butcher blush, and those memories had fueled his drive more than enough since he’d been awake. He wouldn’t fucking lie and say She’d never made appearances in theses types of thoughts before—Ben was a red-blooded man with eyes, and he wasn’t going to feel fucking guilty about it—but they’d been brief, and they hadn’t left him reeling like a goddamn fucking pussy. Like he was now.

He had to fucking get it together.

When he arrived down in the kitchen, having done a very careful inspection of himself for any lingering evidence, Ben found Her stuffing her face with the bagel he’d left behind, looking up with wide eyes as he entered the room.

“Sorry-“ She roughly swallowed, and that didn’t fucking help Ben at all. “But you should know better than to leave food just out.”

“There’s a whole fucking fridge full of the stuff behind you, Sunshine,” he grunted, moving around the counter. “Could’ve fucking used it.”

She shrugged, licking her fingers clean, and there was no fucking way she wasn’t doing this to him on purpose. “You’ll get over it.” She gave him a toothy smile. “Ready to have your ass handed to you on a silver fucking platter?”

Ben smirked, leaning down to Her eye level. “I’m going to fucking make you cry, brat.”

There it was again. That fucking falter. And something flashed in Her eyes, barely fast enough for Ben to catch before she blinked and it was gone, Her gaze holding his with a steel glare.

“Fucking bring it, Pretty Boy.”

He laughed, rising to his full height as she stood from the counter. “Aren’t you mighty fucking cocky for someone who’s only hit me twice.”

“Thrice. I’ve hit you thrice.” Her words were muttered with a pretty frown as she walked toward the dining room—they had long repurposed it into a mock training area—and Ben grinned as he followed her.

“Twice, Sunshine. I don’t count the hit where you fucking cheated.”

She snorted. “Oh, shove it up your ass, Pretty Boy. Like you’ve never cheated before.”

“I’ve never gotten caught,” Ben said smugly. “Big fucking difference.”

She turned as they stopped in the center of the room, raising her fists to the defensive stance he’d taught her. “Somehow,” She smirked. “I really doubt that.”

Ben moved to match Her, shrugging as he did so. “Doesn’t matter what you believe, Sunshine. Truths the truth.”

“I’m going to burn your whole beard off this time, cunt.”

“Fucking try it, brat.” Her heart faltered again, and Ben decided—as long as She kept up that fucking reaction—he was going to keep calling her that until she physically made him stop. “I’ll put the TV on that fucking reality channel you hate and break the damn remote.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You hate E! more than I do. I just hate the ads, you hate everything about it.”

“All the tits are fucking fake,” Ben muttered and She snorted. “And so are the fucking-“

“Asses?” She finished his sentence with an eye roll. “Yeah, I’m sure fake tits and BBLs really hurt your refined, feminist sensibilities.”

“What the fuck is a BBL?”

“Brazilian Butt Lift.”

“You can’t just fucking say shit-“

“Jesus, it’s a plastic surgery, and it’s pretty self-descriptive. Actually, you’d probably like them.”

“Fuck no, I like it fucking natural, I have no interest in fucking something that’s not-“

“Totally real and able to enjoy it. I’ve heard the sales pitch, Pretty Boy.” She gave him a slack, taunting smile. “Are you going to keep stalling, or put your money where your mouth is?”

Ben winked at Her. “I’ll put my mouth and my money wherever I fucking want, Sunshine.”

She met his cocky smirk with one of her own. “Prove it.”

By the end of it, both of them agreeing after two grueling hours to shower, fucking eat something, and spend the remainder of the night at the TV—She had made some amazingly graphic threats about what she’d do if he broke the remote while she heated dinner—Ben was more torn by his goddamn fucking feelings then he’d ever been in his life. There was pride coursing through him, She’d hit him five more times and only two of the punches had been cheating, there was the Thing in his chest, pounding in excitement like a fucking pussy at the simple goddamn idea of sitting next to her while they ate, and there was the hunger, low in his gut and straining against his pants, looping the image of Her all sweaty and flushed from exertion around and around his head.

He was very fucking thankful that Her own eagerness to get into the shower made her leave the room fast enough not to notice anything, and decided to take a very long, very cold shower himself to get a goddamn fucking grip before this became a problem.

It worked well—Ben made it through their returned ritual of dinner and TV without even a fucking hiccup, even fucking managed to sling his arm over the back of the couch without thinking about it was coincidentally hanging over Her—until a little after midnight when She’d fucking asked him to stay in her room again.

“I- um,” Her voice had started quieter than usual, not fully looking at Ben as she spoke. “I’m feeling better, really. But, uh, if you’d be okay with it-”

“Sunshine,” he’d nudged Her with his shoulder, and when she’d turned her pretty face, cast in only the glow of the TV light, towards him, the Thing rumbled. “Stop pussyfooting and-”

“Say what I mean?” She’d finished his sentence with a small smile. That was something she really needed to stop fucking doing. “Stay in my room tonight. Just until I fall asleep. If you want.” She’d watched him carefully as she tacked on the end.

Ben had given Her a smirk, and decided to feed the Thing just a little. “Beg.”

“Fuck you,” She’d snorted, but there was no anger in her words, so Ben pushed a little further.

“I’m serious, Sunshine. You really want me there? Beg. ”

“I’ll cut off your dick, cunt.” She’d glowered.

He’d shrugged. “Have it your way, brat.”

“ Fucking asshole,” She’d muttered under her breath, heart stumbling for only a second before she’d fully turning her body towards Ben. She’d fluttered her eyelashes sarcastically, giving him a simpering smile, her voice sickly sweet. “Please, Ben. Please, grace me with your holy presence so that I may have six hours of sleep that are not plagued by nightmares. Please, sir, do me the kindness of not making me wake up screaming from memories of being fucking tortured.”

Ben grunted, forcing a smile onto his face as the Thing howled. “Of course, Sunshine. All you had to do was ask.”

She rolled her eyes, pulling herself off the couch. “I need to shit, I’ll see you in my room in five.”

Ben let himself dwell for a second after She left, trying to push the sound of her voice, however mocking, say please, Ben and sir and the image of her fake pouting at him as light flickered across her face. Through an inhuman—even for Ben—amount of self-restraint, he managed to pull his shit all the way together and push it deep, deep down for the Thing to follow before making his way up the stairs.

When he entered Her room, she was already sitting on the bed, covers pulled over her body, on the same side as the previous night. Ben started to walk carefully over to the empty half of the mattress, but she sat up a little, pointing behind him.

“Lights.” She explained, a slightly apologetic look on her face. “Please.”

“Only because you fucking said please,” Ben grumbled, and flicked the little switch on the wall before making his way to Her side. He’d barely kicked his legs up onto the mattress when She closed her eyes, and her heartbeat began to slow into a peaceful steady rate.

He wasn’t sure how, but Ben slept as well, and when the nightmare—one of his more frequent ones about a man in a lab coat tears out his heart, holding it up for the world to see, and echoes of laughter carving into Ben’s head—caught him, he woke in a cold sweat and felt Her curled fully into his side, his arm holding her there. His breathing steadied quickly, and it dawned on him that there hadn’t been any drums. There still weren’t. He looked down at Her, tucked against his torso, and didn’t move until sunrise.

Another week passed, and Ben was getting a lot fucking worse at controlling the Thing in his chest. She still had no idea—Ben was an amazing fucking actor like that—and he had no fucking intention of clueing her in. Because there wasn’t anything for Her to know. He wasn’t keeping it a secret, because the Thing wasn’t anything, not really, so he’d just be telling her he thought she was pretty. Which was a fucking stupid thing to do, because Ben wasn’t a pussy teenager who’d just discovered what women were. She was pretty, but he’d met hundreds, thousands, of pretty women.

Not pretty, the Thing would grumble. Beautiful.

Ben had met fucking beautiful women too. This wasn’t something important.

Was Ben jerking off more times than he had since maybe even before Russia? Sure. But it was just a fucking coincidence. His sex drive was back, fucking alert the media and call the cops. Was he not using porn, just the Thing and its conjured images? Yes, but nobody would fucking give him internet access and he’d suck Butcher to completion before he asked Her to give him porn. Because he’d never fucking hear the end of it, not because She’d probably know how to see what he’d watch, and have questions about why all the models looked like her. The images were getting Ben’s engine going just fine, and delivering him to where he needed to be goddamn well. Images that were of soft bodies that looked like hers and sharp eyes that were always amused. Images that went hand in hand with imagined sounds of a familiar voice moaning and whimpering his name, his real name, as he muttered filth to his empty room. Nobody had even called him Ben during sex in almost 75 years. Everyone, from Crimson Countess to long-faceless supes at Herogasm, had called him Soldier Boy. But She always called him Ben and his mind had, against his fucking will, decided that She would probably call him Ben if he got to have her how he wanted.

And fuck, had his fucking brain taken that and ran with it. Ben had run through so many fucking fantasies he had favorites. There was the one where he knelt before her on his bed and She gripped his hair as she begged, the one where he pinned Her hands above her head during training with one hand and used the other to make her moan, the one where She walked into his room and dropped to her knees for him with that taunting smile, and the one where they were on the couch and he pulled Her onto his lap and fucked her until she burst into flames.

None of this was helped by their new habit of him sleeping in Her bed, or the fact that he was actually sleeping when he did so. It wasn’t helped by her being more insistent on training than ever before, making their usual physical contact increase by fucking tenfold. It wasn’t helped by how Ben couldn’t stop talking to Her because she was still insufferably fucking open and stupidly fucking funny and he wanted an excuse make Her call him a cunt so he could call her a brat, and he got to listen to the little sound her heart made every fucking time.

The worst part, though, was that he’d been fucking wrong. Really fucking wrong. She wasn’t pretty or beautiful, she was fucking perfect, and it was going to make him go insane. Lately, when he looked at her, it was like staring at the goddamn sun. It made the Thing reel just to fucking see Her now, and he was too much of a fucking pussy to fight it because She was perfect.

You’ve never met a perfect woman before , the Thing whispered smugly. You’ve never met a perfect anything.

Fine. That was fucking true. But it didn’t change that the Thing didn’t fucking mean jack fucking shit. So he didn’t have to tell her.

In the mess of the Thing and Her and trying to kill the Thing before it made him a fucking pussy who could only think about Her, Ben still hadn’t given Butcher an answer about Homelander’s offer. He didn’t even really fucking have one yet. There had been no improvement in the cycle of Homelander can fuck right off to Homelander had hurt Her and Ben wanted to hurt him to She would tell Ben to go all the way back to Homelander can fuck right off. If anything it had worsened, leaving Ben right in the same shit position he’d started.

He was wading around in that very loop now, having woken up two hours before Her and made his way downstairs. Though, once again against his will, Ben had spent the first hour watching Her sleep, dragged into a trance by her heartbeat and her relaxed, beautiful face.

Perfect. The Thing had reminded Ben. Her perfect face.

He’d told it to shut the fuck up, and stomped—quietly, Ben had no interest in waking Her up—out of Her room and down the hall to his own. He’d made himself cum quickly, a fantasy of Her bent over and whining into a pillow fueling him, before moving downstairs to watch TV and wait for Her to wake up like a fucking lost puppy dog.

But Ben did wait—reminding himself that it didn’t mean anything because what else could he even fucking do—as one of the better sitcoms She’d shown him playing in a forgotten buzz as Ben’s thoughts began the useless fucking loop. Ben was so fucking focused on the Homelander had hurt Her and Ben wanted to hurt Him part that he missed the sounds of Her waking up, only barely noticing when her heartbeat grew closer as she walked down the stairs.

“Morning, Sunshine.” Ben called over his shoulder just as She reached the bottom, padding over to drop on the couch next to him.

“Hi.” She mumbled, squinting at the TV. “Oh, this is a good one.”

He glanced back at the screen, where two of the characters were screaming into a walkie talkie in a closet. Ben only grunted, watching Her lean back from the corner of his eye.

 “What’s wrong with you?” She asked so casually, Ben wasn’t sure he heard her right.

“What the fuck are you on about?”

“You’re being weird. You didn’t make coffee, and when I came down the stairs you looked deep in thought. It’s concerning.”

Ben rolled his eyes and swatted at Her arm. “Fuck off, brat.” Her heart did the thing, and he had to fight a smile. “I was just watching the fucking show.”

She hummed, giving him an unconvinced look. “Fine, you cunt. Don’t tell me.”

“If this is about you wanting coffee, Sunshine, you’ve got a pair of working arms and a matching set of fucking legs. Do it your goddamn self.”

“It’s not about coffee,” She mumbled, though Ben didn’t miss her slight pout. “I just wanted to…” She trailed off, and Ben looked at her fully.

What a fucking lapse in his quickly vanishing judgment that was.

The morning light through the room made all of Her perfect features fucking glow, and her stupid lips that had been haunting Ben’s every damn thought were puffy from sleep. He wanted to touch them.

“Ben?” Her voice jarred him out of his stupid fucking brain. “Why are you holding Butcher’s sunglasses?”

Ben glanced down and realized that he’d been turning the cheap, knock-off, Soldier Boy sunglass that were the wrong fucking color around in his hand. He’d forgotten to give them to Her completely when she’d first woken up and been all sad, as fucking sunglasses had been lower on his priority list than the fucking Homelander offer. Then, when She had finally started fucking talking to him again, he had found himself rarely in his room—Ben had been keeping the sunglasses on his dresser—except to quickly pull his dick in any spare time he could find. When he’d cleaned up his mess from that very activity this morning, Ben had noticed them collecting dust and shoved them into his pocket to finally fucking move them from his room. One less thing to do a shitty job of cleaning.

“Butcher told me these were yours.” Ben frowned at her. “Asshole said you dropped them on your way to Firecracker’s stage.”

She gave the sunglasses a dirty look. “Of course he did. Fucking asshole.”

“What, are they fucking modern sunglasses that are going to start telling me all your deepest secrets?” Ben looked between the accessory to where She sat, still glowering at it. “Is it a damn bomb?”

“No, Butcher’s just a dick.”” She muttered, though the bitterness was gone from her tone and her lips twitched as her eyes returned to his. “He was going to use them as a part of his dogshit disguise and I told him not to. Because it would blow our cover. Your cover. Then I blew the whole fucking plan, and he’s fucking rubbing it my face.”

“You didn’t blow it, your stupid plan fucking worked, Sunshine. It’s not a great insult.”

“It didn’t work. Not well enough.” The sadness was creeping back into Her eyes, and the Thing was clawing at him.

“Butcher’s an ass,” Ben tossed the sunglasses into Her lap, and she scrambled to catch them. “That tea-rimming dick couldn’t have done any fucking better than you did.”

“Thanks, Ben.” She gave him a small smile, her voice so painfully fucking genuine it made Ben want to throw himself off a cliff. The Thing was whining, fucking whining like a little fucking bitch, as She held the sunglasses up to the light. “Thoughts on the change of your color scheme.”

Ben snorted. “Fucking blue. The weak pussy man’s fucking green.”

She laughed, a real laugh that made the Thing slam against Ben’s lungs. “That’s a much stronger and more negative opinion about blue than I expected from America’s Number One Patriot.”

“If I had any fucking say in it,” Ben grumbled. “Our flag would be red, white, and green.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “Like Italy?”

“Fuck no, not like fucking Italy-“ He shot Her a glare as she started to giggle. “Shut the fuck up, Sunshine. Blue is fucking stupid, green is a lot fucking better, and you fucking know it.”

“Hm,” She smothered her laughter and gave him a smirk. “You do look very good in it.”

The Thing loved that. Fuck, Ben loved that too. He did look fucking good in green, he looked good all the damn time. That didn’t stop the Thing—and him, if someone wanted to be a real fucking asshole about specifics—from wanting to, needing to, know what other colors She thought he looked good in. But she had moved on, rubbing the lenses with her shirt before placing the sunglasses on her nose and giving Ben a wide, unrestrained smile.

“How do I look? Like a douchebag?” She asked, pushing them down her nose to look at him over the rim.

Ben snorted. “I don’t think you could look like a douchebag if you fucking tried, Sunshine.”

She giggled, and relaxed fully into the cushions, turning to lean against the armrests and kicking her feet up so they pressed against Ben’s leg. “Jury’s out on that, Pretty Boy.”

Ben watched her settle, watching the TV through the sunglasses and mouthing along to the lines of the show with a comfortable smile, and his brain flashed back to the place he’d left the cycle. Homelander had hurt Her, and Ben wanted to hurt him.

He had his fucking answer for Butcher.

That night, sitting at Her side and moving more carefully he had ever bothered to in his fucking life, Ben reached across Her body and took the small, weird phone from her bed stand. 

The next half hour involved a lot of cursing under his breath, rage building bigger and bigger into Ben until he almost threw the fucking “phone” across the room. In almost any other circumstance he would’ve shoved the damned thing before Her, and she would’ve showed him all the stupid fucking ways in which it worked. But he couldn’t for this, because She’d have fucking questions about what he wanted her phone for, and he’d try and refuse to answer them, and then She’d figure out a fucking way to trick him into telling her. The whole point of his careful movements and silent anger was that he could fire the gun himself before She could insist on doing it with him.

Eventually Ben figured out what open with Face ID meant, leading to him spending another two minutes trying to hold the phone in front of Her face in a way that the stupid fucking thing deemed acceptable. By the grace of a god Ben didn’t believe in, he was saved from another grueling endeavor of trying to figure out how to call someone on a flat piece of fucking glass by the phone buzzing in his hand—something that made him almost crack it in half out of pure vigilance—and the screen showing a weird fucking banner that top that read:

William Butcher: Worst Boss Ever

Need a week.

Ben tapped on the banner, and felt immense satisfaction as it brought him to a screen of little bubbles, a keyboard sitting readily at the bottom. One letter at a time, Ben typed out call me, before pausing and adding Her name at the end.

The phone began to buzz angrily as the words Call From, William Butcher: Worst Boss Ever paired with a photo of an old Wanted photo of Butcher consumed the screen. Ben was incredibly grateful She was asleep, as he dropped the fucking thing onto the his lap in shock—though he’d recovered quickly and any sane motherfucker would’ve done the same if a block of metal started fucking buzzing—and She would certainly not have let him hear the end of it had she seen. He stood carefully but quickly from the bed, looking back as She shuffled slightly. When he saw her settled once more, heartbeat just as steady as when She always slept, he pushed out into the hall and hit the little green button that better fucking do what he thought it would.

“Oi,” Butcher’s voice sounded quietly from the phone, saying Her name with a tone of annoyance. “Soldier Boy rub off on you so hard you forgot how bloody phones work?” The man made a sound like he was laughing to himself. “Actually, don’t fucking answer that. I don’t want to know what freaky shit you two get up to.”

“Guess again,” Ben spoke against the screen, trying at the same time to figure out how to make Butcher louder. He noticed a button labeled speaker, slammed his thumb against it, and almost dropped the phone as Butcher’s voice blasted against his ears.

“Well, if it ain’t the ancient cunt himself. Does the missus know you took her phone?”

“No, I didn’t.”

Ben froze, swearing under his breath, as Her voice sounded from behind him. Ignoring Butcher’s mocking laughter echoing in the hall, he turned slowly to find Her right at his chest, eyes bleary but still managing to glare with all her usual, sharp venom. “Hello, Sunshine. Good fucking morning to you too.”

“You as well.” She snapped, and Ben scoffed, silently enjoying the way Her nose scrunched as she corrected him and hating the way he didn’t want to throw Her against a wall. “And it’s fucking 3am.” She yanked her phone from Ben’s grip, scowling at him as she spoke. “Butcher, I’m going to put you on hold for a second, Ben and I need to talk.”

“Trouble in paradise?” Butcher’s voice sneered, and She rolled her eyes before pressing something on the screen. “I’ll just bloody wait here then, not like I have anything important to do.”

“I can still hear him.” Ben pointed out as Butcher began to hum through the speakers.

She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t worry about it, Pretty Boy. He won’t hear it when I beat your fucking ass.”

“I stay with you all night, again, and this is how you show me fucking gratitude?”

“You fucking stole my phone to call Butcher.” She said flatly. “You don’t even know how to use it.”

“I figured it out, Sunshine. I’m not a fucking idiot pussy.”

“Yeah, you’re a regular fucking Einstein, using a smartphone in 21st century.” She jeered. “Now tell me why you needed to call Butcher so bad you decided to steal my phone about it, before I melt your fucking face. ”

“Take your best fucking shot, Sunshine, this is between me and the brit.”

She sighed. “Have it your way. Butcher?” She tapped the phone, holding Ben’s glare. “Any ideas about what Ben was calling you for?”

“Why do you ask, Love? Soldier Boy not willing to share his intentions with me to his Sunshine? ” Butcher mocked, and Her scowled turned down to the phone.

“Butcher.” Her voice was cool, and Ben could see the gnawing of her lip just as well as he could hear it. “You and Ben get one minute to grow bigger balls and tell me right now, or I will cut off the tiny ones you have.”

“Sorry, but Ben -“ Butcher’s voice said his name in a way that made Ben want to cut out the man’s tongue. “Didn’t get round to telling me his bloody self, so I ain’t got a clue.”

“Give me a guess.” She said coldly.

“Can’t, Love. I don’t have the faintest idea.”

A sound of frustration escaped Her throat, and Ben watched her grip on the phone tighten. “Butcher, I don’t know where this sudden loyalty to Ben came from, but you better lose it and find an idea real fucking fast before I leave Ben here so I can come and kill you.”

Any sleep was gone from Her eyes, smoke had begun to curl off of her body, and Ben was starting to worry she was going to break the skin in her mouth. Maybe She’d let us look at it if she does, the Thing whispered. And we could touch her lips.

Ben had to get himself under fucking control. If he wasn’t so focused on Her mouth like a whipped pussy, he would’ve been able to grab the phone back and break it before Butcher caved and told Her.

“Well, it might have something to do with our little chat while you were taking bloody five. That it, Gov? You finally got a fucking answer for me?”

She looked up at Ben, eyes flaring. “What little chat? ” 

“None of your business, Sunshine,” Ben snapped, and Butcher made a huffed laugh through the phone.

“Don’t think she sees it that way, Mate.”

“Shut your fucking mouth, Butcher.” Ben growled, and Her glare somehow grew so sharp Ben could feel it.

“What little chat, Butcher. What answer does Ben need to give you.” She hissed.

“Homelander and Sage gave us a little offer to have a nice and peaceful chat.” Butcher drawled, and Her eyes shot down to the phone, mouth falling open. “I’ve been waitin two bloody weeks for Soldier Boy to let me know if he’ll grace us with his presence.”

Her eyes returned to Ben, jaw clenched, and the carpet at her feet started to blacken. “I’m going to have to call you back, Butcher.”

“If you two have angry sex, tell me, because Hughie will owe me a tenner and-“ Butcher’s voice was cut off as She hung up, not once looking away from Ben.

“Homelander and Sage offered us a meeting? And you didn’t think that was important enough to share with the class?” Her voice was level, words measured, and heart steady. Ben hadn’t seen Her like this since those first weeks, and he hadn’t missed it one fucking bit.

“They offered me a meeting, Sunshine.” Ben snapped. “You’re not invited.”

“I go where you go, Pretty Boy.” Her words pushed through gritted teeth. “So unless they’re coming here, I’m going with you.”

“You seem real confident I wasn’t about to tell Butcher to shove the offer up where the sun don’t fucking shine.” Ben glared down at her, and She rolled her eyes.

“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “You would’ve woken me up so you could have an audience. You didn’t want me to know.”

“Not everything is about you, Sunshine.” Ben growled, most of his anger now angled at how fucking correct she was.

“Really? Because you stealing my phone and very purposefully not telling me about the meeting feels like it might be about me just a little!”

 “Well, if you would give me a fucking phone of my own-“

“That not the fucking point, Ben! Why didn’t you fucking tell me about this!” She yelled, the room becoming thick with smoke.

“I don’t have to fucking tell you everything! You’re not my goddamn partner!”

Her heart stuttered, face dropping into a scowl, and Ben felt something start to eat at him in his chest.

“Fine.” She didn’t look at him as she spoke, and it made the Thing turn his blood to lead and squeeze his chest tightly. “Whatever.” She threw the phone at him, and Ben had hardly caught it when She turned and walked back into the room, door slamming behind her.

Ben almost moved to follow Her, lurching forward to push after her and insist she fucking listen to him, that he hadn’t fucking told her for a damn good fucking reason, but the phone started to buzz again, this time displaying Call From, Marvin Milk: Holder of Incorrect Dr. Dre Opinions along with a photo of MM flipping off the camera. Ben glanced to the door, hearing Her heart moving faster by the second as her breath became short and shaky, and hit the red button.

He’d barely made it a step when the phone started buzzing again, MM calling once more. Growling in frustration, Ben pressed the red button again, only from it to buzz with a series of those fucking banners.

Marvin Milk: Holder of Incorrect Dr. Dre Opinions

Fucking pick up.

Butcher said you and Soldier Boy were fighting.

If you don’t fucking pick up right now I’m driving over and yelling at you.

Or I’m sending Annie.

Ben glowered in disbelief at the phone, stone-like, hot rage filling through him. How fucking dare they even fucking think that Ben might fucking hurt her like fucking Homelander when that’s exactly what he was trying to fucking avoid- 

This time, when the phone rang, Ben slammed the green button.

MM’s voice, sharp with relief, said Her name through the speaker. “Fucking hell, pick up the first time, you were going to give me a goddamn heart attack-“

“What the fuck is your problem.” Ben snapped, and the line fell so silent Ben thought it had dropped.“

After what must have been a fucking eternity, MM spoke, his voice firm and cold. “Soldier Boy, put Her on the phone right fucking now.”

“She’s not talking to me,” Ben said, ignoring the way the Thing became pained at his words.

“I swear to fucking God, if you don’t put her on right fucking now I’ll knock out myself and ship you back to Russia. If you fucking laid one disgusting hand on her-“

“I didn’t fucking touch her.“ Ben growled, the drums falling into rhythm with his fury. “I am not fucking Homelander.”

 “You think I’m just going to fucking trust you about that? Butcher said you had a fight, and now you’re picking up her phone. If it walks like a Soldier Boy, talks like a Soldier Boy, then you fucking hurt her.”

“ I didn’t fucking hurt her! ” Ben roared at the phone, and Butcher’s voice came, muffled, through the speaker.

“Is that him? Give me the fucking phone, I need to talk to the cunt.”

“No,” MM’s voice was distant now, shouting at Butcher. “I need to make sure this motherfucker didn’t-“

“She can’t die Mate, she’s bloody fine. Give me the fucking phone.” There were sounds of shuffling, and when Butcher spoke again his voice was loud and crisp. “Stuck in the rotten bloody dog house, eh Gov?”

“Shut the fuck up.” Ben snapped. “It’s none of your fucking business.”

“I mean, if you start to hurt her might as well fucking be-“

“Fucking watch it, Butcher.” Ben hissed. “The only person in danger right now is your fucking pussy ass.”

“Well, aren’t we touchy.” Butcher sneered.

“You want your fucking answer or not?” Ben glanced back at the door, where She had become suspiciously quiet. The only sign of life Ben had to grasp was her uneven heartbeat, and even that was soft.

Butcher sighed dramatically through the phone. “If you want to suck all the bleedin fun out of it, fine. What’s it gonna be, Soldier Boy? Am I telling Homelander and Sage to find a wood chipper to stick their asses and heads in?”

“I’m in.” Ben said shortly, firmly. “Come and get me when it’s ready.”

“That’ll be in,” there was a slight pause before Butcher continued. “Eight hours.”

 “Eight hours?” Ben repeated with a frown. “You pussies think you can get everything ready in eight fucking hours?”

“We’ve been ready for a week, Gov.” Butcher’s voice sounded fucking smug, and Ben wished he could punch the man through the phone. “Let’s just say I had a good feeling about your answer.”

“Fine. Eight hours. But if you’re not here on time, I’m not fucking going.” Ben didn’t wait for Butcher’s snarking, bitch-mouthed questions or mockery before he hung up, finally marching over to Her door and pushing it open.

She wasn’t on the bed. Or the floor. Or on the tacky armchair. Or at the shitty desk. She wasn’t in the room at all, and Ben’s heart fucking stopped, the drums building and building. He was fucking seconds away from tearing the whole damn room apart when he noticed the bathroom door hanging open, the lights off but the fans humming filling the room in time with taps of Moon River, both covering her already faint heartbeat.

“Sunshine?” He grunted, and heard Her heart stutter. “I have your phone.”

She didn’t answer, and Ben took a few steps closer to the door, abandoning the phone on Her bed.

“I know you’re in there,” he said Her name carefully. “I can fucking hear you.”

Still nothing. The Thing was grabbing Ben so tight he had to think to breathe.

“Are you still fucking pissed at me about the meeting?” He snapped, trying to fight the Thing and get Her just fucking acknowledge him. “Because if that’s what the fucking silent treatment is about, I don’t-“

Something cluttered in the bathroom, and She appeared at the door. Her eyes were red, face drawn in an angry scowl, and even from his place a few feet away, Ben could feel the heat off of her. But what made the Thing start to claw, feral and fucking desperate, at Ben’s ribs, was that She didn’t look angry or violent. She didn’t even look sad and broken. She just looked empty.

“I don’t want to talk to you.” She said flatly, watching Ben with hollow eyes. “I’m not giving you the silent treatment. I just don’t want to talk to you.”

“You’re being fucking dramatic-“

“Am I?” She shrugged. “What a fucking inconvenience.”

“What the fuck is your problem?” Ben’s voice was rising, and he couldn’t fucking stop it, especially as She didn’t even flinch. “It’s not like I fucking laid hands on you!”

She let out a low, humorless laugh. “Yeah, sure. Good work, Ben. Real white horse moment, you didn’t beat me up.”

“That’s not what I fucking meant and you damn know it.”

“Maybe.” She sighed again. “Are you done?” 

“Not until you fucking tell me what you’re fucking problem is-“

“Why should I?” She said flatly, looking away from him. “We don’t have to tell each other everything.”

Ben stared at Her as she still didn’t meet his eyes, her words—his words—echoing through his head, the Thing twisting in his throat. “Is that what you’re being so fucking bitchy about? That I didn’t fucking tell you about one goddamn thing?”

Something flashed in Her eyes, and even though it was a bone-chilling rage, Ben felt something unwind deep in his gut that she wasn’t just fucking vacant.

“You didn’t just not tell me about one thing, you fucking lied to me.” Something in Her voice snapped. “You said you hadn’t heard from Butcher! You said we were fucking benched, when it was just fucking me! When Butcher had told you about Homelander’s stupid fucking offer and not me!” Her voice was climbing to a raw, broken scream. “You said you wouldn’t fucking lie.” Her words were choked. “ You fucking lied, Ben. ”

In his life, Ben had been an asshole a damn lot, and though he’d never managed to be bothered by it—he wasn’t a fucking emotional pussy and it wasn’t his goddamn fault that everyone else was—it hadn’t stopped people from screaming at him, calling him every foul name in the English language, and wishing pain upon him both to his face and behind closed doors. This was, for some fucking reason Ben didn’t want to even spare a thought to, worse then all of that in every fucking way imaginable. Her silent sobs that she seemed to be trying to push down her throat, Her refusal to fully look at him for more than a second, Her voice as she screamed at him so fucking shattered and anguished.

He shouldn’t fucking care. It wasn’t a big fucking deal, it had been one little lie. Fuck, it hadn't even been a damn lie, just an omission. She was being fucking dramatic.

You hurt Her. The Thing hissed at him. You promised you wouldn’t hurt Her, and you did.

No, he fucking didn’t. He hadn’t laid a single finger on her.

People don’t act like that if they’re not hurt.

He hadn’t fucking hurt Her. If anything, She was fucking hurting him with her broken eyes and sobs.

The Thing was trying to burst out of him. She’s broken because you hurt her. Because she trusted you, and you lied.

It was her own damn fault, then. Ben wouldn’t even fucking trust himself, and he certainly hadn’t forced Her to.

But she did. The Thing growled. For some fucking reason, She trusted you. And you fucking hurt her. Like fucking Homelander.

That was it. Ben wasn’t like fucking Homelander. He hadn’t fucking hurt her. But she was still fucking crying, backing away from him into the shadows as he just stood there like a fucking dickless asshole.

So, against all of his better judgment, Ben let the Thing win. Once. Never fucking again, but right now he just needed Her to stop fucking hurting, and if the Thing could make him fix this, then Ben would let it win just fucking once.

He took a step towards Her, and something wrapped around his lungs released as She let Ben wrap her shaking body into his arms, let him pull her head against his chest and keep her there. They stood there, Ben holding Her until her breathing steadied and body cooled. When—after what was either a second or a year—she whispered, her voice carried into and through Ben’s body. 

“I’m sorry-“ She started, but he pulled back to look down at her, and she cut herself off as she met his gaze. 

“Don’t be. You were…” the words struggled out of him, the Thing pushing them up. “Not wrong.”

She gave a shaky laugh, and that carried through Ben too. “I was still being a bitch. You’re right, we don’t have to tell each other everything-“ 

“No.” He cut Her off fully this time, and she blinked up at him, eyes wide and pretty. Ben swallowed, forcing himself to stop starting like a pathetic asshole and just fucking talk. “I told you I had nothing to hide. I fucking meant it.”

She tilted her head at him, watching him with a look he didn’t understand. “Then why did you lie?”

Her voice was soft, and the Thing was making an awfully fucking convincing argument to never let her go.

“I didn’t lie.” Ben grunted, and was met with a flat look and a pinch on his arm.

“Ben.”

He rolled his eyes, grip around Her tightening. “I didn’t fucking lie, Sunshine. I just-“

“Omitted the truth?” She gave him a small smile, and the Thing jumped. “That’s a form of lying, Pretty Boy.”

 “Well, I knew you’d have a fucking opinion about this like you do for every damn thing, and maybe I just didn’t want fucking to hear it.”

“Hm,” She narrowed her eyes at him. “What did you think I’d say?”

“To go.” He stared ahead as he spoke, silently hoping She’d, for once in her fucking life, be satisfied with his answer.

He should’ve known a lot damn better by now.

“That it?”

Ben’s gaze dropped back down to Her, loathing how the light of the dawn was pushing through the curtains, casting her face in soft light that fit her stupid fucking perfect face so well. Ben loathed even more that she wasn’t scowling at him, wasn’t even glaring, just watching with an amused, gentle look of I don’t believe you, Ben. You’re a fucking shit liar, and it’s funny you think you’re not.

Ben wanted to tell Her that, no, he was actually an amazing fucking liar. He’d managed to jerk himself off multiple times a day for the past week and she had no fucking clue.

Instead, he rolled his eyes at Her, trying to imitate that boring, amused tone of Hers that always made him fucking insane. “You would’ve fucking tried to go as well. And that’s only happening over my dead fucking body.”

She gave a small, fake annoyed huff. “That’s not fair. You can’t die.”

“I’m serious.” Ben frowned. “Homelander’s going to be there. You’re not fucking going, Sunshine.”

She blinked at him with that same look from before, confusing the fucking hell out him. “But-“

“No.” Ben forced himself to pull away from Her, snarling in his head at the Thing’s whining as he did so. “End of fucking discussion. This isn’t like Firecracker, where Homelander might be there. He will be. You’re not fucking going.”

She frowned, arms folding across her chest in a way that pushed her tits forward-

Ben swore at himself. This was getting fucking ridiculous.

“You’re not my boss, Ben. If I want to go, I’m going.”

“Sunshine, I don’t know if you recently went deaf-“ Ben ignored her scoff. “Or are just suddenly very fucking stupid, but you keep somehow missing the part where Homelander is going to be there.”

“I can fucking hear you, cunt, I just-“

“Are being a fucking brat on purpose? I don’t even think you fucking want to go, I think you just don’t like me being fucking right.”

Her lips pursed and the gnawing began, but She remained silent as she glared up at him. Ben felt both a rush of triumph and a breath of weird fucking relief from the Thing.

“How about this, Sunshine. They’ll be here in a little more than seven hours. You convince them to let you go, I won’t fight it. But-“ Ben lowered his tone, making it clear as fucking day that he was being goddamn serious. “If they say no, you stay here without any fucking dramatics.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, but nodded, and extended her hand. “Deal.”

Ben snorted. “You want to fucking shake on it?”

“Want to prove you’re the noble fucking asshole gentleman you’re always bragging about being?” She nodded down to her hand. “Fucking shake on it, Pretty Boy.”

Ben winked at Her. “I’m no fucking gentleman, Sunshine. Thought your pretty little head would’ve figured that out by now.”

She only glared. “If you don’t shake my hand right fucking now, I’m fulfilling my promise about melting off your face and then going to the meeting by myself.”

“Brat,” Ben muttered, and the Thing fucking purred in goddamn satisfaction as he heard her heart did that little roll. It still didn’t fucking mean anything worth mentioning, Ben decided. It just meant She wasn’t that mad at him anymore, and that was why the relief was fucking consuming him. Because She was back to her normal self, getting on every last fucking nerve of his without any damn tears.

“Cunt.” She flexed her hand, and, frowning, Ben gave Her a firm shake. A smile split across Her face, and though her eyes were still red and tired, there was no hint of that emptiness remaining. “Lovely. I look forward to attending the meeting.”

Ben found it adorable that She believed he would’ve even fucking offered the deal if he thought a single goddamn member of her team would let her go. They had trained like normal, Ben changing into his suit afterward—because there was no fucking way Butcher was making him go in goddamn sweats—and they had spent the remaining hours leading up to the meeting on the couch, watching TV in what would have been uneasy silence, had it not been for Her leaning into his side with an ease of someone who had done it a million times. Ben somehow managed to stay still, both shutting the Thing up with inner, vulgar threats, and exerting an impressive amount of stealth in concealing his boner, which had returned with a vengeance Ben didn’t fucking appreciate. And—as he had predicted—when Butcher arrived with the French Prick and Kimiko, there was universal agreement that She wasn’t allowed to be in attendance.

“This is fucking bullshit!” She yelled at Butcher, giving his chest a firm shove. Ben was a little impressed the man didn’t topple over or cower in fear, but Butcher would never get to fucking know it.

“Sorry, Love, but Soldier Boy’s right. You’d just be a bloody problem that we ain’t got time to deal with.” Butcher turned to Ben, giving a sweeping gesture to the door. “After you, Gov.”

“How are you going to control Ben, huh?!” Her voice was desperate, and the Thing wanted to hold her again, despite Ben’s annoyance at Her apparent lack of fucking faith in him. “What if he goes rogue? And I’m not there to stop him?!”

“Fuck you too, Sunshine.” Ben muttered, and She shot him a glare.

“Shut up, this isn’t about you.”

He snorted, and She stuck her tongue out at him.

“You cunts can stand here and eye-fuck each other as long as you bloody please, but when Soldier Boy finally gets off and we go, you’re staying here, Love.”

“But what if-“

The French Prick said Her name smoothly. “Do not worry, madame. The CIA gave me enough of their gas to knock out all of Espagne, and I mixed with my own cocktail of fun, so if the connard goes nuclear-“ The French Prick gave Ben a smirk. “I will knock his arse to sleep before he can even say oops.”

Ben glowered at the French Prick, the drums sounding distantly. He could fucking control himself, this was goddamn unnecessary, and he fucking doubted their pussy fucking gas would even damn work on him. But She was starting to look like she might just run out door and chase the van they’d brought all the way to wherever Butcher had planned the meeting, so Ben clenched his fists and ignored the approaching rhythm.

“Let’s just get this fucking over it.” He grunted, pushing around Butcher to the door.

“That’s more bloody like it,” Butcher smirked. “Let get this fucking show on the damn road, Gov.”

Ben glanced back once before he stepped outside, half hoping to see Her watching him—even if it was with an angry glare of when you get back I’m going to cut your dick off—but found Her exchanging those weird fucking gestures with Kimiko, her face cast in a shadow so he couldn’t read it.

Kimiko eventually turned, walking past Ben and through the door, and his eyes met Hers.

Don’t fucking die, Pretty Boy. Her frown told him.

The Thing wanted to stay there. It didn’t want to bring Her, even it wasn’t that fucking stupid. But it was roaring around in him just the fucking anticipation of leaving Her.

“Don’t fucking miss me too much, Sunshine.” Ben said, adding a wink before he turned.

He didn’t miss her sharp exhale, or her mumbled words, before the door closed between them. “I’ll try.”

Because Butcher was out to fucking get him, the something that had been set up to hold Ben was just the van—improved by a deadbolt Ben was pretty fucking sure he could snap in half without a thought—along Kimiko glaring at him and the French Prick holding a can of gas. For the first half hour, Butcher humming something Ben didn’t recognize—but was still certain was off-key and tempo—was the only sound aside from the engine. Ben broke after deciding that, if Kimiko and the French Prick kept doing those fucking gestures at each other, he’d have to take his bets with the gas and kill them both.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Ben grunted, and they both turned to look at him.

“ Que? ” The French Prick looked him up and down wearily.

Ben mimed their gestures. “The fuck is that.”

“Monsieur Soldier Boy-“ The French Prick was cut off as Kimiko hit his arm, gesturing aggressively when his attention turned to her. “ Mon Coeur, there is no harm in him knowing.”

“Knowing what?” Ben scowled, and Kimiko glared at him, continuing her movements as the French Prick shook his head.

“She does not want me to tell you,” the French Prick frowned, beginning to gesture himself. “Although, Madame Anomaly-“

 “Don’t call her that.” Ben snapped.

The French Prick blinked, and Kimiko, frowned, doing more gestures that involved a lot of fucking pointing at Ben.

“ Mon Coeur, please, it’ll make it easier.” Kimiko rolled her eyes, but sat back with a huff. The French Pricks attention returned to Ben. “This is how she speaks.”

“Yeah, I fucking figured that out myself.” Ben said with an eye roll. “Why is she a fucking mute?”

Kimiko flipped Ben off, and he glared at her as the French Prick sighed. “Her parents were killed, right before her eyes. She has said no words since.”

“Oh.” Ben frowned, narrowing his eyes as he looked between them. “Fine.”

Kimiko let out another huff, gesturing to the French Prick once more.

“ Non, she could not come instead. Homelander is too big of a threat to her.” The Thing started to push against him as Ben realized they were talking about Her. “Mon Couer, she would not have just stayed in the van -“

Ben cut the French Prick off, saying Her name harshly. “Does she know?” He mimed the gestures again, and decided to pretend for Kimiko’s sake he didn’t see her eye roll. “I’ve seen her fucking waving her hands at you, so don’t fucking lie to me.”

“ Oui,” the French Prick said, sounding more tired by the fucking second. “When she joined us, she insisted we teach her.”

“Of course she did.” Ben grumbled. She was too damn kind for her own fucking good. One day it was going to get Her fucking killed.

The Thing didn’t like that thought, rearing against his throat, and Ben could almost fucking hear her response.

Me being kind is a lot less likely to get me killed than being a dick to everyone all the fucking time is, Pretty Boy. You should follow my example.

Maybe he would, Ben smiled to himself. Not to be kind, that was fucking stupid, but because if he followed Her he would be able to save her dumbass when he was proven right. Plus, he liked watching Her walk. She always moved with such fucking purpose, her hips doing a little sway and her hair bouncing, it was really fucking hot.

The French Prick coughed, opening his mouth to say something and snapping Ben out of his thoughts.

“How much longer until we’re there?” Ben said before the French Prick had gotten a syllable out, having no interest in whatever had been about to be said, especially—if his suspicion was correct—about Her.

“Almost there, Gov.” Butcher called from the front.

“And there fucking is?”

“FBSA HQ.”

Ben was going to take Butcher’s asshole and bend him until it was next to his mouth, and Butcher had to swallow his own fucking shit forever. “Fucking words, you dickfaced pussy.”

Butcher snorted. “Federal Bureau of Supe Affairs. You ain’t thick enough to not get HQ by your bloody self.”

“You let them choose it?” Ben scowled at the back of Butcher’s head. “Or man the fuck up and this is your fucking pick?”

“Compromise, Mate.” Butcher grinned, toothy and mocking, in the rearview mirror. “We wanted somewhere public, they wanted somewhere private. Government property is the middle ground.”

“Fucking pussy.” Ben muttered under his breath, and as Butcher laughed coldly, the van came to a halt.

“Let’s get a bloody move on.” Butcher stood from his seat. “Lot of shit to do and not much fuckin time to get it done.” 

At the request of the building’s security—some fucking pussy shit about not inciting a panic by having Soldier Boy walk into the lobby of a government building—Ben was herded through a back entrance, Butcher leading them through the flickering halls and up the elevator as the French Prick and Kimiko walked a pace behind, the French Prick gripping the gas like a pussy with a fucking lifeline.

When they entered the meeting room, a fucking insane amount of floors up and through a goddamn stupid amount of doors, Homelander was pacing back and forth before a floor-to-ceiling window as Sage and another woman—one Ben didn’t recognize in shiny fucking pantsuit with long black hair—sat on the far side of a conference table.

“Oi!” Butcher reached to his back, pulling out a gun and aiming it at the pantsuit lady. “She wasn’t on the fucking guess list.”

“Neither were they,” Sage said cooly, inclining her head towards Kimiko and the French Prick. “So we all broke a promise, and it’s even.”

“And put that away, William.” Homelander said, giving Butcher a large smile and a dismissive wave. “You look ridiculous. Vicky here will pop your brains before you even switch off the safety.”

“Don’t call me Vicky,” the woman’s voice was tense, giving Homelander weary side-eye. “But he is right, Butcher. You know that won’t hurt any of us.”

“Maybe.” Butcher sneered. “But I’m a man of science, I’d like to bloody see for myself.”

“Just sit down so we can get this over with,” Sage ordered, looking over her shoulder to where Homelander still stood, chest puffed and hands on hips. “Homelander, that means you as well.”

Homelander glared down at Sage before turning his gaze to Butcher, and then Ben.

He looked fucking pathetic, just as fucking weak as Ben remembered. Still wearing a fucking cape like a pussy, still strutting around like a goddamn toddler, looking fucking desperate for fucking approval. The only difference—something Ben wasn’t sure was new from their last meeting or something he saw because of Her—was the edge in Homelander’s eyes. The pussyfucker had looked psychotic, eyes too fucking blue and smile too fucking wide, but there was something crazed behind his movements. Something a lot more fucking careless. A lot more fucking dangerous.

“Soldier Boy.” Homelander said, voice level as that same insanity glinted in his eyes.

Ben kept his voice level as he responded, fighting every instinct to slam the weak pussies head into the glass of the window. “Homelander.” 

“Can you both just sit down?” Sage said, exasperated as she looked between them. “The longer you measure your dicks at each other, the longer this goes.”

Homelander didn’t move, so Ben didn’t either.

“Fine,” Sage rolled her eyes. “Stand the whole time for all I fucking care.” She leaned forwards, clasping her hands on the table. “We asked you here to-“

“Who the fuck is she.“ Ben pointed at the pantsuit lady, who nobody had thought to fucking clue him in on the identity of.

“Victoria Neuman, Vice President of the United States.” The woman said, giving Ben a cool smile. “I believe you tried to kill me a month ago.”

Ben frowned. “Head-popper.”

Neuman sighed. “Yeah, sure. Head-popper.”

"How’d you even get away from your security cunts?” Butcher mused, eyeing Neuman. “Vought put them on payroll?”

She turned her frown to Butcher. “As you know, the secret service is a lot more inept than the public is led to believe. They think I ate bad seafood last night, and am pushing it out in a restroom three floors down.”

“Well, don’t I feel just peachy about having them protecting this great nation against threats.” Butcher jeered, and Neuman narrowed her eyes.

“You blew up my rally, Butcher. That was literally political terrorism.”

Butcher shrugged. “That particular firework show wasn’t mine, Popper.”

Homelander gave a toothy grin, walking forward to stand at the edge of the table. “It was her, wasn’t it?” He looked down at Sage. “I fucking told you, didn’t I? I said that it reminded me of her, and you said it wasn’t. Well I was fucking right.” The last words came out hissed through teeth, his smile never breaking.

Ben wanted to tear it off his face. The Thing was in favor of that plan.

“I said it wasn’t because, at the time, I thought she was dead. Like you’d told me she was.” Sage frowned.

Homelander shrugged, dropping into one of the seats and gripping the armrests. “How was I supposed to know she survived the fire? Those fucking scientists didn’t put down that she’d developed fire powers.”

“You said she combusted.”

“And caused the fire!” Homelander rolled his eyes. “It was a perfectly rational train of thought! She takes the fourth V shot, fire starts, she’s gone!” His face fell, body tensing as his eyes narrowed at Butcher across the table. “I didn’t think William had stooped to kidnapping.”

“Kidnapping?” Butcher laughed in disbelief. “You think I kidnapped her?”

Homelander sighed dramatically, gesturing his gloved hands as he spoke. “You kidnapped Soldier Boy! Twice!”

 “Nobody kidnaps me.” Ben growled, taking the seat next to Butcher. “I’m here because I fucking want to be.”

“Yeah,” Sage interjected. “And the can of gas is just… decoration?” Her attention turned to the French Prick. “Enflurane?” 

“ Oui,” the French Prick looked fucking proud of himself as he answered. “Combined with Agent Orange and mustard gas.”

Neuman gave the French prick a stare of shocked disgust. “Frenchie, how did you get your hands on Agent Orange?!“

“I made my own, Madame Neuman. With a little extra kick.”

Ben glared at Butcher. “That shit better staying in the fucking can.”

“You stay in line, and we’ll all pretend it’s not even bloody there.”

“ Stay in line? ” Homelander scoffed. “You let them talk to you like that? When you could squash each one like a fly? ”

“Stay on topic.” Sage warned. “We have an actual reason for being here, and I would like to get to it.”

“I second that,” Neuman raised her hand. “I want to go home.”

“Nobody’s fucking making you be here, Popper.” Butcher sneered at her. “You can leave whenever you bloody feel like it.”

Neuman ignored him with an ease, and Ben liked her a little more.

“We asked you here,” Sage began. “To talk. About the Anomaly. And Soldier Boy.”

“Yeah, I bloody figured.” Butcher said casually, face painfully bored. “What about them?”

“Your plans. Specifically with her. I want to know them.” Sage watched Butcher carefully as she spoke, gaze flicking to Ben only once.

Butcher laughed, loudly. “Oh, that all? Could this not have been a damn email I’d fucking delete?”

“I’m serious, Butcher.” Sage didn’t waver, pressing forward. “I’m curious what your plans are with the Anomaly. She’s not exactly stable. I want to know exactly how you plan on keeping her under control, especially after Firecracker.”

The Thing roared, and Ben didn’t fucking mind it at all. Images of Her curled on her bed, of Her sobbing in arms, of Her looking fucking afraid and hopeless flashed in Ben’s eyes. Her screams, broken and painful, longing for fucking death, echoed in his ears. Ben’s own hands had become fists under the table, and the only thing keeping him from slamming them across Sage’s face was Her voice in his head. Fucking diplomacy, Ben. This is why you needed me here.

Homelander started to speak, and Ben remained fully fucking confident in not bringing Her. Damn ghost of her voice could whine all it wanted, but the real Her was miles away, and fucking safe.

“You know not to touch her, right?” Homelander asked, looking between Butcher, Ben, the French Prick, and Kimiko. “She’ll tell you to, say it’s to heal you, but she’s actually poking around in your fucking brains. Well,” his eyes stopped on Kimiko with a frown. “If you have a functional one.”

Kimiko glared at him, and the French Prick rested a hand atop her leg. “I would not make her mad,” the French Prick said carefully. “She has a remarkably functional brain, and has grown quite fond of the Anomaly.”

Homelander let out laugh, strained and forceful. “Of course she has,” he said Her name with a lilting, bright tone, and the Thing started clawing and bellowing inside Ben. “A lot more than just a pretty face, isn’t she? Crafty little thing, could charm a slug.” His attention returned to Butcher. “She sang for you yet? That’s how she works her little fucking spell. Sinks her claws into you until to giving her fucking everything. ” The last words were spat out, and Homelander wasn’t smiling anymore.

The Thing was howling, but Ben pushed it down, teeth were grinding so tightly he might break them.

“You think you gave her everything? ” Butcher sneered at Homelander, giving a taunting chuckle. “Mate, she goes cuckoo at just the mention of your name.”

“So, you know she can’t control herself?” Sage ignored Homelander’s glare—his mouth had opened to respond to Butcher—as she cut him off. “And yet you enable her anyways? Why?”

“Listen, Sister. If you brought us here just to ask questions about the Anomaly, you’ve only wasted your own bloody time. We ain’t ‘sharing our plans’ with you.” Butcher scoffed. “I thought you were supposed to be smart.”

“I am smart,” Sage’s voice remained level. “I can’t be blamed for you not cooperating.”

“You just asked us for our fucking plans, Lady. If that had been our war strategy against the Nazi’s, we’d have fucking lost.” Ben interjected, and Sage raised her brows at him.

“Maybe.” Was all Sage said, and a chill ran through Ben.

“That it, then? Cause we’ll be on our fucking way.” Butcher started to stand, and Sage raised her hand to stop him.

“What about Soldier Boy, then,” Sage asked as if Ben wasn’t right fucking there. “He has debilitating PTSD, and has proven to be a liability. Even if you get a shot, there’s no guarantee he’ll be able to fully control his blast.”

“Who says that’s what we’re planning?” Butcher snapped. “If it was, we’d just fucking do it now, wouldn’t we?”

“No.” Sage smiled. “Because you’re smarter than that, Butcher. Not by much, but you are.”

“Is she healthy?” Homelander said suddenly, leaning forward. “Is she eating? Or still starving herself just to fucking spite me?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Ben growled, the Thing was roaring inside him.

Homelander rolled his eyes. “When she’d get all mournful about her old, stupid, boring life that I saved her from, she’d starve herself. Wouldn’t fucking eat anything I brought her, even cake! Just to make me mad!” He sighed. “I used to have to force her to eat, cause she was fucking useless when she would throw those little tantrums. When we started V, she was doing it so much the third shot didn’t take! She made me waste it! ”

Ben wasn’t sure if it was the Thing or just his own rage coursing through him. It was like steel, burning steel through his blood that wanted to kill Homelander, moving into Ben’s head and blinding him to any possible issues with that idea. He didn’t fucking care. All Ben could feel was fucking fury, white and cold fury at Homelander’s words. All that was in his head were thoughts of Her carefree and bloodless, of the life she’d told him about, and of Her shrinking into nothing as it was pulled away from Her. 

She hadn’t fucking told Ben about the food. She’d eaten less after Firecracker, but she’d still eaten. Homelander said he’d had to force food into Her. 

Looking at Butcher, the French Prick, and Kimiko—all wearing similar expressions of horrified, shocked anger—Ben had a feeling She hadn’t told them about it either.

“I thought I’d wasted the fourth shot too,” Homelander continued, and Ben didn’t know if he hadn’t noticed the cold shift in the room, or just didn’t give a shit. “Oh, I was mad about that. Wasn’t I?” He turned to Neuman and Sage, but pressed on before they could speak. “I mean, neither of you were there, but I was. I was so mad. I thought I’d lost her, too. It was awful.”

“I’m sure it was really bloody hard for you,” Butcher grunted, and Homelander rolled his eyes.

“I know you’re being sarcastic William, but it was. You have no clue what it’s like to lose someone like that!”

Butcher’s jaw clenched. “I might have a fucking idea.”

“Oh, because of Becca? She was fun, believe me, I know.” Homelander laughed, and Ben had never seen Butcher’s knuckles so white before, heard his heart beat so fast. “But she was mortal. Human.” Homelander said the word with disgust, face twisting in a sneer.

“The Anomaly was human too,” Neuman said softy, and Homelander scowled at her.

“I fixed that. Now she’s almost as strong as me. Almost as strong as you!” Homelander gestured at Ben, and Ben started fantasizing about ripping his hand off. “I would be open to a custody agreement, you know. You get Ryan for a week, I get her at the same time, we switch back.” 

“Not a fucking chance in hell,” Ben growled, and Homelander sighed.

“She’ll come back to me eventually. She needs me to help her, and when she realizes that I’m the only one who can, she’ll come back.”

“I wouldn’t hold your breath, cunt.” Butcher said coldly. “She might have a slightly different memory of your time together. Are we fuckin done here?” Butcher turned to Sage, who hummed.

“Sure.” Sage didn’t look at Butcher, and Ben realized she was watching him. Her eyes were scanning Ben, sending a crawling feeling along his skin. “Good luck controlling him,” Sage nodded towards Ben. “And the Anomaly.”

“We’ll manage.” Butcher stood, the French Prick and Kimiko following his lead.

“I look forward to seeing whatever terrible plans you’ve made.” Sage smiled, still watching Ben.

 “I’m sure you fuckin are.” Butcher sneered, kicking the legs of Ben’s chair. “Up and at ‘em, Gov. Waste of our bloody time.”

Ben stood, moving from the table. Butcher was, for once in his damn life, right. This had been a complete waste of their fucking time, Sage had asked them here just to fuck with their heads, and all these fucking pussies hadn’t even given Ben an opportunity to get any blood on his suit-

“You know,” Homelander said, just before Butcher could open the door. “I never really understood Helen of Troy. I mean, launching a thousand ships with a face?” He laughed. “Fucking ridiculous. Then, I met her, and I got it.”

The Thing was scraping against Ben’s ribs, and his vision was lined with red as Homelander continued.

“She may have betrayed me, like Helen betrayed Menelaus, letting Paris take her, but I forgive her. I want her to come home.” He gave Butcher a wide, toothy, chilling smile. “Tell her I’m going to make sure she comes home soon.”

Ben was going to kill him. Now. The French Prick’s gas wouldn’t fucking stop him, because nothing fucking could. He was going to rip Homelander’s spine from his back and bash his head against the table until his brains leaked from his ears. He didn’t have his shield, or a gun, and there were no drums, but Ben didn’t fucking need any of it. He was going to kill Homelander with his bare fucking hands.

The only thing that saved Homelander were the next words he spoke. “And, like Menelaus, I’ll do anything to bring her back to me.”

Ben had left Her at the safe house. Alone. The Thing had told him not to and he’d ignored it and now she was alone all by her fucking self and there was no one there to keep her safe-

I’m a grown ass woman, Ben, Her voice echoed in his head. I will handle my goddamn self.

Doesn’t fucking matter, the Thing snapped. She’s alone. They called you here so she’d fucking be alone.

Ben turned, almost pulling the door off its hinges as he opened it. “Let’s fucking go.” He grunted to Butcher, and if the man was surprised by Ben’s sudden movement, he didn’t show it.

“Aye aye, Gov.” Butcher shrugged, and as Ben marched down the hall he heard Butcher say one last thing before following. “We’ll see you all in bloody hell.”

Ben’s body was rigid. His hand had dropped into his suits’ pocket, gripping the crumpled piece of paper in it might suddenly make Her fucking appear. Nobody spoke until they returned to the van, and the Thing wouldn’t stop hissing in his ear.

She’s alone. She’s not safe. Homelander might already know where she is, and she’ll freeze. She’ll see him and freeze and he’ll lock her up again.

“Frenchie,” Butcher’s terse words were barely audible over the ringing in Ben’s ears. “Check the cams.”

That got Ben’s attention, the Thing falling silent as he asked, “Cams?”

“Monitors,” Butcher grunted. “All around the house.” He raised his brows at Ben, the smirk on his face slightly strained. “You didn’t think we just left you two alone together with blind fuckin faith?”

“Butcher,” the French Prick held up a flat piece of glass that reminded Ben of Her phone. “She is in the kitchen, all is well.”

Ben didn’t bother to ask before he grabbed the fucking thing out of the French Prick’s hands. He narrowed his eyes as he examined it, the display filled with high angled videos of the safe house. The living room, completely empty and the TV off. The dining room, furniture shoved to the side with a few scorch marks on the floor. The entrance hall, lights off and Her boots near the door.

The kitchen, where She was moving around in the same clothes he’d left her in. Talking to someone they couldn't see. 

Ben’s blood ran cold, and the Thing was spinning in his gut. 

“I can’t fucking hear her.” Ben snapped, looking up at the French Prick. “She’s talking to someone. Who the fuck is she talking to.”

“The audio’s off, Mate.” Butcher rolled his eyes, giving Ben an amused look that, in any other scenario, would’ve resulted in a loss of his sight privileges.

“Turn it on.” Ben ordered, and the French Prick glanced at Butcher uncertainty. Butcher only shrugged.

“Don’t make no bloody difference to me. Whatever keeps the cunt from exploding.”

The French Prick nodded, and tried to grab the device from Ben with no success.

“Fucking watch it,” Ben growled, gripping the glass block—Her—tightly.

“I cannot give you sound if you will not let me touch the screen, Soldier Boy. S’il te plaît.”

“What the fuck does that mean.”

“He’s fucking saying please, Gov.” Butcher gave Ben a bored look. “Give Frenchie the damn tablet, or you don’t get to fucking hear Sunshine.”

Ben hated the way Butcher said Sunshine, drawling with a snipe in his voice. But he hated—the Thing hated—not knowing what She was saying just a fucking fraction more, so Ben shoved the “tablet” into the French Pricks hands.

“Fix it.” He glared at French Prick, who nodded nervously and started tapping the glass in quick movements.

The audio sounded suddenly through the van, a lot louder than Ben had expected. Even Butcher’s heart stuttered as Her voice filled the small space. The Thing fell quiet, desperate to hear what She was saying, who she was saying it to, if she sounded afraid or in pain.

She didn’t. She wasn’t even talking to anyone. Ben watched Butcher’s jaw drop, the French Prick’s eyes widen, and Kimiko’s head shoot up as they all realized what they were hearing at the same time he did.

She was singing. 

Her voice was clear, and controlled, and powerful. It rolled like wind, hitting every high and dipping to every low, holding long notes with a vengeful strength. It moved into Ben’s bones, ran through his blood. The Thing sighed in fucking content at the sound, and Ben didn’t fucking blame it. It sounded like honey and silk and the sun. It felt good.

“She said she couldn’t bloody sing.” Ben looked up at Butcher, whose voice was cold and face was drawn into frown. “That sounds like she can fucking sing.”

Ben grunted. She had said she couldn’t sing. She’d described her singing as hell-like. This wasn’t fucking hell-like by a million goddamn miles.

“Maybe she had a reason,” the French Prick reasoned, but his voice was unsteady, unsure. “It would be a very strange thing to lie about, non? ”

Kimiko slapped the French Prick, gesturing something that made his eyes grow even fucking wider.

“ Mon Coeur, why wouldn’t she tell us though?”

More fucking silent gestures. Ben’s patience snapped.

“What the fuck is she saying?” He demanded, and the French Prick looked back at him wearily.

“She remembers something Homelander said.” The French Prick glanced back at Kimiko. “He, ah, he asked if she had sung for us. Said that was how she ‘worked her spell’. Kimiko believes that she does not sing because of Homelander.”

“Mate, she’s singing right bloody now.” Butcher sneered, and Kimiko glared at him, making more aggressive gestures.

“She says that she does not know people are watching.” The French Prick said carefully. “And that it does not matter, because it is not our business anyway. Because we are spying on her, and she would tell us if it really mattered.”

She would, the Thing rumbled inside of Ben, still satiated by Her voice. She doesn’t lie to us.

She fucking might have, though. As strange a lie as it was, it was still a goddamn lie she had told him, countless times, that she couldn’t sing. Ben glanced down at the tablet, trying to see Her face, figure out what she was fucking thinking.

She wasn’t in the kitchen, and something sharp tore through Ben.

“Where the fuck did she go?” He snapped at the French Prick, who looked down with a frown and began to press the screen once more.

 “Ah,” his eyes narrowed, flitting across the display. “Likely the bathroom? She is not gone, as we can still hear her. She has just moved.”

Something occurred to Ben, tearing through his brain as it settled between torn comfort at Her safety and anger at her lie. “Are there cameras all over the house?” He asked, suddenly aware of his own heartbeat.

“Nah, Gov.” Butcher gave him another amused look. “We got audio everywhere, but no cameras in the bedrooms or bathrooms. We ain’t fucking creeps.”

Ben grunted in acknowledgement, his own heart fading into the background once more. They hadn’t seen his new habits. They didn’t know, and they wouldn’t tell Her.

You should tell Her, the Thing mumbled, somehow being less fucking helpful than ever before.

He wasn’t going to fucking tell Her. He didn’t fucking have to. In fact, as Her voice continued to flow like goddamn wine through the van, he was going to have a fucking chat with her when they got back. It didn't matter that her voice was just one more way in which she was perfect. She’d fucking lied.

But what made Ben even angrier than Her lie was that, no matter how fucking hard he tried, he wasn’t able to stop wanting to get back to her. That the Thing wasn’t angry, but had started to imagine how She’d sound if he had her singing and moaning at the same time. Ben couldn’t force the image of Her, using this same smooth voice against his ear as his fucked her, stopping every time her voice faltered, until she was a perfect mess of beautiful sounds under him

He wasn’t able to stop the feeling creeping through him that, even if She had lied, even if her reasoning was fucking shit, he wouldn’t stop sleeping peacefully in her bed.

———-

You hated Ben. You hated his smug smile and perfect face. You hated his strong body and pretty eyes. You hated his stupid deep voice that rumbled through you and his laugh that echoed in your head. You hated how he wasn’t here right now, so you could yell at him and not have this worry eating you alive. You hated that he’d left you for his own, fucked up, noble reasons, because when you’d hugged him you’d felt that concrete resolve running through him, and realized it was protectiveness. You hated how that revelation made you miss him more. 

You hated that, if he wasn’t back by nightfall, you weren’t certain you’d fucking sleep. Because you’d made a huge mistake, let the desperate feeling in your head win, and asked Ben to sleep in your bed. It had felt so important at the time, because everything had been loud and your mind had been shattering, and he’d been quiet and firm. You had felt like a hurricane was eating you, and Ben had been an island that wrapped around your heart and chased away the storm. One night, you had told yourself. One night to chase away the screams.

Then he’d started calling you brat, and it made you feel warm and soft. He’d laughed when you’d punch his jaw with a fist wrapped in flames, and you’d felt his pride rush through you. He’d draped his arm around your shoulders, and you’d felt safe. And you’d started to get sleepy, and his hand had brushed your arm, and the feeling in your head had started singing. So you had caved to it again, and asked him to sit with you again. You’d even given him an out, just until you fell asleep, because the feeling in your head had been desperate. So desperate that when Ben told you to beg, you had. You had sucked it up—ignored how the request also made you feel warm—and begged. When he’d agreed, the feeling in your head had let out a long sigh of relief, even though you’d reminded yourself he’d probably return to his room once you were soundly under.

But he hadn’t. He’d stayed. He’d slept. You had woken up, feeling something heavy on around you. Your heart had felt so peaceful, so calm, and when you’d opened your eyes you’d realized Ben’s were closed. After you’d decided that he was actually asleep, you’d noticed that the heavy thing was his arm, holding you against him. And that made the feeling in your head start to ache. Then you’d noticed that Ben snored. Loudly. It was a deep, lulling sound that had wrapped around you, and pulled you right back into sleep’s hold.

The next night, you’d been tearing your insides apart, trying to fight the feeling in your head from grabbing your tongue and making you ask him to sleep in your bed again, when he’d look at you in the glow of the TV and solved the problem for you.

“It’s late.” He’d said, and you’d scoffed.

“Really?” Your voice had been sarcastic, and you’d given him a fake, wide-eyed look of disbelief. “I thought the Sun had just decided to take fifteen.” “Shut up, brat.” He’d smirked back at you, and your whole body had done a little flip under your skin, the feeling in your head spreading everywhere. “You’re tired.” 

He hadn’t been asking. He’d been telling. And been entirely correct in a way that made the Feeling very happy and you very annoyed. “No, I’m not. Cunt.” Your protest had sounded weak, especially given that you’d almost immediately yawned after saying it. 

“Sunshine, you look like shit.” You’d frowned at him, and he’d rolled his eyes as he continued. “Pretty shit, but shit.”

The Feeling liked being called pretty. You were caught up on the shit aspect. “You don’t look any better,” you’d grumbled. It wasn’t true, he looked so good it made you violent, but he didn’t have to know that.

Ben had winked. “Sure, Sunshine. Just try not to pass out on the couch. I don’t want sit here all night, but there’s no fucking way I’m carrying you up the stairs.”

It had taken a moment to notice his implication, and when you had the Feeling become heavy. “You’re sleeping in my bed again?”

He hadn’t looked at you when he’d answered with a shrug. “Sure.”

And that was that. He’d started to spend the night in your bed, you’d started to sleep eight hours instead of four, and he’d started to sleep three instead of zero.

Overall it might not have been a mistake, just a very productive arrangement, if it hadn’t made the feeling big. If it hadn’t started to feel so instinctual and easy that, now that there was even the prospect of him not being here by nightfall, you felt wired. The Feeling was electric, and was making you miss him, and you were going to go insane.

Don’t fucking miss me too much, Sunshine. Ben’s last words before he’d left mocked you, and you wanted him to come back so you could punch him for jinxing you like that. He’d been gone for barely an hour, and the Feeling was all across you, missing him.

You were alone, without him for the first time in almost two months, and all you could do was miss his stupid face and safe touch. This was not a long-term, sustainable way of life. You’re still productive—You do laundry, yours and Ben’s, and you wash dishes, and you swap out Ben’s empty, pine-scented body wash for a full one that was under the cupboard—but the whole time you’re just missing him.

You reasoned that it wasn’t actually Ben himself that was clawing at you. You just hadn’t really been alone—or at least alone without fearing for your life every waking second—since before Homelander took you. And at that point, if you had felt this antsy, jumping feeling of uselessness, you’d been able to go for a walk. Call a friend. Go to a coffee shop.

Now it was just you, the safe house, and plague-like thoughts of Ben.

Just you. Nobody else. Nobody even near you.

You could sing. Nobody was here, so you could sing.

It started slow. You hummed Moon River, feeling out what happened.

Fractured memories began to surround you. The kitchen of the safe house faded into the background, and you were standing in a hazy version of your childhood bedroom. You felt something soft in your hands, and looked down to see your baby blanket your hands. When you looked back up, your mother was before you. Smiling, her face so much softer than it ever was outside of hazy, warped fantasies of childhood. You could feel a breeze coming from somewhere, and when you turned your gaze to the ceiling, it was gone. Instead a vast night sky hung over your head, complete with stars and a moon that was far too large, glowing brightly. By the time you reached the end of the song, soft instrumentals had begun to fill the space.

You’d never done that before. Though you’d also never really tried. You hadn’t test yourself since you’d realized what singing did, right after the third shot of V.

You chose a different song. Another one your mother had loved, another one she used to make you sing at chandelier light and champagne filled parties. Then, suddenly, you were there. In a gaudy, marble ballroom, your skin itching from lace that was too revealing, your mother smiling, the senator on her arm, visible through the faceless crowd. When you turned your head, Violet was at your side, and you could feel your baby sister’s grip on your hand. She wasn’t looking at you though. Violet was watching one of the senator's largest donors through the crowd, frowning as he moved toward your mother. As he pointed at you.

Suddenly Violet was gone, and you were on a stage. Velvet carpet below you, light’s blinding your view of the crowd’s vulture-like gaze. Your skin itched—just like it had at thirteen—but you realized you could hear the instrumentals.

What else could you do? A little voice asked. This might be your only chance to find out. 

So you sang. For the whole day.

You sang an older rock song your Dad loved, one that took you to a mold-filled apartment in Boston where the paint on the walls peeled and the bricks around the code-breaking fireplace cracked. You learned you could do drums.

You hummed a classical piece that your nerdy brother, Henry, used to make you listen to. That took you to your grandparent’s house, an old film with a now-familiar playing in the background as thin, old faces that always scowled watched you from far, far above. You learned you just do full orchestral, from woodwinds to strings to the cannon at the end.

You sang a pop song that Alexa, your other sister, had made you learn the choreography to, and that made you feel light and bubbly, the world around you turning into a glittery fever dream and the ground vanishing from your feet. You learned it didn’t have to be memories.

You still couldn’t control it, not in the slightest. You tried to see how small you could make the effects, but the most you could figure out was that the shorter the song, the less appeared. A fast run through of some nursery rhymes resulted in only brief aberrations of sheep and rain, gone in seconds. A full run through of an album threw you into a dreamscape, and by the end of it you realized it was less the song, and more you. If the song made you think of grand things, grand things surrounded you. If the song reminded you of the past, memories flooded the world.

If the song reminded you of Ben, he was there.

That one was an accidental discovery. You’d gotten tired, realized you’d become sweaty from dancing with the music, and gotten in the shower. You’d started to hum a slower song, a romantic song with long notes and soft piano, and expected the water to fill with phantom rose petals and hearts to draw on steamed glass.

You’d frozen in surprise when you’d felt hands on your body, resting on your hips, and turned to find Ben standing above you, watching you with a smirk. Looking—feeling—very, very real.

Your voice had died in your throat, heat creeping through your body, and Ben had vanished before you. That would have been bad enough, and mortification covering you might stay there for the rest of your life. Unfortunately for you, the Feeling wasn’t embarrassed. The Feeling was needy, and just an absolute bitch that grabbed your jaw, and made you start singing again. 

Ben reappeared, and this time his hands didn’t just rest on your hips. They moved. Everywhere. Along your breasts, taunting, down to your ass, squeezing, and against your waist, hold you firmly as his head dropped to yours. Fake-Ben kissed you, and you were reduced to desperate humming to keep him intact. Had it not been for the Feeling, forcefully keeping your voice alive, you’d have moaned and the whole thing would’ve disappeared. By some miracle, you keep your voice semi-steady, and Fake-Ben stayed. He kissed you deeper, beard soft against your skin, grip growing tighter as your hands wrapped around his neck. His mouth dropped from your own to rest at your neck, still kissing as one hand started to knead against your skin, the other dropping between your legs. Resting his palm right against you, drawing back to his full height with a smug, crooked smile as he started to rub. Smile growing as one finger teased your folds, the pushed into you, the base of his hand still grinding against that sensitive spot. Going and going and going-

You learned that, in both a gift and very cruel twist of fate, Fake-Ben could give you very real orgasms. 

This was a very unproductive discovery for the Feeling, who wanted you to sing forever. The Feeling didn’t care about who heard, the Feeling just wanted that to happen over and over again until you died. You, still aching, desperate, and dazed, were a very susceptible subject to the Feeling, who was making a lot of very good points.

Right up until you heard the door slam downstairs, and Ben—real Ben—was roaring your name.

You heard his heavy steps move up the stairs, and there was a pounding at your bedroom door. Ben yelled your name again, his voice sharp and angry. “I know you’re in there, Sunshine! I can hear your fucking heart!”

Swearing under your breath, you scrambled out of the shower, wrapping a towel around your body as you stumbled to open the door. Not once had Ben’s banging ceased, meaning that when you finally twisted the knob, he almost fell onto you from momentum. Though you managed to dodge his body, your shoulder brushed and a bolt of molten anger twisted through your gut and into your chest.

You stared at each for a second after Ben regained his balance.

“You’re back.” You said stupidly.

“You were showering.” He responded. Stupidity seemed to be going around.

“Uh, I didn’t think you’d be back for another few hours.” You mumbled, unsure if the guilt in your voice was from your misestimation of time or the Feeling pushing you to lean forward and touch him.

Ben’s eyes narrowed, and his voice turned harsh. “Clearly.”

“Clearly?” You repeated with a frown. “It’s just a shower-“

“Did you know, Sunshine, that Butcher filled the house with cameras?” Ben asked with a scowl.

You could feel yourself pale. “What?”

“Cameras. Everywhere but the bedrooms and bathrooms. To keep an eye on us. With audio.”

“Audio…” Your eyes widened, and something heavy dropped on your chest. “ Audio?”

Ben was watching you with that dissecting gaze, one you hadn’t been on the receiving end of since the beginning. “Audio.” His face twisted into a sneer. “I was under the impression, Sunshine, that you couldn’t fucking sing.”

There were two options here. One, double down. Lie through your teeth and stand your ground until it was pulled from under you. Two, come clean. Apologize a lot, try and feel out what Ben knew and what he didn’t, and apologize some more.

You were in favor of the first. The Feeling was in favor of the second.

“I- um, I didn’t mean- whatever you saw-”

“Why did you lie?” Ben cut you off before you could even figure out what you had been trying to say. “About singing? Was it because of Homelander?”

The heavy thing was sitting in your lungs. The Feeling was spinning through you, and fire was crawling under your skin. “Homelander?”

“Did he make you sing for him? Is that why you don’t?”

You stared at him with a slack jaw, the fire filling up in your ears. “What- How-“ Your eyes narrowed as the fire drowned out the Feeling. “I’ve never told anyone that, Ben. Not Butcher, not Annie or MM. Definitely not you.”

“Well,” he spat. “That's two fucking lies then.”

Stand your ground it was. “That’s not a fucking lie, dick-for-brains. It’s a goddamn-“

“ Omission?” He gave you a mocking, taut smile. “An omission is a lie, Sunshine.”

The Feeling was loud again, spinning at the fact that he actually listened to your words. Fortunately your fury at him using those words against you was bigger. “Shut the fuck up, Pretty Boy. This isn’t the same as you purposefully hiding something important.”

“How the fuck not?” Ben snapped. “If this is because of Homelander, I need to fucking know-“

“ Why?!” You shout, pushing his chest. “How the fuck is this something you need to know?”

“So I can fix-“

“Fix it?” You laugh. “We agreed not to fucking fix each other, remember? You don’t get to come in a heal my music hangup when you won’t let me anywhere fucking near your PTSD!”

“I don’t fucking have shell shock, like some fucking-” He growled, and you rolled your eyes.

“For fucks sake, you do! Any fucking idiot would take one look at you and go ‘yeah, that cunt has PTSD’! You’re just too much of a fucking pussy to do anything about it!”

“Well, any fucking idiot you look at you and know that Homelander fucking twisted your brains, Sunshine.” He roared. “You know what he fucking told us?!”

“What, that I’m an ungrateful slut who doesn’t deserve him, but he’ll love me anyways?” You hiss, echoing words long locked away in the back of your head. “That he’ll keep me close, because nobody else gets to have me? That he’d rather I die than leave him?”

Something very deep inside you was pulling apart. Something became frayed when Ben started at you with that one fucking look you can’t read as he spoke.

“That you fucking starved yourself. That he had to force you to eat.” Ben’s fists curled. “You didn’t fucking share that, Sunshine.”

You stumbled back like he’d punched you. It was hard to breathe, and all you could see was white light. The thing deep inside you snapped, and your legs gave out, falling back onto the mattress. Bright lights. Cold eyes. Fire and pain. Pain and exhaustion and hunger. So much hunger, but you couldn’t break. You’d let the hunger kill you before you broke. This was all you had, one last, desperate protest to keep yourself somewhat intact.

But you were so tired. And a cold hand was gripping your jaw, tugging it open until mush began to fall into your throat. No, no, no, you can’t lose, you can’t. This hunger is the last thing standing in his path-

Something wrapped around you, firm and warm, and that tugging on your heart returned.

He can’t win, if he wins then you’ll never leave. You’ll never leave anyway, but at least you’ll fall by your own hand and not his-

Something deep and soothing was in your ear, a voice edged with bloody concern. Almost desperate. Saying your name, again and again.

You can’t break, you can’t break -

The voice was humming. Moon River. Reaching into your head and slowing it, grounding the fire running through you, pulling the flames back into you. You blinked, breathing still quick and short but no longer impossible, and saw Ben staring at you. Felt his hands rubbing against your skin in small circles.

“Back with me, Sunshine?” Ben asked quietly, and you nodded.

“I burned your face.” You mumbled.

He just shrugged. “You burn, I burn.”

The Feeling was back, and with the soothing of his touch, you managed to speak. “Mini-Homelanders.” The words caught in your throat, only a little, but Ben frowned at you all the same.

“Mini-Homelanders?” 

You nodded. “I told you he wanted to make mini-homelanders. That was the reason he took me in the first place.” 

Ben said your name firmly. “You don’t have to do this right fucking now-“

“No, I do.” You take a deep breath. “Or I won’t do it at all.”

“Sunshine-“

You pushed on, the words falling out of you once you’d gained a pace. “He found out about Ryan, and wanted more children. I was just in the worst place at the worst time, singing at a Vought fundraiser, and that was it. I woke up in a cell the next day. When I realized what was happening, I fought, but this was a year before he started the V experiments so I didn’t stand a fucking chance. I tried to find smaller ways to fuck with him. I tried to kill myself so many times they started chaining my hands to the wall. I remembered for a psych class in college that eating disorders can lead to infertility, so I did that. Eventually Homelander noticed, and didn’t take kindly to it.” You take a full, stuttering inhale. “I haven’t done it since I escaped.”

You felt something deep and wailful against your heart as Ben spoke careful words. “What about-“ he coughed slightly, and the thing against your heart grew strained. “Suicide. Has that-“

“Once,” you whisper. “Right after.”

“Oh.” He took a deep sigh of his own. “Sunshine I-“

“Don’t apologize,” you say as something desperate runs through you. “Please.”

He frowns, but nods. “Ok.”

You’re silent, sitting on your bed and watching each other from long minutes before you speak.

“You’re getting better at this.” You attempt a smile.

His brows furrow. “Better at what?”

“Dealing with me.”

“I’m not ‘dealing with you’, Sunshine.” Ben grumbled. “I’m-“

“Fixing me?” Your smile feels a bit more real. “Does that mean I get to fix you?”

He’s silent, and you’re prepared to back track. It had been a shitty joke, and you didn’t want to keep fighting. You didn’t think you could. The Feeling was keeping you on the ground by a thread, and your heart was flipping and stretching in ways that hurt-

“What would you do?” Ben grunted, and you blinked at him.

“Wha-”

“ If I had Shell Shock. PTSD. What would you do.”

“I’d heal it,” you say softly. “It would probably just be us sitting together, and I’d hold your arm, and heal it.” You frown to yourself. “It might take time, I’ve never used this power like this before, not for something this intense. I’d essentially be re-writing the neuron pathways of your brain, so depending on how deep they go it could take just one day or… a lot longer.”

“Would it hurt you.” Ben frowns at you, saying his question in that way where he’s not really asking. 

You answer anyway. “I don’t think so. It’s not like I can take your memories, I’d just be fixing how they are in your head. How they affect you now.”

Ben stares at you, and you can feel that resolve running over something louder and strained you don’t really understand. He opens and closes his mouth a few times before he finally speaks.

“Fine.”

“Fine? Fine like you’ll let me-“

“Yeah, Sunshine. Fine.” Ben looks you up and down, and you feel a weird flash of heat and hunger. “You’re tired.”

He’s doing the question that’s not a question thing again, but you are tired, you’re exhausted, so you can’t even be that mad at him.

You nod, humming in affirmation, and Ben stands suddenly, not looking at you as he moves out of your view.

“Go to the bathroom.” He says, and when turn his back is to yours.

“What? Why?”

“You burned off your towel.” Heat rushes through as you realize he’s right. “You always keep your clothes in the bathroom when you shower. Go change.”

Another wave of heat settles into you, the Feeling rolling around in it as it does. You stand and shuffle to the bathroom, Ben remaining in his spot, and you change into the shirt and shorts you had indeed left by the sink.

When you exit, now fully decent, Ben’s suit is laying on your dresser—traded for a pair of sweats and shirt he must have found in the laundry basket—and he’s still staring at your wall like it’s the most interesting thing he’s ever seen. You lay a hand on his arm, and are almost knocked over by the sudden thirst that runs through you. The Feeling is whining and insatiable. Then Ben looks down at you, and you think you might fall over. The Feeling wanted to grab him, your heart was howling, and his eyes were like a drug -

 “We ready for bed?” Ben says, and you have to swallow to be able to answer.

“Uh, yeah.” You blink at Ben, his words echoing in your head, and realize that the hot fury in your stomach—his stomach—is gone. “You’re not mad at me? Even after I-“

“Omitted a truth?” Ben gave you a loose smile, and the Feeling squirmed. “I’m calling it even, Sunshine. Now let’s get you bed, you look like you’re about to fucking collapse.”

You were, but not because of fatigue. And Ben didn’t have to know that, especially because he would probably just laugh and you’d be left alone with the Feeling.

 “I might have those kinds of nightmares,” you whisper, touching his chest. Offering another out. “If I do, I’ll burn you, Pretty Boy. Badly.”

“I’ll get over it.” He says, and that’s it. You both move to the bed, taking your unspoken places on each side of the mattress, and you’re ready to go through the motions. You fall asleep and he moves you against him, he falls asleep second and you wake up to watch him for a while before returning to sleep once more.

But Ben doesn’t remain tensely upright at your side. When you lie down, he does as well. Then, before you’ve even really processed the first new thing, Ben pulls you fully against him, arms around your body as your head rests on his chest. You don’t say anything—the Feeling is pleased and you’re a little afraid he’ll vanish if you even speak—so you take the folds of his shirt in your hands, and press your face deep into his shirt. He smells like coffee and gunpowder and pine trees, his heart is steady, and he’s warm.

You decided it—the Feeling, the shower, the grip on your heart when he touches you—was because he was safe. From you. You could not hurt him, he was the only person in the world you really couldn’t hurt, so that’s why you caved, and let him hold you. Nothing more, nothing less.

You felt alive with Ben because, by completely coincidental fate, you could be.

 You had no nightmares when you slept in his arms because Ben wasn’t having any, and his own peace ran into yours.

The Feeling was quiet because your heart was beating in time with the world, and it felt good.

This felt… good.

End Note: Everyone say a very big thank you to @acciditties for single handedly removing our “no beta” tag as we earn our “smut” tag. Also, if If you thought their pining was bad this chapter, think again! These two are about to ignore their emotions at an Olympic level!

[rapturously]

I haven’t seen any billy loomis content on your blog ,,, would love to see some smut of him! nothing specific, I know you’ll write something good!

devil in disguise.

➾ pairing ; billy loomis x fem!reader.

in which billy decides to visit you once your father leaves for his shift — but there’s an additional element.

FORMAT: one-shot — requested.

WORD COUNT: 6.7K.

WARNINGS: SMUT (mdni), loss of virginity, rough sex, unprotected sex, p in v sex, multiple positions, multiple orgasms, sex during a storm, dirty talk, fingering (f!receiving), cunnilingus, oral sex (f!receiving), heavy knifeplay, billy is a little deranged in this, begging, creampie, cumplay, bloodplay, tiddy sucking, mild body worship, biting, hickeys/marking, choking, hair-pulling, finger sucking

AUTHOR’S NOTE: not gonna lie, I was suffering from billy brainrot and this emerged from my brain. I love him so much !!! I do want to write some more mickey & ethan landry content too, but I do need to tell y’all about my new influx of blorbos lately LOL! love you all so much and thanks for your continued support! Means the world to me!

Whenever it rained in California, you considered it to be a once-in-a-lifetime occasion — wisps of black clouds fluttered overhead, accompanied by the haze of an overcast sky. Even for the evening, the skies were unnaturally dark, making it seem like nighttime altogether. The scent of encroaching dewdrops drifted through your bedroom.

“Honey?” Your father gently tapped his knuckles against the white pane of your door, dressed in his police uniform. “Mind if we talk?” He asked, clearing his throat. The badge of the Woodsboro Sheriff’s Department glistened on his ironed shirt.

With the recent killings of Casey Becker and Steven Orth plaguing your school, your father had reason to be concerned. He was the Chief, after all — he was cleaning up mess after mess, investigating these murders without any leads. Stress shimmered upon his features, showing up as heavy bags underneath his eyes.

You swiveled around within your seat, busying yourself with homework for the evening. Books were strewn across your desk, accompanied by a computer that barely ran nowadays anyway.

“Sure,” You cleared your throat, awkwardly shuffling away from your chair to the edge of your bed. “What’s up?” The relationship with your father was somewhat tenuous — being the daughter of a police chief came with unwanted attention and his constant overprotective nature.

“You know about the murders,” He began, looming in the doorway of your bedroom. His countenance glistened with a thinly-veiled anxiousness, but also a bit of fear. You rarely saw your father show anything remotely close to terror, but here he was. “About your classmates.”

“Yeah,” Your brows furrowed together — where was he going with this? “You don’t want me to leave the house anymore, do you?” An exasperated sigh escaped you, but he immediately shook his head.

“No, no. I just think …” He clicked his tongue. “No visitors for a while, not until we clear everyone at the school as a suspect.” A sinking feeling pooled within the pit of your stomach, accompanied by disappointment. It meant that your boyfriend couldn’t come over — indefinitely.

Billy Loomis was a mysterious boy, cunning and charming with a silver tongue — he constantly wrapped you up in it, time and time again. He’d broken up with Sidney Prescott last year, not long after her mother had passed away. He was more than good to you, but your father wasn’t convinced.

His suspicion of Billy wasn’t subtle whatsoever, and it irked you at times. You’d gotten into several arguments about the morality and character of your paramour, and your father had inevitably relented, letting you date him — but there was always protest involved.

“I think you want to say Billy, Dad.” You uttered, lips curling into a sour frown as you stomped back to your chair with an indignant huff. “You’ve always disliked him. This isn’t about anyone else I hang out with — it’s about him.” Your tone became clipped and volatile, prompting you to return to studying.

Chief Burke let out a deep sigh, knowing he’d upset you with this news. “We’ll talk about that later,” He murmured, checking his watch with a thin-lipped expression. “I have to get going to the station.” Your father stepped forward, attempting to press a kiss against the top of your head — but you’d flinched away.

Gritting your teeth together, you attempted to maintain a shred of kindness towards your father. You wanted to explode, but it wasn’t a good time. He was under a lot of stress. “Love you.” You sighed, grabbing your pencil as you returned to writing something down in your notebook.

“I’ll see you in the morning.”

From behind the curve of your shoulder, you watched as your father retreated from your bedroom, shutting the door behind him in the process. A twinge of guilt flickered through you, and you couldn’t help but feel like the villain. Your mother was out on work-related business, and your father was drowning away in work.

Oftentimes, you were left to your own devices, absorbed in school, hanging out with your friends, or spending time with Billy — but that was all on an eternal hiatus, it seemed. You pressed your tongue against the inside of your cheek, stepping toward your door. The house was eerily silent, just you and the encroaching thunderstorm.

A clap of thunder rattled the skies, causing you to nearly jump out of your own skin. Goosebumps formed along the column of your spine as you crept down the stairs, traipsing towards your kitchen. Being home alone had a plethora of perks — the alcohol being one of them. If your father knew about all of the underage drinking, he’d likely have a heart attack.

There were so many things that he didn’t know about.

A brief flash of lightning illuminated your surroundings, casting the kitchen in a quick burst of white. You opened up the refrigerator, carefully removing one of your dad’s Abita’s from the side door. After rattling around in the cupboards, you found the bottle opener, popping open the amber lager as a stream of vapor emerged from the top.

You were swift to retreat back upstairs, latching your bedroom door in the process. You placed the beverage along the edge of your desk, listening to the atmospheric deluge of rain pattering outside, falling against the rooftops. You left your window open, lulled into a sense of comfort from the stormy evening.

A sharp thump reverberated against the side paneling of your house, prompting you to rock forward. Normally, you wouldn’t have given it much thought, but considering that someone was killing your classmates, it filled you with a pang of dread.

Hesitant, you crept toward the window, and through the haze of rain and darkness, you noticed a figure moving against the tall wall of lattice that climbed around the back of your home. You squinted, head canting to one side as you realized who was sneaking around.

Billy’s soaked frame appeared before you within an instant, still scaring you as a strangled gasp escaped your lips. “Billy!” You squeaked, lips parted as you noticed his hair, slick and plastered to his skull. The blue-and-white flannel he wore atop a white t-shirt remained stuck to him like a second skin.

“Hey,” He greeted cooly, flashing you one of those little smiles that made butterflies erupt within your stomach. Those warm, earthen-colored hues shamelessly flickered across your attire, finding some sort of attraction in the long-sleeved nightgown you wore. “Cold?”

“Not really,” You mused, nibbling along your lower lip as he ogled the still-icy beer sitting atop your desk. A bemused chuckle left him as he sauntered forward, head cocked to one side. “You’re soaked. Did you walk all the way here?”

“Thought I’d walk, but I wasn’t expecting the rain,” Billy murmured, taking a hold of your drink. “A little brazen, don’t you think? Aren’t you worried that your father might arrest you for underage drinking?” He teased, mouth curling into a playful grin as he took a swig of lager.

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” You chimed, nose wrinkling in amusement as he passed the bottle to you. With a brief exhale, you took a drink of lager, feeling the bitter twang of alcohol swarm your mouth as you swallowed. “Do you need me to throw anything in the dryer?” For someone soaked to the bone, Billy remained unphased.

He shook his head in dismissal, clicking his tongue soon afterwards. “No,” Billy’s brows furrowed together for a moment, and then he peered toward the door. “Your old man not around tonight?” Normally, he was always quiet for your sake — and you were often a ball of nerves, but you seemed so carefree tonight.

“He’s gone until the morning.” It was a declaration and a not-so-subtle hint — you could stay. Your relationship with Billy was still somewhat new and flourishing, but you were hoping that it would only continue to intensify. You hadn’t really done much of anything outside of making out and touching. He was patient with you, too.

Billy hummed, gaze surveying your bedroom with a sheen of curiosity. He often searched for new details or anything he found intriguing. His fingertips grazed across your quilted bedspread, and then toward the open window. “Do you like thunderstorms?” He asked. “Or do you keep the window open for me?”

“Would it make you feel better if I said both?” A bubbly burst of laughter escaped you as you tidied up your desk, putting your studying aside for the time being. You enjoyed the lightheartedness of it all despite the dour weather and less-than-savory conversation you’d had with your father twenty minutes prior.

His footsteps were light across the carpeted floor until he approached you, palm cupping your jaw with a certain level of care. At the very beginning, he asked you for everything — for a touch, for a kiss. You didn’t want him to ask nowadays, careening into the warmth of his hand as he brought you in for a kiss.

This bout of shyness always rippled through you whenever he was near — his presence was so enigmatic and overwhelming in the best of ways. He smelled like a smoky cologne, accompanied by the scent of dewdrops. You shivered when his arm crept to your hips, lightly massaging at your waist over the cotton of your nightgown.

Billy was an incredible kisser — always walking a fine line of soft and voracious. You wondered what it would be like for him to really give in. It was a fantasy that had crossed your mind more than you could count. His head tilted slightly, thumb tracing over your chin before he withdrew, stare bleeding with a thinly-veiled desire.

“You’re beautiful,” He uttered reverently, idly dragging the pad of his thumb across your lower lip. “Prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.” Billy’s voice was husky, an alluring drawl that was barely above a whisper. It sent a shudder of delight cascading down your spine, anticipation pooling within the pit of your stomach.

A brief sigh left you, trapped within your throat as you tilted inward, hands pressed against his chest. The material was damp underneath your palms, not that you cared. He had snuck through your bedroom window countless times — but it felt so much heavier this time around, given your father’s stark statement of not wanting you to see him.

You ducked your head, heat crawling across your body as you chewed at your lower lip. Billy knew that you were smitten, and he devoured every scrap that he could, but something felt off, as if you had something to tell him, dancing upon the tip of your tongue. “Hey,” He murmured, titling your chin up to meet his gaze. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, just …” You couldn’t lie to him. Billy had this radar for bullshit, able to see right through you, pierce your armor with ease. “It’s my dad, that’s all.” Admittedly, you were hesitant to reveal the truth, considering that Billy sometimes had a strong reaction to things.

Billy had a feeling that your father had it out for him — an intelligent man, to be certain. Of course, such suspicions were true, but he wasn’t about to make that known. A huff of laughter escaped him, followed by another debonair grin. “What, does he want to arrest me?” He mused, pressing a string of soft kisses along your jaw.

“Something like that,” You mumbled, burying your face into the crook of his neck. He smelled incredible, like a dusky night, drawing you in with his magnetizing pull. “He doesn’t want me to see you right now because of all of the killings and stuff.” The confession felt like a weight within your chest, but oddly enough, Billy didn’t seem too angered by this.

“Does he think I’m a suspect?” Billy questioned, point-blank. His tone became rather blunt, but still held that little shred of amusement. In the grand scheme of things, he was on the right track — unbeknownst to you, of course. It would stay that way.

“I don’t think so. He’s just skeptical, I guess. It’s his job.” You hesitated, drawing away just enough to get a look at your boyfriend’s handsome visage. “I just don’t want you to feel threatened or feel like you can’t come around. I don’t care what he says — I want to be with you.” You murmured, brows furrowing together.

His jaw tensed, gaze incendiary and oozing with a lasciviousness as he pressed a lingering kiss to your mouth, fingers idly stroking aside some of your hair. Billy had grown very fond of you, but with that, there was always some twisted desire to corrupt — the obsession that blossomed with it all.

“You have me,” Billy exhaled, body pressed against yours, hands pinning you close. “This all feels a little defiant, doesn’t it?” His tone had dropped an octave, akin to a delicate purr as he brushed his mouth against yours. You leaned in this time, pressing your lips against his as you chased after that sensation with a fervor.

“Yeah,” You whispered, feeling a newfound thrill churn within your stomach, coupled with exhilaration. “Can you stay tonight?” You asked, fingers gently weaving themselves into his mousy tresses, tugging at the hair around the nape of his neck.

His head cocked to one side as he arched an eyebrow. “I thought I couldn’t,” Staying implied one thing — sex. You had never propositioned it until now, let alone entertained the thought. “Unless you’ve changed your mind.” He didn’t want to rush anything or pressure you into something that you weren’t prepared for.

The constant feeling of doom hung over you — religion and saving yourself had always been a point of contention in your family. You were worried that Billy would leave you if he had you, but you knew that wouldn’t be the case. You were ready to have your first time and have it be with him.

Your head began to bob in a little nod, heat creeping across your body as it blossomed within your cheeks with a burning sensation. “I want you,” You whispered, breath hitching within your throat. “I — I need you, really. I don’t want you to go, Billy.” You mumbled, nearly gasping when his hand began to caress along the curve of your thigh.

“Are you sure?” Billy asked, brows knitting together in a moment of concern. “We don’t have to do anything intense,” He reassured, pressing another kiss against your jaw, and then to your neck. “I don’t want you to feel rushed.” Admittedly, he wanted nothing more than to touch you, to take your virginity, make you feel good, but it needed to be on your terms.

It felt good — the spark of retaliation and rebellion against your father, seeing Billy again in such a secretive fashion. You knew that if anyone found out, namely your parents, you’d be in a world of trouble. Fortunately, it was just the two of you and an empty house.

“You’ve been really patient with me,” You murmured, a soft sigh drifting from your lips as you sank forward into his embrace. “I want this.” Billy’s constant chase for consent and ensuring your comfort was beyond attractive, and you were thankful for it, but this was long overdue.

A soft laugh burst forth from his chest as Billy stroked at your cheek, calloused fingertips traveling across the delicate plane of your visage. “I would wait for as long as you wanted me to.” He uttered, gaze shifting from affectionate to incendiary, simmering with an unmistakable sensuality.

He was so good to you — your ex-boyfriend paled in comparison to Billy Loomis in more ways than one. “I know,” You sighed, lips twitching into a smitten smile as your digits plucked at the damp fabric of his shirt. You pressed another chaste kiss against his mouth. “Should I shut the window?”

Billy clicked his tongue, mouth twitching into a faint smirk. “No,” He swept strands of hair behind your ear, cradling your cheek within his warm palm. “You’ll have to be quiet. You think you can handle that?” The little evocation of a challenge was prevalent — your insides turned to metaphorical mush as you shivered.

“I can’t promise anything.” Your voice was wrought with excitement, barely above a whisper. The blood was rushing to your head and heart, hot and fervent as Billy gently guided you toward your bed. His smirk morphed into a wolfish grin, unable to tear his eyes away from you.

As he placed you down against the mattress, atop your quilted bedspread, he crawled in between your legs, lips hungrily returning to kiss you. He tasted like a lick of amber lager, intertwined with breath mints and the hint of cigarettes. Your heart began to beat faster as Billy’s hand rubbed along your thigh, digits flicking at the hem of your panties.

The ambiance of the thunderstorm outside provided a rather atmospheric setting, on top of the dim lighting throughout your bedroom. Rain noisily pounded against rooftops and the surrounding neighborhood, as if masking the salaciousness of your actions. Your hands pushed at his flannel, and he took it off, along with his white t-shirt.

“May I?” You whispered, eyes wide and mesmerized as Billy let out a brief chuckle. He was so painfully handsome, especially when he smiled — it only served to make you squirm, goosebumps erupting underneath his wandering touch.

“You’re sweet,” Billy murmured, voice deliciously husky as he pressed a kiss against your mouth, teeth playfully snagging your lower lip. The sheepish, stupefied reaction you had was well worth it, prompting him to grab one of your wrists, steering your hand to wherever you wanted it to go. “I want to see you.”

His composure was beginning to crumble, foundation being chipped away at. You were so infectious, like a fever, and Billy only wanted more. He had to restrain himself from being rough, watching with lustful eyes as you sat up a little bit.

You shivered when his hands slipped underneath your nightgown, curling into the hem as he helped you take off the lengthy, frilled garment. Billy licked at his lower lip, hooded stare eating you alive once you were stripped of that coverage. The pastel brassiere and panties you wore were just in the way.

“Lay down.” Billy husked, presence exuding a domineering edge without even trying. You silently obeyed, breath hitching within your throat as he covered your body with his, all sinewy muscle and tan skin. His mouth clashed with yours, voracious and all-consuming as he kept himself propped up with one arm.

Curious, needy digits found their way to your chest, groping and kneading at your chest over the material of your bra. “Billy.” You sighed, moaning into his mouth when he bit at your lip again. It was sharp and somewhat painful, but admittedly, you found that minuscule prick of discomfort to be exciting.

With a brusque tug, Billy’s palm circled around your bare breast, massaging at the sensitive flesh as he tugged at your nipple. Your hands flew to the nape of his neck, dragging through his hair as his mouth tore away from yours, only to find their purchase against the slender column of your throat.

Your flesh was velveteen underneath him, warm to the touch as he began to suckle against the sensitive flesh of your jugular. Teeth and lips created a series of marks — some were more obvious than others. A clap of thunder caused you to jump, a soft gasp escaping you as your body clashed with Billy’s.

His grin was tangible, like an imprint seared into your collarbone as he peered at you with those shimmering brown hues. “Scared?” He murmured, flashing those pearlescent teeth in a brief grin. Billy felt your skin erupt with goosebumps, creeping like a wildfire across your body.

“No,” You protested, tongue absentmindedly swiping across your lower lip. You gently tugged on his hair, hands wandering about until you were cupping his narrow face within your palms. “You’re so perfect.” A soft, enthralled sigh escaped you as he stared down at you.

That calculating, searing gaze would have burned right through you if it were possible — you could feel the desire that oozed from eyes alone. Billy turned his head, planting a kiss against your palm as he grabbed your wrist, fingers tangling with yours.

“You’re beautiful,” His voice dipped into a low, lascivious purr, a delicious octave that made you shudder. “You’re mine.” Billy uttered, and for a moment, there was something dark and innately possessive within his voice, something that you hadn’t heard before. While some might’ve found it strange and obsessive, you were hooked.

You swallowed the growing lump within your throat, feeling his lips press against yours again with a vigor and urgency. Silence drifted between the two of you, but the intensity and desire only seemed to amplify. His kisses were ravenous and passionate, accompanied by teeth and tongue.

“Take this off,” Billy murmured in between kisses, tugging on your brassiere for emphasis. His digits deftly felt along your body, ending up between your legs as he began to touch you. You were barely able to unclasp your bra without squirming and wriggling, hips jolting forward. “Hold still for me, baby.”

Inclined to obey, you ceased your movements, breath hitching within the back of your throat as his hand dipped beneath the waistband of your panties. You felt absolutely pathetic, already wet from just the tension and kissing alone. With this discovery, Billy grinned, letting out a soft laugh as his digits ghosted along your cunt.

“You’re wet for me and I haven’t even touched you yet,” Billy crooned, pressing a heated, sloppy kiss against your collarbone. His other hand torturously tugged and caressed at your breast. “So sweet.” He uttered, nipping at the soft flesh of your chest.

You moaned, body set ablaze as he dragged two digits along your cunt, allowing them to sink inward as he briefly touched your clit with his thumb. “Billy,” You whimpered, legs parting for him as he settled between them, reveling in your pleasured expression. “Please, please don’t stop.” You wanted to cry.

A low hum emerged from his chest, mouth pressing gentle, lasting kisses around your breast. “You’re so pretty.” He mumbled, taking your hardened peak into his maw as he sucked at your nipple. Those experienced, quick fingers developed a rhythm as he stroked along your slit, thumb lazily circling your clit.

Billy could only imagine what you’d be like if he were rough with you — if he had a knife in his hand, licking the blood from your swollen mouth. The thought alone made his cock throb within his jeans, but he would save it for another time.

As he bent you to his will, making you submit with his fingers alone, your body viscerally reacted to his ministrations, back beginning to arch. “B—Billy,” You sighed with passion, goosebumps beginning to coalesce along your spine. “God, feels so good.”

Innocent — that’s what you were. Vulnerable and pious, something to covet. Billy wanted to possess you, breathe you in, control you.

Akin to a canary trapped within the talons of a predator, you squirmed with delight, desperate for his embrace. His digits dipped toward your warm entrance, teasing you with gentle prod. “I’ll try to be gentle,” He crooned. “You make it so hard for me. Just relax.” Billy mumbled, teeth grazing your nipple as he licked at your sternum.

You nodded, stomach churning with molten heat as you felt some pressure. Your fingers dug into the nape of his neck, leaving behind crimson crescents as he kissed along your stomach. His digits sunk into you with some resistance, pushing into your tight cunt. A wanton moan escaped you, mouth agape.

It was a foreign sensation, but you savored every second, cunt clenching pathetically around his fingers as he began to find a sluggish rhythm. Billy kissed his way toward the heat between your thighs, tongue raking liquid heat over your aching core.

A spasm ran through you as a choked whine escaped your mouth, countenance rippling with surprise. “O—Oh,” You croaked, awash with delight as his mouth carefully roamed over your slick cunt. He began to lick and lap at your core — slower, at first — more exploratory. “Billy!” You squeaked.

The myriad of sensations you were experiencing were excruciatingly pleasant. It was pure bliss, feeling his lips caress your slit, digits steadily pumping their way in and out of you as he toyed with your clit. Every mewl and moan only spurred him on.

Something dark and alluring danced within his eyes, and when you lazily rolled your head to look down, his stare could’ve burned right through you. A flash of lightning only contributed to his sinister countenance, lips twitching into a smirk as he lapped at your cunt.

Billy ate you out like a man starved, touching you in places that you’d only dreamed of. His tongue was hot, raking hot embers over your slit as he showered you in endless attention. A strangled gasp escaped you as his fingers stilled, nose bumping against your clit.

His palm splayed out along the meat of your thigh, nails digging in, fingers pressing down hard enough to leave behind bruises. You clawed at his hair, hips lurching forward, but he pinned you down without hesitation, shivering at the sound of your sweet, innocuous moans.

Part of you wanted him to be rough, to really show you how much he desired you. Every fiber of your being ached for him in a way that made you itch, heat crawling across your supple flesh. “You can be rough,” You whispered, feeling the subtle hitch in his throat, tongue stilling atop your clit. “Billy.”

Billy’s jaw tensed, gaze dancing with a subtle malevolence, intermingled with obsession. His darker side often festered under the skin, but when you asked him to be rough, he knew he needed to be careful. He didn’t want to hurt you or scare you away with his potential antics.

“You want me to be rough?” His tone emerged as a low purr, murmured into the pliant meat of your inner thigh. Billy’s teeth suddenly nicked flesh before he licked at your cunt again, grazing your clit in an effort to tease you. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.” It was more of a warning than anything else.

Maybe he was right — you hadn’t the slightest clue of where this could lead.

Whatever darkness you saw, part of you viewed it as an act, as a facade for the sake of intimacy. Nonetheless, you still wanted him to be a little more forceful with you. As much as you savored his gentle streak, you wanted the intensity and the heat of the moment.

He wanted to let you stew on it for a little while, lips greedily pursing around your clit as he began to suck a the sensitive clutch of nerves. Billy’s fingers pushed themselves inside of you again, evoking a barrage of pleasured whines and moans from you. It very nearly derailed your train of thought.

With quivering digits, you reached for his hair again, raking through his tresses with a fervor. Billy felt you tug and pull, which only served to spur him on as he finger-fucked you into a blissful oblivion. It was intermingled with delicate licks to your clit, causing you to writhe in-place.

“I’m close,” You whined, hoping that he would keep going or be rough. Part of you wondered why he was so hesitant, but you didn’t want to push the matter. “Billy, please don’t stop!” With a shrill cry, his ministrations only intensified, fingers pistoning in and out of your cunt.

Billy gazed at you with eyes that almost appeared black, simmering with an unrestrained desire. “Yeah?” He purred, lips dutifully returning to suck and lap at your clit. The sensations were mind-numbing, nearly overwhelming as your stomach surged with a churning heat.

He curled his digits inside of you, letting you simmer on that sensation alone before he stopped. Billy finger-fucked you, accompanied by the tantalizing movements of his mouth. He couldn’t get enough of you, delighted to lap at your sweet cunt.

You nodded several times over, bucking toward his mouth as he continued to kiss and suck at your clit. Billy led you into the white-hot abyss of your orgasm, digits drenched in your slick as he withdrew, licking at his lower lip.

The pleasure was almost blinding, body hot and borderline feverish as you attempted to regain your composure. Your chest rose and fell with quick pants, mouth dry as Billy crawled up, covering your body with his as he placed two fingers against your lower lip.

“Open,” It wasn’t a question — it was a demand. Billy’s countenance had become shadowed, jaw tense as he watched you sheepishly open your mouth. You felt filthy for doing something like this, visibly flustered as his digits landed upon your tongue. “Only right if you have a taste.”

You shivered, a noise stirring within your throat as you began to suck, able to taste yourself in the process. He seemed delighted, lips twitching into a subtle smirk as he made you continue to his satisfaction.

“You sure you want this?”

His question was sharp and succinct, annunciated with something penetrating. Billy knew that if he went to his roots, to become something close to who he really was, he ran the risk of scaring you away. Brown eyes bored into you, hawkish and calculating as you withdrew his fingers from your mouth.

“Yes,” You replied, wondering what exactly he had in-mind in terms of being rough. “I trust you.”

A big mistake — your naïveté was laid bare, stretched out along your sleeve. Billy was untrustworthy, a sinister force with the means for destruction, but you were none the wiser. He liked your innocuous nature, the sweetness that oozed from every pore.

“Stay here.” Billy murmured, slipping off of your bed as he made for your bedroom door. You very nearly questioned him, wanting to know where he was going, but a rancorous clap of thunder effectively silenced you as you sank down into your mattress.

You counted — Billy was only gone for three minutes.

When he emerged through your bedroom door, it almost didn’t feel like the same person — not your charming, debonair brown-eyed boyfriend. He seemed possessed, as if something else had grabbed ahold of him. The glint of silver sparkled within his right hand, and that’s when you saw the large kitchen knife.

Something heavy swirled within the pit of your stomach — exhilaration intermingled with fear and uncertainty. You knew that he wouldn’t hurt you, but being rough was a different matter entirely. You gulped, throat thick as Billy moved toward the edge of your bed, available hand grabbing your thigh.

He dragged you close, looming over you with a shimmer in his eyes that told you he was still mostly himself. Even then, that pang of terror gripped you as he prodded the tip of the knife into your thigh.

“Billy,” You exhaled, goosebumps forming underneath the knife’s sharp blade. He continued to trace it across your supple flesh, moving it along your hip bone until he let it ghost above your stomach. “Want you t—to fuck me.” You stammered.

“You want me to fuck you?” Billy murmured, leaning inward, knife in-hand. You felt the blade jut into the swell of your breast, causing you to shudder from the icy chill of the steel. “Maybe I’ll gut you with this, instead.” He stated, though his voice held some modicum of playfulness to it, just enough to ease your nerves.

The doe-eyed look you wore made him frenzied — he wanted nothing more than to see you like this all the time. Billy hastily reached down, unbuckling his jeans with a sudden haste as he crawled on top of you, sticking the tip of the knife into your ribcage.

You gasped, and when you attempted to lean away from the knife, he simply pinned you there. The tip of his cock was oozing with precum, erection desperately grinding along your slit. “Billy!” You whimpered, afraid that he would accidentally dig the knife a little too far.

“Gotta stay still, pretty girl. You don’t want my hand to slip.” He warned, pressing a hot, incendiary kiss to your lips. You reciprocated, cunt throbbing from the added thrill of the blade as he began to ease himself inside of you.

The sudden intrusion made you cry out — you hadn’t done this before or gone this far, and Billy knew that. A myriad of breathy moans escaped you as you attempted to adjust, feeling his leg nudge you apart, spreading you open for him.

He pressed a series of kisses against your face in an effort to soothe you, teeth nicking the soft flesh of your jawline. Billy hesitated, waiting for you to have some time to adjust, heart pounding erratically, akin to the beating of a drum. You reached for his neck, hands tangling together at the nape.

“Still want it rough?” Billy murmured into your ear, hot breath fanning out across the side of your cheek. The blade of the knife prodded into your abdomen, as if it were issuing a stark warning — to turn back, or to proceed. You wanted him more than anything else — rough or not.

You couldn’t deny the excitement and sick thrill you gained from this, as if it had suddenly unlocked unfamiliar territory for you. Billy’s gaze danced with a lustful fire, tongue swiping across his lower lip.

After enough deliberation, you nodded, nearly shying away underneath his shadowed stare. “Yeah, I do.” You whispered, throat becoming thick as he thrust his hips forward, cock burying itself deep into your tight cunt. The feeling was intense, but his eyes were worse.

Billy grinned, throat erupting with a sardonic chuckle as he clicked his tongue. “That’s my girl.” He kept the knife against your stomach, threatening to dig into skin as he began to fuck you. The friction was delicious, breathing heavy, chest to chest, silvery blade prodding at your belly.

“Billy,” You moaned, back arching into the brutality of his thrusts, legs rattling like leaves. His hand grabbed at your leg, hitching it around his waist for better leverage, hips rutting forward in a series of sharp thrusts. “A—Ah! Please don’t stop!”

His teeth brazenly snagged across your lower lip, biting down hard enough to draw blood. He kissed you then — vitriolic copper intermingling between mouths, breath hot and labored as he fucked you in some frenzied state. Your poor cunt clenched around him, drawing him right in.

With a brief adjustment, he moved onto his knees, cock still pounding away at you as he used the grip on your leg as a crutch. Billy dragged the knife along your body, digging the tip into your sternum, letting it ghost above your breasts. He wanted to lick the fear in your eyes — drink it right from the source.

“Look so pretty like this,” He purred, using the cold flat of the knife to press into your chest. It caused you to moan, eyes rolling into the back of your skull as he continued to fuck you at a rather brutal pace. “You like this, don’t you?” Billy huffed, noticing the way your flesh prickled with a barrage of goosebumps.

You nodded, somewhat reluctant to admit to enjoying the roughness of it all. You felt the tip of the knife press just underneath your jaw, causing you to shudder, hips pushing forward as he met you halfway.

Every fiber of your being felt feverishly hot, like a live wire, coursing with raw electricity. The fire that burned bright within your belly demanded to be extinguished, cunt clenching around his cock as Billy continued to fuck you. He very nearly pulled out before ramming himself right back into your tight heat.

Billy momentarily abandoned the knife, grabbing at your hips as he turned you over, manhandling you onto your stomach. You gasped, letting out a series of moans and whimpers as his fingers roamed through your hair, tugging fistfuls of it as he rutted into you.

It was hot and quick, as if he didn’t have any time left at all. “Billy!” You cried out, feeling somewhat abashed as his cock slapped into your cunt, body pressed to yours. Once he’d gotten himself going, you felt the intrusive chill of the knife again, scraping back and forth along your spine.

“I—I’m close,” You panted, hands clawing at the quilt beneath you, nails threatening to pluck the strings and fabric away. Billy didn’t stop for anything, fucking you at a very erratic, feral speed, yanking on your hair. The knife added an element of danger, liquid heat coalescing between your thighs. “Don’t stop.”

“Yeah?” He purred, gritting his teeth together as his cock throbbed with an urgency. Billy groaned — a deep, unrestrained noise, and you yelped when the blade had cut too deep. He didn’t intend to cut you — it was a shallow, superficial wound, but it only drove him crazy. “Fuck, you’re perfect.”

The cut on your back oozed with rivulets of blood, not nearly enough to warrant any concern. You moaned, huffing and writhing atop the quilt as Billy pushed into you once more, cumming inside of you without a second thought.

He pulled out midway through, leaving behind a sticky mess of his seed along your cunt and inner thighs, intermingled with your arousal. Your body twitched and spasmed, awash with a sense of relief.

“Shit,” Billy murmured, clamoring away to find you a towel. He pressed it against your back, hoping to wash away some of the blood, even if it wasn’t very much at all. “I’m sorry, baby. I got carried away — I didn’t even think.” He sighed, watching as you attempted to clean yourself up.

“It’s fine, Billy. I know you didn’t mean to,” A soft exhale escaped you as you attempted to regain your composure, hoping to seize another towel as you sheepishly wiped his cum off of your body. You were sensitive and hot to the touch in the aftermath of it all. “I did enjoy it.”

Billy appeared perplexed, neglecting to comment for now. He wanted to take care of you as any dutiful boyfriend would do, retrieving your panties and nightgown as he helped you get dressed again. Outside, the thunderstorm continued to rage on.

“You did?” You shouldn’t have said anything — Billy’s thoughts went somewhere dark and salacious. Now, he wanted to fuck you with the knife all the time. If he were lucky, you’d bear more than one scar. It was a possessive mark, a reminder that you belonged to him.

“Yeah,” You confessed, laying down on your bed. Billy hastily zipped his jeans up, declining to put his shirt back on, given that it was still soaking-wet from the rain. “That was amazing. I’m glad I got to do it with you.”

As he laid down beside you, his gaze became dark and shadowed once again. His finger idly traced across the newly-formed cut on your back, lips pressing themselves all over your neck. “Maybe we could try something different next time.” He proposed.

“Like what?” You asked, admittedly curious as you snuggled against him. His digits idly roamed throughout your hair, mouth briefly pressing against yours before he withdrew altogether.

There was a sly, indiscernible look within his eyes — you didn’t know if you should’ve been worried or not.

“Maybe a costume next time.” Billy murmured, and despite the bemused grin on your face and his subtle smirk, you were entirely oblivious to the multifaceted meaning of his words.

Fortunately for you, you were safe — for now.

[ang3lc]

a little depressed right now. my coping mechanism is to make people cry through writing. enjoy a blurb about pieceofshit!simon x reader

cw: emotional abuse, manipulation, cheating, stream of consciousness blurb, angst (duh)

You remember his birthday like it was yesterday, even though it feels like a lifetime ago. The way he kissed her—warm and familiar, pressing into her like you never existed. You weren’t even a thought in his mind, just a shadow in the background of a scene you had no place in.

It was a second of nothingness for him, but for you, it felt like a year of every mistake you’d ever made. It wasn’t me, you tell yourself, over and over, but it feels like a lie you can’t escape. It wasn’t me. You want to scream it, to tear yourself apart for not being enough for him.

But he’s a winner, right? Simon’s always been a winner. It doesn’t matter what happens, what he does, or how far he goes—he’ll always be the one that gets his way, always the one who walks away unscathed. You wonder, How much more can I give before there’s nothing left to take? You wonder if he’ll notice when you’re wrung dry.

Sometimes, he cries about feeling empty, about needing more, but not from you. Not in the way you needed him. Why is everything about you, Simon? Why does it always have to come back to you?

Even when it’s just the two of you, the silence between you louder than anything he’s ever said, it’s always about him. His anger. His confusion. His need for control. His coldness. His distance. You think you can fix it, but you can’t. You can’t fix him. You can’t fix yourself.

You watch him walk too close to the road, just like you always have. He walks on the edge like he’s daring you to stop him, daring you to save him from an inevitable fate. But you never stop him. You wonder if he even wants to be saved. You wonder if he’s just waiting for you to give up, waiting for you to walk away so he can be the one who lets go first. And God, how much longer can you stand here, loving someone who doesn’t want know how to love you back?

You feel sick when he touches you now. His hands, once so soft, now feel like needles in your skin, pulling at your soul until it’s raw. But you crave it anyway. You crave it because it’s all you have left. You don’t even know if he’s angry with you, if he’s disappointed in you, if you’ve pushed him too far. What did I ever do to make him so fucking angry?

Where’s your heart at, Simon, you want to scream, When your hands are all over me? But you’re scared to ask. Scared to hear the answer. What if it’s true? That he never cared? That you were just something to pass the time, something to fill the silence?

You feel cold, so cold, like he’s already gone and you’re still here, stuck in this room, stuck in this memory, wondering where it all went wrong.

You can’t stop thinking about how he made you believe. He made you believe you were enough. He made you believe that maybe, just maybe, you could fix him. But he was lying. Lying about who he was, who he wanted, and what he needed. He lied to you until you were empty, and now you’re left with nothing but the hollow ache of everything you thought you had with him.

You still hear them in your mind—whispers of promises he made, of the things he swore he’d do, the love he said he’d give you. He claimed his palms would hold a feast, but when he opened them, they held mere crumbs. You licked them clean anyway because you couldn't bite the hand that fed.

The truth is so fucking cruel, isn’t it? Is it something I did? Did I ruin it? You’ve asked yourself that question a thousand times, and you’re no closer to an answer.

Maybe you did. Maybe you didn’t. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because you’re here and he’s gone.

And you’re still lapping at the crumbs he left on his way out the door. Starving.

mlist

[xxlady-lunaxx]

Silent comfort | ShinoGiyuu

Theme: Hurt/comfort??  Note: for no reason, i've suddenly been drawn back to ShinoGiyuu again-

Shinobu sat in a panicked state, her back pressed against the wall of her room, her hand to her chest. Her breathing was heavy and she blinked rapidly, trying to stop the tears from forming in her eyes.

Calm down, calm down, calm down.

It was like a mantra as she repeated it over and over in her head. 

Nightmares are for children. Calm. Down.

That was a lie. But the worse she felt about it, the more she would will herself to stop having them.

Calm down, you can't let this keep happening, calm down.

It had happened time and time again. Sometimes, she was afraid to sleep. To dream. She would stay awake, staring at the curtains barely containing the midday sunlight from seeping through. 

Count to ten, she would tell herself. She wished she wasn't so childish. So idiotic. Why was she like this? She only had so much time to rest, why was she wasting it on panicking? God, how incompetent was she? 

She vaguely registered the click of a door opening, footsteps. 

She let out a shaky breath, her bangs slipping over her eyes. Her knees were drawn up to her chest and she sat there, curled up. She felt constricted, her ribcage closing around her heart, her lungs, and then-

A steady hand on her upper arm brought her to a lilting sense of reality. She blinked up at whoever it was. At first, their face glazed from her gaze and she didn't recognize them. But she caught the green and yellow hexgonal pattern printed upon fabric that brushed her leg as the hand moved up to her shoulder, tightening comfortingly. 

She blinked again, tears she was holding back blurring her vision. 

"T...Tomioka-San?" she mumbled, biting her lip to keep her emotions from spilling over. Why was he here?

"Kocho...," Giyuu murmured. He had knelt down in front of her, eyebrows creased in worry. It was the most emotion she had seen on his face before and it startled her. She forgot herself for a moment, until she felt a drop sliding down her cheek. 

She mentally cursed herself, waiting for the inevitable nag from Giyuu to pull herself together. Only it didn't come. Instead, his hand rested upon her jaw, thumb grazing her cheek. She held her breath, slowly raising her gaze to meet his.

Giyuu's eyes were intent, the blue dark from the lack of light. "Are you alright?" he asked quietly. His hand still rested on the side of her face, drawing circles on her cheek. 

"I... What're you...?" Her question trailed off, unsure where it was going. What was he doing here? What was he doing?

"You told me to come for a check-up. Aoi directed me here when I arrived," he said simply, gaze searching her face for an answer to his own un-asked question.

"I'm... sorry," Shinobu said, letting out a breath. She had forgotten about that. She was being stupid, now. Humiliating herself in front of him, making him comfort her.

"For?"

Her eyes flit down, not wanting to see his expression. It would be blank, no doubt. Uncaring. Or would it be mocking? Thinly-veiled disgust? She couldn't blame him. She was a Hashira, for god's sake. Yet here she was, crying over a stupid nightmare. Pathetic, that's hat she was.

"No... Nothing. Give me a minute, we can get to your check-up now," she mumbled, sucking in a shaky breath, trying to pull herself together.

There was movement, though she didn't know exactly what. Then Giyuu was sitting next to her, side by side. He took her hand, which had rested previously on her knee, cradling it. 

"Tomi... What?" she said, surprised. This wasn't the response she had expected.

She glanced at him, but he had drawn his knees up like she had, hands holding the one of hers tenderly. He entwined his hand with hers, clasping it gently.

She watched him, his face slack but soothing. She didn't understand. Why was he being so kind to her?

"You don't have to talk," he said quietly, noticing her staring at him. 

"Your... check-up?" she said meekly. 

He shook his head and said nothing more, his thumb circling on the back of her hand. It sparked a memory in Shinobu's mind, bringing her tears to the near edge.

Kanae, hugging her after their parents died. Kanae, telling her it would be alright before Final Selection. Kanae, holding her hand like this, comforting her after she had gotten injured. Kanae, her quite presence as her life slowly faded. 

Shinobu looked down, resting her forehead on her knees. Her breath was harsh again and she fought the urge to cry. She had embarrassed herself enough in front of Giyuu. 

Yet Giyuu seemed to notice this, lifting her hand so she turned her attention to him, pursing her lips together to contain herself. 

"You... don't have to hold back," he murmured. "It's okay."

And somehow, those words brought her to her limit, tears quivering as they slowly slipped down, creating crevices in the thinly layered make up she had put on earlier. 

Giyuu nodded then changed their positions carefully, scooting closer and drawing her onto his lap so she was curled up in his arms. He rubbed her back, resting his head against hers.

"It's okay," he repeated. "It's okay." 

She nodded to his words, silent sobs breaking through. And suddenly it wasn't because of her nightmares anymore. She didn't know what it was. But she felt safe there, for a moment. For once, after so long, she felt that he wasn't lying. The words didn't seem like an empty promise right now. 

His thumb, though hardened from the years of fighting, wiped her tears away so tenderly. She leaned her face into his palm, her eyes fluttering close. He led her through breathing, helping her calm herself. 

He breathed in carefully and she copied him, her breath stuttering with a hiccup. He rubbed her back, leading her through breathing out. In and out, in and out. 

She leaned against his body, his arms wrapping around her. 

"Thank you," she murmured. 

He didn't answer, instead placing his lips carefully on her forehead. It felt... right. She didn't know how, it just did. So she let him, let him hug her, let him comfort her. Let herself enjoy it, eyes closed.

"You should rest," he said softly.

She didn't protest, feeling somehow both emotionally and physically exhausted. As she drifted off to sleep, she thought she heard him say something, though she couldn't be certain of it.

"It'll be fine," he whispered. "I love you."

×××

« Word count: 1144 » 

By far my favorite oneshot i have written recently :333

[in-case-of-grace]

At some unholy hour, well after the sun has turned its back on the Earth, I walk through my front door, looking disheveled. The lights flick on. My wife, arms folded, growls. "I thought we talked about this."

"We did...I wasn't-"

She sticks her finger out at me, an accusatory spear. "You and I know damn well you were." She looks away. "Say it."

My mouth is dry. When I find them, the words come out like coarse sand. "Fine. I...I was up all night posting, but..." I stop. We both know this dance.

She bites her lip, trying to hold back tears. "And the posts were hilarious, weren't they?"

I look at the floor, ashamed. "So fucking funny..." I want to reassure her, tell her this was the last time-- but we'd both know that was a lie.

She speaks through choked tears. "I...I can't look at you when you're like this." She starts towards the door. "I'm done." I don't move to stop her as she walks out. The sound of the door closing behind her is deafening. This was inevitable, an immutable fact of life-- like gravity.

I can't bear it. I need something to take the edge off, and so I go towards the only thing I know can help. I fumble for my phone, my lifeline. My devil. I stroke its glassy surface, breathing in sharply. Anticipating relief in spite of my better judgement.

The light is nearly blinding, as if god, too, was now accusing me of my sins. My thumbs fly across the screen like starving animals in a feeding frenzy. A tasteful photo soon appears-- that of a very sad, wet feline. Next come the words. "Me when I eat burger."

My wife loved burgers.

Through tears, I press post.

[hedwig221b]

Hi! Love everything you do and all your gorgeously crafted fics. If you haven’t already answered, what’s your writing process like? Your last story was so good I actually started jotting down ideas, brainstorming. It’s the closest I’ve gotten to writing in years. The thought of actually doing it though can be daunting. How you process a story idea into and take it from an idea to the great stories we get to read??

Thank you! It may just be the greatest pleasure for a writer to inspire another to write. I am taking your hand - and I hope you feel its warmth just like my gratitude - and pouring all of my inspiration to you 💗 I hope you get sooo inspired to write and share the excitement of getting to create

I feel like I'm going to rant so I'll hide it under the cut. Major spoilers for Yes To Heaven, as I'm gonna give it as an example.

1. I usually just start thinking about one scene or a single concept, maybe a couple, and then think: oh, this could become something tangible. You gotta catch that scene in your head and really taste it, look around the characters (where they are, when, what universe), try to envision it in your head like a movie; look inside the characters, what are they feeling, like, right now, what their thoughts are, what are they saying? At this point, usually the idea starts to grow into my mind so deep that the only way to get rid of it is to write. Otherwise, it would drive me insane.

Example: with Yes To Heaven, it started with one scene where Stiles is surrounded with alphas, and everyone wants him, everyone looks at him and stumbles all over themselves to help him. And Stiles is blushing and beautiful and wondering what's all this for. And Derek in the corner, glaring at everyone and seething.

2. Ok, now it's time for the good old record scratch and the "you're probably wondering how I got here". I sort of step away from the scene: one step into the past and one into the future. I usually get really quickly to the "oh so THIS is the story, okay...". So you got the vague feeling of the plot.

Example: I literally started to think: why would Derek not intervene? Why would the alphas circle around Stiles and want him? What would Derek do, bc he can't simply stand aside and watch the vultures peck at his Stiles. Oh, Stiles is an omega. What if he was a rare omega? The only way Derek wouldn't intervene is if he didn't have the same reasons to circle Stiles. He differs from others. He's a bodyguard. But he intervenes in the end. Why?

3. And then, of course, you get the feel of the story. Ah, this is a story about beautiful Stiles breaking Derek's control and everything he knew about himself (sort of, in the most simple sense).

Then I get boring and go look at the trusted three act plot structure. I know there are a lot of plot structures out there, but this is the most common one and simple to follow. (I'm dying to explore other plot structures tbh, they look intriguing)

Once at the structure, I usually go for the big guns and straight up start thinking about the climax of the story bc I love drama.

Characters need to break. Something about them needs to: their body, their mind, their worldview, their very core and morals and beliefs. The climax is what your story will be remembered for, the very nail-biting tension at the height of it and the inevitable drop into the abyss. Characters need to change, that's why we follow the stories of them.

Not gonna lie, I don't struggle with this part, I'm always there for the ultimate angst, so idk how to tell you to get there.

Example: Stiles' hesitant trust for Derek shatters when Derek sends him back to the Institute. He didn't expect it and it is the worst betrayal for him. Stiles breaks. Derek breaks as well, bc Stiles rejects him. It changes both of them: Derek becomes ruthless (he could've killed Deaton from the beginning, but something always stopped him until now); Stiles, after Derek comes back for him, lets the trust to flourish, and he becomes content. For the first time in his life, Stiles has someone he can trust to come back for him and keep their promises. Derek would never leave Stiles - and that's the resolution for both of them.

At this point, I really see what the story is truly about: trust and its fragility, the false safety of feeling like you have that trust when you have nothing but the shadow of it.

Now I know what everything has to be about. The theme (trust, in my case) should be like the sun that shines upon all of them and soaks into every corner of the story. Everything should lead you step by step to the resolution of the theme. You don't have to focus every single sentence on it, but it should be there, always. Like the sun. You don't notice it, but it's still there.

4. Then, you have to think about the backstory. You really have to think why are they doing what they do, where do they come from, what lead them to where they are now. The backstory starts waaaaay before the tale does, but you have to develop it (because some if not most traumas come from childhood/adolescence).

Example: why is it so important to Stiles that someone comes for him? (everyone left him before, his mother and father). Why does Derek want Stiles so bad? (Stiles needs him to survive, Stiles is not afraid of him, Stiles accepts him as he is)

5. Now that I have the beginning and the climax, I usually follow the three acts points (you can create more acts, just keep raising the stakes and the tension). How do they meet, what creates the spark between them, the attraction and the conflict, what makes them fall in love, where does that love lead to?

6. Not gonna lie, more often than not I don't know how to end things. I get to the climax and just sit there staring at the wall, like, now what? The answer for me is to go to the beginning and make the ending reflect it but in a new light: either sweet, or bitter, or anything in between. It puts a nice bow to your ending, ties all ends, closes all arcs and creates a nice contrast.

Maybe, there's a false climax (like, with Stiles sleepwalking out of his father’s house alone at night and Derek nearly tearing John to shreds bc of it (it's just another push to him keeping Stiles solely to himself in the end)). You get a little breather before shit really hits the fan (the tension keeps climbing; maybe not with the angst but instead with sex or a side plot drama).

About the stakes: your character needs to lose something to change. Because, otherwise, how else do you make the change worth anything at all? You decide what the loss is, something good or bad depending on the story; the loss of a loved one? an old misconception? a harmful habit? a good habit? entire world?? life??? You also get to decide whether the character does it willingly. The change becomes valuable only if it costs something.

Example: Stiles letting go of his Dad (his past and his pain, his burden). He lets Derek take it off his shoulders - and trusts him to carry it right.

Tip: you really should try to tie all ends (unless leaving them open is intentional), at least as much as you can, bc you as an author will probably forget that you haven't told it (bc in your head you know it all), but the reader doesn't know shit and will be like, "And what about A, B, and C? You haven't told us, ergo you're a lazy writer". For me, that's for the editing stage. You have to really think whether you actually told that one important thing or you just thought that everyone would get it out of the context.

Example: I always envisioned Derek with a beard in Yes To Heaven, but after I started editing, I noticed that the first mention of it is at, like, 50k word point or something. Jesus, Hedwig, not everyone can read your mind, explain things! Or how Laura doesn't know that Derek is their pack's Left Hand (had to go back and make Derek and Cora more secretive with his job).

7. Welp, that's kinda it.

There is a lot more that comes to making a story better with different ways of storytelling (I love Chekhov's gun and red herrings, personification and metaphors, to the point where it gets repetitive).

Believe me, I get the dread and the sudden emptiness of mind that overwhelms you when you stare at the empty document. You sit there and stare, and nothing comes out. But, the thing is, instead of focusing on the behemoth of the idea in your head that leans over you like storm clouds, look down and pick at small things.

Maybe create bullet points: the climax scene, the incidents that lead to it, small stuff. Once you write it down, you'll see the whole story better. And it really helps when you're stuck and you don't know what to write next. Look in your notes, at the structure (you can print it or draw it and just write above the points), and you’ll feel more grounded.

Suddenly, it's not this enormous thing, it's this little thing that leads to this other little scene and, oh, they're sucking each other’s dicks.

The grand Idea is your sun that's always there and shines upon you, but you don’t focus on it, you're just making your characters fry pancakes. It will all come together, just... small steps. Small steps that lead you to the top of the Everest. Don’t look at that top, focus on the steps in front of you, else you'll slip into the crater of a burnout.

I hope this was coherent lol. Hope I helped you in some way 💗

[divider link]

[farfromstrange]

Watching the AMC tv adaptation of Anne Rice’s “Interview With The Vampire”, I got back into the mood of writing for my series ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’, but since it’s been a while since I’ve written anything fantasy-related, I decided to practice my vampire writing a bit more with a little One Shot. I’m going to tease it before I post it. I’m too excited not to. This baby will be yours tomorrow, and I will use my Matt Murdock Tag List for this, but if you want to be tagged (and you haven’t filled out my Tag List Form), let me know and I’ll tag you for this! Anyway, without further ado, here is a little sneak peak…

Interview With The Vampire

Pairing: Vampire!Matt Murdock x F!Reader

Warnings: Vampirism, angst, SMUT (18+ MINORS DNI), oral sex, unprotected p in v (but it’s with a vampire, so not sure if that counts as a warning), blood play, biting, marking, scent kink, mentions of suicidal thoughts, violence, age gap, Dom!Matt, long One-Shot (it’s a word-count beast)

Summary: You are the first journalist to interview Hell’s Kitchen’s resident vampire vigilante after he requested you personally to tell his story. He’s offering you a way out of your miserable job—to make your voice be heard. You’re desperate and curious, so you decide to take the risk. Most people only know him as Daredevil, but you are about to learn who’s really behind the mask. How hard can it possibly be? As it turns out, interviewing a vampire is a lot more complex than you expected it to be, and Matthew Michael Murdock has set his mind on ruining you for any other man to come.

ACTUAL SNEAK PEEK UNDER THE CUT

[…]

The sun has long set over the Big Apple. Artificial neon, cars, and ceiling lights burning in the highrises along the riverfront cancel out the darkness that has befallen the country’s east. Noise melts into a flood that rolls over people’s senses, but most in New York City have grown numb to the city that never sleeps.

Sirens follow cacophonies of screams. Teenagers get into clubs with their fake IDs, adults get drunk in bars or go to work the night shift at their underpaid jobs, and the other half cry themselves to sleep, knowing they will have to get up in the morning and go through the same hell all over again.

Life has become a miserable existence, and it leaves human beings wondering, ‘How much longer do we have to endure this before we all finally drop dead?’

The system fails them. The law fails to protect them. All they can do is lie down and wait to die. And they will die sooner or later. That’s inevitable.

In Hell’s Kitchen, in a penthouse with a view of the Hudson through colored windows that gloss over during the day and show the city throughout the night, resides someone who most of the city only knows by an alias—Daredevil.

If anyone crosses him, he will suck them dry. It’s not a metaphor, I’m afraid; his reputation precedes him. Criminals fear the red eyes that come with fists and a sharp set of teeth that will surely run them into the ground. The rest of the city feels a little safer with him around, but so far, no one has dared to question his nature.

Fear is known to work as a paralytic. And this man living in the penthouse by the Hudson is the personification of what one might consider fear-inducing. Without the fear of others, he would not be thriving.

An apex predator like him lives for the thrill of the kill. When the adrenaline spikes, it makes the prey start running and the blood taste so much sweeter. It is to a creature of his kind what a good glass of century-old red wine would be to a human being; he savors every last drop of it.

[…]

[jumpywhumpywriter]

Vampire Captures Vampire Hunter to Use as Bloodbag part 38

Warnings: weak human pet, vampire carewhumper, recovery whump

Mallory’s mind was reeling. How was that even possible?! His whole life he'd been told a useless lie!

"Pff, don't look so shocked," Alex chuckled in amusement as his pet gaped up at him in disbelief. "There is a lot about vampires you humans don't know."

"What-What about sunlight?" Mallory sputtered. "One ray of sunshine and you're turned to dust, right?!"

Alex shrugged nonchalantly. "Another ancient myth. While sunlight does hurt us, we won't die from being caught out in it for short periods of time. For us, it's more like accelerated heatstroke. Won't kill us right away, but if we stay in the sun too long it will weaken us and eventually we'll die." He meaningfully pushed the plate of garlic foods closer to Mallory with the toe of his shoe. "Enough questions. Eat it before it goes cold."

Mallory still had a lot more questions buzzing around in his head, but he'd been given a direct order, and he reeeeally didn't want to anger Alex when he was in such a rare good mood.

The food was good, but at the same time made Mallory feel a bit queasy, knowing what the garlic would do to his blood -- and that Alex liked it that way. He took his time thoroughly chewing each bite, delaying the inevitable as long as he could. But eventually there was no more food left to be eaten, and Alex was impatient to move him on to his next 'gift' -- the pain-relieving cream.

"Shirt off -- I read about this stuff and it's supposed to get smeared all over the skin to relieve muscle aches." Alex popped the lid off the jar he had and scooped out a bit of the cream, sniffing it curiously before wrinkling his whole face. "Whooo, that is... really strong-smelling," he coughed.

Mallory almost laughed at the cartoonish disgust on his face, but caught himself at the last second and swallowed the laughter before it could escape, not wanting Alex to think he was being made fun of. He quickly shed his shirt and faced away with Alex when instructed too, sensing the vampire sitting down behind him. He flinched with a surprised gasp when a cold hand pressed against the flat skin of his back, smearing cold cream all over.

The relief was immediate. Everywhere the cream touched a tingly numbness spread, taking away all the tension and ache in Mallory's muscles. He hadn't even realized just how physically tense he was, his body stiff with apprehension, waiting for the other shoe to drop. And he'd still been in a great deal of pain from experiencing the consequences of his botched escape attempt.

But the cream faded that nagging pain into a pleasant buzz at the back of his skull, and he could feel himself relaxing, despite his mind telling him to stay alert and aware. Maybe there was a sedative in the cream, or maybe it was a combination of the soothing candles and the nice meal that was making him feel calm and drowsy. Or had the food been drugged…?

Mallory closed his eyes and let out a long breath, letting Alex rub the cream deep into every aching muscle, massaging the knots out. He tried not to be grateful, he really did, but it felt so good to be free of pain right now.

He was so out of it he didn't even realize when Alex was finished, his eyes only opening when he heard the footsteps retreat to the corner of the room. He turned his head to see Alex sit gracefully on a large antique couch, patting the cushion next to him invitingly and flashing him a fang-filled grin.

"All right, come on up here with me -- I've pampered you enough. It's time for my paycheck,” he rumbled, voice low with dark hunger.

⏪️ Back Next ⏩️

Masterlist

@scoundrelwithboba @lumpofsand @isikedmyself878 @iamheretohurt @fleur-a-whump

@ay5ksal @otterfrost @sausages-things @togzy @floral-comet-whump

@whump-till-ya-jump @cravesunconditionallove @whumpwritinglover222 @nevermore-ramblings @mj-or-say10

@tippytappytyping

[bangtanficsforyou]

They Reject You (hyung line)- part three

Pairing: BTS x Reader

Word Count: 8K

Warnings: swear words here and there, a little kissing scene.

Jin

"I told you, you should have done this sooner."

"Hey, if I had known this was gonna be this much fun, I would have."

"I did tell you, you just didn't believe me."

You huff. "Okay fine! You were right all along and I was wrong. Happy?"

Blair chugs down another shot and winces at the bitter taste. "I'll be happy when you listen to my advice."

"Asking for too much, now. Aren't you?" 

"Cool then, mop over a boy for over a month again. Why don't you?" She retorts with no real bite, rather genuinely enjoying the glimpse of the old you back. 

A wave of sadness hits you when you're reminded about the said boy and you sigh. "He isn't just a boy, he's also my best friend."

Blair immediately regrets her words when she notices the look on your face. "I understand that you would need time but if I hadn't dragged you out today, you would have not made any efforts to move on for at least another six months."

You feel an instant urge to deny it but end up not protesting because you know how true her words are.

Moving on would have been easier if you knew the answer to this one question; how does one move on from their best friend? 

How do you forget the moments that made you fall for him? Moments when he was the only one you could confide in. When you two would spend hours talking on the phone about random things. When the two of you would sit on the balcony and judge every passerby. The inside jokes, the tears, the hugs, the words of comfort. How do you forget those and tell yourself to not feel the way you do?

And even if you manage to do so, will the two of you really ever get back to being as close as you once were? Won't that result in you falling for him all over again?

You take hold of another glass of shot when you realise that you were overthinking again. Today your plan is to get enough alcohol in your system so that you do not overthink the little things.

"What is he doing here?" Blair whispers to herself.

"Who?" Your tipsy mind gets distracted by that and you start checking left and right to catch sight of the person she's talking about.

"Jin."

Your eyes widen in shock and you freeze in your seat. "Jin is here?"

Blair nods, feeling the same amount of disbelief as you. 

"Should I hide in the washroom?" You whisper shout. You don't even know why you feel the need to run when you and Jin have had a civil conversation just a few weeks ago. All you know is that you do not wish to face Jin. You are not ready to face the stir of emotions Jin would inevitably ignite.

"Fun fact, his eyes are fixed here," she quips with a mix of annoyance and amusement. "I'm also pretty sure, he's aware that we are talking about him."

You shut your eyes and groan audibly. "Fuck. Just what I needed."

"Fun fact part two, he's coming here."

As soon as she completes her sentence, you hear your name being called. 

"Y/N."

"Jin!" You put on a fake smile and try to seem as excited as you possibly can. You won't allow your spirits to dwindle so easily. "What are you doing here?"

Jin thinks for a brief moment if he should lie and say that it was a coincidence but then decides otherwise. "Well, Jimin texted me that you're here and I had something important to tell you, so,"

"Well, I don't feel stalked at all." You grin sarcastically.

Jin smiles. That's the first stage of you getting drunk; getting sassy. "Well, I'd be hurt if you were to call me a creepy stalker."

He says it with such a soft look of adoration that Blair has to clear her throat loudly to announce her presence.

"I'm Blair," she introduces herself.

Jin understands that Blair's words are directed at him and he politely puts his hand forward in greeting. "I'm Jin."

Blair nods and shakes his hand. From the look in his eyes, she already has an idea about why Jin might be here and if what she's assuming is right, she should really get out of here as quickly as she can. 

"Well, it's good that you are here, I have somewhere to go. Take care of her," as soon as the words are out of her mouth, Blair quickly leaves the spot knowing very well how you are going to react. 

You gasp dramatically, concerned about how quickly she changed her colours. What a traitor you have as a friend. 

Jin sits on the stool next to you before you can recover from your shock. "So what have you been drinking?" 

You look at Jin with your mouth parted open, still having a hard time understanding what just happened in the span of a few minutes. How you came to the club to temporarily forget about Jin and how now, you are sitting right next to him.

You blink a few times to let the shock subside and with Blair gone, you feel your adrenaline rush fade away.

"I don't know, Blair ordered it," you shrug.

He hums, fiddling with his fingers on the table. "Any special reason you are out here clubbing on a weekday?"

"Nah," you say just as casually as you had uttered the previous sentence. Maybe it's because of the alcohol but you don't find yourself feeling anxious in his presence. There's only a very little amount of unease but that's only because you don't want to get too into your emotions. 

Jin watches you closely. You don't look drunk, just tipsy. And thankfully, for him, you don't seem to be too bothered by the fact that he just invited himself. 

Someone might say that he's being overdramatic coming all the way to say something he could have said any other time. But when Jimin texted him that you're here, his thoughts started getting a little wild.

What if you were in a club trying to get over him? What if some hot bartender catches your eye? What if your friends are telling you that you deserve better? (The last one, Jin agrees with) 

It's fair to say that those thoughts made him rush to this place so that he can finally say what he figured out in the last few days.

Jin inhales deeply and asks the million-dollar question. "Do you– do you still love me?"

You choke on your drink and a series of coughs that follows. Jin immediately asks for a glass of water and helps you calm down.

"What kind of a question is that?" You ask in a raspy voice when your coughing fit subsides.

"A very important one?" He asks you back, his brows now furrowing in nervousness.

You mimic his expression, only that your brows furrow in annoyance. "What kind of people do you hang around with to get the idea that people's feelings change in the span of a few weeks?"

Ah, yes. You're sassy right now.

Jin's features soften and he looks at you with a look of disbelief.

"So you still love me?" He asks in a whisper, too scared to say the words out loud.

"Unfortunately, yes." You nod.

Before you can take hold of another glass of shot, Jin's hand comes to rest on yours. You look at him in confusion, wondering what even is he up to.

"Well, I love you too," a wide smile breaks out on his face as if the thought of you is enough to make him happy.

This time, you choke on thin air. "Excuse me?!"

He takes your hand and brings it to his lips. "I'm sorry it took me so long, but now that I know, I just want to be with you forever."

Your eyes follow his movements and you find your breathing getting shallower and only one question coming to your mind; Is this really happening?

Jin notices the way you seem to have run out of words. It makes him want to smirk in satisfaction but at the same time wrap you in his arms. Had he known you would react this way, he would have done this way sooner. But he was busy being a fool back then. 

You were always by his side, through the worst and the best. You were his only constant in the world of variables. He always felt so at home with you, that the thought of changing the dynamics never occurred to him. You two were perfect being best friends and he thought that was how it was going to be forever. 

But then he's also a hopeless romantic at heart. He has always dreamt of his perfect partner and what life with them will look like. He has also had his fair share of crushes and relationships but never did the faceless person from his dreams appear to be one of them.

Now that he thinks of it, he knows why that was the case. 

"You don't have to say anything," Jin adds, not wanting you to stress about it. "I just needed you to know that I love you and I'm sorry for realising it so late."

Now as sassy as you are when you're tipsy, you're just as bold. Without thinking any further, you lean forward and kiss him. It's odd and something your sober self would never do, but right now you're definitely not sober. Plus, you can leave the overthinking for her when she wakes up tomorrow. At the moment, the only thing that matters to you is that the man you so irrevocably love, loves you back. 

Jin freezes and his eyes widen in shock when he feels your lips on his. 

He knows you are only doing this because you are drunk. He knows that had you been sober you would have asked a million questions by now. He also, knows that he shouldn't be kissing you back but when he hears a whine of complaint from you at his lack of enthusiasm, his resolve crumbles. 

He gently puts his palms on your cheeks and kisses you back passionately. The warm sensation of your lips on his makes his head spin and he wonders how on earth has he gone so long without doing this. 

However, he pulls back when he feels your tongue against his lips. "We should get you home."

You shake your head like a stubborn child. "No, I don't want to go."

Gosh, he wants to kiss that pout away. How did he not realise that it's been you all along? 

Blair watches from a distance as you throw your hands in the air like a small child and a smile makes its way onto her lips. Guess, she won't have to worry about you moping anymore. 

Yoongi

As soon as the doorbell rings, you freeze. That must be Yoongi.

You have been looking forward to this moment and at the same time have been dreading it. But it's one of those things that you know just needs to be done.

You haven't had a single moment of peace since yesterday. It's tiring honestly. You don't know how the conversation with Yoongi will go, but you at least hope that after this you won't feel this heavy weight on your shoulders and will be able to have a good night's sleep. 

With that hope, you open the door and you're greeted by Yoongi in a purple suit and the sight itself makes you swallow. You really wish you could marry him.

Shaking the thought away, you welcome him in and ask him to take a seat on the couch. 

"Would you like some tea or coffee?" You query

Yoongi shakes his head. "Nothing really. I had coffee before leaving."

Well then, guess you won't get the time to figure out how to start the conversation. 

You take a seat on the opposite couch and play with the rings that adorn your fingers. "I called you at my place because there's something important we need to talk about and I thought that a public place isn't suitable for the conversation."

Yoongi nods. He won't lie but he shares the same view. It's difficult for him as it is to talk about his emotions. He doesn't want to imagine having to explain why he came across as nonchalant to your confession and how he respects your honesty, more than he could show.

However, nothing could have prepared him for the next words that leave your mouth.

"I think we should not go forward with this marriage."

Your words cause Yoongi to choke. Out of all the things he wanted to discuss with you, he never saw this coming. "What?!"

Seeing Yoongi react like this catches you slightly off guard. Usually, he always has his emotions in check and is unreadable. It always makes you feel like he's out of reach. However, right now, you can read him like a book, which oddly enough gives you a sense of satisfaction.

"We should not get married." You repeat your words and wait for Yoongi's shocked features to subside. 

Yoongi looks at you and notices how determined you seem, as if you have thought about this long and hard and only then have you come to this decision. The thought that there's probably no changing your mind, scares him. 

Clearing his throat, he tries to sound as calm as he can. "Why though?"

Now it's your turn to be surprised. Isn't it obvious why the two of you shouldn't get married?

Chewing on your lower lip, you ponder how you should frame your words. After a brief pause, you start with a gentle tone that somehow comes out sad.

"When two people love each other, they get married. Not because they have to, but because they want to. It's like this celebration of their love, where they declare to the world that they are each other's for the rest of eternity. But you see, that's the most important factor–" you look up to lock eyes with Yoongi. "–love."

Love. 

It's a word Yoongi has hardly ever given thought to.

Yoongi knows what it feels like to be loved. His parents love him, his sister loves him, his friends love him, his dog loves him. He also knows what it is like to love someone because he loves these people just as much. But love in the way you describe it? Yoongi has never felt that.  

From a very young age, he has known that it will be his parents who will choose who he is to marry. Which is why he has never felt or given much thought to what it is like to want to spend his whole life with someone. 

But clearly, you have. 

It looks like you know exactly what you want and he won't lie, he envies that. He wonders what it's like for someone to know what they want so clearly that they won't settle for anything less. 

"We can always fall in love," he says with a small shrug as if it's not a big deal. The gesture makes his words look insincere and although it's true that he doesn't realise the intensity of his words, it's also true that he had shrugged simply to hide how uncomfortable he feels. He has never had to talk to someone about falling in love with them. 

You chuckle humorlessly. "I don't think you realise what falling in love really means." 

Yoongi wants to feel offended by your words but he can't. Because you're right. "Well, it's never too late to learn."

You can tell that Yoongi is being genuine. But you don't know how you should perceive his genuineness. Should you feel flattered that he's willing to give your marriage a try? Or should you feel sad that he has to try falling in love with someone? 

You don't know what the answer to that would be but the thought of him falling for you because he had no other choice, does not sit right with you. Even if you two were happy one day, maybe somewhere at the corner of your mind will be the thought that he fell for you only because you two were forced into this marriage. 

"I don't think it will work, Yoongi," you say with a sigh.

Yoongi's brow furrows in frustration. Why are you complicating things like this? "I don't understand what exactly is the problem?"

Here goes nothing.

"We have been on ten dates so far and on none of those occasions, did you ever seem interested in getting to know me on a deeper level. You are a closed book and I respect that it might not be easy for everyone to be open, but what counts is the effort. We have never had an open conversation or proper communication." Your voice comes out even, not a speck of anger or disappointment lacing your words. It sounds like you're only reading out observations from a science experiment. "Why do you think that is? If you were to ask me, and I might be wrong, but it's because you were never interested in the prospect of marrying."

"Had I not asked to break the marriage, things would have been pretty much the same and I would have never voiced these thoughts. You would have made no effort and I would have been trying way too hard to fulfil my wishes. Don't you see how wrong that could go?" 

Yoongi remains speechless with his mouth parted. 

"It's not only that, though," a small smile appears on your lips. "When you believe in love as much as I do, you'd know that love is inevitable. Everyone deserves it, including you. And I hope that when you do fall in love, you get to walk with them with your head held high without worrying about the wife you had to marry to boost your business."

With each word that comes out of your mouth, you feel a weight being lifted off of your chest one by one. Last night, you stayed up with countless thoughts running through your head. Countless reasons and scenarios why this marriage won't work and would be painful for both of you. Especially you.

Yoongi takes a deep inhale and lets the silence linger. 

What else is even there to say? You have given this a whole lot of thinking while he has hardly ever thought about it. Which only goes on to prove your point and how different both of your views on marriage are. 

Indeed, he has never shown much effort towards establishing a connection between the both of you. There's no denying that, but he wishes he could tell you that it's not because he wasn't interested in forming one but rather that he does not know how to. 

He knows there's no point in clarifying that now though, it will only sound like he's making excuses. Hence, he settles for responding to you with the only sentence that he thinks is relevant. 

"We can't break this alliance."

"I know," you nod. "It won't be easy but I'm sure we both will come up with a way to convince our parents."

Yoongi huffs, sensing that you are underestimating his words. "Do you know that the deal has been signed?" 

Your eyes widen in shock and disbelief. "What?! H–When?" 

Your reaction is enough for Yoongi to know that you indeed, had no idea about the papers being finalised and signed. Your previous words make much sense to Yoongi now and why you thought that the two of you even had any other option but to get married to each other. 

"About a week ago," he replies, expression now turning sombre. "I got to know about it only a couple of days ago."

A week ago? That would be around the time you and Yoongi went on your last date where you had confessed to him your feelings. Was it around the same time that both of your doors to escape were closed? 

Panic shoots through your veins when the thought that there might be no way out, comes to your mind. No, no, no. There has to be some way. 

But is there really?

Yoongi's company is way bigger than your father's. If the two of you back down now, the deal will be cancelled but it will be your father's company that will suffer the most whereas Yoongi's will recover in a few days. It was one thing if the deal was not signed. No gains, no losses. But now, it would be no gain, only losses. 

How can you do that to your parents knowing how much stress it will cause them?

You can't.

"I don't have any other choice, do I?" Your voice comes out small, highly in contrast with how confidently you were speaking a few minutes ago. 

"I don't think we do," Yoongi sighs, a deep sadness looming over his chest at how dejected you look. "But if it makes you feel any better, we can make a deal."

An abrupt chuckle escapes your lips. "Another deal? Haven't we already had enough?"

"This deal gives you the choice to be free," he comments, noticing how a small hopeful glint appears in your eyes.

"How?" 

"Let's stay married for a year, if you still want an out after that, we will get divorced." 

Yoongi's words give you a pause. 

You can't say that the deal is ideal but it is better than nothing. It gives you the hope that the two of you won't be stuck in a loveless marriage. It also does not create the pressure of being happy with each other because that's the only option.

After thinking for a few moments, you realise that this indeed is what it has all come down to and you'll have to accept it whether you like it or not.

"What about the business deal?" You query, your brain jumping to the concerns of the after-effects of having a divorce.

"By that time, the majority of shares will be transferred to me, I'll take care of it so that there is minimal loss."

You nod and sit back, feeling exhausted from the emotional rollercoaster this conversation has been. You just wish things were simple. That you both could get married to people you were in love with. Or that you both were in love with each other. 

The thought makes you look at Yoongi. You can still feel the butterflies in your stomach but there's also this dread that tags along.  

Last night, you had considered every possible scenario, and each one of them convinced you why this marriage is not a good idea. But out of all those, there was one which stood out, one that scared you the most and was the most heartbreaking. 

The possibility of you falling in love with Yoongi but his response being the same as it was on your last date. You know that the pain you went through this time, would be nothing compared to the pain you would experience then.

You don't want that.

The thought scares you so much, that you make a promise to yourself to not let your guard down so that the situation never occurs. 

Hoseok 

"You went a little too hard on us today," you say, breathless as you take a bottle of water and uncap it. 

Hoseok chuckles. "You say that after every class."

"Do I?" You ask with a small smile, knowing very well that you indeed do. But can you be blamed when Hoseok loses track of time when it comes to dancing and the only thing he focuses on is perfection?

He raises a brow as if asking you to stop pretending and you raise your arms in the air in mock surrender. 

He chuckles and shakes his head in amusement. "That's what I thought."

"Oh by the way," you say all excited. "I binge-watched little women during the weekend."

Hoseok's grin widens at the thought that you took the time to watch his recommended show. "Did you enjoy it?" 

A thoughtful look appears on your face. "I think it would have been better if the girls had more wins throughout but then I guess it wouldn't have been realistic."

Hoseok hums, understanding where you're coming from. That's an emotion he shares as well. While watching the show, he too wished that the girls didn't have to go through so many ups and downs.

"But you know what I liked?" You say with sparkling eyes. 

"What?" Hoseok asks, the gleam in your eyes doing something to his heart. 

"Choi Do-il's character!" You say with a small smirk on your lips.

Hoseok finds your behaviour amusing. "Liked him huh?"

"How can I not? He's so cool! He was so loyal to In-joo and he has such a sharp mind, made such tough decisions on the spot." You blabber. "I wish there was someone like him in real life, I'd fall for him in the blink of an eye."

"I wonder what Henry would have to say about that," he replies in a teasing tone, trying to pull your leg. But his smile fades when he sees that your excited expression has now turned sombre. 

You shake your head with a soft smile. "Well, we have broken up, so I don't think he would have anything in particular to say."

Hoseok hates that his first reaction is that of joy, which is soon followed by a feeling of guilt. He had convinced himself that he wasn't waiting for this particular day but now, his reaction clearly proves otherwise. 

For the time being, he puts his emotions aside and puts your feelings first.

"Do you want to talk about it?" 

You sigh. "There isn't anything to talk about. The relationship had run its course."

And that's the truth.

Things were pretty smooth at first, but when the honeymoon phase faded, somewhere down the line, both of you realised that you two weren't right for each other. 

The breakup wasn't painful for either of you and maybe that's what acceptance is supposed to be like. It was coming to this understanding that the both of you make great friends but there isn't much hope when it comes to something more than that. 

Hoseok chews on his lower lip and wonders what's the right thing to say. 

It has been six months since that day in the club and five months and three weeks since he realised that his feelings for you run deeper than he had initially thought. 

The first three weeks that followed after his realisation was not easy for him at all. He tried his best to be in denial but with time, he couldn't deny it anymore and he felt anger. Anger towards himself for having the audacity to accept that he has any form of romantic feelings for you after you had been so brave about yours and had put your heart on a plate only for him to be a complete dumb wit. Which was soon followed by the feeling of loss. He lost the opportunity when he had it and won't probably ever get it again. 

But after that, it started getting better. 

He accepted the fact that you have moved on with someone else and are happy with them. But that doesn't mean he did not get jealous every once in a while when he stumbled upon a picture of you and Henry on Instagram. That little spark of jealousy would serve as the reminder that somewhere deep down, he still wishes for you to be his. 

There have been times when he had thought about what he would do if someday, years later you and Henry were to break up. But never did he prepare himself for it. Plus, now, he finds it ridiculous that he had always thought that this would be an opportunity for him to correct his mistake when you could have very well removed any feelings for him from the very root. 

Before he can figure it out though, you sense the awkward silence and make an effort to break it. "I'm over it though, it does not bother me."

Hoseok nods softly, his thoughts still muddled. "How long has it been?"

"About a month."

Hoseok observes you closely from his peripheral. He notices how relaxed your features are and concludes that the topic of your breakup isn't necessarily a painful one for you. You also seem, pretty okay with the idea of the two of you having broken up, which makes him hope that you have moved on from Henry. And if in case you haven't, he will wait as long as it takes for you to let someone new in and he will do everything he possibly can to be that someone.

"This might be inappropriate but are you planning to return to the dating world?" Hoseok tries to look as casual as he can by pretending to arrange the CDs on the shelf.

It takes a few moments for you to think about the question before you can come up with an answer.

Are you looking for someone you can date? Not really. 

When you had downloaded Tinder all those months ago, it was simply so that you can find a distraction from Hoseok and move on. Fortunately, you found that and more in Henry. But now, that chapter is over and you don't find yourself actively looking for someone to be with.

"Not at the moment, no," you reply honestly. "Maybe a few months later, I'll reinstall Tinder," you laugh at the thought.

Hoseok hums, with his back facing you. "When you decide to reinstall the app, do tell me."

You don't think much of his words and innocently ask, "Why?" 

The whole of Hoseok's body heats up in anxiety and he starts putting the CDs on the shelf at a much high speed. "Because then I'll install tinder too and will search you up."

Your frown morphs into an expression of surprise and your lips part to form a small 'o'. 

Is…..is Hoseok saying what you think he's saying? Is it his way of saying that he would like to take you out on a date? And say, if the answer to these questions is, yes, what will you do?

In the six months that you have been with Henry, you haven't thought of Hoseok in that way. The intensity of your feelings lessened and you could let yourself be friends with him without letting your feelings get in the way. 

But are your feelings for him gone? 

You don't know.

Hoseok is a great friend of yours. He is nice, charming, kind, helpful and talented. Not to mention that he is utterly gorgeous. Anyone would be lucky to have him as their partner. But do you still want him as one?

You look at Hoseok and realise that the thought of being with him doesn't feel weird. If anything, it causes a little bit of excitement to stir up in your stomach.

It's true that your crush on him is not as deep as it once was and you're not looking for a relationship at the moment, but for some reason, you feel like when you're ready, you may just fall for him harder than you have ever before. 

Clearing your throat, you come up with a response that you think is just right. "In that case, I'll have to make sure that I don't forget to tell you about it." 

Hoseok turns around immediately to look at you with a surprised look as if that was the last thing he had expected you to say. But when that surprised look turns into that of relief, your previous questions about Hoseok's intent are answered. 

A smile appears on his lips when his surprise fades and he makes a promise to himself to not waste the chance you have been kind enough to give him again. "I'll eagerly wait for that day"

Something in your heart blooms at the soft look he gives you and you nod. 

After that, both of your chit-chat resumes and you two giggle and laugh like never before while you pack your stuff. Once you're done, you get ready to leave. "I'll get going then?"

With a gleeful smile, Hoseok responds, "see you next Saturday."

As you're walking out of the door, a thought appears to you. "Oh, also, you can't search for people on Tinder."

And then you're gone. 

Hoseok watches your retreating figure and he has to try really hard to stop smiling like a fool. 

Maybe there will be no need for Tinder after all. 

Namjoon

"I love Y/N," as soon as the words are out of his mouth, he winces, anticipating and dreading Yoongi's reaction. 

Yoongi, on the other hand, merely blinks at Namjoon's words. ".....and?"

Out of all the reactions, Namjoon thought Yoongi would give, this was not one of them. This makes things way scarier for him because he thinks this is Yoongi's version of 'calm before the storm'. 

"Listen, you can be mad at me all you want. I understand but I just wanted to let you know." Namjoon rambles, his voice coming out high-pitched. 

A small frown appears on Yoongi's face. This is it, Namjoon thinks.

"Why do you assume that I'm mad?" Yoongi's question, however, leaves Namjoon perplexed. He searches for any form of pretence on Yoongi's features but when he doesn't find any, he sighs.

"I don't know–" Yoongi's frown deepening is enough for Namjoon to backtrack and start speaking the truth. "–you told me that if I were to ever try to show interest in your sister, our friendship would be over."

"I mean, I don't recall saying that but it does sound like something I'd say," Yoongi nods. 

Now it's Namjoon's turn to frown. Is Yoongi mad or not? "What am I supposed to make of it?" 

"Nothing," Yoongi shrugs. "I should rather ask you, what was your purpose in telling me that you have feelings for Y/N? Was it because you felt like you had to ask for my permission? Or were you scared that it would affect our friendship?" A chuckle escapes Yoongi's lips. 

Namjoom sighs, feeling his muscles relax as he finally lets himself realise that Yoongi isn't mad. "I think it's more of the latter."

"So you won't ask for my permission, before pursuing her?" A scowl appears on Yoongi's face which immediately makes Namjoon stutter.

"I��I–I didn't mean that. Of course, I would ask for your permission." 

Yoongi tries his hardest to hold back the satisfied smirk that tries to make an appearance. It's nice to see Namjoon being scared of him every once in a while. 

"That's better," Yoongi hums. "And you don't have to worry about ruining our friendship and all that shit. That's very high school."

Namjoon feels like he can breathe again. After weeks, it feels like he can finally be honest with himself and most importantly with you, without being scared. A wide dimpled smile appears on his face at the thought of finally confessing to you. 

"Gosh, that's annoying," Yoongi huffs, with no real annoyance in his tone. If anything, he's glad to see the wide grin on his friend's face. "If she does reciprocate your feelings and the two of you become a couple, I do hope that the two of you don't turn out to be one of those intolerable ones."

You find almost everything intolerable. That's the thought that comes to Namjoon's mind but before he can speak those words, a much scary thought appears to him which takes his breath away. 

"What if Y/N does not accept my feelings?" His voice comes out in a whisper, too scared to speak those words loudly. 

Yoongi thinks the chances of that happening are very low. But he chooses not to say it. It's your feelings, you're the only one who knows where they lie. Yoongi does not wish to assume. Instead, he chooses to assure his friend that even if he were to get turned down, he will be there for him. 

"I will order a bottle of champagne and soju, each. If things work out, then we will celebrate with champagne. If they don't, then we can have soju." 

Namjoon is grateful for Yoongi's words, he really is but the fear that courses through his veins makes it impossible for him to think straight. "You don't get it. She confessed to me and I turned her down."

This time, a genuine scowl appears on Yoongi's face. "Why would you do that?"

Namjoon lets out a heavy breath. "I thought you'd be mad and our friendship would get ruined."

Yoongi tries his hardest not to let his eyes roll but ultimately fails. "Now I remember why I had told you not to pursue my sister."

Namjoon's heart drops at the comment. Is Yoongi about to change his mind? 

"One because it was high school and you were going through your fuckboy stage," Yoongi says, with squinted eyes that make it obvious that he's judging Namjoon. "Second, you were dense as fuck at times. Which, clearly, hasn't changed even now."

That had been two days ago. 

After the very scary chat session with Yoongi, Namjooon needed some time to recover. Two days to be exact. Now he has finally managed to grab the courage to talk to you and be honest. 

His hands hover in the air for a few moments before he knocks. He hopes and wants this to go well, otherwise, he thinks, he won't be able to forgive himself.

You frown when you hear the knock. Who has decided to bother you on a fine Sunday? 

You set aside the book you were reading and begrudgingly get up. With heavy steps, you head towards the door and swing it open. The regret that hits you is instantaneous. You should have checked through the peephole before opening. 

Namjoon notices your features drop and it makes him feel terribly guilty for his actions and words. With that guilt, also comes the strong need to make things right. 

"Do you need something?" You keep your tone cold to avoid any display of emotion. It's not that you are mad at him for the rejection. You're hurt about it, sure. Mad? No.

However, you feel incredibly embarrassed about confessing the way you did. You are aware that you were under the influence of alcohol but that doesn't make it any less humiliating. 

"I need to talk to you," Namjoon replies shakily as he finds his anxiety increasing. What if you have decided to move on or have come to the conclusion that he isn't worth it? 

You'd really like to make an excuse as to why you wouldn't be able to talk right now but something in you makes you decide otherwise. Maybe it's because you don't want things to be awkward between the two of you as it would put Yoongi in a tough spot. Or maybe it's because you hate seeing Namjoon so anxious, that you find yourself moving out of his way.

"Can I take a seat?" He asks awkwardly, with his index finger pointing at the couch, when he realises that you are simply waiting for him to start talking about whatever it is that he is here for. 

You are aware that you are being rude but you honestly don't know how to behave 'normally' around him, anymore. So, you simply hum and wait for him to take a seat. 

"Uhm," he clears his throat, "I wanted to talk to you about what happened at the party."

"We can talk about anything but that," you say pointedly. There's no way you are going to talk about that night when all you want is to leave that memory somewhere far behind. 

Namjoon notices the discomfort that etches your features despite your attempts at hiding it and sighs. "Okay, then I won't bring that up but I need to tell you something."

"Go on."

Namjoon takes in a deep breath before closing his eyes to grab the courage to let the words spill out. "I'm in love with you."

At first, the words don't sink in. 

You stand there, leaning against the wall, watching Namjoon. However, when you see the scared and anxious look on his face, you replay his words in your mind. 

I'm in love with you.

He's in love with you. 

The thought makes you angry.

You scoff. "Do you expect me to take you seriously?"

Namjoon shakes his head. "I don't expect you to but just hear me out."

"I don't want to." You declare stubbornly.

"I know but give me just one chance to explain myself." He pleads gently, not wanting you to feel as if you have to hear him out. He has already caused you enough pain and if you choose that you do not wish to hear him out, he is going to respect that. 

You want to laugh at Namjoon's request. You can accept the fact that he does not have feelings for you, no matter how hard that might be. But accepting that he is in love with you after the pain that you have been through? You can't accept that.

You'd very much like to close this topic and never have either of you mention it. But you can't say no to Namjoon when he looks like that. He is one of your biggest weaknesses and not hearing him out would cause you pain as well.

Instead of telling him verbally that you will hear him out, you look out of the window and stare outside blankly, which is enough for Namjoon to know that you're listening.

"I never thought that my feelings would be reciprocated. Which is why, I did not know what to say and said what I thought was right, at the time," his voice comes out vulnerable. 

You feel your annoyance flaring. If that really were the case he could have just said the truth. Why lie? Whose first instinct is to lie about their feelings, upon realising that they are not one sided?

Namjoon's next words answer your unasked question. "After my last two relationships ended the way, they did, I thought that all my relationships were destined to be doomed. I was scared to commit to anyone, especially you."

He sighs. "If we were to date and break up, it would change everything not only for the both of us but also for Yoongi. And if that were to happen I'd never be able to forgive myself."

It was around the time that Namjoon mentioned his last two relationships, that you stopped pretending to not care about what he had to say. You know how sensitive the topic is for him and for him to bring it up now, it must be serious. 

To put it simply, his last two relationships ended terribly. But each time, Namjoon blamed himself and thought that it was entirely his fault, which you know isn't the case.

Now that Namjoon breaks it down to you, you find your anger fading and find yourself sympathising with him. You may not agree with his actions but you can understand where he was coming from.

What you don't understand, however, is why he is telling you these things. If you're understanding him right, he said what he said at the party because he was scared. But now, he is here, telling you that he loves you. But why?

"Why are you telling me this?" You ask and you are surprised by the lack of coldness in your voice. Maybe it's because he's being vulnerable with you that gives you the courage to put your embarrassment aside for the time being.

Namjoon smiles softly. "I had a chat with Yoongi and it made me realise that I am the only one who thinks this way."

He was indeed scared shitless of his feelings affecting the friendship between him and Yoongi. He had taken Yoongi's cautionary way too seriously and while he was under that impression, what scared him even more was that he would take the risk of being with you only to later wish that he had stayed in his lane. He thought that maybe Yoongi too shares the same viewpoint as he does and hence had asked him to stay from you.

When he had gathered the courage to talk about it to Yoongi, it was with the intention of getting Yoongi's approval. Namjoon already knew that he wasn't going to listen to the voice in his head and that you were worth the risk. 

However, when Namjoon went back to his dorms and thought about the conversation he had with Yoongi, it made him realise that he was the only one who was holding these beliefs. Not only that, but Yoongi's reaction made him believe in himself, because even if Yoongi won't ever say it out loud, his calm and nonchalant behaviour was him letting Namjoon know that he trusts him.

"Plus," Namjoon continues, "I know I would regret it forever if I were to let you go simply because I was scared." 

You swallow at his words as any remaining trace of anger is washed away from your body. 

You know it can't be easy to do something when your insecurities are constantly telling you to do otherwise. But him doing just that, serves as a testimony of his love for you. Hence, even though at the beginning you weren't willing to accept his declaration of love, now you find your heart melting.

"So," you fiddle with your fingers. "What does all this mean?"

"Well if you have forgiven me for my stupidity, I'd like to take you out on a date." Namjoon hopes it isn't too soon to ask you out. But more than anything else, he wishes for your forgiveness. 

His words make your chest hurt and you immediately rush to make things clear. "There's nothing to be forgiven, I never held a grudge against you."

"But you wouldn't even look at me?" He asks, with a pained look.

Your heart sinks further. You had thought that it was only painful for you clearly that wasn't the case. "That's because I was embarrassed. It's just incredibly stupid to get drunk because you saw the man you love kissing someone else and then going and confessing like that."

Aaaahhhh.

Right, that whole him making out with someone, thing. He now remembers you mentioning it at the party. 

"Sorry to break it to you, but I did not kiss anyone," a small amused smile plays on his lips. "I was only helping the girl to get rid of something that had gotten into her eyes."

Your eyes widen when you hear that. Gosh, could you be any more stupid? You close your eyes tightly and groan in annoyance. 

Namjoon gets up from the couch and slowly walks towards you. He understands why it might have looked like he was making out with someone, after all, parties have the worst lighting. But he doesn't want you to feel embarrassed about it. After all, if it hadn't been for that misunderstanding, you would have never confessed and neither would he. 

After a small moment of hesitation, he puts his palm on your cheek and urges you to open your eyes.

"Hey," he whispers. "I'm really glad you misunderstood things that day. But I can assure you, that yours are the only lips I would ever want to kiss."

His words make you gulp. Here you were drowning in embarrassment a few moments ago and here you are now, breathless from the close proximity.

"Prove it," you whisper back. 

Namjoon's eyes fall on your lips. As much as he would like to feel how soft your lips are, he wants to do things right. 

With great willpower, he brings his eyes back to yours and kisses you on the forehead. "Trust me, there's nothing more I want than kissing you right now. But I want to take you out on a date first."

You chuckle at his words. "Well then, take me out on a date and at the end of it, kiss me like you mean it."

Namjoon's heart does a little dance at your words and he already feels his mind coming up with ideas of how he can make the date one that you never forget. "I'll make the date as perfect as you are."

Maybe you two will indeed be like one of those couples, Yoongi finds intolerable.

A/N: I definitely plan to write a Ceo Yoongi series with these two, hence that's how I decided to write them for this part!

For early access to maknae line and for choosing what characters you want the maknae line to play, head over to my patreon! Hope you enjoyed reading this part!

[astarionfreak]

You'll hate me (make love)

// Astarion (Ascended) / Fem!Reader

You left Astarion after he completed the ritual. You lost the love of your life. You mourned him. Now, a year later, you return to him in a moment of desperation. Astarion grants you one last night with the man you lost.

or: Ascended Astarion pretends to be his spawn self as Tav's dying wish and they fuck on his grave. Why? Because I felt like it.

18+ • NSFW • 5.3K words (1/1) | Read on AO3 (a teaser is available below)

Tags: About to Die, Porn With Plot, Smut, Penis In Vagina Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Oral Sex, Gentle Sex, Gentle Kissing, Vampire Bites, Vampire Sex, Blood, Sad, Sad and Sweet, Angst, Bittersweet

Writing soundtrack: Shameful Company | Nothing Matters | Heavy In Your Arms | it is what it is

This is the last place you should be.

He’s not the man you fell in love with. Not anymore. The Rite of Profane Ascension corrupted him — of course it did.

Seven thousand souls were sacrificed. Astarion gained all that power. Something like that doesn’t come without a price. His price was losing you.

You left him. You swore that he’d never see you again after the brain was defeated. And, yet, here you are merely a year later. Standing inside his palace. Waiting to lay your eyes on him one final time.

You were told to sit in a chair at the vast table that fills the middle of the room. You do not sit. Instead, you pace while you wait. You don’t keep track of the time. You don’t want to know how long it’s been since you arrived — how long you have left.

What you do know is that he’s here. He’s messing with your head, even now. This, the making you wait. It’s all part of a game.

That’s all anything is to him anymore. That’s all anyone is, just playthings to keep him entertained.

You’ve just about convinced yourself to leave when his voice stops you. Not his footsteps. His voice. You never even heard him approach, but he’s in the room.

“Well, look who came crawling back after all this time. Have a change of heart, my dear?” His voice has a pleasant lilt, but there’s a touch of vitriol just beneath the surface.

You spin on your heels. Your breath catches in your throat when you finally see him. His sharp features. Those familiar, but distant eyes. The smug look that mocks you now.

“No,” you say.

There was no change of heart. Even if you did want him to take you back, it wouldn’t matter. It’s far too late for that.

“If you’re here to beg for my help, I am more than delighted to tell you the answer is no.” Astarion takes a few strong strides toward you — then he pauses.

His body stiffens, just momentarily, before he slips back into a comfortable stance.

“Astarion . . .”

You forget what you were going to say. You’re too distracted by the way he’s staring at you now. There’s something in his eyes that you could mistake for concern if you didn’t know him better.

“What’s going on, Tav?” he asks.

Not a pet name. No more mocking tone. Just him. Your name coming from his lips sounds like home.

You don’t know what you expected. But it wasn’t this. You have to remind yourself that this isn’t him. This is the thing that stole his face. 

But does it even matter? Do you even care? You came all this way, after all. You know what you came for. You came for him.

One last rotten night.

Your voice shakes when you speak, “You can tell, can’t you?”

He nods stiffly and finally closes the distance between you. His eyes never leave your face. He’s searching for something there that you know he won’t find.

You didn’t want to tell him, not really. You didn’t want this hanging between you, but maybe this is better. Maybe this will make the inevitable easier to swallow.

“How long?” he asks.

“I don’t know.” You watch the muscles in his jaw work through your obvious lie. He is holding back his anger, and his frustration with you.

“Tell me how long you have left, Tav.”

“A day, maybe,” you say. “Maybe less.”

He reaches for you, a warm, gentle hand cupping your face. Warm. Another reminder of the man he isn’t.

You lean into his touch. You crave him. Despite everything, you are happy just to be near the visage of the man you loved. The man who, though he never said it, you know loved you.

You hold your breath.

Astarion seems to be holding his breath too. He’s warm. His heart beats. Everything has changed. The pad of his thumb gently brushes over your cheek. “I’ll fix this.”

You laugh. For the first time in a long time, you laugh and it’s genuine. “There is no fixing this, Astarion. I’m going to die.”

His hand moves down, fingers feather-light as they dance across your neck. Until he finds the place where he bit you the first time he fed.

There are no scars. There is nothing to remind either of you other than the memory alone.

“I’ll turn you,” he says.

There was a time when such words would have sent a chill up your spine. Not anymore. It’s too late for you. Even undeath won’t unwind your fate.

Continue reading on AO3.

[industriallyinsecure]

May I please ask for headcanons for La Squadra with a s/o whose stand is able to see the future and warned them about their deaths and how to avoid it please

Your boyfriend stares at you in confusion, and then at your stand perched on the low table in front of you. Time After Time, a little projector with tiny, cartoonish legs, flickering its light at him.

“Please! Please, you can’t go!”

Your stand, while adorable, had just shown him his own graphic, violent death at the hands of some pink man and an airplane stand

At first he asks you to prove what Time After Time was showing was the future, and not just a projection of your anxiety

The little stand hops up and down and flickers at him, frustrated, just like it’s user

“Remember when we went to the races and I told you to bet on Camembert?”

It takes some convincing and several more specific instances, but he eventually caves to your teary eyes and wobbling lips.

When you tell him about the potential deaths of his other squad mates and proceed to show him each one, it further cements his decision to not take action

“You’ve already convinced me, sangù, you don’t have to show me any more.”

For now, he hugs you tight to him, whispering sweet words of affirmation to you while he tries to calm you down

He has to pepper about one thousand kisses to your face and lips before your sobs turn to sniffles, and soon you’re fast asleep

It’s back to the drawing board for now, he didn’t want to take any chances

He subconsciously covers his neck, but that doesn’t stop him from bitching at you for ‘lying’

“It’s my fucking job! You knew that when you started dating me!”

It only makes it worse

Much, much worse

You start crying harder, falling to your knees and holding onto his leg like a child throwing a tantrum

There’s no words to your sobs, just heart wrenching calls of his name and ‘please’

Ghiaccio’s stomach is twisted into knots at the pitiful sight. He can only stare down at you with a furrowed brow.

“Please, how can I convince you?! It’s the truth Ghiaccio! I would never lie to you!”

Ghiaccio was the screamer in the relationship, but right now you were putting him to shame.

He bites the inside of his cheek as he stares at you, eyes traveling to your little stand. It hopped and stamped its comically small stick feet

Any desire to be right or poke holes in everything you say is thrown out the window when you look up at him with your big watery doe eyes

“Fuck’s sake, fine. But you’d better convince Risotto first.”

What you had just shown him was borderline comical

Was that really your best attempt at dissuading him? A snake bite?

He brushes it off as you being clingy, much to the dismay of your stand

“I appreciate that you care so much, but this isn’t exactly convincing evidence.”

He doesn’t expect you to get so angry at him, much less your little camera stand.

And he definitely doesn’t expect your stand to retaliate by showing him the other gruesome deaths of his teammates

Seeing Formaggio burned to a crisp and Illuso reduced to a toxic sludge made his skin crawl and bile rise into his throat.

His fingers tighten on the sides of his laptop, your utterly distraught features adding to the guilt and disgust

“Let’s say I believe you. (He does, but he’ll never outright admit it) how am I supposed to explain this to Risotto? That my honey bunny is actually a Pythia and can predict the future.”

Secretly excited about the discovery of your stand and is mentally making up ideas for what the stands of your children would look like

(He settles for little Juniors with Polaroid cameras)

Tunes your attempts at “convincing Risotto” out and pulls you into his lap to distract you.

To him, it was like something out of an American cowboy film. Caught in the wheels of a train and shredded to death

You and your stand stared at him expectantly, you with watery eyes and the stand with an unblinking lens

“Che sarà, sarà. It comes with the job.”

He doesn’t mean to upset you, but it’s inevitable, isn’t it? He’s an assassin, it’s not like the possibility of him him dying was far fetched

Of course, his attitude towards you just makes you cry harder, the little stand flickering wildly.

He tries to play it off like it doesn’t bother him for a few moments, but it’s hard for him to play it cool when you all but launch yourself into his grasp, gripping his arms with Herculean strength.

It certainly makes him more inclined to believe you.

“Alright, alright, I won’t go. Hush.”

He’s mostly saying it to placate you, but he doesn’t want to imagine what his death would do to you

Because he could say without hesitation that he wouldn’t be able to carry on without out you

He didn’t even know stands could do that kind of thing!

He almost throws up at the footage your adorable little stand shows him.

“There’s no way Big Bro and I could die like that! It must be wrong.”

That just makes your pleads louder and you cry harder, which makes him freak out more.

Is quick on the damage control and is immediately trying to comfort you while also resisting crying himself

Worries his lower lip with his teeth as he rocks you back and forth

What would Big Bro do in this situation? Would he stay, or would he risk it for the mission?

Pesci decided that, right now, it was best to stay with you

“You should show the others. They’ll want to see this too!”

You’re already fast asleep in his arms

He wants to believe that what you’re saying isn’t true, and the puddle of acidic goop on the stones of Pompeii isn’t what he’ll end up a puddle of acidic goop on the stone floor of Pompeii

But he’s far too proud to believe that anyone could ever beat him and Man in the Mirror

It’s only after you completely break and start sobbing uncontrollably that he believes you

“Christ, calm down. I believe you, alright!”

Part of him just wants to calm you down and shut you up, but the other part doesn’t want to find out if what you had shown him was true.

Tries to shift the subject away and distract you.

“What else can it do? Can it predict cards?”

It works just a bit before you break down again and accuse him of not taking you seriously.

Against his rules of ‘no PDA unless we’re in private where no one can see us’, he snuggles you to his chest and squeezes you tight

Might even let you play with his hair and reassures you that he’s not going to leave you for a very long time, or at least until they find an alternative solution

Laughs, but he’s really uncomfortable with the contrast of your adorable stand and the gorey visuals

Especially seeing himself all crispy

He tries to make a funny comment about him becoming fondue or halloumi, but you obviously don’t take it well

“Hey, hey, sweetheart, I’m just trying to make you feel better. It’s alright, baby, I promise I won’t be turning into cheese crisps anytime soon, heh.”

After you accuse him of not believing you, he finally realizes that you’re actually worried about him and you’re not trying to scare him

It’s….sweet. He can’t recall a time where anyone has looked out for him like this, but then again not everyone had the gift of foresight.

He corrals you into his lap and calls over his cat, who immediately starts to love all over you

“Don’t worry, okay? Risotto’s smart, he’ll know what to do about it.”