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lamentationsofalonelypotato · 4 months ago

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Chapter 7: It's Not A Date

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV

Summary: When you decided to work with Butcher and his merry band of supe hunters to take down Homelander, you neve expected to be saddled with a sullen, grumpy, jerk like Soldier Boy when the job was done. The more you're around him the more you hate him, but you can't help but wonder, is he really as big a jerk as you think? Reader is a supe with plant powers. This takes place in an AU about a month after the end of The Boys Season 3, in which Butcher has let Soldier Boy continue to work with him on his team. (I'm real bad at summaries, please forgive me!)

Tropes: Enemies to Lovers (Not in this chapter), Slow Burn, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Soft Ben/ Soldier Boy.

Word Count: 4K

Warnings: I'm going to label this 18+ because Soldier Boy (he's a warning and everyone knows it), sexism, swearing, mentions of sex, sexual innuendo, sexual tension. Ben/Soldier Boy might be a little bit OOC.

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.

A/N: This chapter is just a little bit smaller than the others and it's a little bit of a filler, but I promise that it is preparing for the coming angst!

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Spotify Playlist 🪴

“I can’t believe you let him around those children. What were you thinking?” Annie asks wielding a curling iron like a sword. "He's a terrible influence!"

It was t-minus one hour and thirty minutes before the party started and Annie was doing your hair and makeup for the mission. Butcher decided that Ben and you would infiltrate and see if you could find anything suspicious inside, while Butcher, Frenchie, and Mm watched the streets outside the building.

Your chair was turned away from the scuffed vanity in Hughie's bedroom at the apartment the team shared. Why he had that you weren't sure, but you figured it must be for Annie. Her makeup bag, hair spray, gel, cream, curler, flat iron, and other paraphernalia was littering the soft butter colored top. There were more things sitting there than you knew the names of.

Annie had always been better at things like that than you. She'd done your hair and makeup for every high school dance and date you went on, so you'd agreed to let her do your hair and makeup for the mission. Not to mention you trusted her not to make you look too over the top or absolutely ridiculous.

As soon as she had gotten you into Hughie's bedroom she had practically pounced on you, demanding to know everything about the past few days that you had spent living in the apartment with Ben. You'd foolishly told her that you'd had to babysit the Wilson's children last night and she was horrified that you let them anywhere near him.

Granted you also would have had the same reaction if someone had told you that they had let Soldier Boy around little children.

But he wasn't terrible to them. You think to yourself. He was actually kind of sweet. It was the first time that you'd ever associate that word with Ben, but you believed that it was true. You remember how he sat with Marty at the kitchen table and allowed her to make a friendship bracelet for him. A bracelet, that he hadn't thrown away, despite what he'd told you after she gave it to him. You'd found it on the sink in the bathroom this morning when you got up, given a place of honor in the ceramic jewelry dish you used for your bracelets.

After Ben had gone out on his "date" you'd cleaned up, made your last cup of noodle, and then went to bed hoping to forget exactly what Ben was doing. The problem was that you were disappointed and you had no idea why. You'd tossed and turned thinking about Ben and the time you'd spent together watching the kids, until finally falling into an unsatisfying slumber.

Ben had sauntered through the front door at 3 am smelling like perfume and sweat, his hair tousled and standing up like someone had ran their fingers through it, while you were drinking a calming herbal tea from your favorite mug at the kitchen table in a post-nightmare haze. You'd had them your whole life following the accident that took the lives of your parents and was thankful that one hadn't hit when Ben was home. You didn't want to explain to him why you had woken up screaming and gasping for air just as you’d done since you were twelve years old.

When you'd first moved in to the apartment and you'd had the nightmare, Mike had banged against your front door, shouting for you to answer. He'd thought that someone was trying to kill you in the middle of the night, but you'd explained to him that you had nightmares and that you were okay.

The next time it happened, Mike's mother had left a large basket of herbal tea and homemade muffins outside the door of your apartment. Even though the muffins were almost inedible, it was incredibly sweet. You might not have wanted to date Mike, but he and his mother were some of the sweetest people you'd ever met.

When he saw you up, Ben had made a comment about you waiting up for him and stated that he was ready to go again if that's what you wanted, but you'd only waved your hand and rolled your eyes while taking another sip from the mug. You weren’t in the mood, not when you could still feel the chill of sweat against your skin and hear the sound of metal on concrete from the dream. He had sat at the table across from you and asked why you were still awake, you'd lied and told him that you couldn't sleep. You knew that he knew you were lying, but he only shrugged and went to take a shower while you finished your tea and fled to your bedroom to avoid him coming out in a towel again.

"He wouldn't leave. What was I supposed to do? Make him walk the plank?" You respond as Annie inserts the warm curling iron into your hair.

"He's just so-" She tugs your hair back as she curls it.

"It wasn't as bad as you think.” You consider thinking about how he let Martha make him a friendship bracelet and how he had held Joshua and made Joshua laugh. "He was actually kind of nice to Marty and to Josh.”

"Nice? Are you crazy! The guy's got a nuclear reactor in his chest and an uncontrollable temper. Why do you think it would be okay for him to be around children?”

"He didn't get angry or lose control. And I can't believe you're chastising me about this, the other day you were all for Ben and me sleeping together!"

"That wouldn't involve children." She takes another piece of your hair, gently wrapping it around the curling iron.

"Yeah, but it would still be him close to another human being-"

“He seems to be perfectly in control when he has sex. Or else there would be a string of destroyed apartments all over manhattan.”

"I can't believe you." You huff.

"So?"

"So what?"

"Have you guys kissed again?" She asks.

"I shouldn't have told you that." You grumble under your breath. "And can you keep your voice down? Ben can hear you."

He was in his old bedroom getting ready for the mission. The bedroom was exactly next to Annie and Hughie's bedroom, and you were sure that he was listening to Annie and you talk.

Because he can't keep his big nose out of anything. You think. Or rather can't keep his perfectly structured nose out of other people's business.

"I'm sure he has better things to do than listen to the two of us talk." Annie responds, but she begins to blast the ABBA gold album from her Bluetooth speaker, filling the room with the sound of 'Our Last Summer' "Come on-"

"Come on what?" You open one of your eyes to glare at her. "I told you it wasn't going to happen again."

"Why not?"

"You know why not. Ben is- Ben. And I don't want to waste my time with someone who's not interested in having a relationship." You shut your eye again to avoid her gaze.

"It's not a waste of time if he looks like that-" She trails off, inserting the curling iron one more time.

"I will agree that Ben is good-looking, but that's all he is. He doesn't care about other people, he only cares about himself and what feels good." You say it, but for the first time since you'd met Ben you weren't sure if it was true. Not after he spent his entire day yesterday helping you with the kids and not after he had bought you that bookshelf.

He cared enough to get that for you. A little voice whispers. But why? You wonder again. Why would he care about something as little as a bookshelf?

"You're making that face again." Annie says. "Did something happen?"

"No. I mean- he-" You sigh to yourself. "He keeps confusing me."

"How?"

"Well the other day he bought me a bookshelf."

"What? Why?"

"Because he said that stack of books in my bedroom was annoying him." You roll your eyes behind your eyelids.

"Why was he in your bedroom?" Annie's smirk is audible and you feel your cheeks heat.

"Shut up. He needed some clothes and I had some from the last time Darren stayed with me-"

Annie audibly groans when you mention your brother's name. They didn't get along. She thought that he was manipulative and that he used you. But you didn't see it. He was your brother, your blood, the only family you had left beside your grandmother and Annie.

"Please tell me he's not coming by soon. If he does I will be busy doing anything else."

"I don't know why the two of you can't just get along-" You sigh.

"Because he's the worst." Annie states loudly, dropping the curling iron and bringing the mascara brush up to your eyes.

"Can we please not have this conversation again?"

"Fine. Close." Annie holds up the mascara brush to your eyes. "Did you at least join one of those online dating apps or try to go on a date?"

"It’s been 3 days since we last talked about this-“ You feel the gentle stroke of the brush against your eyelashes.

“So?”

“No I haven’t.”

"Y/n-"

"I know, I know. I mean Jake did try to ask me out the other day but-"

"He WHAT?" Annie squeals, awkwardness about your brother forgotten. "Next time lead with that! Did you go out with him? Did you guys talk all night long?" Annie is hoping from foot to foot now, practically dancing to the music still blasting from the speaker on the dresser.

"I said no." You open your eyes to look at your friend.

"WHAT! Why?" She looks like you kicked a puppy. "He's so perfect for you! He likes plants and he's funny and he's got a great sense of humor, plus he's gorgeous and he's interested in you-"

"First he wanted to do something today and I knew Butcher had plans for me. Second, I didn't know he was asking me out, Ben told me he was." You close your eyes again so Annie can continue to do your makeup.

"Wait, Ben was there when he asked you out?"

"We went to IKEA to get a couch for the apartment and Jake showed up and asked me out." You explain.

"You took Ben to IKEA?"

"He'd never gone there before, can you believe that?" It made you smile as you remembered how surprised he had been when you went inside. You’d had fun with him, walking around, testing out the couches, it almost felt… normal. And you kind of got the impression that Ben had a good time too. It was kind of cute when he did everyday things, when you saw him in normal settings and he was just a little bit awkward because he still couldn't figure out how to act in another time period.

"Yes I can, he's a million years old. Let's circle back to you saying no to the PERFECT man."

"He's not a million." You defend Ben. "And Jake's not perfect." You frown to yourself, thinking about the fact that Jake wasn't a supe. It wasn't something that you had cared about before, but ever since Ben brought up the idea of you "snapping Jake in half" it scared you.

Because what if I did? What if I hurt him? You didn’t know how Ben had sex so often with people who weren't supes. Maybe he just doesn't care if he does. Or maybe he’s done it so much that he’s able to control himself.

"What do you mean? I thought you liked him?"

"I mean I do. He's kind and he understands me and he loves plants as much as I do, but-" You shrug, feeling Annie begin to apply eyeliner. "I don't want to make things complicated. I mean we work together, he’s my boss. What if it doesn’t work out? Then I’d have to quit and I like my job.”

“I mean that’s kind of hot-“

“Hot in what? A sexual harassment kind of way?”

“No. It’s not harassment if it’s two consenting adults.”

“I’m still not sure that it’s a good idea.” You mutter more to yourself. But this time your mind didn’t go to Jake and you having a relationship even though he was your boss, instead it goes right to Ben. You can't help but slip into the fantasy of dating Ben, of you and him trying something new-

You shake off the image. He doesn’t want a relationship, doesn’t think that’s important. The thought is almost like a mantra, trying to convince yourself to push past Ben’s charm and good looks, but this time it makes you consider something else. Maybe he doesn’t think it’s important now, but maybe he used to think it was before Countess.

You’d heard the stories, seen the newspaper articles and clips of film of Ben and her together, remembered what Hughie said that Ben had wanted a family with her that Ben had told her that he loved her. That meant at some point in Ben’s life he had loved someone else, cared for them, wanted to be more than just fuck buddies.

Maybe he's just afraid to fall again, because he's not sure someone else will be there to catch him. Maybe Ben doesn't want to admit that he cares for anyone else because he's afraid that they'll push him away or stab him in the back the way that Countess did. And maybe he hides it all underneath the macho attitude.

Ben is strong. He told me that he didn't need anyone else. You press your lips together in a tight line. But I think he does.

You hated that she’d hurt him. You hated that she’d pushed him away, told him she never loved him, and stabbed him in the back. You couldn’t imagine doing that to someone, telling them that you loved them, and manipulating them with the promise of love. It almost made you nauseous to consider it. It made you want to travel back in time to the moment she stabbed him in the back and shove a bouquet of sunflowers up where the sun don't shine.

You pause on the thought. You weren't a terribly violent person, but if someone ever hurt your friends your anger was legendary, practically divine. You'd never thought that you'd want to do something for Ben, but you were realizing more and more that Ben was becoming your friend. You weren't sure how you felt about that.

“Alright what if he wasn’t your boss.” Annie gently brushes eyeshadow over your eyelids. “Then would you go out with him?”

“But he is my boss.”

“Use your imagination.”

The song has ended and there’s an awkward pause between the end of it and the slow beginning of the next one.

“I mean yes?” You shrug. “I can see myself with him. He’s the kind of person I’d want to date. He cares about other people, he remembers what kind of coffee I like, he actually contributes to the conversation, he makes me laugh, he actually gets my jokes, he’s nice to sit with, he doesn’t get under my skin-“ As you list each of those things you couldn't stop your mind from comparing Jake to Ben. You didn't know when Ben became the level by which you judged other men, but it had happened sometime in the past few days and you didn't know what it meant.

But Ben did remember what kind of coffee I like and he does contribute to conversations, well, he contributes with a disgusting comment… The thought trails off when you remember the small conversations that you'd had with Ben that weren't sexual in nature, when the two of you watched the movie on the couch and talked briefly about your parents, when Ben asked you how your day was the other day back at the apartment, and when the two of you talked on the couch while the children slept between the two of you. In those moments you had seen another side of Ben, the side that he seemed to hide away from everyone else, but not from you, not all the time.

Plus Ben is kind of funny sometimes, disgusting but funny. Doesn’t understand my jokes. And yes he gets under my skin but sometimes it’s kind of exciting and nice to have that happen. With Jake sometimes he’s just too happy or too eager to agree with me.

"Hmm." Annie considers. "How did Ben react when Jake asked you out?”

You don’t answer immediately. “Normal.”

"You hesitated"

"No I didn’t."

"Yes you did! He reacted didn’t he?!” Annie pokes you with her finger

"No he didn’t.” You lie.

“He did! Holy shit he was jealous wasn’t he?”

"No he wasn’t.” You swat her hand away. "He was just opinioned."

He sure looked jealous. You think to yourself remembering the way he glared at Jake from the other side of the room. The memory of the way his eyes darkened when he told you exactly why he wasn't jealous and exactly what he would do to you to make you forget all about Jake sends an involuntary shiver down your spine.

"Yeah. Opinionated over why you shouldn't go out with Jake because Ben wants you all to himself." Annie crows.

"Shut-"

"But it doesn't matter. Because Ben's going to have a heart attack when he sees you wearing this." Annie steps back from you. "My work here is done. Try to make it to the mission without ripping each other's clothes off."

"We are not going to-"

Annie spins your chair back to the mirror and your next words dry up.

Your hair is perfectly curled back from your face, the lipstick is a dark shade of crimson that makes your lips look fuller and more plump, the eye make up is dark and dusky making the color of your eyes pop against the darkness in a mysterious alluring way that seems almost hypnotic, and your face is shaded and contoured so well that you look dangerous and sexy.

"I'll take the silence as a 'Thank you Annie! You're so beautiful and talented and you're the best friend I've ever had!'" She laughs, standing back behind you with her arms crossed over her chest.

"I mean all of that is true, but-" You stand up from the chair to get a better look. "You've really outdone yourself."

"Well thank you. Had to. It's your first date with Ben." She makes goo-goo eyes and you try to punch her in the shoulder, but she dodges it.

"Shut up. It's not." You look down at the dress that Butcher picked out for you to wear. "I love you, but I hate Butcher."

The dress was a red scrap of fabric that clung to your curves, but left very little to the imagination. It was completely backless with an exaggerated wrinkle that fell just over the top of your ass. The front was sinched at the back of your neck secured only by a small piece of fabric that you were afraid would break at any moment and fell open in a "v" that stopped just under the swell of your breasts. There was a large prominent slit that cut up the left side of the floor length gown that stopped just shy of the top of your thigh. Annie had cinched a black choker around your neck to match the black pair of stilettos you wore

Personally, you though that the stilettos were overkill, you had no idea how the hell you were going to run after the supe if you saw him, let alone fight him.

"You look so hot." Annie says pleased. "You really should wear that all the time babe. I'd take you out to dinner just to show you off."

"You're the worst." You groan.

"I love you too honey." She winks. "Now come on. Butcher and the others are waiting for us." She turns off the speaker and walks out the door of the bedroom, but you linger there, looking at yourself in the mirror one more time.

You'd never worn anything remotely like this before, but even you had to admit, you looked good.

“Come on Poppet. You can’t hide in there forever.” Butcher chuckles from the living room.

He’s having too much fun with this. You huff to yourself finally leaving the bedroom to make your grand entrance, grabbing the black bejeweled clutch as you do.

Butcher, Frenchie, Annie, and Hughie are waiting outside the door while Kimiko sits on the couch scribbling away.

Hughie's mouth drops open, Butcher gives an approving shrug, and Frenchie lets out a breath.

"You look beautiful." Frenchie takes your hand and gives you an appreciative twirl.

"Shut up." Your cheeks redden.

Hughie is still looking speechless at you. "I told you." Annie states elbowing him with a proud smile.

“You look-“ Hughie stutters.

“Good enough to eat.” Ben finishes, appearing in the hallway to your right. His hand traces the curve of your hip, thumb ghosting over your bare back.

“Just because I’m dressed like a hooker, doesn’t mean my brain’s not working.” You slap his hand away ignoring the warm feeling that remains where he touched you. You could feel your heart beat begin to pick up in your chest.

“Baby I love your brain-“ Ben smiles, eyes tracing your figure. “But I’ll be damned if I don’t love your body more.”

You felt your cheeks turn the same shade as your dress with his compliment before you can stop them. It was difficult to pretend that you didn't feel any attraction for him, not when he looked so good.

He had trimmed his beard and brushed back his dark hair, so you could see his emerald colored eyes gleaming. He was wearing a black suit with a white button up shirt, but chose not to wear a black tie, instead unbuttoning the top few buttons to give just a hint of his muscular chest beneath.

Why does he have to look so good all the damn time?

“Shut up.” You grumble turning back to Butcher. “So are you happy? I dressed up, my IQ dropped a billion points.”

“Ecstatic poppet.” Butcher grins taking a sip from the cup of tea in his hand. “Now remember anything happens, you detain the supe, no killing."

“He’s talking to you.” You elbow Ben.

Ben shrugs. “I won't apologize for doing my job."

You sigh again and walk towards where Kimiko is writing in one of her workbooks on the couch.

"You look hot." She signs at you.

It had been difficult to learn the sign language she used, but you liked to think that you had a handle on it so you could understand simple conversations. When things got too confusing she would use her phone.

"I know. I was mad at Butcher at first for picking this dress, but I kind of like it." You sign back. "Don’t tell Butcher I said that."

She crosses her fingers over her heart. "Soldier Boy is looking at you."

"He’s always looking at me. I'm glad I can't read minds. I don’t want to know what he’s thinking."

Kimiko snorts, raising her hand to sign "I think the look on his face says it all."

You half turn and look at where Ben is again, he’s not talking to Butcher like you thought he was, he’s staring at you, pupils dilated, eyes darkening in a way that makes your heart feel like it's beating so hard it'll explode out of your ribcage.

No. No. Keep it together. Heart of a warrior.

"You two have fun!" Annie smirks widely, taking a picture of Ben and you like you're going to prom and you know she's going to send the photo to taunt you with it later.

“Shall we?” You raise an eyebrow.

“Ladies first.” Ben smirks.

You roll your eyes at him as you walk to the front door of the apartment. “Don’t pretend to be a gentleman Gramps. We both know you just want to look at my ass.”

“I’ll never get tired of looking Doll, especially not when you’re wearing something like that.”

A/N: I know this chapter is a little bit of a filler, but I wanted to give Annie and the reader some time together, aka. Annie telling the reader to do the one thing that we ALL know she should do. 😂

Taglist:

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@criminalyetminimal @52ndstreeet @bitchykittenconnoisseur @anna6307 @libby99hb

@faephoria @possiblyafangirl @jqtaro @quietlybitchy @tinydancer40

@roger-that-cap @megara0224 @miskwaadesiwag @rainyeggvoidpurse

@soldiergrimes @tiffsbagels @podiumackles

@ifyouwerethemoon @ririshkin @peachhiz @fitxgrld @sukunassfinger

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@acciosherlockholmes @minas-fantasies @fireskyy

@n-o-p-e-never @nesnejwritings @am0rem @tpwkcalli @momggn

@fitxgrld @whimsicalcherry

#soldier boy x you #soldier boy x reader #jensen ackles #soldier boy #soldier boy x female reader #soldier boy/ben #jensen ackles soldier boy #the boys amazon #the boys fanfic #soldier boy x y/n #soldier boy fic #soldier boy fanfiction #billy butcher #annie january #hughie campbell

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sometimesanalice · 1 year ago

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Leave a Light On {vol. i}

Summary: When Bradley had given you a key to his place, what he probably didn’t expect was to find you there at 2 am sitting at the piano you’d helped him find.

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female Reader

Length: 7k

Warnings: lots of pining and yearning (Minors DNI)

(this was the story I was working on back in January, before the 'Like I Can' series and anything else on my masterlist. I'm so excited to share it with you all! This will be a 2-part series.)

When Bradley had given you a key to his place, you imagine he probably thought you’d check on his plants every now and then. That you’d pop by to give them a quick water and then be on your way.

Maybe that you’d take the Bronco out for a quick spin, so that his baby it didn’t sit there too long going unused. You were one of a very small handful of people he trusted to drive his most prized possession. There was something special about being behind the vintage wheel with the sun on your face as you cruised along the highway, even if it wasn’t the same without him sitting there smiling next to you.

He’d already put his mail on hold with the USPS, but you knew that he knew he could count on you to rescue any stray package that might slip through the cracks and make its way to the front door of his charming craftsman bungalow.

What he probably didn’t expect was for you to be there sometime past 2 AM sitting on the creaky bench of the old, but well-loved, piano that you had helped him to find.

You should be tucked away under the comforter of your own bed, in your own room, at your own place.

Instead, your fingers are navigating over the black and ivory keys trying, yet again, to make it through a tricky passage on a song that you’ve spent the better part of the last three months trying to perfect.

He was coming home soon and you couldn’t wait to hold him, to love him, to surprise him.

Each time he leaves, it gets a little easier to miss him. You wear your longing like a locket rather than an albatross around your neck, always there but easier to bear.

Rooster had a way of filling a space in a way you’ve never experienced before. His larger than life charisma was one of the first things that had caught your attention, followed by that damn smile of his.

He was always humming in the kitchen.

Or whistling in the car.

Or playing the piano to decompress after a long day.

Or listening to something on his mom’s refurbished record player.

His presence always so tangible and warm, like a blanket pulled fresh from the dryer. With Bradley around, you could wrap yourself up in the sheer comfort of him.

And when he was gone, it was the quiet that you struggled with the most. A constant reminder of just how far away he was. No texts or calls or voice memos throughout the day. No little everyday sweet somethings that let you know he was thinking of you.

The sound of silence followed you everywhere. Its heavy companionship making itself known regardless of how loudly you sang along to his favorite songs on the playlist he had made you or how many times you played through the song you were learning just for him.

You had grown up in the silence, you knew it well.

Parents who stayed together because it was easier than splitting the house and sharing the kid. And on the rare occasions it wasn’t quiet, it was loud. The kind that was inescapable regardless of how much you buried under the covers or how far you tucked yourself away in the corner of the backyard.

Until one day the glossy, satin walnut upright piano appeared along the wall in your barely used dining room. And then it soon became your favorite way to cover the quiet and to mask the loud.

Looking back on it now, maybe your parents had wanted something to fill the silence too.

The hours and hours of lessons you and Bradley had both been forced to sit through as children was something that the two of you had bonded over pretty early on. And while he had kept up with playing, it was something that had fallen to the wayside in your life. First with school, then with a career, and now with purposeful avoidance.

There was once a time when reading sheet music had come as easily to you as reading a book. And then one day, they were just a bunch of random dots scattered in between and across five lines on a piece of paper.

There was once a time when you didn’t even need to look down to know where your fingertips were flying to. And then one day, all your fingers could do was stumble and trip over the keys as you winced at the dissonance it created.

And when Rooster had learned about your mutual musical upbringing, he had made it his personal mission to try and get you to play something for him. He was so sweet, so sincere in the way he’d ask you, all big brown eyes and hopeful smiles.

It had always made your chest tight to brush him off. It was something he clearly wanted to share with you, but that part of you ached like a phantom limb. You didn’t know what would be worse embarrassing yourself or disappointing him with your lack of skill when it was something that you used to be so proud about.

It was easy to dodge him at first during nights out at the Hard Deck with your understandable Not with all these people here’s to your practical Mozart would just bring the vibes down’s to your evasive Maybe next time’s.

And when his polite requests were met with empty answers, he took it a step further.

One night in his bed, the curtains fluttering as the sea breeze mingled with his sandalwood scent, he’d whispered into your heated skin, “I’ll get you to play something for me one of these days. Maybe I just need to find the right form of bribery.”

His teasing innuendo juxtaposed deliciously with the deliberate touch of his fingers and tongue as he’d played your body to a perfect crescendo.

It reached a point where you couldn’t stomach to see the dejection in his eyes, the hurt he tried so hard to hide when you’d deny him yet again, that you had to own up to your closely guarded secret.

The confession had whooshed out of you in one breath, leaving you feeling deflated and defeated afterwards.

When you eventually mustered the courage to look at him, he’d been wearing the softest look of understanding on his face, as if he could sense the toll it took to admit the loss of that part of yourself. Then he gathered you in his lap and held you, all while the tears of frustration simmered behind your tightly squeezed eyes.

And when he offered to help remind how to read that language without words, to help you remember the letters of the keys beneath your fingers, it had made your heart hurt a little less.

You weren’t ready then, not like you are now.

But nothing gave you as much pleasure as it did to watch Rooster seated in front of the well-worn and well-played upright piano of Penny’s at the Hard Deck. There was nothing more exhilarating than seeing him in his element so at home on the bench, scuffed and scratched from performers of the past, as he shared that part of himself with everyone in the bar.

He made it look so easy. So damn effortless. His thick fingers flying purposefully over the keys as he played from memory. His joyous enthusiasm electrifying and substantial enough to get the whole bar singing along with him.

It always drew him a lot of attention.

How could it not? He was magnetic on a bad day and captivating the rest of the time. And entirely too handsome for his own good.

Interested eyes, curious eyes, hungry eyes followed him around more often than not after an impromptu performance.

However, those brown eyes of his were always set on you.

Never wavering, never straying from you as he’d weave his way poco a poco, little by little, back through the packed bar. Handing out high-fives to people on autopilot as he passed by to return back to your side. Glistening with the sweat he worked up and grinning widely as he’d greet you with a How’d I do, sweetheart?. Those big, capable hands sliding around your waist, in the back pocket of your jeans, under your top to rest on your low back.

The two of you never stuck around for long after he wrapped up. You didn’t mind helping him find ways to put that excess adrenaline to good use. Usually in the backseat of the Bronco.

You’ll never forget the first time Bradley serenaded you. The song meant for you and you alone.

If someone were to cut into that soft, pink part of your brain, you’re pretty sure they would find that memory pressed there like flowers between the pages of a book. Forever apart of you.

It was the song that always took you right back to that little vinyl shop along the pier. And back to that date that had almost derailed it all.

When Rooster had picked you up to take you to dinner all those months ago, he had seemed a bit antsy and absentminded.

Sure, he had gotten out of the Bronco to come fetch you like a gentleman, instead of sending some half-assed Here text like your ex had been fond of doing. You thought for sure he’d be hustling you back inside after he caught a glimpse of what you were wearing once you opened your front door to greet him.

So you were surprised when he’d simply pressed a dry kiss to your cheek and escorted you to his car with a hand placed respectfully between your shoulder blades instead of cheekily in that space between your low back and ass.

That spot that toed the line between decent and indecent. That spot that made him smirk when you’d give him a pointed lift of the eyebrow, because the two of you knew exactly what he was doing. And better yet, liked it.

However, that night it was almost like he was going through the motions, like he was already somewhere else.

The car ride to the restaurant was silent except for the white noise of the highway as he drove. The circular knob for the radio set to the left.

Off.

Which in hindsight should have been your first warning, since Bradley was never not listening to the Oldies station. A vintage vibe for your vintage boy.

When you were finally seated across from him at that new trendy Thai place you had been dying to go to, his fingers wouldn’t stop tapping out some unheard tune. On the tops his thighs. On the top of the table.

His eyes were landing everywhere else other than on you. On the large leaves of the potted palms, on the ornate pattern on the gold silk that was swathed across the ceiling, on the intricate hand-painted tiles on the floor.

You’d been trying to carry on a conversation for the past fifteen minutes and were feeling completely on edge when you had to repeat yet another question for him.

The anxious feeling growing in the pit of your stomach had been getting more and more difficult to ignore. You could tell he wasn’t really there, what you were trying to figure out was whether or not he just didn’t want to be there with you.

And god, the drinks hadn’t even come out yet. There wasn’t anything for you to distract yourself with other than your water glass, and even that was already empty except for a few melting ice cubes.

His half answers and noncommittal noises were rapidly clearing things up for you.

He’s breaking up with me.

It was at that crushing realization that the waitress had returned with your drink orders. The bright orange concoction that she set in front of you had been topped with a lovely purple orchid and glittery swizzle stick.

A happy looking cocktail for the girl who thought she was going to have another great date with the guy who was saved in her phone as “Golden Boy”.

“Have you two decided on what you want to eat? Or would you like to hear the chef’s specials again?” the waitress had asked, her gaze bouncing back and forth between you and Bradley.

You could tell that she was sensing the brewing tension between the two of you.

“I don’t think we’ll here much longer, maybe just the check--”

“Sorry, if we could have a few more minutes to decide--”

You’d both started speaking at the same time only to turn to the other wearing matching faces of absolute confusion. He’d gone ramrod straight in his chair, his fingers finally still on the tabletop. The shock in his eyes was apparent, and you could only assume it was there because you beat him to the punch.

The waitress had looked at you sympathetically before saying she’d come back in check in a few minutes and then quickly spun on her heel to take her hasty leave.

It was the look that she’d given you that had really sealed the deal for you, and wasn’t that just great? You wouldn’t have been surprised if the rest of the waitstaff was already hearing about the couple fighting at Table 12 and taking bets about whether or not they’d break up.

Lucky them, dinner and a show.

You’d reached the fruity drink in front of you, the condensation from the glass leaving a ring on the table and took a large sip for moral support. Feeling the weight his stare on you the whole time as you savored the tart taste of passionfruit as it burst across your tongue.

He’d just have to wait. It was your turn to ignore him.

As you’d swallowed it down, it had left you feeling more than a little angry that it tasted so good when you were feeling so shitty. He knew how much you liked an over the top cocktail, why couldn’t he have picked some dingy hole-in-the-wall to do this at rather than ruin this place for you? The hot prickling sensation of righteous indignation filled your chest.

You really didn’t want it to drag out any longer, setting your liquid courage back down you’d met his stare and got right down to it, “If you’re going to break up with me, Rooster, can you just do it now? I’d like to still be able to order Pad See Ew in the future without thinking about you and this moment.”

You removed the napkin from your lap, folding it up primly before placing it back upon the table as you waited for the final nail in the coffin to be pounded in on the remains of the happiest-and-easiest-and-clearly-too-good-to-be-true relationship you’ve ever had.

“Wait, what? I don’t want to break up.” His eyes were wide and searching, the hurt in his voice had been evident. And it was the first time all evening that he seemed to be present with you, like your Golden Boy had finally showed up to the date. “I thought things were going well. More than well, actually.”

“Yeah. I mean, I did too. Until tonight,” you’d agreed, defeatedly. “I’m really confused here. You’ve been completely distant tonight. Not to be vain, but look at me,” you gestured to the sexy lowcut dress you’d worn for the evening. It was something you’d been saving in your closet for the right occasion. And you’d thought it was going to drive him wild, but he hadn’t even given it a second glance.

You’d leaned in a bit, lowering your voice, “It’s a boob and leg dress, Bradley. I look really fucking hot, and frankly, I didn’t even think we were going to make it here once you saw this. It wouldn’t have been the first time we’ve missed a dinner reservation. And you haven’t said a single thing about it.”

It felt like a silly thing to be upset about in the grand scheme of things, but his inattentiveness that evening had stung more than you’d wanted to admit to.

“Trust me, sweetheart, I noticed,” he’d retorted hotly. His eyes had been heated as he’d matched your movement and leaned in further across the table. “Half the men in here noticed it too the second you walked in.”

You didn’t bother trying to hold back your scoff of frustration, the man was infuriating.

“Then I don’t understand why you’re making me feel like being here- with me- is the last place you want to be right now?” You’d given up on trying to sound unaffected, this was not the evening you had envisioned. It felt like being blindfolded on a rollercoaster, unable to see what exactly you were hurtling towards.

“I got my new orders today,” he’d blurted out, his eyes trying to read yours for the reaction. “I’m being send as aerial escort for a diplomatic mission. I ship out next Monday for six weeks.”

He’d told you later that he was grateful it wasn’t a longer one, he knew he was lucky because he could have just as easily been sent away for a deployment longer than you’d actually been together.

“Oh.”

You’d known that that moment would have happened eventually with his job, so you shouldn’t have been surprised. However, it was one thing thinking about it theoretically rather than looking at a ticking clock with a deadline.

“Cards on the table, sweetheart?” He’d waited for you to nod before continuing on, “I am really fucking into you. I’m trying not to put pressure on this, because I’m pretty sure you’re my dream girl. I wanted to take you out for a nice meal, get you a couple of those complicated fun drinks you like. I even looked at the menu in advance, they have one here that they light on fire and it seems like something you would love.”

He was right, it was something that you’d love. You had even eyed it when you first got the menu, but you hadn’t wanted to get anything that would draw you more attention when you already felt like you had too many pairs of eyes on you.

“Then I wanted to take you home with me and tell you after we had a great time out. I wanted to ask you to save that Sunday before I leave for me, so that we could spend the whole day together.” His fingers had started playing that unheard tune on the table again. “I wanted to show my girl the best time, to keep her wanting to come back and to stick around. So that someone else doesn’t catch her eye, so that I don’t lose her to someone better than me while I’m away.”

His confession had your heart taking up residence in your throat. Having him lay it out for you so clearly and knowing that he’d felt as serious about you as you did about him was everything you had wanted to hear. However, one thing nagged at you.

“Bradley, you make me happy. Like really, really happy. I’ve only got eyes for you. If I’m being honest, this stopped being casual to me around our third date. And I trust you enough to know you’d tell me if this”, you’d gestured between the two of you, “wasn’t what you wanted anymore before starting up with someone else. I hope I have that same trust in return, because if you’re worried about me stepping out on you while you’re away, I don’t know how this is going to work. And I really want it to work.”

“Shit, I’m really striking out here. Batting 0 for two,” he’d sighed out more to himself than to you, leaning back in his chair and running his hands through his hair. “Our third? Really? I thought for sure after that disaster that you were going to block my number.” He huffs a laugh, cheeks turning the same shade of pink that they had that chaotic evening on the beach.

“Bradley, it was comically bad.” You couldn’t help but crack a smile at the memory of it. “You were trying so hard and you were so flustered. It was so endearing.”

“Who would have guessed getting attacked by seagulls and coming home covered in sand flea bites could have been so appealing?” He joked self-deprecatingly.

“Me, I could have. Since I was with you,” you said sincerely, “No one I’ve dated has ever put half as much effort into trying to make me happy as you have.”

The two of you exchanged a soft, tentative smiles.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply you had a wandering eye or anything, I promise.” His eyes pleaded with you as he reached for your hands and threaded his fingers through yours, his palms slightly sweaty. “This deployment is different for me. I’ve never had to ask someone to wait for me before, never had anyone who wanted to. And I’ve been really in my head because I was trying to find the right way to tell you, to ask you.”

You were still getting to know all of the expressions of his face, but the look of open insecurity he was wearing was new to you. And you’d felt something deep in your chest release and unlock.

For how easily he owned a room, for how confident he could be, getting to see these tender parts of him because he trusted you with them had made you ache in the most bittersweet of ways for the man who was in front of you.

You held his gaze, taking in his anxious expression. How anyone couldn’t want this man or didn’t think he was worth the wait was incomprehensible to you.

“So Sunday the seventeenth, huh?” you’d said with a grin.

His relief was palpable as he’d squeezed your hand a bit tighter, “Yeah, baby, you up for it?”

“A perfect day with my dream guy?” you mused, squeezing his hand back, “Yeah, I think I’d be up for that. I’m up for all of it.”

Not just the date. Not just the deployment. You already knew. With him, you wanted it all.

When the waitress returned a few moments later, Bradley ordered a green curry for himself and the Pad See Ew for you. Along with one of those complicated, fun drinks that arrived with fanfare and flames, all while he played with your fingers.

And after you were finished, she’d dropped off a fluffy looking coconut covered dessert that she’d stated was on the house as walked away with a wink.

You’d totally called it, dinner and a show.

As you’d left the restaurant, he tucked you in close under his arm pressing kiss after kiss to your temple as you made your way back to the Bronco.

And later, when he had taken you back to his place for the night, your boob-and-leg dress forgotten somewhere on the floor, he’d apologized again. This time with his mouth on your body.

Twice.

It had been a fluke, really, finding that record tucked away in that small, but well-kept shop on that Sunday before his deployment.

You’d surprised him with a certificate for a haircut and hot towel shave at an upscale barber for a little pre-deployment pampering. He’d gotten his hair trimmed the day before and he was somehow looking even more sunkissed than usual. His patterned shirt was mostly buttoned up and he had on your favorite pair of jeans- the ones that might have been a bit too snug, but did devastating things for his ass.

It was the outfit he’d been wearing when you had first met.

You and Bradley had spent a lazy, perfect morning at the beach reading and lounging and trading sea salt kisses before changing and to grab a bite to eat. He’d held up a towel up around you to slip into your sun warmed dress, behaving himself for the most part. But you’d still caught him sneaking a peek from over the top of the terry cloth.

After eating a late lunch at his favorite little café that served the best cioppino, you’d popped in and out of the various shops that dotted the boardwalk near the pier. It might have been the bottle of wine you shared, but he made sure to stop at every photobooth you passed along the way, collecting strip after strip of snapshots and tucking them into his shirt pocket.

His hand staying in yours the whole time.

When he’d spotted the tiny record store, he’d cheerily pulled you along with him wanting to look for new additions for his ever-growing collection. It was his newest hobby after getting his mom’s old record player restored. You had even helped him build the sideboard he had specially ordered for it to display his prized collection in the living room of his home.

You could hear him talking excitedly to an associate about some Jerry Lee Lewis albums, who offered to take a look in the backroom for him. You never had good luck when you tried to search for specific things, so you were happy to meander around a bit aimlessly and see what spoke to you.

Casually flipping through the stacks, you’d gasped when you landed on what appeared to be the holy grail of all vinyl records ever made.

“Bradley, look!” You’d held out the record for him like a prize. And he abandoned his own search to come join you on the other side of the store.

“Soldiers’ Sweethearts, huh?” He grinned at your find, his eyes crinkling around the edges. The navy colored jacket highlighted a trio of glamourous looking women, each of the three records featured a different performer and their covers of songs popularized during WWII.

“Mm-hmm,” you’d preened, feeling entirely too pleased with yourself. “You’re a soldier, I’m a sweetheart. I’ve never seen anything more perfect in my life. I have to get it.”

“Well I’m not a soldier, technically,” he’d chuckled, as you’d rolled your eyes at him. The joke had you scrunching your nose, and his mustache grazed you as he leaned in close to press a quick kiss to it. “But you’re definitely a sweetheart, sweetheart.”

You were still trying to learn the ins and outs of that part of his life. But you’d liked how he never made you feel stupid when you had questions. More often than not he seemed excited to answer them for you, that you were interested in what he did.

Rooster gently took your newest most prized possession into his big hands, “Let’s see what we’ve got here.” Flipping the album over, he’d scanned the tracks listed on the back for the three records. “Some classics, but a lot I don’t think I know. Definitely some intriguing titles, like ‘Daddy’,” he read aloud with a raised eyebrow and a grin that could only be described as lewd.

The man was a menace and had no problem finding new ways to make you blush. You were grateful that the shop was empty except for the two of you, as you felt the heat rise in your cheeks.

“What about ‘Who’s Taking You Home Tonight’? Have you heard that one before, sweetheart?” His large body moving in and crowding yours, the smell of his cologne making your thoughts go a bit fuzzy around the edges. Your heartbeat kicked up in tempo as he brushed a piece of hair off your forehead.

That find was definitely a jackpot.

Him and those records.

“Mm, or how about ‘Make Love To Me’?” He’d murmured into your ear, his free arm slid slowly against your waist, making a home for itself low on your back. The warmth from his hand seeping through your dress and into your skin.

It was heady being the target of all his heated words and teasing tone. The pull in your low stomach getting more intense with every moment you’d stayed pressed against his hard body. You could see how his pulse was pounding arditamente con forza, boldly with force, from how close your face was to that thick throat of his. And you had wanted to--

“I knew we had it somewhere!”

The associate’s cheery announcement as he returned from the backroom startled you back into yourself. Feeling flustered you’d tried to pull away, but Bradley just kept his arm locked around you as he’d made his way to the counter.

“Thanks, man. I appreciate it. We’ll take this one too,” he stated as he’d smoothly placed your Soldiers’ Sweethearts album on the top of the pile he had accumulated. Only letting go of you to pay.

Naturally, you’d wanted to play the record the second you made it back to Bradley’s place.

He set it up for you before giving you a lingering, deep kiss leaving you to your own devices as he worked on the final few things left on his to-do list before his deployment early the next morning.

You were happy to make yourself comfortable on his wide seat couch with an Old Fashioned listening to Jo Stafford’s soothing voice with your eyes closed, wanting to luxuriate in the moment.

One where Bradley was less than twenty feet away puttering around in his kitchen and humming and murmuring to himself.

One where you could call out to him and he would be in front of you in a few long strides.

You wanted to avoid thinking about the next day and the beginning of your new normal.

One where you couldn’t expect text messages from him throughout the day.

One where concern and uncertainty would follow you around like a dark cloud until he came back home to you.

But he was here for now. And you wanted to savor it all, to soak up all of its sweet, syrupy goodness like the expensive cherry in your glass.

He must have sensed the turn in your thoughts because his sandalwood scent gave his closeness away before his voice did, “What do you say, Miss Soldiers’ Sweetheart? Can you spare a dance for me?”

You opened your eyes to see him standing before you with his hand outreached for you. The smile so gentle and open on his face, made it impossible for you to do anything other than wordlessly nod your head in agreement as you’d let him pull you up from your comfy perch.

“Apologies in advance for any injuries caused by my two left feet,” you joked a bit bashfully as he wrapped his arm around you.

“Lucky for us, I was gifted with two right feet. Don’t worry, we’ll even out each other,” he murmured.

He pulled you into his gravity, pressing your joined hands against his chest where you could feel the steady beat of his heart. The hand on your lower back urging closer, closer until there wasn’t an inch of space between your bodies. His chin rested lightly on the top of your head where you had tucked it into that safe space where his neck meets his shoulder.

take me in your arms, and never let me go whisper to me softly while the moon is low

True to his word, he’d guided you in a smooth, easy rhythm. The confidence in his steps as you were held within his sturdy arms was enough to make you feel secure in your own movement. With him you were completely taken care of.

hold me close and tell me what I wanna know say it to me gently, let the sweet talk flow

Your other hand slid up slowly from where it was resting on his shoulder to wrap around his neck, fingers threading through the fine hairs at the nape of his neck as your thumb traced the thick column of his throat.

Come a little closer, make love to me

He held you tighter, held you closer, as the song came to an end. The easy rhythm turning into a gentle sway that continued as the next song began. And the one after that.

That night in his bed he moved against you with such purpose, such tenderness. The sex with Bradley was always stunningly good, he was never content to let himself come until he’d rendered you thoroughly boneless and breathless. He was easily the best you’ve ever had, but that night it was different between you two.

The mood weighty and intense, both of you exposed in a way you hadn’t been before. But there was no mistaking the deliberate way he touched you, the unwavering way he rolled his hips against yours, the unguarded way he held your gaze as if he was committing that moment to memory as he made love to you.

He’d held you close to his warm body, his fingertips leaving trails of goosebumps, as you shivered through your orgasm. His mouth pressed against your ear as he whispered soothing sweet somethings until he followed you over the edge.

For Bradley, you were up for it. For him, you’d be up for all of it.

yesyesyes

Things were a bit too quiet for you.

You heart clenched in a different way when you looked at Penny’s piano on those evenings you spent with the Dagger Squad without him. The ache was still there, but so was a new kind of longing. Part for him, but also for yourself.

But you’d made it through that deployment with the help of your three favorite sweethearts: Jo, Vera and Anne. Although you always queued up one song in particular anytime you found yourself missing him a bit more than normal.

And when Bradley returned back home to you six weeks later, it was easy to fall right back into him. That quiet period was almost too easily forgotten when he was around to fill a space.

That night at the Hard Deck when he serenaded you for the first time, it was normal for him to strut over to the old jukebox to unplug it. His timing impeccable as always, silencing whatever country song Jake had queued up.

What wasn’t normal was the way he took you by the hand leading you directly to the old upright and pulled you right onto the bench next to him.

There was already some sheet music spread across the shelf, you’d noted as he’d wiped his hands on the outside of his jeans before settling his hands on the keys. It only took you a couple bars of the intro to realize what song he was playing, already completely enamored before he’d even opened his mouth to sing.

It was your song.

Nothing in the world could ever compete with Bradley Bradshaw’s deep, raspy voice singing just for you. The significance of the song meant for you and him alone.

You heart had swelled in your chest until you thought it might burst from happiness. Never in your life had you been so thoroughly swept off your feet. It was a gesture came from his heart that made a home in yours.

Ever the showman Rooster put on a full performance, his aviator sunglasses sliding down his nose as he really leaned into it.

Your wide grin had turned to laughter when a few members of the Dagger Squad jumped in as back-up vocals, singing into their beer bottles in a way that obviously had been rehearsed. You didn’t know how he managed to keep it a secret. While Rooster was a vault in his professional life, when it came to his personal life Bradley couldn’t keep a secret to save his life.

The whole bar was having fun with the jaunty tune, some couples dancing along in smooth circles on the sticky wood floor as he crooned. He’d leaned over to place a kiss on your cheek every now and then in between verses, and you’d felt yourself fall for him even harder.

He’d pulled you into his lap once he was done playing, as the din of the resumed chatter softly cocooned you. You’d seen all you needed to know reflected in his eyes as you wrapped your arms around his neck to pull him down for a kiss.

“Will you play it again?” you’d asked against his lips.

“Yes, ma’am.” And you rested your head on his shoulder watching his fingers get into position on the keys once more as he played the few opening notes.

Somewhere you heard a groan followed by a grumbled, “Not again.”

“Shut it, Bagman,” you bossed at him, not even bothering to look in his direction. You only had eyes for Bradley.

“You heard the lady,” he chuckled. “Shut it, Bagman.”

And then he played it again.

take me in your arms, and never let me go

You should be asleep in your own bed and not at his place with only the soft light of the lamp above his piano and a now cold cup of tea to keep you company.

Tired of tossing and turning, you’d given up on the idea of getting any sleep at your own place after the second hour of trying. Throwing on your slippers, you’d grabbed your keys and then drove over to his place, still in the oversized t-shirt you’d put on before bed, in hopes that scent of his sheets would help lull you to sleep.

But all it did was make you miss him more.

It was too quiet without his soft breathing next to you as he held you close and tucked against his chest.

Too quiet without his records.

Too quiet without his happy humming.

Too quiet without him.

The sound of the tea kettle on his gas range had helped fill the silence, but it was his piano that had called you as you had waited for the water to boil. The sheet music you had left there from the last time you were over beckoning like a siren’s song.

It was your secret.

Only for a few more days, only until he came home.

You wanted to surprise him, to sweep him off his feet the way that he always did with you when he played for you.

During that first deployment, for the first time in years, your fingers yearned for the feel of cool, smooth keys beneath your fingers.

You hadn’t even told Bradley, the one person who would understand it the most, that you’d been thinking about it. Let alone that you were actually taking classes again. Making up excuses about manicures or errands or spin classes for why you were busy for an hour every Tuesday at five PM.

The thing that had once hurt your heart the most, was now the only thing that helped soothe the ache of missing him. The only thing that made you feel close to him when you were thousands of miles apart.

You wanted that familiar comfort of making music. You wanted it because you missed him, but you also wanted it for yourself.

A co-worker had given you the name and number for her kids’ instructor, Mrs. McMullen, an elderly woman who started teaching after her husband passed away. It took you couple weeks to work up the courage to make the call, the sticky note burning a hole in the pocket of your purse you had tucked it into.

You had been an anxious mess the day of your first lesson, hands shaking like you’d had one too many shots of espresso. It felt strange, a little surreal sitting there in the body you’d grown into on the padded bench in her cozy living room. One of the walls filled with shelves and shelves of sheet music, her own personal library.

And for a brief moment, you were transported to a different year on a different bench in a different room. Now and Then. Older and Younger. Both versions of you there to learn. All too familiar, yet entirely new.

You started with the basics. A reintroduction to those lines on the page and the notes that spoke their own language for those who knew how to read it.

Your fingers wanting to move quicker than your sluggish mind, like an echo of a memory of how it used to be. You winced and apologized after every wrong note, until she put her hand on yours, her skin looked as delicate as her fingers did, and said gently, “We learn by doing, mistakes only mean that you are trying. Once more, once again.”

After that first lesson, you’d gone back to your car and promptly burst into tears. Overwhelmed tears, happy tears. That tender part of you still soft, however no longer aching.

You’d left feeling lighter as you pulled away from her house to go meet up with everyone at the Hard Deck, but also with a packet of sheet music to practice for your next lesson.

When Rooster had told you about getting his new orders, when he had asked you again if you were still up for it. You’d told him the same thing you had at that date, you were up for it all.

You would take the sadness with the sweet any day of the week for as long as he was yours.

You’d known how you would fill the space he left behind. And exactly how you wanted to welcome him home. You’d been excited to put that certain song just for him in your cart, and then tacking on one more song to your order, a song that would be just for you.

Both you and Mrs. McMullen had be surprised at how you’d been able to pick things back up over the months, you still weren’t anywhere as good as you were when you were younger, but it wasn’t nearly as daunting as it used to be. And when you showed up to your next lesson after your songs had been delivered, she was more than happy to help you figure out ways to simplify the songs a bit so that you’d be ready when he returned.

And now you’re bent over Bradley’s piano with a pencil tucked behind your ear as you played through the hardest bit of the song, you’ve lost track of how many times you’ve gone over it tonight. This morning? You were in that liminal space between yesterday and today. Where the time on the clock was just a suggestion because it felt neither here nor there.

You had practiced and practiced the song you had wanted to play for him once got home. You’re pretty sure Mav wasn’t supposed to tell you the significance of that particular song, but it had made your heart flutter wildly in your chest when he’d told you. And every time you’ve heard it since then.

It was polished, it was perfect, it was ready. All you needed was him.

The one you’re playing now con amore, with love, is the piece you pull out when you long for him the most.

The cover of the song had made you think of him from the moment you’d heard it. It was more lyrical and delicate than the original, and captured just how you felt about him. Just how much he meant to you. Sometimes you sing along with it, sometimes you just let the keys and pedals express the things you otherwise could not.

It was the song of your heart.

Your fingers trip over one of the notes yet again, probably from the lack of sleep, but you weren’t ready to crawl back into Bradley’s comfy bed. Not just yet.

Sighing, you pull the pencil from behind your ear, muttering to yourself out loud as you note the spot on the page. It was already filled with little pencil marks, some older and some newer. All made because you were trying.

Once more, once again.

Breathing out slowly, you settle your hand back on the keys-

“Can you play it from the beginning this time, sweetheart?"

Read {vol. ii} here!

He's a sneaky one, friends! I have Part 2 in the works, not to worry! We have to see how it all plays out! (put intended)

Thank you for reading! Let me know if you would like to be added to my taglist for the grand finale!

Here's a link to the Soldiers' Sweethearts Album, if you're curious!

But this is their song, the one Bradley serenaded her with! Jo Stafford's version of 'Make Love to Me'

I ended up making two moodboards for this part!

Here's the more colorful one! And here's the more yearn-y one!

You can check out my other stories here!

And a big thank you to Jordan (@gretagerwigsmuse) for letting me spam you about this one!

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macfrog · 1 year ago

Text

the sweetest con cowboy like me chapter fifteen

well. this is it. we made it, kids. thank you so, so much for reading for all this time. for all your patience, and kindness, and loyalty. i will carry this pair, their story, and all of your love for them with me forever. love you guys. xx

pairing: dbf!joel miller x fem!reader

summary: every cowboy deserves his ride off into the sunset.

warnings: age gap (reader is 23, joel is 48), lotsa guilt from reader, dreamy love sequence & mention of unprotected piv/creampie, more greys anatomy spoilers, reader's dad is either Bald or has a Receding Hairline (you choose), more sex - this time reader and joel sixty-nine, face sitting, oral (f and m receiving), more (inferred) unprotected piv, making dirty, hot love ALLAT, cursing, a little smut n a lotta fluff n a droplet of angst at the end

word count: 10.8k

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“How the fuck did this take you three minutes? Three?”

“I’m telling you. I’m a genius.”

You snort. “Shut up. You only passed Math ‘cause you were fooling around with that nerd – Thomas? Was it Thomas?”

“Timothy. And you don’t need math to do a sudoku puzzle, loser. You just need brains. Logic.” Anna taps two fingers against her temple, tilting her head.

“Logic,” you murmur, shaking your head.

Sal’s is quiet today. He’s out of town for his father-in-law’s funeral and made the genius decision to leave the two of you in charge. Since opening at nine, you’ve had four customers. The to-do list left for you was completed by ten, and since then, you’ve been hunched over your phone at the cash register, messing around on some puzzle app Anna made you download.

It's a Wednesday. Nothing exciting ever happens on Wednesdays.

Anna’s behind you, tearing apart and flattening the cardboard boxes you spent all morning emptying. “That level,” she clicks her chewing gum wetly between her teeth, scent of mint over your shoulder, “that ain’t even the hardest one. Ooh, no, babe. Three goes –”

“Shh!” You bat her arm away, curving your hand over your phone screen. She snorts and wanders off through the back, wad of cardboard under her arm.

Anna wasn’t your closest friend in high school, and you sure didn’t stay much in touch past the odd Facebook post update when you left. But working with her, and her dad being your dad’s buddy – she’s sort of become one of those people you just can’t shake.

Like a stray puppy. Or…an annoying hangnail.

She’s nice enough – talks a lot of crap sometimes, but she cares for you. You’d go as far as saying you two have grown pretty close since you came home. Still, the acidic sting of resentment sits on your tongue, anytime you think of her involvement in the unravelling of your little lie. Think of your dad calling hers, Hank asking her where you were.

Think of the fact that, if she hadn’t been honest with him – I don’t know where she is, Dad – nothing would’ve gone wrong.

That’s not fair. If you’d never touched Joel in the first place, nothing would’ve gone wrong.

It’s just – she had a hand in pushing the first domino.

The bell above the door jingles and you lift your eyes from tiny numbers and blank squares to meet a familiar pair of hazel. An Alanis Morissette T-shirt under a denim jacket. She tucks her thick, soft hair behind her ears and smiles, then skips around the counter and links her hands at your tummy; her ear flat against the nape of your neck.

“Why so clingy?” you ask, and Sarah straightens up.

“Just excited to spend some time with my favorite person. That allowed?”

Your eyes scan her up and down as she leans against the counter, stealing a gummy from a jar beside the register. “Been staying with you for nearly three weeks now, you ain’t sick of me yet?”

She shakes her head, jaw chewing, cheeks swollen with a grin. “Are you done yet? I wanna make sure we get good seats.”

“We will,” you assure her. “It’s only, like, three p.m.”

“But it’s Barbie,” she says, “and I wanna get some snacks before we head in.” She holds the decapitated gummy worm up, eyebrows high, before pulling it between her teeth until it snaps. She drags the withered red tail over her tongue.

“That thing you just mauled,” you gesture to the masticated shape in her fingers, “candy. Snacks. Just take some of that.”

“You won’t even buy your date movie theater candy? Damn. Mom’s a cheapskate. Wish I could say my dad’s a lucky guy.”

You shove her off, disguising your laugh with a shake of your head. “You are on thin ice, I’m not even kidding.”

Sarah’s laughing, reaching for another worm. “You know what that sounds like?”

“Hm?”

“What you just said.”

“What’s it sound like, Sarah Miller?”

“Something a mom would say.”

“Alright,” you stand, “get out. Get outta my store.”

The door opens when you point to it, Texan heat sweeping in to swarm the one rickety fan you have in here. The brass bell trembles, and beneath it, a man in a tucked shirt and jeans, glum face and tired eyes.

You blink at him and he blinks back, and no words are spoken between you, but your dad understands to move, to keep walking – and you understand to let him.

“Shoot,” Sarah whispers, twisting her gummy around her finger. “That was awkward.”

Three weeks of staying with them – Sarah and Joel – also means three weeks of zero contact with your dad. The most you’ve heard from – or, rather, about him is that, last week, Joel bumped into Hank at the gas station, and the old man mentioned that he and your dad had grabbed a beer the night before.

What’d he say? you asked Joel, dragging a dish towel around the rim of a glass.

He shrugged, flicking his hands dry over the sink. Said the Rangers aren’t doin’ too good. I said, Yeah, that’s cause a’ –

No, Joel. What did he say about me ‘n my dad?

He waited a second to let the offense of your interruption soak in. Took the towel from your hand, replaced the glass on the draining board. Nothing, he said, I don’t think he knows.

It sat with you the entire night. The three of you watched a movie, occupying either side of Joel’s couch, though you’re sure you don’t remember a word of it. The image of him sat center-stage in your mind until you pulled yourself against Joel’s body in bed that night. Sat in his recliner, flicking through TV channels, the only sounds in the house that of Ice Road Truckers, the ticking of the kitchen clock, and his own fucking breathing.

Alone. Not even Hank to talk to about – well.

You’ve done your best not to think about him. And it works, most days, when you’re with Joel. Helps to go do stuff: ride shotgun while he picks up supplies for work or grabs groceries. Helps to play pretend like his house is yours, too. Tidying when he’s not home, lighting candles and sinking into a bubble bath for him to find you in when he finishes. Helps to be at Sal’s, with Anna. Sudoku and her fucking Tinder account to keep you both occupied.

Most days, you forget to consider the lonely shape of your dad at all – but that seems to hurt all the more. Like forgetting to tend to an open wound; instead, letting the infection blister and bubble so that, when you do bump it again, the pain feels sharper. Hissing at you, poison seeping from flesh.

His showing up, waltzing straight into the store – feels less like a bump, and more like a pair of hands diving straight into the gash, tearing it wide open again. Blood and poison gushing all over the checkered floor.

Anna materializes between two aisles, hands on her hips when she stands behind you. “Y’all still not really talkin’?” she asks.

You and Sarah shake your heads. The three of you watch the shape of your dad’s skull over the shelves, bobbing from bay to bay. Door hinges to fence paint. He painted the fence last summer. He doesn’t need fucking fence paint.

“Nope,” you reply. “’s been, what, two and a half weeks now?”

“Yeah,” Anna mutters, the slope of sympathy in her voice. “My dad’s been talkin’ to him about it. They’ve spoken, like, almost every night on the phone.”

“Oh, fuck,” you hiss, head falling into your hands. “Are you serious?”

“Not about you and Joel. Just about the fight.”

Your jaw slowly slackens, eyes thinning as your gaze slides over to your friend, a saddened expression on her face.

Sarah nods, like an accessory sat on the dash of a car. Bobbing bobbing bobbing, until her brows drop and she turns to you, finally realizing. “Wait, what?”

Anna blinks between the two of you. “What?” she asks, lips pressing together.

“You know?” Sarah asks, glaring at her.

Anna snorts. Neither of you break. She quickly quietens and clears her throat, bending to stuff more cardboard under her arm. “Well…” She sucks in a deep breath. “At rodeo night, when you left your phone on the table, me ‘n Kara wanted to leave a bunch of selfies for you to find later. But when I went to grab your phone, you had a text from him. Joel. Something about someone winning you over like he did, or something. I can’t remember. But that was the first thing.”

Sarah’s face sours at the mention of her dad’s flirty text, scoffing as she swipes another gummy from the jar. “Real fuckin’ subtle, Dad,” she murmurs.

You sharpen your gaze at Anna, blurring the brown curls and low brows from your peripheral. “Uhuh…?”

“Then, there was the lying to your dad about where you were. That Monday – you said you were at mine. You weren’t. Your dad called my dad to ask, ‘n my dad asked me why the hell you’d lie. I figured, What a weird coincidence, right?”

You slip off your stool, legs feeling more liquid than bone. “Oh, Jesus…”

“But then…then, I saw how you were when he called on the way to Frank’s. In the car. You were…fucking weird. And then Joel punched that dude – that basically confirmed it. I don’t think either of your dads would do that for me. It felt…it felt personal. He took your hand ‘n dragged you outta there, and it felt like…somethin’ else.”

You’re leaning against the counter, head in your hands. Struggling to even listen to her piece it all together. Were you this fucking obvious, the whole time?

Anna answers for you. “Yeah,” she says, nodding, “I didn’t catch two fucking boyfriends cheating on me, and not pick up some detective skills, babe.”

You stand straight, composure slowly building over shame. “And your dad doesn’t know? My –” you flick your head across the store, lowering your voice, “– my dad hasn’t told him?”

A laugh spurts from somewhere deep in her chest. “Hell, no. Are you tryna give him a second heart attack? No. He just thinks you were somewhere you didn’t want your dad to know – a boy’s or something. Which – well, I guess you were.”

You nod, half-appreciation, half-resignation. Alright. Now shut up about it, would you?

“But listen,” Anna says, apparently not as good at mindreading as she is at secret-revealing, “y’all gotta work on being sneaky. You’re, like, really bad at it.”

“Yeah,” you sniff, “thanks, Anna.”

You grip the edge of the counter and try to draw your eye away from your dad; a little angry that he’s here, and yet, a little more thankful that you’ve had at least a tiny glimpse of him. Desperate for him to come over, to acknowledge your mutual existence in the same room, and yet – petrified that he does.

He keeps his back to you, though you notice him turning every so often, looking at you from his peripheral. Nope – your black shirt and blue jeans are still behind the counter. He turns back to the shelf.

“Hi, sweetie.” A woman in a pink blouse approaches the counter. She lays down a couple pairs of plyers and you ring her up, asking if she found everything okay. Choking a little when you inhale the scent of her perfume.

“Beautiful day for you to be in here workin’, huh?” Her rosy cheeks fill as she hands you the cash.

Oh, yeah. It’s a beautiful day to be stuck selling plyers to pink women in pink blouses smelling of pink perfume, while my dad – still reeling from the revelation that I’ve been sleeping with his best friend, by the way – pretends to peruse the store.

“I’m almost done,” you reply, blunt enough to deflate her expression only a little, sliding the paper bag stamped Sal’s back across the counter.

She nods in thanks and slinks off, suffocating aroma following her. And like a magician, when she disappears off to the side, your dad stands in her wake. A few feet from you, keeping his distance, watching carefully before he dares to move. Waiting for your go-ahead.

When you lift your chin, beckoning him forward, Anna takes Sarah’s arm and yanks her away, shoving some shredded boxes into her arms. “You wanna help me?” she asks the nosy Miller, tossing something of an alarmed glance back at you and your dad.

There’s a funny feeling behind your eyes when he steps up, empty hand resting hesitantly on the counter. “She coverin’ up the smell of a dead body or som’?” he asks.

The air pushes from your lungs, a laugh barreling with it. Your hands clasp on the surface opposite his. A scorch of white heat at the nape of your neck. “Very vibrant, huh?”

“Very.” He clears his throat, shakes his head a little, and takes a deep breath. “I figured this might be as good a place as any to find you. I didn’t want you to think I was…cornering you, or anything, if I showed up at Joel’s.”

“I wouldn’t – I mean, maybe. But, y’know…this is fine.” Your arms cross defensively, the baggy material of Joel’s shirt wrapping snug around you.

Your dad seems to know. Evidence being that it’s you, in a shirt all too big – a shirt he’d likely see his best friend in, too. It forces your arms tighter, sucking in the scent of Joel to combat the dizzying feeling of nerves.

“I’m glad to see you’re alright,” he says eventually, fingers drumming awkwardly. “I just wanted to know you were fine.”

“I am fine. I promise. Just – working a lot.”

He nods, looking down to his feet. Twists the toe of his boot into the linoleum.

“I’m glad to see you’re alright, too,” you offer, the words fluid and spilling from one to the next – something forceful in their nature.

Your dad’s eyes lift at the same time that his cheeks do. Relief. “Thanks, kiddo. I actually – I was hopin’ that maybe we could talk. If you’re free. I don’t know what time you get off today.”

“I finish in ten minutes,” you say, and hope seems to paint across his face – washing away instantly when you add, “but I’m going to the movies with Sarah.”

He’s nodding again, eyes fixed back on his boots. “Right, right.”

“…But maybe once we’re done I can swing by?”

“Oh, well – I’m workin’ late again. I’ll be out by the time…Yeah. Sorry, hon.”

“That’s okay.”

“Late one again tonight.”

“This, uh – what’s his name again? Kel–?”

“Kelman, yeah. Yeah. How ‘bout I call you tomorrow ‘n we can work somethin’ out? You and Sarah, you enjoy your night.”

You lean back from the counter, slowly more confident in your ability to hold yourself upright. “Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Dad.”

His lips press together in a flat attempt at a smile. “I’ll leave you to it. You mind if I…give you a hug?”

And then you’re the one awkwardly, forcedly smiling. Your teeth gritting behind taut lips. “Not at all,” you whisper, and wander carefully around the counter to where he stands.

He opens his arms and pulls you against his chest, your head tilting to rest your ear on his shoulder. You hook your arms under his, feeling his wrists crossing at your spine. Like two statues, two figures of stone fixing their crumbling bodies in an embrace, suddenly disjointed and ill-fitting. Your heart hurts beneath layers of rock, swelling in attempt to reach for his, shrinking back crestfallen when he feels too far.

He kisses the side of your head, pulls away, and taps your cheek once. “You know,” he says, letting you withdraw from his grasp, “I really miss you.”

You nod. “Miss you, too.”

“Let’s talk soon, alright?”

“Yeah.”

And then he’s leaving, drifting back out into the summer sun, rock disintegrating as the light catches him again. More human, less monster-under-your-bed. He’s just your dad again, just that swaying, bumbling man who used to sprinkle rainbow flakes over your ice cream and double-knot your laces.

The shadows of Sarah and Anna appear at your elbows, the three of you watching your dad sink into his car. You still feel made of rock, splitting somewhere down the middle as you stare at his figure.

“Well?” Sarah asks.

He turns right out of the parking lot, disappears behind a hedgerow.

“Yeah,” you reply, turning in a daze. “We’re gonna…gonna talk.”

“That’s good, right? That sounds…promising.”

You shrug. “I guess.”

Sarah places a gentle hand on your arm, drawing your attention to her kind eyes and infectious smile. “We should probably get goin’,” she says, and you agree.

“What movie are you seeing?” Anna asks, filling your spot behind the counter as you turn, making for the back of the store.

“Barbie,” Sarah tells her.

“Nice. She paying?”

“Obviously. Mom duties.”

You kick the door closed on their giggles.

Two days pass without a word from your dad. No text, no call, no visit to Sal’s when you’re on shift the following day. By Monday, you’ve convinced yourself that the entire thing was a dream, a hallucination conjured up by your imagination in attempt to rid you of some of the guilt still chewing at your heart. Bat it out of your brain, like swatting the rear end of a wild animal let loose indoors.

Guilt which is only remedied, only soothed by Joel. By the feeling which overcomes your chest when you look at him – lungs faltering, heart leaping. The peace of falling asleep in his safe embrace, the heat from his body enough to keep you comfortable all night, and then waking up tangled in his sheets – the smell of bacon and eggs twirling through the house, the distant sound of his humming drawing you downstairs to his side.

Late nights on the porch, watching the sun bleed heavily into the sky. Your ankles in his lap, a guitar over his thigh. Thumb gentle on the strings, soft timbre of song lulling you to some place far from reality: the same rosy, dreamlike state you’ve mostly occupied since he dragged you through his front door, kicked your shoes and all of your worries to the side, and made you forget that anything bad had ever happened.

The most comfortable you’ve ever felt in your life, the most loved – a world where your every word is heard and weighed, rolling around Joel’s palms and slotting carefully into his back pocket. A world where his lips on your neck as you make dinner, where the crook of his arm catching you as you pass by, is all normal. Where I love you and I love you, too become the last words your sleepy ears hear at night, right before you sink into a shared sleep.

All of it becoming as natural as the pale moon switching for her golden sister at dawn. As instinctive as breathing.

“Have you ever made love to anyone?” you ask him one night, the aftershock of an orgasm still soaking into your skin.

Joel pauses, hips slowing between yours. “Yeah,” after a couple beats, “sure.”

“What’s it feel like?” you ask, honestly. Combing his dark hair through your fingers. “I’ve never…No one’s ever…”

“Baby,” he says. “We’ve done it. I’ve done it to you.”

Your body tenses and then melts around him. One blink and suddenly the world softens, seems to bow into the background – the only sharp object Joel, the twinkle in his eye piercing through the haze like blinking white stars in thick, dark clouds.

You whisper, “Can you do it again? So I can feel what it’s like?”

He pushes himself up, one elbow planted by your ear, the other hand lifting your thigh. Hooking it over his waist, lowering his arm again to cage you under his body. He nudges your chin with his nose, lifting it to line your lips with his, hold every part of your body as close to his as he can.

Deeper, in every sense of the word. Slow, hard. Eyes on you the entire time, watching the way your face contorts and your jaw slackens, holding the shape of your head in his hands, swallowing his own moans and grunts to make space between you for yours.

“Look at me, baby, eyes on me,” he says, and by instinct, your eyes roll forward, focusing or half-focusing on the slick hair at his forehead, the red flush climbing his neck, seeping into the skin under his beard. “You feel it? Feel where I’m goin’?”

And yeah, you whine, you do feel it. Feel him dragging you further away from this world and into the next – somewhere a plain away, somewhere new and different to anything you’ve ever known before. Where physicality is a language, a fluid conversation between the melding of his body and yours; where there are a million words swirling around his pupils, hypnotizing and entrancing and drawing you in until you’re tumbling headfirst into the inky pools.

Where I love you sounds like the groan Joel can’t hold back, feels like the pulsing flood as he snaps between your legs. Where making love is as simple as the squeeze of his hand around yours; the shove of his plate over the kitchen table, offering you the last bite of grilled cheese or simply admitting that it was yours before he’d even taken the first. That addictive laugh of his when you stall the fucking truck for the fifth time: You asked me to teach you, baby, I’m tryna teach you. Foot on the gas, c’mon. You got it. That’s it – now, slow. Slower. Try to feel it. No, really feel it.

Feel it. Really, try to feel it. Can you feel it? Do you know the difference yet? The difference between everyone who was before, and the one who is now? Do you finally get it?

“I feel it,” you cry out, and his frame holds yours together as you fall apart.

It feels like – you.

How did I ever know anything before I knew you?

“That one’s nice,” Joel says, his voice jumping the short distance between his lips and your ear.

You tilt your head, body moving with his when he lifts his hand to swipe through some more of the images. The spacious living room, newly refurbed kitchen, the view of downtown Los Angeles.

He adjusts the blanket draped over your legs. “Washer dryer, walk-in closet,” and then, leaning in closer, whispers, “a balcony. That’s cool.”

“Hm,” you turn to face him, your body shelled by his in the corner of his couch, “I bet you like the balcony, cowboy.”

He smiles plainly in response, squeezing your nose between two knuckles. Yeah. Lots you can do with a balcony.

A sharp gasp from across the room pierces the sweet moment. You and Joel turn in its direction, its owner wide-eyed and blinking at the TV.

“Wait a second,” Sarah yelps. “George is the John Doe?” She gasps again when Meredith announces the same news to her friends onscreen. “Shut – the fuck – up!”

“Language,” Joel clips, chest rumbling between your shoulder blades.

“Oh, like you didn’t have the exact same reaction. George is the…Oh, that sucks. Are you kidding me?” She fishes her phone from the waves of blanket surrounding her, thumbs rapidly typing, eyes shooting from screen to screen.

You snort, turning back to your own phone in your hand, when a text appears at the top of the screen.

Dad: Hey kiddo. Sorry to keep you waiting, work been hectic. Off the rest of today if you’re free to come over.

Your thumb latches onto the message, holding it for Joel to read, too, before letting it disappear off into your notifications.

He tightens his hold on you, burying his nose into the cotton of his own hoodie over your shoulders. His breath pushes heavy and thoughtful across the material. “Still seems as calm as the other day.”

“Too calm,” you admit, “it’s freaking me out.”

“What can he do, you know? You’re here, he’s there. Your dad ain’t an idiot, baby. He knows stayin’ angry about it’s only gonna push you further away.”

“Sure made ‘im feel like an idiot…”

Joel catches the comment and pockets it before it gathers enough weight to bruise. “Well,” he clears his throat, “it’s up to you. I ain’t letting you do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

“Mhm,” you reply, and wait for more words to fall to your tongue. An answer, a response. A decision that you know you don’t feel equipped or even rightful to make.

“Do you want to go talk to him?” Joel asks.

“I…I want to make things right. I wanna fix it.”

“Okay. And will talking to him do that?”

You turn to face him, frowning. “I don’t fucking know,” you mutter. “Will it?”

He smiles sympathetically. “Wish I knew, darlin’. Would it help if I came? Sat outside in the truck, waited for you? It gets too much, you decide you wanna leave – we leave.”

“You ain’t scared to be near him again?”

He gulps back a laugh, Adam’s apple bobbing awkwardly before he allows himself to answer. “Only thing scary about your dad is the sunlight reflectin’ off his damn head. No, I ain’t scared.”

You study him a minute longer, eyes roaming from the lips you could sketch every score of from memory, the beard you’re sure has forever altered your prints from the number of times you’ve run your fingers over the bristles. The eyes which know every secret, every whisper, every thought behind your own.

You sigh, smiling dumbly as he wraps his arms tighter around you. “Fine. Let’s go.”

Joel pulls up by the curb, parking politely at the end of your driveway rather than alongside your dad’s car, like he usually would. Like he used to.

You crane your head, looking past the shape of him to survey the unassuming house. Quiet, still. No sign of hurricane or earthquake, no tremors of rage or words like rocks raining down on the truck roof. Your thumb plunges into the buckle of your seatbelt, the webbing whipping over your shoulder.

“Sure you’re okay?” Joel asks, watching your fingers lift to the door handle.

“Mhm,” you reply, distant. “’s just my dad, right? What’s the worst that could happen?”

His eyebrows lift, agreeing. He takes your hand in his and holds it to his lips. “Whatever it is,” he mumbles into your fingers, “if it happens, you come straight back out here, you hear? I ain’t moving.”

The urge to stay exactly where you are and let him carry you off back to his place overwhelms you for a brief second. To stay in the safety of the truck cabin, stay within touching distance of Joel. And as quickly as it’s there, it’s gone. Overcome by the memory of that stony hug in Sal’s, the vacant, lonely eyes boring into late-night TV.

A sharp chap over your shoulder shocks you back to life. You twist in your seat, looking down at a face wrinkled by curiosity and wisdom, sheen of lipstick curved in a mischievous grin. You roll the window down, mirroring her smile.

“Joel Miller,” Rita calls, lowering her ring-adorned fist and pointing over to her car. “Help me with these groceries.”

“Afternoon to you, too, Rita,” he calls back, and she raises two thin, penciled eyebrows. His sigh trickles into a chuckle as he snaps the door open, leaning into you. “I ain’t moving,” he mutters, swinging out of the truck.

“Sure looks like you’re movin’,” you call back, letting Rita pull on your door to let you out.

“How are you, darlin’?” she asks. “Haven’t seen you around in a while.”

You hop down beside her, helping her tug the shawl around her arms back over her shoulders. “Yeah, I’ve, uh…I’ve been busy.”

She nods, and then her eyes drift to somewhere behind you. “They go in the kitchen, son.” She points to her house. “I’ll come help you unpack ‘em.”

Joel’s face twists, eyes wide, hands outstretched. You swallow back a laugh when he looks to you, an almost teenage expression which asks, You seein’ this? as he turns back to the Nissan.

“I better go,” Rita says then, giving your arms one last squeeze. “You take care, now. Tell your dad I’m askin’ after ‘im.”

“I will, Rita.” You turn on your heel and saunter around Joel’s truck, giving him one last twirl as he hoists two bags under his muscled arms, rolling his eyes as you spin.

You pull the weight of yourself up your drive, passing past versions of yourself as you near the front door. She’s stumbling towards her dad’s car, a bucket of soapy water sloshing around between her knees. She’s sat on the curb, waiting for Joel’s truck to roll up, praying she never hears another Marty Robbins song again.

She’s naïve, still. Knows no better, knows no worse. Chasing a high, chasing the thrill of being caught and the thrill of nobody ever knowing. A relationship built entirely on lies and deceit. A love woven with dark threads of shame and anger, a tattered mess in one corner where the edges fray and loosen.

And you think: you’ve never felt more jealous of anybody your whole life.

The front door clicks open easily, like the building welcomes you home with a relieved sigh. You follow sunlight into the hallway, feeling it easier to walk through than before – less dense, less suffocating. Less guilty. An honest thief, back to return the bleeding heart she dragged out the door with her.

Secrets like shards of broken glass on the floor, debris from that day. And as if he hears the crunch of your footsteps, your dad appears at the bottom of the hall.

“Hi, hon.”

Eyes wide with a misplaced shock, you say, “Hey.”

“You okay?”

“’m good.”

“Good. Come in, come through.” He beckons you forward, a smile only half-forced on his lips. “You want a drink or anything?”

You follow him into the kitchen, politely accepting a glass of water when he offers it.

He turns with two steady palms on the island, watching as you drag a chair free and sit at the table. “How’s Joel?” he asks, swallowing roughly.

The words come delayed, your open mouth lying in wait. Your body selfishly trying to hoard the information, protective the second the image of that six-foot, two-hundred-pound man crosses your mind. “He’s fine. He’s out front.”

It sounds like a warning, though you don’t mean for it to. Just conversation. He’s helping Rita with her groceries. She’s asking after you, by the way. But your dad seems to sense the natural amber tone of it – the sparking of a flame, daring to catch. He’s waiting for this to go south.

He nods, accepting the fact of it. His own failed attempt to separate the two of you only drove you closer together. Only made you want Joel more.

But then he’s nearing you again, pulling out the chair opposite yours. “I’m glad you’re here,” he says, settling with a sigh. “Glad we’re…we’re talkin’ again, at least.”

Your head angles. “Are we?”

His body jerks, flinching from the sting of the question. “Well,” his head wobbles, jowls quivering, “I sure hope so. I was takin’ it as a good sign that you’re here.”

“I’m here,” you repeat, “but that doesn’t mean I’m staying.”

“No, I know. I know. Joel’s out front, ‘n all that.” He looks down at his hands, clasped in his lap. Holds his tongue behind his front teeth, waiting for the next turn of conversation.

You lean forward, elbows on the table, softening your voice. “Dad?” you say, and he looks up. “This whole entire thing – I think…I think we oughta try and understand each other, a little better. Hear each other out.”

“I am tryin’, hon. I’m really tryin’. You dealt me an awful lot to hear out ‘n understand.”

You rock back, sinking against the hard chair. Tracing the wood grains in the table, nails digging between. Shame coiling like a snake beneath your tongue, taking up too much space in your mouth. Its venom dripping between your teeth, acrid and sour; tendons in your neck jumping with the bitterness of your dad’s tone.

He sighs. “Be honest with me a second.”

“Huh?”

He waits a beat, watching you carefully. Opens his mouth, pauses, and then speaks. “Who instigated it?”

Your finger pushes harder into the surface. Digging new divots. “Um…kinda both of us. Was sort of a two-way thing from the get-go.”

His lips twist, almost imperceptible. He looks behind you to the patio outside. You can’t read what’s in his eyes. It makes you say more, say things you reckon you’ll regret later – but something to fill the silence between you. Something to let him sink his teeth into.

“There was flirting. Lotta flirting. And then it…it just sort of snowballed.”

“Snowballed.” He looks uncomfortable, lifting his hands to cup over his face. “I just didn’t take him as the type,” he says, muffled into his palms.

“As what type?”

He drops his hands, hitting his thighs with a slap, and looks you dead in the eye. Sad, almost. “Arthur Kennedy type.”

“He’s not.”

You say it instinctively. Your ears hear it at the same time your dad does. He looks at you blankly.

“He’s not,” you repeat, a little looser. Less hasty. “Look,” you sigh, “I know it’s not what you want to hear, but…everything that we ever did, I wanted to do. I already told you. There ain’t nothing we did that I didn’t ask him to. I swear to you.”

You think back to the cookout, how angry Joel was at the thought of Arthur Kennedy hanging over you. How pissed he’d be, hearing your dad line him up against that old leather boot of a man. Comparing, contrasting. Here’s how you measure up, son. How much of a phantom Arthur Kennedy has been, your whole life, and how much of a sanctuary Joel is in comparison.

Your stomach twists at the thought. A tight knot, wound by a desperation to clear the name of a man whose worst offense was doing exactly what your dad would’ve told him to: leave.

“This whole thing,” you go on, “it’s a mess, alright? It’s – totally fucked. And we shouldn’t’ve lied, shouldn’t’ve been keeping things from you, but then…what did you expect?”

Your dad cuts in like a bullet: “I expect the two of you not to do what you were doin’.”

“No, I know that. But we did it, right? It’s done now. I meant, did you really want us to sit you down in the living room ‘n say, Hey, Dad – guess what?”

He grimaces at the thought.

“Didn’t think so. We didn’t even know what it was. We had no idea what it’d turn into. But you gotta hear me out: it wasn’t just…some fling, or whatever you’re thinkin’. I swear, Dad, it wasn’t.”

He still doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t lift his stare from the table. You feel like a little kid, desperate to make him love you again. Desperate to make him listen. The space between you fills with the bored tick tick tick of the kitchen clock. Each second hurting a little more than the last.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I’m sorry that I hurt you. I’m sorry I let you down, but…I’m not sorry that I did it. If I could go back, knowing everything I know – I’d do it all over again.”

The words roll across the table to him like billiards. You lean back again, watching them as they rattle from his side to yours – your sentence delivered back into your ears. You nod, a sure thought in your mind.

I’d do it all over again. All the covering, all the hiding. The aching, the wishing and wanting. Staring at Joel’s empty hand, dying to slot yours into it. Dying to put any part of yourself near him; your head under his chin, your arms linked around his waist. Knowing you two would feel, knowing everyone else would see, just how perfectly you fit together.

The chasing your own tails: Did you lie well enough? Do they suspect anything? Did we leave any evidence? Disturbed sheets, a collar still upturned. Can they hear us? Have they noticed we’re missing? We’re always fucking missing.

You’d do it all over again. You know what it cost, now, sat directly opposite the price. His polite smiles like veneers over rotten teeth. The tremble in his lip when he opens his mouth to speak.

And it was worth it. Joel. He was worth it all, in the end.

All over again.

“Do you know that every time I look at you, there are…probably four versions that I see?”

You frown. Did he hear what you just said? All ov–? “What?”

Your dad laughs to himself. “When you walk outta that door, I see a little pink backpack over your shoulders. Gym bag in your hand, maybe. I see missin’ front teeth, I see those little clip-on earrings you used to love so much.

“And – and when you’re mad at me, when we fight, I see you at fourteen. Growing pains, y’know? I still remember you slamming your bedroom door in my face, all ‘cause I wouldn’t let you go to that girl Molly’s birthday party.” He looks up, smiling at your perplexed expression.

“I don’t even…remember that, hardly.”

“Long time ago now. My point is,” he continues, “you’re twenty-three. You’re grown. And I just can’t figure out how to make those other versions…grow with you. You still feel like my kid. Still that little girl with the pink backpack.”

“But,” you clear your throat, trying to swipe her from your own memory, “I’m not. I’m not her anymore, Dad. And I think maybe you gotta give me the space to be someone different, now.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose, nodding. “I know, I know. I just didn’t think this new version of you would…y’know. Be with Joel, ‘n all. That is something I did not see comin’.”

“You think I did?” You spit a laugh. “If you told me when I came home that this is what was waiting for me…that I was gonna fall…”

Your teeth close around the sentence, dropping your dad’s eye. But it’s too late.

He stares back at you like the sun. “…Fall in love with ‘im?”

And you cower. You wince, almost. The last secret. The last thing he doesn’t know. “I don’t…I don’t know, I –”

“You love him. You do, don’t you?”

Your thumbs run circles around one another, fingers locking until your knuckles hurt. “I don’t know,” you mumble, wishing for the tenth time since you sat down that Joel was beside you, in front of you, around you.

“’s what Anna seems to reckon.”

Your eyes flit up. “Anna?”

He hums. “She is her father’s daughter. A damn meddler. She called here, last night.”

“Oh, Jesus,” you groan, head falling into your hands. “Ignore her, please. Ignore all of it. She doesn’t –”

He holds a palm up. “Now, hold on. You don’t even know what it was she said.”

You huff a sigh, twisting your hand in the air. Go on.

“She reckons you do love him. Reckons he loves you back. More, if that’s even possible, she said. Told me all about the way he stepped in front a’ that boy at Frank’s. About your face when he picked you up from rodeo night, how ecstatic you were. The difference she sees in you.”

“Difference,” you scoff, glancing out to the backyard. “What difference?”

“Same difference I see, probably. Same difference Bill said he saw, too: you’re happier. Even I can’t deny it, hon. It’s damn hard – you never make nothin’ easy on your old man – but…but I am willing to try.”

The hurt begins to slowly fizzle away. Cooling, washing from your skin like foamy waves. Curiosity left to shine through.

“You may not understand this ‘til you have kids of your own – if you have kids of your own – but there ain’t a thing in this world that I love more than I love you. And when you love somethin’ that much, you’ll do anything to stop it from getting hurt. Anything. That’s all I want you to know.”

A silence falls between you, thoughtful and waiting. The clock’s ticking grows sharper again. It seems to consider the same as you: there should be more to this. More to be said, to be convinced. More yelling, even.

But you arrive at the same conclusion, at near enough the same time: there is nothing more. Cards flat on the table, eyes pouring all over them. To question it, to second-guess any of it, would be to tempt fate.

“Anyway,” your dad sits forward, clasping his hands on the table, “tell me what’s goin’ on. What’s been happening in your world?”

You shrug. A little, shy thing. “Work. Been hanging with Sarah a lot. And I, uh, I had a job interview last week.”

“Oh, yeah? Where?”

You shift awkwardly in your chair. “For, uh…that one in LA. They called to offer it a couple days ago.”

A smile pulls across his lips. Growing, growing, growing until he’s grinning back at you. Pride, little bit of surprise. Whole lot of amusement and joy. “You take it?” he asks, figuring he knows the answer already.

“Not yet,” you reply. “Think I’m going to, though. ‘s too good to say no.”

He lifts his eyebrows in agreement, looking down at his hands. Shoulders lurch some under the weight of your news. “There goes that little backpack,” he mutters to himself, and you smirk.

“Can’t hold her back forever.”

“I never had a hold on her in the first place. You were walkin’ on outta that door the minute you found your own two feet.”

You snort. “Good! Good for me. Let me go out into the big ol’ world; let me go fuck it all up ‘n come home for dinner once I’m done.”

“I intend to,” your dad says, nodding along to every passionate word you say. And then he asks, “How’s Joel feelin’ about it all? About LA?”

Your shoulder jerks in a half-shrug. “He’s fine, I guess. Says he’ll miss me, but then – we haven’t exactly had the most typical relationship up until now. Survived a lot I reckon would break any normal couple…”

It’s the first time you think you’ve ever said it. Couple. You’ve thought of it – flicked through the words you might use to describe him. Your boyfriend, your partner. None of them seem to fit exactly who he is to you. None of them strong enough to carry the weight of what’s shared between you. He’s Joel. He’s your Joel. Nothing will ever come close.

Your dad hears it, too. The newness of it. The crisp shape of the word, not yet thawed to this new world. Your tongue still learning how to pronounce it, how to pair it with the image of Joel.

“Guess he can fly out ‘n visit whenever, right?”

“Yeah,” you swallow, “and I’ll be back here, too. Christmas ‘n all.”

Your dad smiles. Relieved, assured. Light slowly returning to his eyes.

“We’ll be fine,” your chest swells, “so Joel says. I trust ‘im.”

You both quieten, sitting back in your chairs. What once felt like a room ablaze, flames tearing the skin from your body as you dragged your heels through it – now feels like a gentle warmth. Waves wrought with enough power and force to destroy you, now seeping off with the change of the tide. Bumps on the horizon.

“Speaking of,” you say, making to stand, “I should probably get goin’.”

“Yeah. Yeah, hon.” Your dad follows, arm on your shoulder as he walks you down the hall.

The sun intrudes, tosses herself into your arms as you pull the front door open. In her golden-rayed wake sits that dark truck, same as always. The same dark tee, the same dark-speckled-gray hair. Arms folded, stood against the body, waiting. Eyes on the house, on your figure as you step down onto the doormat. Joel straightens when your dad follows you out, chest sucking in a ragged breath.

They look at one another, and that’s about it. Something of a nod from Joel – not quite returned by your dad. You figure that might take some time to come back around. And that’s okay. You can make peace with it.

You turn back. Your dad’s looking down at you, hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun.

“You know,” you take a deep breath, “the only times he’s ever hurt me, are the times he’s left. The times I haven’t had him around.”

And then you step back, the magnet in your chest telling you it’s time to return to its partner.

In high school, your English teacher tasked the class with writing a short story. Any genre you wanted, any word count up to two thousand. The boys mostly dicked around, wrote action-packed, blood-and-guts garbage. One girl wrote something you’re sure you’d seen in a Hallmark movie before.

But you – you spent two weeks straight, writing. Awake until all hours of the night, hunched over your laptop, sunbathing in the blue hue of an open document. Fingers hammering rapidly into your keyboard.

A man and a woman meet in Central Park. She – hair the color of rust, spilling down her shoulders and lifting at the ends, twisting around the fingers of the blustery wind. A red glow around her third finger where gold once lived. Sat on a bench, alone. Hiding, perhaps. And he – sharp suit and tie, clean-shaven, a steel-blue gaze that might cut glass. Missing the city traffic by taking a walk through the park on his way home. Fleeing, perhaps.

He notices her trench coat first. Bright red, a poppy swaying in the breeze. A little hopeless, a solemn wilt to it. The quickly dampening fire of her hair in the rain, the opaque sheen of polish chipping from her nails. And he thinks he recognizes the constellation of freckles painted across her cheeks. Thinks he might’ve mapped them, once, in some kind of past-life.

She looks up and realizes she recognizes the cut of his gaze. Piercing through her, splitting her in two. Thinks she might’ve felt it before, the opening of her soul to someone who looked just like him – a little more baby-faced, a little more spirited. In some kind of past-life, too.

She stands, and he slows, and they meet somewhere in the middle. Words exchanged; body heat transferred through hugs. Is that really you? You look so different. It’s been years. He doesn’t ask about the lack of jewelry on her third finger. She doesn’t ask about the gray circles beneath his eyes. Just, You wanna grab a coffee? and, Yeah. Yeah, I do.

They sit at the window, watch the yellow taxis and the black umbrellas and the trembling traffic lights. They talk about life then, life now, and silently agree to forget about the part in the middle. They look at each other the same way they must have before they lost one another, before life and love and everything else got between them.

They agree to meet again in a week. They swear that they will not fall back in love.

They know as well as each other that they’re really promising to do just that.

Love – twisted and turned over and over, until it’s a different shape altogether. We started as one thing, and we watched it shift into something completely different. Clay in the potter’s hands. Didn’t you think it might fall apart? There was a moment I thought the heat of the kiln might break us. I’m glad it didn’t. I’m glad we’re made of tough stuff.

I’m glad I found you again, in that park. The pissing rain and the wind so strong I felt it lifting the sense from my mind. In that hardware store, in that bar filled with weed and bad intentions. I’m glad you split me open, glad you could see the good that was still inside. I thought I’d lost her for a minute. Thought she’d forgotten her way home.

Let’s go get a coffee. Let’s pretend it’s always been this way.

Let’s fall in love. The rest will take care of itself.

It takes three weeks in total to properly pack up your things. Two days after you accepted the job, you bought boxes and tape, and began to dismantle the identity you’d spent twenty-three years creating for yourself, a little bit at a time. Taking apart the pink-walled museum of your life, artefact by artefact.

Joel has helped as much as you’ve let him. Laid back on your bed when you’ve dismissed him one too many times, raised his eyebrows and laughed with you whenever you come across some old, forgotten piece of memorabilia. Something ceremonial to it, something innocent and fun. Like a little graduation for all the parts of yourself.

Soon, as the last of the summer sun dampens outside, your room lies vacant. Empty of any real evidence of your being here. Bedsheets and pillows folded, packed away; framed photos and posters unpinned from the wall and wrapped up safely. Drawers and closets barren, left with a selection of your less-loved, less-worn clothes. A wardrobe built from stuff you’ll only ever wear when you come back home to visit, if even then.

Joel’s sat on the bare mattress, looking around your room. You’re stood opposite, leaning against your half-empty dresser. The sun filters feebly through your turned shades, averting her eyes.

You look over at him. Golden, like the sunlight outside. Warm, like the breeze through the trees. Yours. Yours yours yours.

“What?” Joel asks, his eyes having finally found their way back to you. He smiles at your focused expression.

“Nothing. I don’t know. Just…”

“Talk to me. Tell me.”

“You are – this is…” You sigh. “This is good. I think it’s good. Not just all the stuff we did. But you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you tell him. “You’re good for me.” You grip the wooden lip tighter, swaying nervously when you add, “But I think it was always gonna go this way, wasn’t it?”

He sniffs. Shoulders jerk in a weak shrug. “Yeah, I think so, baby.”

Your eyelashes flutter, soothing the prickling feeling of tears forming. “I don’t – I don’t know if I want it to.”

“Yeah,” Joel says through a groan, pushing himself up, “you do.”

You shake your head as he approaches, and his hands cup your cheeks.

“Hey,” he whispers, pulling your body tight against his. Your face buries in his chest; your tears wet on his shirt. He shushes you, rocks you gently back and forth with a hand on the back of your head. “Listen to me.”

“Joel –”

“Listen to me.” He pulls you back, swipes the tears from your cheeks as quickly as they fall. “We’re fine. We are going to be fine.”

“I don’t want to leave you –”

“I know, I know. But you want to go do this. And that’s okay. Both of ‘em, at once.”

Your head shakes again. Like an instinctive reaction to the thought of being separated from him.

Joel smiles softly. “I am going to miss you like hell. You got no idea. But,” he pulls your head back to face his, tucks your hair behind your ear, “I want you to go. You gotta go after this. Right?”

“I know,” you whisper, lungs lurching for breath. “I just – wish it didn’t mean leavin’ you.”

“Darlin’…” Joel coos, pulling you in again. “You know how much I love you? What do I keep tellin’ you? We’ll be alright. It’s you ‘n me, right?”

You nod, salty tears slipping between your lips onto your tongue. When you look up, you notice the same expression on Joel’s face. He blinks his own away before they fall.

“’s you ‘n me,” you repeat, and he pulls your lips together.

You roll your tongue onto his, letting him taste you – all of you. Your mouth, and your thoughts, and your tears, and your pain. You let him take it all, let him hold it for this moment as you breathe him in, let his body fill yours in every way.

Your hands are in his hair, your chest pressed against his; he’s every thought on your mind and every beat in your heart. He’s the blood thrumming through your veins, he’s the oxygen filling your lungs; he’s the words between your teeth and the flesh around your bones.

And he pulls you, and you follow, his shirt in your fist, over to the bed where he lays you gently and falls on top.

“When’s he get back?” he asks, taking your bottom lip between his teeth.

“Later,” you mumble, your fingers picking at the hem of his shirt.

He pushes back, letting you tug it up up up over his shoulders at the same rate he peels your tee from yours, both tossing each other’s clothes to somewhere else in the room. Jeans undone, shorts dragged from your hips, underwear discarded until you’re naked under him, and he’s naked over you, and there’s nothing and no one between.

Joel cradles you, holds you close as he presses a palm roughly against the underside of your thigh, opening your body to him in a way only he’s mastered. In a way you only would, for him.

His hand cups your sex, fingers nudging between your folds, pushing in when your jaw slackens and a wanton moan echoes from your throat across Joel’s tongue.

“Yeah,” he coos, wrist jacking between your legs, “’s my girl. Gotta get you warmed up, huh? Get you nice ‘n wet.”

Your back arches, arms linking around his neck to pull him closer, pull him deeper. Hold him tight enough to you that your bodies feel one, feel connected at the meeting of Joel’s hand and the most intimate part of you; the meeting of your tongues between teeth.

And you gasp, the nudging of his fingers against the deepest part of your body, the messy circles of his thumb on your clit. The shape of him, solid and warm against the seam of your thigh.

You reach down for him, wrapping your fingers around his cock, and his breath hitches. Teeth bump into yours. You’re fucking irresistible to him.

“Darlin’,” his voice is low, daring you to keep going, “you wanna cut this short ‘fore we’re even started?”

You breathe a laugh into his jaw, hot and needy. “You get to play with me,” you whine, “I wanna play with you, too.”

Joel growls, seizing his movements, leaning back in what you take as him granting full access to his body. But then he says, “Turn around,” in a strict voice you’ve come to know as meaning one thing, and you pause.

You peel your eyes from his dick to blink up at him. “Turn –?”

“– around, now.” He takes your waist, hoisting you up until you’re straddling him, holding you inches above his body. “Turn.”

“What the fuck are you –?”

“Many times do I gotta tell you? You said you wanted to play.” He twists your waist until you follow his movements, swinging one leg over the other. He grabs your hips, tugging you back towards his face. “So, play,” he mutters, lowering your cunt down to his lips.

You gasp, falling forward and hitting the mattress between his legs. “J– fuck me. Are you s-serious?” You moan, hips rocking against the feeling of his bearded chin at your clit. “You’re like – a fucking – horny teenager. Oh, fuck.”

Your head falls forward, hands splaying out over his thighs, before your eyes refocus and you notice the hardened shape of him, tip oozing precome all over the hair-spattered plain of his groin. Your hand lifts, shakily taking hold of him again, and you lean down.

Elbows hooked over his thighs, you bring his tip to your lips, letting a thick bead of saliva fall and drip down the length of him, meeting your closed fist to be dragged up and down.

Joel’s hips almost buck. He holds it, manages to catch it, but you spot it. You’ve done this too many fucking times not to notice the reaction you draw from him.

“’s good,” you whisper, circling your hips on his face, tongue slipping across his cherry-red tip. “Feels so good.”

He responds in the form of a deep groan, rattling from his chest through your clit, shocking like lightning up your spine until the very same noise is thrown from your lips. You push down, tongue molding around every vein and the slow curve of his cock until your lips meet the thick brush of hair at his base, his tip kissing the very back of your throat.

Your throat which jumps, jolts at the feeling of something intruding – before you’re retreating again, pulling him from your body, warm, wet spit linking the two of you when you come up for air. And then you sink back down, head moving up down up down up down as his stomach tenses beneath your chest.

Joel’s palms keep a heavy hold on your ass, his tongue lapping between your folds like they’re the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted – like he might die if he doesn’t get his fix of you. And you think, they are, and he might, as your cheeks hollow and you bow down over him again.

You establish a rhythm, two waves swirling between one another: your hips rocking, Joel’s lifting ever so slightly as you suckle on one another. Your hand fisting the parts of him you can’t quite reach, not without choking; Joel holding you fixed to his jaw, letting the tip of his tongue hook around your swollen clit, then dragging it down until he’s letting you ride the wet muscle.

The approach of your first orgasm, a tiny spark catching to life in the pit of your belly, incites you with a need to open up further for him. Your throat taking more of him, your thighs slackening as you drive your cunt harder against his mouth.

“’m so close,” you whimper, lips curving around his cock. “So – fucking – ah, keep doin’ that. Right th-there.”

His hands hook around your thighs, tongue darting across your clit. His nose nudges somewhere between your folds, quickly becoming coated in the slick you’re leaking all over him.

“Joel,” you say, fists pumping his cock. Your voice a warning: it’s coming. You’re gonna – Fuck, you’re gonna come.

His voice is looser, more of a shrug of the shoulders when he pulls away from you. He inserts two fingers, curls them like before, like he knows drives you fucking insane. “Let go, babygirl,” he murmurs, lips immediately returning to position. And then, muffled and rough: “Come all over me.”

“Fuckfuckfuck,” you pant, hands squeezing around his cock, feeling that same spark ignite into flame, your entire body bursting with heat.

Your high rips through you, battering through each vein in your system, each nerve electrified. You collapse between his legs, his rough pubic hair sticking to the sweat on your chest, hips rutting wildly against the sharp cut of his jaw.

The mattress absorbs most of the desperate moan which streaks across your tongue, nails digging hard into the flesh of Joel’s thighs. And you hear the deep sound of his voice, the thud thud thud of a chuckle against your clit: the cocky fucker laughing to himself as he unravels you for what feels like the thousandth time.

“Alright,” Joel says, more to himself than to the fucked-out shape of you between his legs. He sits up and shifts you carefully down the bed, settling you face-down on the mattress and lifting your ass to meet his hips. “Okay?” he asks, kneeling behind you.

You feel his tip between your legs, slotting happily somewhere in your opening. Waiting for your response. A response you don’t feel able to give, as much as you’d like to; your lips puffy and confused, words jumbling behind them in a tangle of bliss and love.

“Baby,” Joel says, hand slinking down your back, pressing gentle circles into the nape of your neck. “You okay?”

Your head lifts, glancing over your shoulder to see his hairy torso, his thick arms caging over you. He lifts your chin with two fingers, cranes your neck up until you’re looking into his eyes, heavy lids blinking dumbly.

“Just fuck me,” you whisper, and Joel slips his tongue into your mouth.

You used to dream of coming back home. A few years away, doing whatever you wanted, wherever you wanted. Dreaming things up and then chasing them until they happened. Tiring yourself out, lungs gasping for breath and eyes always searching, always looking for a new target to pin up. But always coming back.

Austin, Texas. Its jagged skyline, the streets lined with a vibrant glow and star-spangled bunting. The river like a silver-bellied snake slithering through. Home.

You dreamt of living out your days here, once your blood had slowed and your mind settled. A quiet life in the country, a big wooden house with a wraparound porch. Two little rocking chairs, so you and whoever your husband turned out to be could sit and watch the sky fade from red into orange into white and then dull gray into deep blue.

Breeze kissing your cheek, his lips kissing your knuckles.

Joel.

Home.

You tell him, and he smirks. “That so?” he asks, wrapping his arms a little tighter around your naked body.

You nuzzle your cheek into the palm of his hand, breathing in the sweet scent of sweat and sex sitting in the air. “Mhm. You could play guitar until the stars come out.”

He hums in agreement. “Sounds like a pretty good dream. Tell you what: you go to LA, do what you gotta do. By the time you come back, there’ll be a big ol’ farmhouse, wraparound porch, rollin’ fields for the dogs. Coffee ‘n sunsets. How’s that sound?”

“And you’ll be there?”

He smiles. Scoops you in one arm and rolls you onto your front, chest to chest with him. His fingers ghost down the curve of your shoulder. “Baby,” he whispers, “I built the damn thing.”

It forces a laugh from your chest, something you’ve gotten used to by now. Joel and his ability to steal a giggle from you, the dumbest moments seeming the funniest. “You’re gonna build me a damn house?” you ask, chin resting between his pecs.

“That what you want?”

Your head rocks left to right, considering. “I just want you. That’s all.”

“Then you got me. I’m all yours.”

In his hazel eyes lives every moment you’ve ever shared. Every conversation, every kiss, every fight. Every minute he’s spent looking for you or at you, every minute you’ve spent looking back at him. It’s all in there. You see it like a movie reel, frame by frame.

It lands like a slot machine on that first night. Cleaning up after pizza. Shoulder to shoulder by your kitchen sink. You wish you’d just kissed him. Even with your dad right there. Wish you’d lifted your heels and put your lips on his, just for the fucking hell of it. Just to condense all of it, every second of longing and hurt and pain into one fleeting moment.

Wish you’d pulled him into you, against you, the weight of his body like an old friend. Welcomed it with open arms, like you’d spent your entire life missing it, waiting for it to come back to you. Let yourself feel your own heart, peeling between the cage of your ribs, reaching out for his. Always reaching for him.

Wish you’d looked him in the eye, tears softening the tufts of graying hair, vignetting the smirk only you can tell is there. Looked at him in that knowing way, that language only you two know; the glint in your eyes translating a thousand messy words into three. Just three – the simplest, lightest words you’ve ever known.

I love you. Let’s skip to the good part.

#welp i didn't cry when i hit post. me? no. no way #joel miller #joel miller fic #joel miller x reader #the last of us #tlou #tlou fic #dbf!joel miller #dbf!joel #joel miller smut #fic: cowboy like me

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scorpiomother · 4 months ago

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there is a light that never goes out

･ﾟ★ most of these days, i don't get too intimate / why would i let you in? but i think again

pairing: tasm!peter parker x f!reader

summary: you’ve tried to ignore the pestering infatuation you harbor for your fellow camp counselor, but when last day debauchery ensues, the lines between friendship and love blur.

tags: slow burn. summer camp. friends to lovers. pining. alcohol usage.

word count: 4.4k

a/n: mother is back and here is my love letter to the feverish bliss of a season and to everyones favorite muse, peter parker + this only took a broken laptop, nicotine and a full year to finish... so enjoy<3

playlist ☆ masterlist ☆ read on ao3 ☆ kofi

You don’t think it’s possible to feel any warmer, but the mixture of everything is weighing in on you. The blossoming bonfire in accordance with the sultry sun. The tipsy hum in your chest. The occasional graze of Peter’s arm against your shoulder.

Sometimes you can’t bring yourself to look at him and this is one of those times.

Maybe it’s the fact that it’s the last day and you don’t know exactly what to do with yourself. Or it could be the muffled buzz in your chest that’s growing by the minute; telling you to do things you shouldn’t. Admit things you can’t. If you look at him for too long, you’re sure that your better judgment will fade into that tempting hum.

You squint past the sun rays reflecting off of the lake and focus on all of the small things that don’t mean anything to you. A bottle here, a crushed can there. The flicker and burn of the fire. The new stains on your old Converse.

You search for the next best thing when a beer bottle appears, floating above your lap.

“Your turn,” Peter says.

His voice makes you want to look. It makes you want to say, huh? Then, he would have to repeat himself and you could watch the way his lips move. Instead, you murmur a soft thank you and take the bottle, eyes cemented on the shoreline.

The campers had left in the morning, and yet the feeling of childish abandonment and delight is still overflowing in the empty campgrounds. The handful of twenty-something-year-olds that stayed back for one last night to “clean up” the camp were quick to revel in the sudden freedom. By the time the last bus left with the campers and older counselors, they were already going on a liquor run and starting a bonfire on the shorelines in nothing but their swimwear. And as nice as it all was, you wish the kids were still there. They would distract you from the thoughts of Peter and now, you don’t know what to do when they come.

As you sip on the lukewarm beer, you feel eyes on you. You look up and sure enough, Peter is staring. His eyes are lighter than normal, a sheen like honey, and his expression is almost quizzical. That glint of amusement catches you off guard.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he smiles. “I’m just waiting for you to admit that you hate beer.”

“What?” you repeat with more confusion.

“Every time I pass you the bottle you frown.”

You furrow your brows. “No, I don’t.”

“Sure you do. And after you drink, you make a sour face,” he says plainly.

You’re about to protest when Peter reaches for the bottle and takes it from you, his hand skimming against yours in the process.

“Creep,” you mumble. You drag your fingers along the skin that he touched and try to ignore the burn. "You’ve known me for like, what? Two months? And you think you know me like the back of your hand.”

“I wish,” he shrugs before downing the rest of the beer.

I wish. You’re biting the inside of your cheek now. “I- I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

You can hear the smirk in his voice and when you close your eyes, you can even see it. His closed mouth grin, full of satisfaction and knowing.

Fuck.

“I’m gonna get a drink,” you mutter, standing up from the bench.

“‘Cause you hate beer, huh?”

“‘Cause I’m thirsty.”

“Mhm, alright, Bug,” Peter says, smugly.

You can still feel his eyes on you as you walk towards the cooler by the dock and as much as you want to look back, you don’t.

You rummage through the cooler— a little more frantic than you should be. Beneath all the shitty beer and ice is a thick bottle of margarita mix and you pull it out in triumph.

“Wow, going for the hard stuff, huh?”

You look up to see Harry standing in front of you with Patron in his right hand and a vape in his left. You scoff, “Says you. This shit is mostly juice anyways.”

Harry settles beside you and watches you pour yourself a cup. He smells like liquor, cologne, and bad news.

“Make me a cup?” He slurs.

You hum in response.

You don’t trust Harry. Not for any particular reason, but he makes you unsure of yourself and you don’t like that. You fill his cup to the brim and hand it to him carefully.

“I’m surprised Peter isn’t here with you.”

You roll your eyes. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Ah, come on. You guys are two peas in a pod.”

“He’s my friend.”

“Is he though?”

“What else would he be?”

“Everyone knows you guys have a thing for each other.”

You’re quiet for a moment, ruminating on his words. Your brain is teetering between joke or not. If he isn’t, then what?

“Just friends,” you murmur in a way that doesn’t reach him. It sticks in the honeyed air like a mantra for yourself.

Ever since the start of camp, Peter and you had been attached at the hips. You were both the new counselors, whereas everyone else had known each other from the year prior. During counselor orientation and the team-building exercises, you gravitated toward each other, sharing awkward laughs and stupid little comments. As the weeks went by, you got closer and closer. You had just met the guy and he was probably the closest you ever got to a person.

“So, that doesn’t bother you at all?” Harry raises a brow.

You look back and Gwen has replaced you on the bench. Peter’s looking at her with such adoration in his face that makes you feel a pang of jealousy. It spreads through your body like a fever.

His cheeks are full of warmth, laughter bellowing out from him so easily. The subtle flex of his bicep has you staring a little longer than you should. When he catches your stare, you mean to look away but the numbing heat makes you forget.

“What? No. Why would it?” You murmur, turning your attention back to Harry.

“Alright. Well, I’ll help you out. Just ‘cause it’s the last day,” Harry says before pouring an ungodly amount of Patron in your cup.

“Oh- I, um. Okay. Thank you,” you stutter.

Harry takes his bottle and taps it to your cup. “To friends.”

“To friends,” you mumble under your breath before throwing back a couple of gulps.

Harry starts to talk about nonsense that you can no longer concentrate on. Your ears had zoned in on the laughter behind you, trying to figure out what was so funny to Peter. Have you ever made him laugh like that?

There’s an invisible string tugging at your face, telling you to look back. Soak up the last of the daylight and the last of Peter, even if it hurts. You want to give into the compulsion, like looking at him is a tick you can’t help, but your attention falls on the dainty bumblebee fluttering innocently in the space between you and Harry.

“Oh, shit,” Harry yelps. His face is full of horror as the small thing dances around him.

“It’s just a bee,” you reassure him.

Rather than calming down, Harry attempts to pull an ungraceful version of the matrix, bumping into you in the process.

“Harry!”

“Fuck, I’m sorry! I just- Fuck!” Before Harry could finish his apology, he’s running far from the docile insect and you.

“Fuckin’ Harry,” you mutter to yourself, looking at the stain of Red40 and Patron on your shirt and then to Peter.

He’s too preoccupied with Gwen to notice the mishap.

Like a small child, it hurts. The possessiveness sticks onto your skin like humidity.

You down what’s left in your cup in one go and start walking to your cabin.

It was that second week of camp when your heart first succumbed to Peter. The two of you were on night watch and he entertained you with a game of Would You Rather while everyone else on the campgrounds slept soundly and the night insects trilled.

Would you rather get stung by a bee or watch Isabella all by yourself?

Give me the bee, you deadpanned.

Ouch, I’m gonna tell her what you said.

You wouldn’t, you scoffed.

You’re right, I won’t. That kid would probably start biting us both.

One moment you’re laughing and the next, he’s whispering, wait, hold on. Stay still. So you do. You stayed as still as the night and suddenly, his hand was inching closer and closer to your face until his fingers grazed against your cheek. He held an eyelash in front of your lips and gently said, make a wish.

You hesitantly whispered a delicate oh, okay before absentmindedly blowing the eyelash away.

I hope it was a good one, he grinned.

It was, you lied.

Everything after was hazy, with constant flashes of making a wish. If you could do it again, you would tell yourself to get a grip and not waste such a precious wish like you just did. If you could do it again, you would wish that Peter would grab that eyelash off your cheek again and again and again.

You’re already feeling the drink make its way to your head as you head on over to your cabin. You underestimated Harry’s heavy hand and the heat is working against you. Annoyingly, the wet shirt is enough to cool you down.

You wonder where the time went. It’s overwhelming to think about, especially now that you’re tipsy. Time is slipping through your fingers and you don’t know how you’re supposed to go back to the city and let this all turn into a memory— let Peter turn into a memory.

In all honesty, you’re not so sure that you can. Eight weeks of children watching and sun soaking. Eight weeks of Peter and all of those almost kisses (two to be exact). Where was it supposed to go? In a shoebox of memories, farther away than you’d like it to be?

There’s a swelling feeling in your chest that quickly dissipates when Peter comes running behind you.

“Hey, hey, where did you go?”

You want to be spiteful and ask him what happened to Gwen. Instead, you bite your tongue.

“I’m right here, Bear,” you say.

“Well, yeah. I mean, what happened?”

“I just wanted to get something to drink and I-”

“You spilled all over yourself.”

“No, I didn’t. Harry did and I need a new shirt.”

“My cabin is right here,” he points out.

“It’s okay, I have my own clothes.”

“Bug, stop being stubborn.” He grabs your wrist, and you have no choice but to stop and look at him. The swelling returns as his brown eyes try to read you. “Trust me.”

“Okay?”

You sigh. “Okay.”

His cabin is identical to yours. Three beds. Creaky wood all over. Light smell of mildew. You were there once before but you try not to think about it too much.

“Here, sit,” he says, patting the mattress.

Like a loyal dog, you obey quietly.

While Peter rustles through the drawers, mumbling where did I put it? you gaze at the Polaroids decorating the wall like his own personal scrapbook.

You notice one particular photo with you in it. You were setting up the projector for the first Movie Mondays. That night The Princess and the Frog played, the lights flickering green and blue on the flimsy screen that took you and Peter too long to put up.

Oh my god, you sobbed halfway into the movie. Ray, the firefly, was singing Evangeline to his star, and it was enough to trigger an embarrassing fit out of you.

Are you crying? Peter whispered.

I’ve never wanted to be a bug so bad before, you laughed pitifully. You wrapped your arms around your legs and let the stray tears fall on your knees. You wanted to pout and blame your hysteria on Peter. He didn’t know it but he had an annoying habit of turning you into a child.

You’re pretty when you cry, he said.

With your head on your knees, you bit your lip. You- you’re stupid.

I don’t think that’s what you say when someone gives you a compliment.

You’re making fun of me.

Am not, Bug, he said for the first time.

With teary eyes, you looked for the truth on his face. His eyes softened. Without noticing, you licked your lips and you swore he did the same. It happened so fast you couldn’t remember and suddenly you were wondering if you leaned in, would he do the same? Before you could test your theory, there was a tap on your shoulder.

I think I just ate peanuts, Susie said.

What?

My throat is itchy.

Oh!

Luckily, little Susie was okay, but you weren’t. That night you couldn’t sleep. That look on his face stuck with you. If you were crazy, you would’ve thought that he wanted to kiss you.

Still, you’re unsure.

You open your mouth to ask him if he remembers that night, but he interrupts you.

“I kind of miss them,” he says, head still in the dresser.

“Your army of fanboys?”

“Yeah, if you want to call them that,” he laughs.

“It was pretty sweet how they looked up to you.”

“Maybe, I should start a cult.”

You snort. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why do you hate me?” Peter looks back at you and tilts his head with a boyish smile that makes you look away.

He returns his attention to the drawers and you begin to get impatient.

“You know I don’t need anything special, right? I just need… A shirt.”

”Bug,” he says firmly. “When did you get so bratty?”

“I- You’re taking a long time,” you redden.

You tap your foot against the old wood and stare at the back of his head bobbing and searching. His hair is overgrown, longer than it was when you first met him. If you were brave enough, you would run your hands through it.

“If you think about it, we were basically paid to be cult leaders for eight weeks,” he says.

“Oh. We’re still talking about cults. Great.”

“How does one go about making a cult anyways?”

“Hold on, let me just look for a cult leader’s TED talk.”

“So sarcastic, Bug.”

“Only for you, Bear,” you joke.

“Good.”

Your ears turn hot and you’re licking your lips again. The raspiness in his voice feels all too serious.

You’re silent again. It’s quiet enough you can hear the Earth past Peter’s search. Trees rustle. The wind caresses the grass. If you listen hard enough, you swear you can hear sunshine, but maybe it’s just the alcohol. Eventually another drawer shuts.

“Here,” he says. He finally turns around and stands up with a shy expression on his face that makes you smile. In his hand is a red and blue tie dye shirt he made in the early weeks of camp.

When you reach for it, you zone in on the beaded bracelet on his wrist, a silly little nothing that you made for him a week ago. You might as well have threaded the beads to say IHAVEACRUSHONYOU, but the nickname you called him was safer.

You partially regret the bracelet as the cringey gift screams elementary innocence, but now you had something of his. You were even.

“Thank you,” you say.

“Yeah. I’ll meet you outside.”

“It’s fine,” you say before you can think. “I mean it’ll only take three seconds. You’ve seen me without a shirt before, hah.”

“Someone’s drunk,” he chuckles.

You turn away before he can see you blush. “Not really…”

In one swift motion, you sling off the stained shirt and drape it along the end of his bed frame and pick up Peter’s replacement shirt.

“Oh, it’s healing nicely,” Peter says, surprised.

You look back in an attempt to look at the once opened wound on your back. “Thanks to you, I guess.”

Due to peer pressure from freshly graduated fourth graders, you had jumped off the cliff right into the lake and your back grazed against a submerged rock. It wasn’t anything serious. Barely deep enough for medical attention and the adrenaline from the jump turned you numb.

It was the first time he touched you, really touched you. A deliberate palm to your side rather than an unintentional graze of the knuckles. It made you think of other ways you could hurt yourself just so the two of you could play an innocent game of doctor.

I can’t just drink this by myself, you whined.

I’m about to put a needle through you, you really want me to drink alcohol right now?

I trust you, you admitted unwillingly.

Once he stitched you up, you sat together side by side on his bed with your shirt still over your neck and your bathing suit now cold on your skin. He pressed his hand on your thigh, saying all better. It was enough to warm you up. Enough to make you forget why you never kissed him. Enough to make you want to.

He squeezed the fleshy part of your thigh, and you exhaled. Peter.

It’s Dr. Parker to you.

One moment you’re whispering, stupid, and the next your nose was grazing his with two parting lips just barely touching. His own breath matched yours. Cinnamon, and booze. Warm and wanting. You gently nudged your nose against his before you could come to.

With lips hovering and agape and adrenaline clouding your mind, you thought he was about to kiss you, for sure this time. But when Gwen knocked on the door, calling out to Peter, kissing was the last thing you wanted to do. The only option was to run away. Run back into that lake and sink all the way to the bottom.

When you throw the shirt on, the fabric grazes against the healing scar. The cotton is soft and weightless. You could immediately smell the familiar evergreen and pine.

“Red and blue look good on you,” Peter says and you have to force yourself to not think anything of it. Friends compliment each other. No big deal.

“You should keep it,” he adds and then you’re thinking, okay, kind of a big deal. But you don’t have it in you to protest. If this was the only thing you could get from Peter, then you were happy. Almost satisfied.

“Alright,” you say and wear it like a promise ring.

By the time you two make it back to the lake, the sun is nearly set. The bonfire melts into the fire in the sky, a burnt orange streak floating above the lake. Smoke and char wafts in the air and you notice everyone huddled up in a circle. There’s beer bottles surrounding them like they were partaking in some kind of ritual. As you get closer, you see the single bottle laying on its side in the middle of the crowd.

“What are they, twelve?” Peter whispers as Flash and Felicia kiss.

They don’t notice you two. They’re far too gone and enamored to see beyond themselves, and you’re grateful. Being the bystander looking in was better than watching Peter kiss someone else.

“Wanna go somewhere else?” he nudges.

You nod your head in silence and follow him like a lost puppy.

You two keep to the lakeshore and walk side by side until you can barely see the stray embers of the bonfire in the air.

A mile away, you eventually reach the west pier. It’s unsoiled with beer and degeneracy, the moon purifying the fresh water and wood. The two of you sit on the dock, feet dangling in the chilling water. By the time the night completely glossed over, the alcohol had too.

“It’s so… Quiet,” you say and suddenly you fear your voice may disturb the stillness and ripple through the water.

“I like it.”

“Just kind of eerie, ya know?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll scare the monsters away for you,” he teases.

Peter places one hand on your back and rubs small circles, a new type of warmth now rippling through you.

Without realizing it, you began to mindlessly kick your feet through the lake, ripples after ripples reaching out to touch the earth beyond. The wrinkles of water pulsate. Your heart does the same with each circle of his hand.

“Should’ve got another beer before we left,” you eventually murmur.

“I’m not fun enough for you?”

I just don’t know what to do with myself.

“You’re less fun without your little cult,” you tell him.

“I’m retiring,” he tells you.

“Oh, God forbid.”

“I’m tired,” he says. “Let me be tired.”

When he lays his head in your lap, you don’t move. You barely breathe.

You wish you could feel the calm, shudder and move on, exhale the hummingbird out of your chest, and be done with it.

It’s heavier than you can manage. The ease and calm of him scares you. He makes a home in you so terribly easy, and you can barely touch him without feeling dizzy.

Peter sighs. “What am I going to do without you, Bug?”

You wish he didn’t say things like that.

You get out a shaky, “I don’t know.”

But you do know. Peter’s going to be okay without you. You’ll just be some girl he used to know and move on just fine. But you on the other hand? You don’t know. You don’t want to.

It aches.

I’m tired. Let me be tired, you beg the cruel universe.

It twinkles in response. Ripples right through you.

Your hands are in his hair. You’re dizzy, but you do it anyway. There’s a soft moan coming from Peter so you play and pull and tug, letting all the anxiety leave your hands like kneading dough. You’re gentle because Peter is gentle. Rubbing your back. Stitching up a silly mistake. And even breaking your heart. He does it so gently, you don’t know if he has a cruel bone in his body. Even if he was cruel, you’re not sure if it would offend you.

He closes his eyes. You drag your nails against his temple and roam freely. The night sky reminds you of fireflies and popcorn. Slow breaths and wishes. You count the dimples on the moon. Little distractions to ground you, even now.

The moment feels infinite. Almost infinite, like those almost kisses. So close, yet so fleeting. You stop trying to make it stay. You let it ripple through you.

You feel a little brave.

“Let’s go swimming,” he says, eyes closed. He can smell it on you— the braveness, you think.

Your hands freeze.“Now?”

“When else?”

“It’s cold.”

“I’ll keep you warm, Bug,” he says, this time with his brown eyes wide, open, and tempting. “Trust.”

He stands up and holds his hand out for you before you can protest. Whenever he mentions trust, it does something to you. The cut above your shoulder blade is trust scarred onto your body. Were you supposed to stray from your habits now? On the last day?

You open your mouth but then your hand is in his and he’s guiding you to the obsidian.

He takes off his shirt and shorts, throwing them on the dock. You follow suit, and by the time you fold the tie dye shirt into a neat square, Peter’s already in, yelping, laughing, coaxing.

You shiver and when you’re in the water, you shiver some more.

“I hate you.”

“I know.”

“Is this your big plan to murder me? Drown me and run back to everyone else and play spin the bottle?” you grumble, less than satisfied.

“Duh,” he smiles proudly.

You’re treading water, feet barely reaching the sand, while Peter stands tall, the moon illuminating his handsome face.

“Why didn’t you wanna play spin the bottle?” you say impulsively.

It shocks both you and Peter.

“Did you?”

“I asked you first.”

His brows knit together. “I don’t want to see you kissing someone else.”

Your brain short circuits. A laugh coils in your stomach and you want to ask if Ashton Kutcher is going to come out of the woods with his crew and yell, Gotcha! It makes more sense than what you think he’s implying.

“What do you mean by that?” you ask.

“What do you want it to mean?”

Your limbs suddenly burn from trying to stay afloat.

“Do you need me to show you, bug?” he says.

His hand is out in front of you again like a life raft. You let him take you, pull you in his gravity. Show me. You glide in the water until you can feel Peter’s breath on your face and your chest is heaving against his. Show me.

Peter wraps his arm around your lower back and your legs have nowhere else to go but wrapped around him. He tucks a strand of hair behind your ear.

“Still need me to show you?”

Show me. Show me. Show me.

“I think so,” you say so delicately you’re not so sure he hears you, but then his lips are on yours and the sun comes back in the dead of night, blooming in your ribcage.

It happens fast. He doesn’t let you hesitate, retreat back like the scared creature you are. He knows you. He kisses like he knows you. He keeps his promise. I’ll keep you warm.

Soft, tender, and close to loving. His lips overlap yours and your gripping onto his back like this moment could dissolve in this lake. He grips you right back like you’ll run. You could. You might.

He deepens the kiss, more want, more need, less tenderness. He sucks on your bottom lip and the strength to run right out of you.

Your hands wander feverishly. From his back to the crook of his neck and then his hair.

Now that he has you here like this, it makes things more difficult.

You feel like a firefly. This small little thing of shine and glow, jutting around in a mason jar with Peter’s name sharpied on the top.

His lips linger for a second longer and then he pulls away, resting his forehead on yours.

“Bug,” Peter says.

“Hmm?”

“You’re going to call me, right?”

His lips move in slow motion.

“Right,” you say.

#peter parker x reader #tasm!peter x reader #peter parker fluff #tasm peter parker #peter parker #peter parker fanfiction #spiderman #ੈ✩scorpiomother

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silkscream · 1 year ago

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CHAPTER 1: I'LL BE YOUR PLASTIC TOY

ੈ✩ gojo satoru x reader, geto suguru x reader

Satoru Gojo was a lot of things, but he would never be yours. Sleeping with him in his bed as a child didn’t grant you that kind of closeness anymore. Within these halls, you walk past each other like strangers.

ੈ✩ chapter cw/tags: angst, suggestiveness, making out, light bullying

ੈ✩ wc: 5.5k

ੈ✩ a/n: i am here to ruin everyone's lives. apologies in advance

playlist ✸ read on ao3 ✸ series masterlist

March, 2008

“Hey, Twigs. Wanna see something cool?”

His honeyed voice chills your spine, his breath warm right by your ear. You roll your eyes as you turn to face Satoru, grinning with all his teeth as he tugs at your wrist.

“What is it, Satoru?” you sigh.

“You have to follow meee,” he sings, pulling you away from the table you’re setting and towards the side of the porch. It’s secluded. Private. “Bring the spoon.”

With furrowed brows, you oblige. It isn’t like you have a choice. You had followed him around like a puppy ever since you’d met him as a child. You continue to, regardless of your determination to separate yourself from him.

His favorite shadow. His little pet.

The two of you aren’t as close as you were when you were children, but it’s still impossible to refuse him when he has a request. You blame it on your mother and her professionalism. You figure you had inherited it from her. That hyper-politeness. You find that you blame the ocean blue of his eyes more often. Always sparkling.

He walks a few feet away from you, still grinning. You blink at his tall figure. He's currently dressed in a baby blue dress shirt (sleeves rolled up, of course) and black slacks. His Sunday best for the fancy brunch at the Gojo Estate. Every April, your mother summons you to help set up, then rewards you with a plate and time to play with the other kids. She would continue her work, serving the family and their guests. You would pretend that you weren’t part of the staff.

There hadn’t been a point in you staying for the afternoon in years. Only if Satoru begged you to, and even then, he hadn’t bothered to do so since junior high.

“You’re going to get me in trouble,” you huff, crossing your arms. You wipe your sweaty hands on your smock.

“I’d never let you get in trouble, you know that,” he smirks. “Now, throw the spoon at me.”

“What?”

“Just do it.”

“I want to throw way more than a spoon at you right now.”

“Relax, Twigs. Do this for me. Please?” he pouts. You can see his bright blue eyes peeking out of his black sunglasses, framed by snow-white lashes. It was unfair how pretty he was. How easily he could persuade you.

Sighing, you throw the spoon in his direction. It stops right in front of his face as if there’s an invisible wall. He laughs in victory when he sees your confused expression.

“What was that?”

“My Infinity. I’ve perfected it so that it’s automatic. Took me a lot of willpower before but now it’s as easy as breathing.”

“Congratulations,” you reply dryly.

It was typical of Satoru to be invincible. Untouchable. It had been a quality of his since birth, now manifested into a literal power to aid him against threats. You’d been on the outskirts of such threats when you were younger, but Satoru would always spare you the details.

Watching him grow in his adolescence had been like watching a sprout bloom. It shot toward the sky exponentially until it became a tree in record time. You, meanwhile, were still a sprout. A window, they’d called it. Able to see the horrors produced by human nature but unable to do anything about it.

Your head snaps up, alert when you hear your mother yelling your name from the porch. She points a hard gaze at you, then softens it when she sees Satoru.

“Satoru-kun, do you mind if I steal her for a minute? I need some extra hands for the tamagoyaki.”

Satoru nods, expressing his courtesy to your mother in his usual charming poise. It used to work on you before, but it often irks you now. The way he dazzles people to get what he wants. You would rather die than admit it was a characteristic of his that you envied.

He tugs at your braid before you walk away.

“See you later, Twigs,” he calls after you. A playful lilt to his voice.

“You won’t.”

Satoru has you memorized. Since the two of you were five years old, he considered you his mirror image, though you never believed him.

Often, when he sees you now, his heart leaps the tiniest bit in his chest the same way it did when he was thirteen. He’s gotten better at ignoring it. He’s perfected the art of ignoring you ever since high school started.

He likes to indulge during times when you’re not looking. At the moment, you’re concentrated on a flower arrangement, a blush painted on your cheeks from the heat. He’d watch you do this when you were kids, too. Your face would be in a concentrated frown, tongue peeking out. Nimble fingers perfecting an ikebana arrangement.

Sometimes he missed it. He decided long ago that it would be better if he didn’t.

You two had been inseparable since the day the Gojos' hired your mother as a maid. He remembered you hiding behind your mother’s legs, chewing on the end of one of your braids. You would stay in the guest house of the Gojo estate with your mother, and you would become Satoru’s best companion.

Both of your mothers would arrange playdates. Satoru’s mother wanted him out of her hair. Your mother wanted to work without your constant interruptions. You were needy, an only child, but Satoru would always please you with his company. It was why you adored him.

He’d show you all his toys and teach you all the games that his extended family would show him to make you feel included. He’d have you sleep in his bed, which would go under the radar until the two of you were fourteen. It would be innocent and wholesome. Satoru would show you the stars he’d learned about and you would look at him as if he’d hung them in the sky himself.

Satoru often reminisces about the shape of your body to this day. Sometimes, he misses it when he’s alone in his king-sized bed in the winter. Even with the heat on, there’s still something missing, and then he thinks of you.

When you were kids, you’d sleep together, legs and arms intertwined. Drool on the same pillow. Wake up to an abundance of pancakes from your mother.

You had been half a friend, half a plaything. Satoru’s counterpart. Feet kicking each other under the breakfast table.

At age five, you’d seen the same curse together. A harmless thing, chameleon-like, with eight legs on each side. It had a nasty face, one that you had recognized from your nightmares. It had been exciting at first, knowing that you shared the same ability as your best friend. You believed that you would grow with him and become as talented as him.

But that was an exaggeration. Satoru's parents knew how isolating it would be for their son to be the strongest. Your technique never came.

Satoru acted as your protector, then. Expelled the small, vicious curses in the corners of your room like they were bugs. You’d watch him train, his body overgrowing with knobby knees as you sat on the sidelines. And while you grew up with him, you only got smaller in his periphery. Always lesser. Always weaker.

It’s the reason you’d grown apart. At least that’s what he tells himself.

Satoru had grown into a tall, arrogant child. He treated school as a hobby and still made the highest marks, which angered you to no end. It didn’t matter to him, anyway, knowing that he’d become a company's CEO or the best jujutsu sorcerer in the world. He had his future in the palm of his hands. You were not a part of that. You weren’t even sure of a future of your own.

Sometimes he would have nightmares of you dying in his arms at the hands of a curse too big for him to control. During adolescence, he experienced many threats to his safety. He knew he couldn't live with himself. He couldn’t bear to see you endure the same.

So, without explanation, Satoru Gojo pretended you didn’t exist. He exchanged the necessary niceties in school and when you'd come over with your mother, though he'd never ask you to stay the same way he had when you were kids. He was often occupied with new friends, anyway. Often busy working on his technique. Nothing that was your business, of course.

You resented him for it.

Now, you’re enduring your last year of high school with him, and you are trying so badly to be good. You should aim to make good enough marks to attend a decent university on a decent scholarship. God knows you aren’t fit for the world of jujutsu sorcery.

In a way, you’re okay with the mundanity of your life. Satoru’s absence in your heart convinced you of that.

Satoru’s attendance at school is only an illusion of normalcy for his parents. His mother insists on it. Barely a sorcerer herself, she had wanted to give her son the option of living a normal life. With his grades and wit, she knew that he could easily be successful as a businessman or a doctor.

Despite this, Satoru knew he would enroll in Tokyo’s Jujutsu Technical College with Suguru. He had met Suguru when he was fifteen, trying to exorcise a curse that only got snatched by a dark-haired thief, one who would end up as his best friend.

Satoru saw Suguru as his only equal. He had no one else to relate to about jujutsu sorcery.

Certainly not you.

But still, he was closing another year of high school, his last. Then he could be free from his parents’ restraints. It was easy for him to be the best and make the most friends. It was a shame that he’d have to leave them all behind.

You’re a ghost in Satoru’s wake. Always near, never faltering yet never consuming too much space. As the school year progresses, he ignores you like a mosquito bite. Harmless but still itching his skin. Always reminded of your presence even when you do nothing to draw attention to yourself.

And then there are times that you do.

“I’m sorry, sensei,” you mumble, stunned in the doorway of the classroom.

It’s a nondescript weekday in May, one that’s wet with rain, which explains your damp hair and clothes. Your appearance conjures a succession of snickers. The sound of low laughter taunting you and whispers gossiping about you.

You’re too tired for it. You don’t want to be here at all.

“I’m disappointed,” your teacher relays. “You’re usually never tardy.”

“It won’t happen again,” you muster.

You hear more whispers. It hangs on your shoulders as you sit in your seat, still and heavy as you attempt to take notes.

Should’ve worn something more sheer, than she’d get the attention she wants, huh?

Nah, not like her tits are even good enough to be seen like that.

Bet she’s hiding something from all of us. Maybe we can get her to strip in the girls’ locker room and give us a show later.

“Shut the fuck up,” a voice growls. You hear it, turning your head, and your eyes fall on Satoru’s fiery blues.

You wonder if the feeling of his gaze searing into the back of your head is worth mentioning. It makes your face hotter, the flush of humiliation warming your neck as your peers snicker at you.

You manage to get through class without crying. Haru, a boy you were closer with in previous years, offers his sweatshirt to you as you collect your things.

“She’s good,” Satoru interrupts as you strip off your damp sweater. Within seconds, he has you under his arm. He ushers you out the classroom door. His oversized jacket drapes over your shoulders.

“Gojo,” you hiss. “He was just being nice.”

“Or he wanted to see you in a wet t-shirt. I don’t think white was the best move for today, by the way.”

Your face heats up when you look down. You realize the extent of skin that’s visible from the sheerness of your damp white shirt. It mortifies you more when you realize that Satoru had caught it first.

“Right. Thanks,” you mumble, hiking up your bookbag tighter on your shoulder.

“So helpless sometimes,” Satoru sighs. He shoots you a devilish smile that combats your scowling frown. “Why don’t you call me by my first name here?”

“Because we’re in school and it’s polite.”

"Twigs, are you scared of being associated with me?"

He blocks the door of your locker, leaning against it and towering over you. Satoru had always taken up as much space as possible without a care in the world. You were the opposite -– always compartmentalizing yourself to be smaller. Malleable. Amicable.

He’s too close for comfort, nearly breathing down your neck. He only moves when you kick him pathetically in the shin.

Satoru’s smile only grows bigger as you ignore him. He wonders if he could get your fuse to blow in front of him right now. This place is usually where you’re composed, regal, and expedient. One of the school’s top students.

He knew you had an edge to you, wild as you were when he had known you as a child. But you had only grown to be responsible and sensible. He thinks that his mother would be relieved if he acted more like you.

“Coming home with me or what?” Satoru quips. The way he says it makes your stomach stir. It's an almost salacious suggestion despite its innocence. Satoru always made everything sound more exciting than it was.

“Why would I?” you raise a brow.

“My mother would like to see you. She told me she had some hand-me-downs for you to try on." You know I’d love nothing more than to see you parade around my house dressed like my mother in the 70s.” He grins in amusement.

“Okay, sure, whatever.”

“Yo, Satoru!”

His head whips around to see one of his buddies, crowded around other jocks. Satoru is quick to leave you without so much as a goodbye.

July, 2008

After your semester, you end up second to Satoru. It’s no surprise to you despite how much it infuriates you. You are never anything more or less.

"Congratulations, Twigs," Satoru murmurs to you. He startles you from your thoughts. You slam your locker closed.

“Why are you still calling me that?”

“Because you’re my Twigs,” he pouts.

Yours. It’s a funny lie. Satoru Gojo was a lot of things, but he would never be yours. Sleeping with him in his bed as a child didn’t grant you that kind of closeness anymore. Within these halls, you walk past each other like strangers.

He pouts childishly like he always does. There’s a devilish spark in his blue eyes underneath his sunglasses, though you can barely make out his irises from his height. Satoru’s growth spurt had him at over six feet tall by the time he was sixteen. It was obvious that he’d only grow taller.

You scoff, rolling your eyes at the nickname. If you were in middle school again, the notion would warm your heart. It had been a stupid nickname he’d tease you with ever since you were both ten. You had been angry at him for reasons that escaped you, climbing up the tree in the backyard of his estate as high as you could until he begged you to come down.

You wouldn’t, of course. You were always stubborn like that, and Satoru loved it.

You were also much clumsier when you were ten, slipping your foot as you attempted to climb a different branch and falling into Satoru’s arms. It had been a miracle you didn’t break any bones, but thanks to Satoru’s freakish strength, you were unharmed. Only disheveled with leaves and twigs stuck in your frizzy hair. He had called you Twigs ever since.

“I’m not your anything. Even if my mother is still your fucking maid.”

“Aren’t you my maid, too? My little servant?” he teases.

You wonder if he knows how cruel it is, even if it’s a little joke.

“I’m nothing to you,” you mumble. You attempt to hold a faster stride on your walk home. Maybe you’d advance enough to leave him in the dust. You could be the best runner on the track team if you managed that.

But you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t leave him, couldn’t. Not a chance.

“What was that?” Satoru calls after you.

“Nothing!”

“Slow down,” he whines, running fast enough to follow your stride, much to your annoyance. Him and his stupid, long legs. His taunting smile. “Don’t you wanna come over?”

“Why would I?”

“Your mom’s probably there. And we can celebrate the end of exams.”

“I have… stuff to do,” you stammer.

“No, you don’t,” Satoru chuckles. “The semester’s over. Summer’s here, baby.”

“Don’t call me that!”

He laughs again, the sound twinkling in your ears like a beloved song. It makes your cheeks warm. You don’t want him to see it.

Yet, he wraps his arms around you, chin nestled to your collarbone as if you were joined together. In a blink, the two of you are in his kitchen, with whiplash only an after-effect. You still hadn’t gotten used to his ability to warp.

“I hate when you do that.”

“You like it, I know you do,” Satoru taunts. “It excites you. I can tell because your cheeks get all flushed.”

“They do not!”

“Sure, they don’t, Twigs.”

“You’re annoying,” you huff, dropping your school bag on a chair.

Satoru greets your mother with a kiss on the cheek as you follow behind him. She has tea prepared in the sitting room for you and him, along with dorayaki and matcha Swiss rolls.

“Your mom’s the fucking best,” he muses as he gobbles down a third roll. You watch him in feigned disgust. Sipping your tea, you mumble something unintelligible in agreement.

“What, you aren’t hungry?”

“No.”

“Try this.”

“I have. She’s my mom.”

“C’mon, Twigs, open up.”

Satoru leans over the table with a Swiss roll between his fingers, waving it in front of your face. There’s no point in protesting -– he’d probably knock something over from his eagerness to annoy you. You part your lips to take a bite, and at the same time, he shoves it into your mouth.

“Satoru!” you groan.

“Stay still.”

You swallow your bite and he wipes his fingertips on the corner of your mouth. He’s close enough to feel your breath on his face, licking up the frosting on his thumb nonchalantly. He chuckles at the flustered look painting your face into a scowl.

“I’m done. I’m going to do the dishes.”

You excuse yourself to retreat to the kitchen before you can so much as make eye contact with Satoru again. He has to be teasing you with his small touches. It’s something he would’ve done when you were twelve, yet the notion now would be different.

The two of you were in completely different social spheres. He had separated himself from you years prior. It would be a rare sight for him to be so touchy with you in public, acting as if you were like him.

Someone who had a big kitchen. Someone who didn’t have to think about expenses.

It’s a miracle that he leaves you alone as you clean the kitchen, washing dishes to keep your mind occupied. After you’re done, you decide to cut up a bowl of strawberries. You knew they were Satoru’s favorite. Knowing him, he’d still crave something sweet after demolishing all the desserts.

You nick yourself. A careless act — you aren’t paying attention, mistaking the sharp side of the knife for the dull one. It slices the inside of your thumb. Cursing under your breath, you hover your hand over the wound. You heal it within milliseconds without so much as a second thought.

This is when Satoru kicks at something. The wall or a potted plant, you don’t know. But it’s a plea for attention and it brings your focus to him, your head snapping up to meet his gaze and his childish pout.

“I saw that,” he says, lowly.

You freeze under his scrutiny. You don’t say anything.

“So you’ve been lying to me.” It’s a seething accusation instead of a question.

He gets so close to you without you even noticing. He towers over you again, swallowed by the whole of his shadow, and his betrayed frown is petulant like a child’s.

“Satoru—”

“You said you didn’t have a cursed technique.”

“I—I didn’t. Not until later—”

“When?”

Your eyes are wide as you look up at him, hands trembling. He takes a step forward, taking up more space. It reminds you of your worth. The mere fact of him belittles you in that way.

“When I was thirteen. My kitten, Aki. The stray. You remember him, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“He got hit by a car one day, and I couldn’t stop sobbing. And I was holding him in my hands all bloody. And then, I brought him back to life. It just happened.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

You search Satoru’s face. There’s a bit of betrayal in it, mostly surprise. It boils your blood in the slightest bit — because why is it so shocking that you ended up with a cursed technique? You may have hidden it from him for a few years, but was it something so unimagined for you?

You assumed that you would always be a plaything in Satoru’s eyes. Something so easy, so useless.

“It wasn’t enough,” you exasperate.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It doesn’t matter. None of it does, Satoru. It’s so—”

Insignificant. Small compared to you.

He waits, swallowing the lump in his throat. Eyes flaring like comets.

“It doesn’t matter,” you repeat. “I don’t even want to be a sorcerer, and even if I wanted to be, I could never keep up with you. I don’t see the point in pursuing this if I’m better off just studying at a normal university—”

“Are you fucking kidding me? Your technique is amazing. It’s like Shoko’s! You could’ve —”

“Satoru,” you emphasize. Your tone shuts him up, your hardened gaze, the lightning in your eyes bright and sharp. Menacing, even. You can sense the sound of him swallowing, a lump lodged in his throat loud enough for you to hear.

White lashes flutter. A frown is still displayed on his face. It’s now that he notices the slight bags under your eyes. Evidence of burden, of nights spent awake under the unforgiving moonlight.

You look at him in a way that feels damning — like you’re coaxing something from him. He knows better — knows that his anger is misplaced, that you’re right.

You having a healing technique is nothing compared to him. Even then, he knows that you probably aren’t interested in combat or the world of jujutsu sorcery in general. It doesn’t affect him so negatively. So what is he so angry about?

The question is in your eyes, pleading. He already knows the answer despite not admitting it to himself. He knows that the prospect of you having a cursed technique doesn’t mean you’re stronger than him. He assumes you wouldn’t surpass him, and wouldn’t think you to be someone who would even think about it.

Satoru knows he’s angry because he feels very close to you. He had at least thought he was close enough with you to know about your cursed technique. It was finding out that you were hiding it from him that made him angry. Learning that you had it manifest in front of you and didn’t bother to fucking tell him about it.

He can’t voice any of these frustrations. He knows you’d yell at him, and criticize him for thinking he’s entitled to you. It’s inappropriate and unfair, but in his younger years, he often felt that he was entitled to you. He’d known you since you were so very little, so vulnerable. He had protected you from all those curses, hadn’t he? He held you in his arms in his bed for years. That had to have meant something to you. It certainly meant something to him.

“Sorry. I just wish you told me earlier,” he says softly.

You apologize. Meek beneath him, eyes avoiding him.

“I know,” you sigh. “I have to go. I’ll see you later, Satoru.”

You don’t see him for a week and a half. It should be typical to you. It’s not like him to reach out or go out of his way to see you. He’d always been like that, giving you no expectations. And yet, his radio silence had crawled under your skin.

It’s stupid to expect him, anyway. There’s no reason for him to show up at yours, much more of a reason for you to show up at his, but you don’t need to. Your mother does that for her job and it has nothing to do with you.

There’s a Tuesday that’s so quiet, so plain that even the rain falters after two hours to only grant the town wet pavement. You’re curled up with a book in your living room when you hear a succession of knocks on your door. An erratic rhythm, the same as the special knock you would use with Satoru.

It’s him, of course. He smirks at you, an oversized t-shirt loose off of his lanky figure. You try not to fixate on the sweat of his exposed collarbone. You look him straight in the eyes through his pitch-black sunglasses.

He has a large bouquet in his hands. He grins at you. For the first time in a little while, you feel brave.

“Confessing your love to me this afternoon, are you?” you pester, a brow raised.

Something like that, Satoru thinks.

“You wish.”

He walks past you, brushing your shoulders much to your annoyance. He sets the bouquet on your kitchen table in its little jar, peonies drooping despite how hard he tries to fix them.

“It’s from my mom to yours. As a thank you and a birthday wish and stuff.”

“Thanks,” you murmur. “That’s very sweet of her.”

He hums in agreement, rocking his heels back and forth as his eyes roam your house. It isn’t his first time here, but he acts the part, hands buried in his pockets as he observes you like a wild animal.

“Will that be all?”

“Dunno,” Satoru shrugs. “What were you up to before I showed up?”

You shrug, too, attempting to mirror his nonchalance. You had long ago buried your paperback in a drawer, promising to return to it by the time Satoru left. But still, he lingers, in front of you, taking up unnecessary space in your childhood home. Too tall and too pretty.

“Just cleaning my room,” you lie.

“Can I see it?”

“Why?”

“Been a while,” he shrugs. “I’m just curious.”

“Well, it’s a mess right now. I didn’t get very far.”

“Like I care,” Satoru chuckles.

He stares at you for a bit, heartbeats passing the time in your head. Fuck, he’s serious. He’s already leaning towards the staircase.

“Okay.”

You’re hyper-aware of him behind you, eyes exploring the length of your body. If you had known that he would show up unannounced, you would’ve changed into one of your long dresses or a pair of jeans. At the moment, you feel too bare in your tank top and corduroy shorts. You feel like a child outgrown.

Satoru takes up as much space as usual, long limbs splayed over your tiny twin bed. You don’t permit him to sit on your bed, but he does it anyway. He looks at the pictures on your wall, takes in the sweet smell of your sheets. It’s similar to your clothes, your flesh. Your hair. He’d live in it if he could.

“How cute.” He gestures to a cat plushie by the head of your bed.

“Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not!” Satoru laughs. “It is cute. It’s so you.”

A certain fervor blossoms in your gut at that. The image of him stretched out on your little bed. Despite your closeness with him when you were younger, he had never spent much time at your house. It took you a few years to understand why.

“You should invite me over more often.”

“I don’t invite you over ever.”

“Well, you could start.”

“Why?” You stand by the wall, shifting your weight towards it as you lean backward. You cross your arms in defense, even though he hasn’t said anything to provoke you yet.

“It’s comfy here. I like it.”

“Thanks?”

He sings your name, beckoning you to him. You take three steps at most, holding your breath. Standing in front of his knees.

“Come sit, Twigs.”

“Told you not to call me that,” you breathe.

“Don’t care,” he grins.

He reaches out to you, pulling you between his knees with a hand on your waist. He smirks at the sound of your gasp as he tugs at your wrist.

“In my lap. C’mere.”

It’s difficult to refuse Satoru Gojo. His eyes drink you in, ocean blues glimmering and reflecting the afternoon sunlight. You’re still between his thighs. He tugs you without much effort, making you stumble into him. Your hands hold onto his shoulders as you settle into his lap. He holds the small of your back as you straddle him.

“Wanna try something.”

You say nothing. Your eyes flutter closed when you feel his fingertips grazing your jaw.

There’s a softness against your mouth. You don’t dare open your eyes.

You sense a sharp inhale behind the lips that kiss you, but they stay. Wetting between your mouth with the slight of a tongue. Tasting sweet like honeysuckle.

You whine, opening your mouth a bit more. You swallow down divinity. It's misguided affection that you had wished for when you were so much smaller. It might mean something bigger to you now if you thought about it for longer. You don’t want to. You refuse to.

But Satoru kisses you hard, excited and eager. His tongue peeks into your mouth and you taste strawberries. Lips soft and supple and melting against yours.

He groans, fisting your hair in his hand as he deepens the kiss, falling more and more into you. He smiles against your mouth as he coaxes a small sound out of you. It crawls out of your throat for him to taste with satisfaction. He’s always dreamed of you in his lap, but he could never tell you that.

You’re breathless, weak, and melting into him as he wraps his arms around you. Caging you in so that you can’t escape. So fucking warm in his embrace.

It takes a second for you to notice the hardness growing underneath you. It prods your center as you mindlessly grind into Satoru’s lap. When you realize, you squeak in embarrassment, and he clutches you harder.

You sigh into each other, eating the other up. Heat surges through you, from your forehead down to your core, to your weak, sensitive legs. Hot from the feeling of him in your mouth. Hot from the proximity of your core to his.

You pull away, exhaling unevenly as you try to catch your breath. You’re shy under his gaze, unwrapping yourself and covering your body as if you’re naked.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re so cute,” he chuckles. “Acting like that was your first kiss.”

“What if it was?”

He raises a brow as you look away with flushed cheeks. You’re still on his lap and he takes the opportunity to remind you of this, shifting you in his lap and causing friction. Your eyes are wide as you quickly attempt to untangle your limbs with his.

“That was your first kiss?”

“Yeah.”

You roll your eyes at the sight of his leering smile. God, you knew this would happen. Satoru would never let you live it down.

“I’m going to kick you out—”

“No.”

He grasps your wrist in his hand. It’s small compared to his palm, engulfing you. His other hand grips your hip firmly but softly. He only moves it to cup your cheek, his thumb stroking your skin.

“How was it? Tell me.”

“Good,” you breathe. “Felt good.”

For the first time in a long time, he looks at you like you have invented something new. There’s a bit of astonishment. Wonder and admiration. Maybe you were getting ahead of yourself. You were easily deluding yourself with the expression of his sapphire blue eyes.

“Felt good for me, too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Why did you do that?” you ask, giggling nervously.

“Just wanted to.”

“I want you to kiss me again,” you whisper.

“I want to do more than that,” Satoru mumbles. But he knows better. It’s the best decision for him to get you off his lap right now before he loses composure.

You both hear the sound of your front door opening as if it’s timed -- your mother.

“I’ll kiss you later, okay?” Satoru murmurs.

“You will?”

“My parents will be gone this weekend. To Okinawa. You should come over on Saturday.”

“Okay. I will.”

#gojo smut #gojo x reader #gojo satoru x reader #juijutsu kaisen x reader #jjk x reader #jjk smut #geto x reader #geto suguru x reader #gojo satoru x you #jujutsu kaisen x you #jjk x you

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bruciemilf · 2 years ago

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No Capes! AU where Bruce and everyone else is an actor.

Famous Hollywood moguls Thomas and Martha would've rather died in real life than make Bruce a child actor so he didn't start till he was 24

It's an ongoing gag that Thomas always tweets "On my way to die again! As if you didn't know" with every Gray Ghost remake

The Waynes are always just. So chaotic

Bruce and Selina constantly bring stray cats on set; Bruce just hides them under his black shirt famously known as a void with no end.

Behind the Scenes cuts have images of this man pulling 10 cats from under there and the director is convinced he has a cryptid on set

They have to edit so much footage because Bruce always says "sorry" after "punching" someone. "Bruce, they have padding, they're fine!" "And no health Insurance. Do something about that."

Sometimes he forgets to take off the costume after filming. The record set for how many Subways he sent into a panic is infinite

That being said, Bruce's kids aren't afraid of him at all, and WILL run up to him everytime they visit to chant "dork! Dork! Dork!" While flocking around him. He cries from happiness

But he cries all the time, so it's hard to tell for what

The movie's soundtrack is just Bruce's middle school playlist, " They said they needed something rotten and terrible, like, -- poison for the ears. If you listen to it you get sick."

Bruce's biggest "diva moment" was refusing to give up the eyeliner and he still sends apology cards to the cast and crew for his " horrible behavior"

"He just kinda said no a bit loud and ran out of the studio while sobbing quietly."

Literally every villain on set is a sweetheart. Selina does her own make-up as well as Bruce's and Oz's and you can see Carmine lurking like a little gobling behind them just to scare her

There's this joke that none of Selina's streams ever go well because the crew is her curse. She's trying to talk about how to steal on set, meanwhile, Bruce next to her, "Did you know cats have no collarbone. Also, the electric chair was invented by a dentist."

You'd think everyone's favorite duo would be Bruce and Selina, and you wouldn't be wrong, but the public can't wait for Bruce and Carmine to have a press conference or interview together

Mostly because Carmine obviously dealt some shady cards in his past and Bruce is so clueless . " Have I ever tried coke...No, I like Pepsi." While Carmine is trying not to laugh behind him

Edward is just as bad. He's trying to tell the director that's not how bombs are made, and someone's head exploding wouldn't look like that, and Bruce is like :O Eddie, I didn't know you were a gamer

Edward is a menace on set and Bruce stays blind to it because he like him. There's rows of videos of Bruce stopping mid scene, going " Eddie," before jumping on the guy like the kitten he's NOT

Alfred still brings Bruce lunch and snacks and he throws down with Oz for no reason. He always brings the kids (read; they sneak in) and it's very clear they're not getting any shooting done that day

Dick, age 10, impatiently asks why Gray Ghost can't have a sidekick. In the last moments of the movie Dick runs in, improvises a scene with Bruce, and the fans love him too much not to include him after

You just leave Bruce alone when his babies are on set; Damian is strapped to his chest cause he's so small that everyone almost steps on him, Jason is giving the writers tip, Tim is taking pics of everyone, and Bruce smothers them with kisses constantly

#bruce wayne #dc #dc comics #no capes au #actor au #battinson #selina kyle #edward nashton #batfamily #batfam #dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #damian wayne #text #text post #gonna make some twitter edits for this aaaaaaa

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shitsndgiggs · 3 days ago

Text

FIRST CHRISTMAS TOGETHER - KENAN YILDIZ

Decorating the Christmas tree with Kenan

Kenan Yildiz x fem! reader

︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿

The smell of cinnamon and pine filled the apartment as I shuffled through the living room, humming along to the Christmas playlist I’d started hours ago.

The lights on the tree blinked lazily, half-strung because I’d gotten distracted sorting ornaments into categories—classic, quirky, sentimental.

Kenan leaned against the kitchen counter, watching me with a bemused expression, a mug of hot chocolate in his hand. “You know you’ve been singing the same verse of that song for the past five minutes, right?”

I turned to him, holding up a glittery star. “That’s because it’s a classic, and I’m keeping the spirit alive!”

He chuckled, setting his mug down and crossing the room to me. He was wearing one of his old hoodies and sweatpants, while I had on my favorite Christmas sweater, complete with a blinking Rudolph nose.

His eyes scanned the chaos I’d created—half-open boxes of decorations, a plate of cookies that were definitely burnt on the edges, and a gingerbread house that looked more like a gingerbread disaster.

“You really go all out, huh?” he asked, gently plucking the star from my hand to inspect it.

“First Christmas living together,” I said, shrugging. “It has to be perfect.”

Kenan’s lips quirked into a smile. “And by ‘perfect,’ you mean… turning the living room into Santa’s workshop?”

“Exactly,” I said, grinning.

He reached down into one of the boxes and pulled out a tiny, lopsided ornament—a hand-painted snowman I’d made as a kid. “What about this guy? Sentimental or quirky?”

“Sentimental,” I replied quickly. “That goes in the middle of the tree. Prime real estate.”

Kenan raised an eyebrow but nodded, walking over to place it carefully on a branch.

As he turned back, I was busy untangling a string of lights, muttering under my breath. “Why do these always end up in knots?”

“You’re overcomplicating it,” Kenan said, taking the lights from me. “Here, let me.”

I crossed my arms, watching as he effortlessly unraveled them. “Show-off.”

He smirked, draping the lights over his shoulders like a scarf before stepping closer to me.

“You know,” he said, his voice low and teasing, “you’re cute when you’re bossing me around about ornament placement.”

I rolled my eyes, but my cheeks warmed. “I’m just making sure the tree doesn’t end up looking like a kindergarten project.”

Kenan chuckled, leaning down to kiss my forehead. “I think it’s gonna look amazing, boss.”

Together, we worked on the tree, his hands steady as he strung the lights while I placed ornaments just so.

Occasionally, he’d sneak one into a spot I’d already declared “off-limits,” just to see if I’d notice. I always did.

When the tree was finally done, we stepped back to admire it. The warm glow of the lights cast a golden hue over the room, and the star at the top sparkled like it was meant to be there.

“See?” I said, nudging him. “Totally worth the effort.”

Kenan wrapped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me into his side. “You were right,” he admitted softly. “It’s perfect.”

The oven timer beeped from the kitchen, pulling me out of the moment. “Oh no, the cookies!”

I dashed off, and Kenan followed, laughing. When I opened the oven, a plume of smoke greeted us.

“Okay, maybe not so perfect,” I said, fanning the air.

Kenan grabbed the plate of cookies from earlier and held one up. “We’ve still got these.”

“They’re burnt.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, breaking one in half and popping it into his mouth. “Still tastes like Christmas.”

I shook my head, laughing as I grabbed a piece of cookie to try.

Later, we curled up on the couch, a blanket thrown over us as we sipped hot chocolate and watched Home Alone for the millionth time.

The tree glowed softly in the corner, and the chaos of earlier felt miles away.

Kenan leaned his head against mine, his hand tracing lazy circles on my knee. “You really love this time of year, don’t you?”

“I do,” I admitted. “It’s just… magical.”

He smiled, his voice soft. “You’re magical.”

I turned to look at him, and before I could respond, he kissed me—a slow, sweet kiss that felt like everything good about Christmas rolled into one moment.

#football imagine #football x reader #turkiye #kenan yildiz x reader #kenan yildiz

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twistedinthreads · 10 months ago

Text

Lost In The Labyrinth

Part 1.

You came to Oxford to get away from America; from your mother's fame and the ghosts of your past. You get more than you bargained for when you meet Felix.

Word Count: 1.9k

Warnings: sexual content (not explicit but it's there so 18+ MINORS DNI), I used some descriptors for reader such as scars, birthmarks, imperfections, but I made her as inclusive as possible, reader is American, she's also a nepo baby but isn't using her nepotism in any real way. Bi!reader and Felix. fic title inspired by the taylor swift song, of course (and I am terrible at titles!)

Playlist (a work in progress!)

A/N: I am so insecure about this reading back over it omgggg but I'm posting it anyway! Hi friends. I've been working on this for so long, and I'm recovering from my surgery so I figured there's no time like the present. Here we are. I am obsessed with this movie and this man! I promise this fic is gonna get more interesting, but we've got this for now. Let me know if you'd like to be added to the taglist, and feel free to send me asks if you want to talk about reader and her lore, because she is very special to me and I adore her already!!!

Your eyes droop as you hum along to the nameless blonde that stands in front of you, her sparkly pink cocktail dress catching the light and making her glow. She’s going on and on about how Everlasting Eve is her favorite movie of all time, and how your mother is “the greatest actress of our time!” You want to vomit. It’s not like this doesn’t happen, it’s practically a daily occurrence at this point, but you’d much prefer it if people stopped giving so much of a shit. If they did, you wouldn’t be stood with a bottle blonde from Bristol talking your ear off. You’d just stepped out to get some air, for Christ’s sake.

“You’re from the States, right?” You nod, sipping at your cocktail and bouncing from one foot to the other to conserve some warmth in your legs. She asks it as if she hasn’t been talking your ear off and didn’t notice your accent, not as thick as it used to be when you’d lived in New York full time, but still foreign here. The music is less obnoxious out here, bass easing on your chest. It’s cooler, too, the fall night air brushing against your neck like a lover. “That’s brilliant! I went with my parents once, when I was a kid. We went to Disney World.”

You smile and nod, muttering out a “cool” as you sip at your drink, cringing at its strength.

“Is that far from where you live?” She asks, and you wonder how she got into this fucking school. Probably a legacy, with more money than she knows what to do with.

“Uh,” you suppress a laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, like… incredibly South of New York.”

“I’ve always wanted to go to New York,” she continues to babble. “My parents go on business trips there, but they’ve never taken me. I want to see where Little Angels was filmed! Uh, Lincoln Square Park?”

“Washington Square Park,” you correct her.

“Yeah!” She snaps her fingers and points. “That’s it! When your mom’s character is waiting there for Hugh Grant’s character, and then they walk off into the sunset together? Absolutely the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen!”

You stare off into the distance vacantly, the night sky painted with different navy hues and dotted with the brushstrokes of stars.

Suddenly, you feel a warm arm around your waist, hot breath on your cheek. “There you are!” You’d know that voice anywhere. The figure kisses you on the cheek and it takes everything in you not to start grinning from ear to ear. You turn, meeting his lips, and he plays along like it’s the most normal thing in the world. “I’m gonna head home, wanna come with?”

You nod, thanking him with your eyes. He winks gently at you and grabs your hand. “Nice talking to you…” you’ve already forgotten her name. Her tone has completely shifted, body stiff as her eyes mull over you and the man that holds your hand with a vice grip.

“Sandra.” It’s cold, but you keep your own voice chipper.

“Sandra! Nice to meet you,” she’s in your college, so you’ll have to be cordial. “See you around?”

She just nods and lights a cigarette.

As you walk away, one of Felix’s hands around your waist and the other holding your own, you look up at him. “Thank you so much. Holy shit. I was about to lose it.”

He lets out a low, intoxicated chuckle. “It’s what I’m here for, darling.” Uses his fingers on your chin, tugging lightly to kiss you hard on the mouth. He pulls away and you chase his lips, planting one more kiss on his mouth, this time softer.

“Your room or mine?” You ask, to be met with a smirk as he grabs your hand and leads you across campus. It’s a path you could walk with your eyes closed, the muscle memory of so many nights embedded into your body by now.

His room is all red carpet and wood paneling, empty takeout containers and beer cans and ashtrays strewn about. His bed is unmade and his textbooks are all over his floor, but it hardly matters when he’s kissing you like you’re the only person in the fucking universe.

Within minutes, you settle back into a familiar routine. Clothes shed, completely bare to one another as you grind and writhe on top of him, hands on his toned chest. He’s gorgeous with his mouth open in ecstasy, labored breaths escaping it, eyes closed and clenched, hands rested on your waist as you move above him, a renaissance painting. You’re moaning too, tempering your whines so that the sounds don’t travel. The moon paints the room in subtle, cool light and the pleasure makes sweat bead on your brows.

“Missed you,” he manages between moans, voice heavy and breathy. “Missed this.”

“It’s been like, two days,” you let out a chuckle, and it fades into a moan as you grind your hips again, trying not to scratch his chest with your manicured nails, though you doubt he'd mind too much.

“And that’s too long,” he replies, and you lean down and kiss him, open mouthed and messy and euphoric.

When it’s all said and done, you lay naked beside him while he smokes a cigarette, arm laced around your bare shoulder, your head rested on his. It’s bliss, something you’ve begun to ache for all the time. “Really, thank you. That girl was driving me fucking insane.”

“That scene where your mom’s character and Hugh Grant ride off into the sunset together? Immaculate.” He mocks the girl, a surprisingly good impersonation, and you both belly laugh. You wipe away bits of red lipstick from his mouth and grin delicately at him. You know you’re not the only girl he’s seeing, not even the only girl he’s fucking, and it wedges something vile and dangerous in your heart. The words linger on your tongue. You want to ask, want to know, and if you sound desperate? Well, so be it.

“What is this?” You wrench the words out quickly, looking at your hands.

“What do you mean?” He takes a long drag of the cigarette, letting the smell perforate the air in the room, turning it cloudy in its wake.

“Us,” you murmur, and he runs a hand through your hair. “Like… I know you’re fucking other people, Felix. And that’s fine but… I just want to be clear on what this.”

He looks at you perplexed, smashing the cigarette in the ash tray and turning on his side toward you. You mirror his motions, so the two of you are laying in bed, you practically on top of him due to its size, your hands under your cheek. “I’m fucking other girls? News to me.”

“I see the way you look at them,” you murmur. “India. Annabel. That guy you study with sometimes… Ryan?”

“I’m not fucking anyone else,” he mutters, seeming almost offended at the notion. He scoffs before his next words. “I practically haven’t even looked at anyone else.”

“Fe-“ he cuts you off, a hand brushing over your cheek, holding it delicately.

“No,” he starts. “I know I have a reputation or whatever,” he waves his free hand around. “But I genuinely haven’t been seeing anyone else since we started… this.” He gestures between the two of you, and you can sense that he's lying, but it hardly matters.

You’re almost self-conscious as his eyes rake over your body; so self aware of every little imperfection, every feature. The birthmark on your hip. The way one tit is just a bit bigger than the other. Your crooked finger from when you broke it playing volleyball in ninth grade. The gray hairs you’d been noticing popping up recently.

“You’re the prettiest fucking girl at this college,” he says your name before kissing you sweetly. “Don’t want to look at anyone else.” You know it’s a lie, considering the fact that he does look at other girls, and often. It’s almost like you can’t bother to care, though. Your head is all floaty and tears are burning your eyes.

He climbs on top of you, kisses down your chest, down your stomach, makes sure to take his time kissing that same birthmark you were so insecure about minutes before, your inner thighs, before finally landing where it matters most.

“So fuckin’ beautiful, yeah?” He looks up at you with those gorgeous eyes, the earnestness in them making your heart swell up. In this moment, it’s not the same Felix that made you cry last week because he told you you needed to get your own friends (you have plenty), or the Felix that ignored you at the pub to talk to Annabel, causing you to storm out and ignore him for three days until he realized.

Sometimes, he doesn’t care if you come, and he doesn’t clean up after himself, and sometimes his words bite, and last week he made that insensitive comment about your friend with depression. But you think you might love him, and it feels like enough.

After, he asks you to stay with him. You laugh languidly, tears brimming at your eyes from how hard. He kisses you, soft and slow, the moonlight seeping into the window and painting the carpet with light; it looks like a lone puddle of blood in a sea of blackness.

When you wake, it’s nearly noon. The sun beams through the curtains and you shield your eyes, trying to move underneath Felix’s strong grip. He’s got a hand wrapped around your thigh. Your leg wrapped around his waist while your arms are, slightly pained from the uncomfortable angle, folded around his neck. You regret moving your face from its spot in his chest, wanting nothing more than to occupy his space for as long as possible.

You can’t bear to wake him, his eyelashes fluttering ever-so-slightly against his face. You smile, tuck yourself back into him, and feel his breaths come out relaxed and steady. The tranquility doesn’t last long, though, and you watch as his eyes flicker open. “Good morning,” his voice is raspy, his saccharine accent accentuating every word with posh sweetness. He kisses your cheek and gets up, your eyes meeting his bare ass. “I should go shower, you cool to stay here?” He asks as he gathers his things.

“I need to go,” you also get up, searching around for your undergarments and your uncomfortable cocktail dress, pulling the blue, beaded garment on without much care. “Sundays are study days with June.”

You slip your uncomfortable heels on, wincing at the blister you’d developed last night but didn’t notice until now, and kiss him on the cheek as you leave his dorm.

The trek across campus has you nearly limping in pain, as you kick your shoes off the second you make it into your room. You gather your shower gear, thankful for your own bathroom and the warmth of a long, hot shower. It’s almost painful to wash his scent off of you, but you know you’ll be seeing him again soon, and let your floral body wash cleanse you and your sore form.

Before you get dressed, you grab antibiotic cream and bandaids from a drawer and tend to your blisters, throwing on a pair of slip-ons to avoid even more pain.

And as you go to study with June, your mind is far from Shakespeare; it rests only on Felix, Felix, Felix.

#felix catton x reader #felix catton #saltburn #saltburn x reader #saltburn smut #felix catton x you #felix catton x y/n #felix catton smut #felix catton fic #saltburn fanfic #saltburn fic #saltburn fanfiction

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milliesfishes · 4 months ago

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omg you write angst so well😭😭😭 literally been sobbing while reading your latest works 😭😭😭😭😭 anyways here’s an idea: billy finally settles down with you and the two of you start a family and have a little daughter together (girl dad! billy agenda never ends!!) and right before he almost thinks he has it all the world takes you from him :(

⋆౨ৎI Can Go Anywhere I Want, Just Not Home⋆౨ৎ

[fem reader] contains: death, grief, illness, *angst* pairing: billy the kid x fem reader summary: you were the center of billy's world, and the center faded away author’s note: offering my apologies once again <3 tagging @phantomamor because they helped me come up with some of the content <3 Pinterest Board Spotify Playlist

Everything was bright, the day an endless dawn that rested its rosy cheek on the glass that covered the earth and touched the spot between reality and dreams.

You felt the stirrings of that feeling as you leaned on the porch railing, hair falling over one shoulder and tickling your wrist. The wood was grainy and smooth under your palm, and you shifted from one foot to the other, dulling the ache brought on by the activities of the day. It was a happy thing, borne of the many joys present in your life.

Off in the distance, by the oak tree that sprouted thick and wide, with leaves that blocked the sun on summer afternoons, your daughter sat among the knotted roots, playing quietly by herself. You had always said Annie was born content, evident in the way she minded herself, preferring long daylight hours spent alone. It was a touching thing, how comfortable she was within the confines of her imagination.

Bootsteps thumped on the wood of the porch, the boards creaking under Billy's weight, and then a pair of warm hands were creeping around your waist like the vines that crawled up the walls of the house, pulling you in. You smiled, leaning back and finding his body less than a breath away. He ducked his head and pressed a kiss to your cheek, the gentle prickling of love lingering long after. "How's my wife?"

Five years you'd been married, and still you could hear the way he relished the word like a sweet melting on his tongue. Billy wore his ring proudly, brandishing it for all the world to see. The gunslinger feared far and wide across the south was tied down, and he was happy for it.

You had been pleasantly surprised by how well he took to domesticity after so long on the run. He'd built this house for the two of you, every nail hammered in establishing permanence. It had been a rare luxury for him before, even when you'd met. But he'd proudly given you the brass key to your new house, sweeping you into his arms to carry you over the threshold even though you'd been married for a year at that point.

Now, standing on the porch built with your husband's own hands, sheathed in his arms, you could practically feel the love he'd siphoned into every board, every wall. Billy hadn't only built you a house, he'd built a life. All those nights holding him, promising him he wasn't ruining yours had come to fruition. It had been clear when your belly had begun to swell with his child, a promise of tomorrow. And it was clear now, as you watched that little girl hum to herself under the tree that had been a mere sapling when you'd first moved in.

The first breaths of spring were opening the world up again, sunshine kissing your skin and whispering about new beginnings. It instilled a sense of hope in you, something beautiful brimming with joy. This was your favorite time of year.

"I'm good," you responded to Billy, holding one of his hands against your stomach. "Really good."

He kissed the top of your head, swaying the two of you back and forth. "Should we go inside?" Billy nosed at your neck. "Think you need a little lovin'..."

You laughed, turning around in his arms and pressing your cheek to his chest. "With Annie out here?"

"Aw, she won't come inside 'till it's past dark and we make her." You could hear his smile in his words, and you lifted your chin, tilting your head and letting your hair brush his hands on your waist.

"Hm, maybe you're right," you murmured, reaching up and playing with his collar, straightening it out.

Billy ducked his head to catch your lips in a brief, tender kiss. He pecked your lips once after. "Just make sure to be quiet."

"I'm not the one who-oh-!" Suddenly you were being hauled up, lifted to hang over his shoulder like a sack of flour. He laughed quietly, not wanting to disturb Annie out in the distance, carrying you through the door of the house and shutting it gently. Your hair obstructed your view, and you parted the silky curtain when he bent, setting you down on your feet and grabbing your hand.

"C'mon, pretty-" Billy paused, looking at you and squeezing your palm. "Baby? You okay?"

You were frozen, eyes wide with a sudden realization of the happenings within you. Your skin was icy hot, a blizzard and a wildfire blended into a raging storm that ravaged at your chest. It tore into your bones, filled them with a cloud of dread. Something's wrong.

Billy came closer, blue eyes struck with concern as he searched yours. "Sweetheart...what-?"

Your knees buckled, weakness spreading in a swarm that enveloped your body. Now you were tumbling, poised to hit the ground before Billy's arms caught you, his voice speaking your name over and over like a prayer. "Honey...what's wrong?"

No words found you, only blackness.

The doctor was summoned quicker than Billy thought possible, and he thanked the heavens above for the man's swiftness. You insisted he stay with Annie while you were being examined, and he suspected it was for his own sake as well as your daughter's.

Annie was quiet, staring at the door you were behind. It felt ominous in that moment, and he tore his eyes from the sight. His knee was bouncing, heel of his boot tapping the floor over and over. The voices in your room were muffled, and Billy wished he hadn't listened to you.

The sun was setting now, smearing a palette of color across the sky and shadowing the clouds in hues of orange and pink. He ran a tired hand through his hair, weary already from whatever news awaited.

He reached wordlessly for his daughter, and she crawled into his lap, head resting against his chest. Billy didn't know what to say to her, and so he chose silence. He was grateful for her old-soul tendencies, but also wished she was still naive enough that she was oblivious. More than anything he wanted Annie to be able to be a kid, to be able to forget her mother's distress and go out to play.

He wasn't sure what he was expecting. The way you had collapsed so suddenly worried him beyond belief. That was the way it had all started with his mother. And now she was no more than a shadow, a memory haunting him.

When the door opened, he shooed those thoughts from his mind, standing and lifting Annie to sit on his hip. The doctor appeared, bag in hand, expression grim. He nodded once at Billy, gesturing to the room. "We'll talk in a minute."

Billy offered half a nod before rushing in to you, Annie in his arms. The sight of you nearly stopped him in his tracks. Paler than a ghost, nearly the color of the sheets you laid atop.

When you noticed them, a sweet smile brightened your face, and you reached out, beckoning. "Annie."

He set his daughter down, and she ran to you, burying her face in your chest. You hugged her tight, kissing the top of her head. "Sweet girl. Are you okay?"

Annie mumbled something Billy couldn't make out. He was still, like a statue caught in time's grip.

Nothing was going to be the same. He had that thought over and over in the next few weeks.

It was a symphony of the same scenes over and over again. Your illness took hold of you, settled into your bones and became all that had been you. That version of you was replaced with a feverish imposter, weaker than a newborn foal. You still laughed often, but it was a dull, raspy sound that panged at Billy's heart.

He clung to hope that somehow you would pull out of it. That by the grace of a miracle one day he would wake up, and you'd be looking back at him, saying you felt better.

The opposite persisted. Every time you awoke in the throes of a fever, tossing and turning until he wound his arms around you, he felt you slipping away. It pounded at his chest, an awful realization he ignored in the hopes that it would prove wrong. He shut it out, hiding his face in your hair, holding on tight and wishing, praying, pleading.

You seemed oblivious to it, though you were feeble and listless most days. Still, you smiled, hugged your daughter, kissed him. You were bedridden, but still your spirits were high as the heavens. Even now, as you read quietly beside him, thumbing through the little book with the red cover you so adored, he swore he saw glimpses of you before the sickness that had eaten away at your being.

Billy was absentmindedly stroking your side, lost in thought. He kissed your temple. "Why don'tcha rest for a bit, sweetheart? You can read more when you're better."

He reached his hand out for the book, and you waited a moment before handing it over, letting him set it on your nightstand beside the vase of dried flowers, petals withering away. They had been a gift from Annie, picked in the field not too far from the oak tree.

You settled limply against his chest, fingers rubbing up and down his stomach softly. Your quiet spoke magnitudes, things Billy wasn't sure he was ready to hear.

"I'm not going to get better," you whispered, though the quiet did nothing to dull the sting your words ensued. He felt a tide of panic begin to crash, and immediately ran the other way.

"Shh, don't say that," he murmured, squeezing your shoulder. "You'll be better in no time. Just needa rest, baby."

"Billy-" you sat up, lifting your head from his chest. He tried to pull you back down, but you shook your head. "We need to talk about this."

"No. No." Billy looked away, dread crawling over his insides. He felt as though he were in the middle of an ocean, waiting for it to swallow him up. "You have to get better. I need you-"

"You're going to be okay," you promised, taking his face in your hands and turning it back to you. "It's gonna be okay."

He was struggling for air. "It can't...I can't...how am I supposed to do a damn thing without you? I can't..." Tears were pricking at his eyes, threatening to spill over. "Baby..."

"I need you to be there for Annie. She'll have questions," you murmured, making sure he was looking at you. "She's gonna need you."

"I need you," he whispered, arms tightening around you. "I can't do this without you. I can't raise her. I-" Billy swallowed thickly. "I can't live without you."

"You still have me," you said softly, and he could see tears in your own eyes now. "You have Annie. She is me. She's got all the good parts of both of us, none of the bad."

"There were never any bad parts of you," Billy breathed, and you took in a breath, smiling in a bittersweet way.

"Promise me you'll be there for her," you said, voice firm despite your gentle hold. "Please."

"I promise," he managed, biting the side of his cheek. "Baby-" An unborn cry cut him off, and he looked down, squeezing his eyes shut. Everything he'd tried to avoid had him pinned down now, shaking his shoulders and screaming at him to wake up.

You took in a breath, pulling him closer, down so his head was on your chest. He clung to you, feeling like a child. Your fingers stroked his hair, delicately roving through his curls in an attempt to soothe. Billy only let himself cry then, tears soaking the front of your nightdress. You breathed, "Oh, Billy," and he fisted your bodice, trying not to imagine what things would be like if you were no longer here.

When you were no longer here.

He wasn't ready. How can anybody ever be ready?

Grief hunted him down, made him miss you before he was gone. It stripped the skin from his bones, buried itself into his being and filled the spot where you were. He couldn't remember how it had felt before.

You were slipping away too quickly, and he was grasping for you, milking every second he was allowed. This was a familiar notion- he'd known it before, so he'd thought. But it was different now. You were a new love, one he'd embraced wholeheartedly. He'd given up everything to be with you and done it gladly. You were the center of the life he'd built so far from the land of outlaws and wanted posters. You were epitome of everything good and pure in the world.

Had his sins truly been so unforgivable that you were now being taken from him? Was he so far from absolvable? Billy had repented with every second since he'd met you, knowing that men who kept doing bad things didn't get to keep women like you. It had all been for naught now, because you were turning into memory.

"Give Daddy extra love, okay?" you whispered to Annie, holding her in a tight hug despite your growing weakness. "He's gonna be sad for a while. Can you give him love for me?"

Annie nodded, and you kissed her forehead, squeezing her to your side one last time. You said one last soft thing to her, and she nodded, leaving your side and shutting the door behind her when she went into the other room.

When she was gone, you gave him a tired smile, one that told him everything he needed to know. Billy crawled in beside you, pulling you to lean against his chest. He felt tears wet his shirt, unsure if they were yours or his.

"I don't want to die," you whispered, the pain in your voice making him want to sink into the earth.

Billy squeezed you, tears raining into your hair. "I know. I know, angel."

"I don't want to leave you." Your hand found his, winding fingers together and clenching.

He felt the lonely rise of grief's dull ache seize him again. "I know, angel." Billy's lips parted, something he both wanted and didn't want to say lingering between them. It escaped before he could think further. "Just rest. We're...we're gonna be okay. You can sleep now. I'll hold you the whole time."

"Billy-" you were grasping, breathing faint. He could see life draining from you, your body growing heavy.

"Shh," he whispered, tears like rivers down his cheeks. He brushed them aside, sitting up and pulling you into his lap, so your head was resting against his shoulder. He was still in one piece, strong for you as he rocked you steadily, holding you tight. Love...that was what you needed right now. To know you were loved.

He wouldn't fall apart yet. Not when you were still here for now, clinging to him and holding on for every moment you could squeeze out. Billy leaned down and kissed you tenderly, trying to convey every bit of what had always been yours. His heart. "I love you."

Your body relaxed, and sunbeams spotlit the floor through the windows. He could hear birds outside, singing their merry tunes. It was the birth of summer, the sister of spring. Your essence alone existed in these few months, and it would echo at him for the rest of his days.

Billy held you close as your expression grew peaceful. The veil separating life and death was thin, and you were answering its call. He whispered over and over like a mantra. "I love you. I love you. I love you."

Your body went still.

And now he fell apart.

#billy the kid #billy the kid x reader #billy the kid fanfiction #billy the kid x you #william h bonney x reader #billy the kid 2022 #william h bonney fanfiction #william h bonney x you #billy bonney #billy the kid imagine #billy the kid fic #billy the kid fluff #tom blyth x reader #william h bonney #william h bonney imagine #william bonney #tom blyth #milliesfishes billy

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carlos-in-glasses · 1 month ago

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Thank you for the tag @nisbanisba @thisbuildinghasfeelings @heartstringsduet

@paperstorm @carlossreaders @strandnreyes @alrightbuckaroo and @bonheur-cafe 🧡

Some domestic fluff from the upcoming chapter of Rhythms:

“You’ve done so well, sweetheart. You could have wrestled in high school too.”

“You think?” Flattering though it is, TK has to laugh. “Nah. I’d have come in my pants every time, if that’s what it was like.”

“Did your school have the no-underwear policy?”

“Yeah.”

Carlos stares into the distance with horror. “I’d have died.”

“I almost died just walking past the track team once. I actually saw more cock in school than I ever did in club bathrooms years later. Kinda fucked up when you think about it. Urgh, hold on–” TK grimaces and covers his mouth as he coughs himself silly and struggles to catch his breath, his cheeks turning purple.

“Okay, that’s it,” Carlos says, helping him to sit up and open up his lungs. “We’re taking a bath of eucalyptus.”

“You make it sound like it’s going to be totally eucalyptus oil.”

“If that’s what you need.” Carlos, forthright, grabs TK’s hand and drags him up.

“I don’t think we have enough to fill the tub.”

Jokes aside, Carlos does empty half the tincture of eucalyptus aromatherapy oil into the bath water where it blends with chamomile bubble bath. The scent knocks him back for a moment like a light punch to the nose, and when TK walks into the bathroom he holds onto the doorframe for comedic effect.

“I am not playing around,” Carlos says, “We’re getting those bronchial tubes back in action and then you’re relaxing for the rest of the day.”

TK chuckles at his insistence. “We should watch a movie later. Something comforting, from the ‘90s.”

Watching a childhood-favorite, post-bath while eating a slice of orange and chocolate cake, with his husband’s cozy-socked feet in his lap? Nothing sounds better than that right now.

When the bath is ready, Carlos lights candles and pulls the blind to diffuse the afternoon light. It’s beautiful. The light seems to float above the bathwater.

On his phone, Carlos finds a playlist on Spotify called “spa music”, which unexpectedly includes whale song, so they dip into the water to the sound of a whale going, “Weeeehhhhhhhh.”

“We should watch Free Willy,” Carlos says, “That was my favorite. God, I loved that movie when I was a kid. I wanted a pet whale.”

“And we should watch Hocus Pocus while we’re at it,” TK adds.

“And Homeward Bound. They don’t make movies like that anymore.”

TK flicks water at him. “Okay, old man.”

Open tag and tags below:

@henrygrass @the-126-family @corsage

@sapphic--kiwi @emsprovisions @ironheartwriter

@fifthrideroftheapocalypse @nancys-braids @captain-gillian

@butchreyes @literateowl @kiwichaeng

@eclectic-sassycoweyes @pimento-playing-hopscotch

@carlos-tk @whatsintheboxmh @three-drink-amy

@tellmegoodbye @orchidscript @mikibwrites

@herefortarlos @sugdenlovesdingle @honeybee-taskforce

@theghostofashton @freneticfloetry @lemonlyman-dotcom

@chicgeekgirl89 @cold-blooded-jelly-doughnut @irispurpurea

@liminalmemories21 @ladytessa74 @welcometololaland @rmd-writes

@lightningboltreader @goodways @reyesstrand - if you want to share/haven't already. No pressure ever! ❤️🩷🧡💛💚💙🩵💜

#wip wednesday #Tarlos #Tarlos fic #rhythms #poet fic #cig fic #my fic #cig tagged

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pnutbutter-n-j-elyy · 2 months ago

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Cover Me

Request: I got a request in my inbox for this fic. A Channie bias had sent an anon request wishing for a reaction. They had shared that they had lost their parents and they are an only child with no one, so there were times they felt alone and wake up feeling empty. I was editing the fic and accidentally posted it- and then deleted it because it wasn't finished thus leading me to lose that inbox request- so I'm really really hoping that they can see this either on my page or due to a repost or something. Because I just want to say that I know in times of suffering words rarely do anything to actually help. But I do know that words can create scenarios that provide an escape- even if just for a few minutes. So I'm hoping this can create that pocket of peace for you; and hopefully bring you a smile. Because I'm more than sure wherever your parents are now that they're smiling; and would love to see you smile back. <3

Chan x Gn!Reader Angst (Established Relationship)TW: Mentions of Death and Loss

I sort of wanted to make this kind of based off the song "Cover Me" by SKZ. When Rockstar was first released, I remember pressing play right at 12am when it dropped- and when Cover Me played I began to cry. Even without understanding the lyrics at the time I could hear the vulnerability of a searing kind of sadness. And it immediately became one of my all time favorite songs- if not tied for favorite along with Hellevator. Pain is a universal thing- but each and every person's experience with pain and grief is a unique experience. And even just through the sound of the song I think it was touched on beautifully. Because in those times everyone looks to be covered...So if you're the kind of person who like to relate stories to music- then I'd recommend giving Cover Me a listen.

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The night enveloped your apartment, thick with silence and shadows.

It was a quiet yet constant reminder of what you’d lost - your parents, their laughter, the warmth of their hugs. Their words. Lectures. Things you may have taken for granted in the moment but wished more than anything now you could be a part of once more.

Being an only child, that ache felt sharper, more isolating than it would be for most. Especially on mornings like this, the weight of loneliness is suffocating. And it didn't help that you had barely been able to get to sleep the night prior.

You had woken up today with a heaviness in your chest, a reminder of the emptiness that followed you like a relentless shadow. In a desperate attempt to escape it, you turned on your phone, scrolling through your playlists until you landed on Stray Kids.

Chan’s voice, the soothing anchor in your sea of sorrow, filled the room as you pulled up an old livestream.

As you listened to him laugh, joke, and share stories with fans, a bittersweet smile tugged at your lips.

In real life or online, he had a way of making everything feel lighter but even his comforting presence couldn’t always chase away the ghosts of your past.

More often than not they just provided a temporary escape.

In the midst of his laughter, you felt tears well up and blur your vision.

You missed your parents terribly today. You wanted them to be here, to share in the little things in life, your favorite moments - the way the moon shone outside, how it painted everything in silver, the memories that had been exchanged in moments that you had never known were going to be your last.

You felt the loss like a physical weight, the ache in your heart mirroring the brightness of the moon outside.

You choked on a sob, wishing someone would hear your cry, wishing for that warmth, that comfort that embrace that acted as a panacea to the worries of life.

And just as you thought you’d crumble under the loneliness, you felt a familiar warmth envelop you. You hadn't even heard him come home. but now Chan was there, arms wrapped around you from behind, his chin rested softly on your shoulder.

"I heard you crying," he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper, thick with concern. "What’s wrong, love?"

The warmth of his presence grounded you, and you leaned back into him, seeking the comfort of his body against yours. "I miss them so much today," you confessed, the words spilling out in a rush. "It hurts."

He tightened his hold, his fingers tangling gently in your hair. "Thats only normal." he said, his voice filled with empathy. "I’m right here, love. Know that I'm here."

You turned to face him, the moonlight illuminating his features, making him look ethereal. His eyes were soft yet filled with understanding, and it felt like he could see right into your heart.

"I don’t know how to cope with this sometimes," you admitted, your voice trembling. "Some days are harder than others. And I don't know why some days I don't think about it at all. Why can't all days be like those days?"

He brushed a thumb across your cheek, catching a stray tear. "You’re allowed to grieve. And it's not a linear thing. You'll have those ups and downs. Just know that whenever the pain feels too much, I’ll be here to help you carry it. I'll always be willing to help you carry it."

As you leaned into him, the tears continued to fall, but this time, they felt lighter. The vulnerability in the air was palpable, but so was the warmth of Chan’s love. His presence was a cure, easing the sharpness of your sorrow.

You settled into the rhythm of his heartbeat, the soft rise and fall of his chest soothing your racing thoughts. "You make me feel less alone."

Chan nodded, understanding the depth of your feelings albeit a few simple words. "I’ll always be that someone for you. You’re never alone, even in your darkest moments." His voice was steady, a reassuring anchor amidst the storm.

Then he kissed your forehead softly, wrapping you in a cocoon of warmth and safety. You felt the tension begin to ease, his soothing presence wrapping around you like a protective blanket.

"Let’s watch the stars together," he suggested, pulling you up gently; then leading you toward the backyard.

You stepped outside, the cool night air brushing against your skin. You settled into the grass, Chan sitting beside you as you gazed up at the stars. "Look at how beautiful they are," he said, pointing out constellations. "I'd like to think that maybe your parents were allowed to hang some up for you as a lasting gift, hmm?"

You took a shaky breath and spoke. "I think they would have gifted me moonbeams..." You said quietly, looking at the full moon that lookes so fat and bright- as if you could reach out and grab it. "They always knew I loved the moon."

You laid back and Chan laid back with you in the grass, the blades tickling the back of your neck as a soft breeze blew past.

In the quietness, you heard Chan start to hum softly- and then sing.

"Dari ireoke nunbusineun bamen..." (On nights when the moon shines this bright)

You closed your eyes and let Chan's voice travel through your ears.

"Why do I feel so lonely in this night? Saebyeokbarameun mabeobilkka?" (Is the dawn breeze magical?)

In that moment, surrounded by the stars and moon wrapped in Chan’s voice you let your tears fall silently.

It hurt. With every beat of your heart you felt that strain.

"Yeah, I tried to hide away from all the sorrow and pain. But little did I know that I was going insane. The sun will always be there waiting after the rain."

And this moment only made you realize ever so much that the pain of loss would never fully fade.

"I can't take it anymore, what should I do?."

Your tears were hot as Chan intertwined his fingers through yours. Squeezing them lightly.

"Oneureun moreun cheok nungama jwo..." (Today, pretend not to notice and close your eyes)

You opened your eyes looking up at the silver moon. Wondering if they could see you, hear you. Acknowledge that pain you were harboring.

"So cover me now."

Please. Please.

"Cover me now."

You swallowed continued to stare at the moon and let your eyes trace over the stars as well. Leading you to the person beside you.

"Dari ireoke nunbusineun bamen.Nuga jeo bicheul garyeojugil oechyeo." (On nights when the moon shines this bright. I cry out, hoping for someone to cover that light)

His eyes were closed, a few tears of his own falling; letting you know that he felt for you too. That someone was out there, willing to help with that burden of pain.

A burden you had long since gotten tired of carrying.

"Bami eoneusae kkeuchi naneun najen Ttaseuhan bicheul naerijjoeneun bicheul." (During the day, when night finally ends. I accept the warm light shining down)

A burden you no longer had to carry alone.

Since you had finally found your cover.

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@abovenyx @wolfs-archive @oddracha

@iyeeeverydee @parisanmorovati @seungmincenteric

@panbish-1209 @fxiry-vtt @sseawavee

@shuporanporang @amarecerasus @softkisshyunjin

@whoa-jo @meanergreener @rikibun

@ayyonoona @shinywombatcrusade @y4yayael

@skzstan12345 @mariteez @allys-reads

@jazziwritesthings @skzstannie @yongbokkiesworld

@kkkeopi @neverendingstay @moony-9

@minsungsthirdwheel @everlastingspring143 @joyofbebbanburg

@leezanetheofficial @tr-mha-fan @bubbly-moon

@night-storm7 @missmajdastark @axel-skz

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cherry4nemo · 1 year ago

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Genshin boys when they have a crush on you!

(High school AU)

Warnings: None! Just fluff.

• Kazuha The first time he’d spoken to you was for a few opinions on his poem. Even though it was a short conversation, it had left him curious about you. In class he was spinning around his pen mindlessly. His eyes kept wandering over to your figure, no matter how many times he’d tried to look away. He knew this wasn’t going to be great for his grades, but gosh you were worth it.

His lips tugged into a gentle smile when your eyes met, ‘Ah so you caught me staring…’ Kazuha thought. A light blush dusted his cheeks, heart jumping when you simply smile at him, before resuming your work. His ruby eyes shift downwards to the poem on his desk. Maybe the words written for you on this paper will be spoken aloud one day…

• Xiao it’s been years since you and Xiao had first become friends. You were just little kids at the time, but now as the time pasted, an unknown feeling has been creeping up on him whenever you were around. He wasn’t stupid. The feeling was very obvious, it was love. But that wasn’t the problem. He didn’t want to ruin the friendship between you two, if you didn’t feel the same. After all, he would understand if you didn’t.

Though, Xiao couldn’t ignore the tightening in his chest at even just the smallest of touches from you. But in this moment he wasn’t aware that your stares were not platonic in the slightest. You shook your head endearingly at his oblivious behavior. Tonight this uncertainty was going to end. He will know very well of your feelings.

• Albedo His favorite place in school was the library, not only was it filled with interesting books to read, but it was a quiet place to hide out from the other loud students. This week you were partnered up with Albedo for a school project, which left you studying together in the library. He will admit that he has seen you in the library before, but never went up because you always looked too invested in your books.

Luckily for him, that project gave him a reason to speak with you. Or maybe not so lucky, because he couldn’t even focus on the work in front of him! He just wanted to keep studying you, not the project. You were just so gorgeous, he didn’t understand it. With a drawn out sigh, Albedo finally spoke. “Are you free after school?”

• Venti This little trouble maker was quite the handful for the teachers. He didn’t mean any harm, but his loud nature wasn’t the easiest to handle. Your chuckle whenever he got in trouble once again, somehow brought a warm swirl in his stomach. At first he thought it was just embarrassment, but no. He actually liked this feeling…

Venti once again waved you over to your usual seat on the bus, and rambles to you about yet another playlist he wanted you to listen to. You smile, and put one of the earbuds into your ear, while he happily takes the other. One thing you noticed, was the overwhelming amount of romantic themes in the playlists he makes for you. He just loved making you happy, even if it meant annoying the other students and teachers. He wonders, will you ever get the hint in the songs?

Any reblogs are appreciated!! And my requests are open.

#genshin x reader #fluff #modern au #kazuha x reader #xiao x reader #albedo x reader #venti x reader #genshin fluff #gender neutral reader #x reader #genshin impact

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ckret2 · 3 months ago

Note

i’m admittedly obsessed with music/have music as a special interest so this question has been on my mind for quite some time now - if Bill (from your goldilocks fanfic) were to listen to any music, or have any particular music taste, what would it be? Any particular songs in mind that he likes? ( <—totally not looking for more/new songs to listen to hahahahaha…sweats)

half of me thinks he’d like 40s/50’s/60’s music (thanks to the vera lynn reference in the fic, but also bc he sings it in-show), but the other half of me wants him to like musicals (heathers, in particular) - i can’t explain why lol

alternatively, if you’ve answered smth like this already, i’d love to know what songs you enjoy/listen to!

Have a post about his tastes and a hideous-sounding playlist! And it even held up in the face of TBOB.

The only difference in my headcanons is that I said the peak of his his tastes centers on the 60s and I subsequently found an interview where Alex confirms Bill's tastes do indeed range from about 40s~60s; but I just got out of another fandom where everyone headcanoned a character is into 40s music ranging into the 50s and I'm pretty burnt out on The Most Popular 40s Jazz That Everybody And Their Grandma Knows so I still personally prefer to focus on the 50s for him lmao.

In fic he makes a reference to a band called Mysterious Mo's Average Joes; I imagine them as an in universe equivalent to Question Mark & the Mysterians, except more obscure.

Specific to my headcanoned music tastes of Bill from my fic rather than just Bill in general: coming in his tastes are all the same, but hanging around Mabel has given him an expanded palate for boy band music and kids music, although on the boy band front he prefers dance-y songs over ballad-y songs and on the kids music front he has to steer through a minefield of cheaply-produced 80s cartoons that use synthesized music to save cost on an orchestra.

So far, nothing else has happened to change his tastes.

Although eventually Robbie's introducing him to emo.

I listen to too much music for the question "what songs do you listen to," it's like asking "what words do you use" lmao, lemme look at my recent activity. Lately I've been getting into She Hates Emotion and the new albums by Zeal & Ardor and Fleshgod Apocalypse; I've been slacking in my metal education on learning the difference between black metal and death metal (I usually focus on symphonic metal & neighboring genres) so I'm looping back to the basics to learn more there; big fan of Saltatio Mortis's new album; I've been listening to the deeper cuts & newer material of mainstream early 00s alt rock & nu metal bands (Shinedown, Stone Sour, Staind) to see what I've been missing out on beyond their radio hits; and in general the past few months I've been trawling through playlists of classic 80s goth, dark wave, synth pop, & aggrotech to expand my library there. Very excited for the new Linkin Park lineup, love their new vocalist so far and it's heartening to see them releasing new material. Not so excited by the new Nightwish album, it has the nightwish sound but not the spark. This isn't even an accurate representation of my full musical tastes, I've just been really into metal recently. Current favorite bands of the last few years are Alt-J and Ghost. I listed some of my favorite albums on this post. It's too bad you can't just link your Spotify liked songs without sticking them all in a separate playlist—oh hold on I have a songs I can sing playlist, it's perpetually incomplete on top of being 3-4 years out of date but it's a starting point.

#knotsoangelic #ask #bill goldilocks cipher #music

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amethystarachnid · 14 days ago

Note

Hi! 🤍

I was wondering if I could request 14- A Little Christmas Magic with Tony Stark x F!Reader?

I was thinking maybe Tony’s on a mission that was supposed to have him home by December. his fiancé/girlfriend/whatever just got notified that the mission has been extended by a few months and things are not looking good for him. Christmas Eve rolls around with little update on the Tony’s status and she’s can’t help but worry about him. But then surprise! he makes it home safe and sound for Christmas after all!

Feel free to use all or none of my idea. You’re the amazingly talented author not me 😜 thanks!

CHRISTMAS MAGIC

⤷ ANTHONY “TONY” E. STARK

ᯓ★ Pairing: Anthony “Tony” E. Stark x fem!reader

ᯓ★ Genre: romance, fluff

ᯓ★ Request from: MARVEL Holiday special

ᯓ★ Story type: one shot

ᯓ★ Word count: 4.1k

ᯓ★ Summary: what the ask said

ᯓ★ TW(s): nothing

ᯓ★ My Masterlist

ᯓ★ MARVEL Holiday Special

ᯓ★ MARVEL Multiverse - choose an AU, pair it with your favorite character and make a request!

ᯓ★ Songs & Superheroes tales - The Game (to make a request, follow the rules on the link!)

ᯓ★ MARVEL Bingo

ᯓ★ English isn’t my first language

The living room smells of cinnamon and pine. The tree is already up in the corner, draped in twinkling lights and glittering ornaments, though the star at the top waits patiently in its box on the coffee table. You want Tony to put it up with you—one of the little traditions you’ve built together over the past couple of years. Your phone sits propped on the arm of the couch, playlist cycling through Christmas classics as you hum along, arms full of ribbon and paper. The gifts you’ve been quietly sneaking into the house are finally getting wrapped.

It’s one of those moments where the house feels just right. The kind of warmth and peace that makes you smile without realizing it. Outside the frosty windows, a light snow drifts down. You glance at the weather and wonder if Tony’s flight will come in on time. You’ve been anticipating his arrival like a kid waiting for Santa—counting down days, hours, and minutes until he’s back.

The sound of your phone buzzing pulls you out of the wrapping haze. Your heart leaps with the familiar tone of Tony’s incoming call, and you swipe to answer, eager to see him. The screen flickers, and there he is, a little grainy from the connection but still breathtakingly Tony. His trademark smirk softens when he sees you, and despite the distance, you feel a rush of warmth.

"Hey, sweetheart," he says, his voice threaded with that weary edge you know too well. Missions take their toll, and this one’s been dragging for days already. Still, he looks at you like you’re the only thing keeping him sane.

"Tony!" you chirp, setting the half-wrapped present aside. "You have perfect timing. I was just about to start on your gift, but I guess the surprise would’ve been ruined."

He chuckles, a sound that makes your heart squeeze. "Caught you red-handed, huh? Maybe I planned it this way." His expression falters for just a second, a flicker of something you can’t quite place.

"You okay?" you ask, leaning closer to the screen. "You look tired."

"Yeah," he says, but there’s a weight to it. "About that… Look, I hate to do this—especially now—but the mission’s gotten a little more complicated. I’m going to be out here longer than I thought."

The words sink like stones in water. Your heart skips, then thuds painfully, and you feel the cheer of the room dim. "How much longer?" you ask, even though you can hear the answer coming in the hesitation on his face.

He looks away for a moment, rubbing the back of his neck. "I probably won’t make it back by Christmas."

You sit back, the weight of it pressing on your chest. Christmas without Tony. It’s unthinkable, but the reality of it is staring you down through the screen. "Oh," you manage, your voice quieter than you’d like. "I—I mean, I get it. You’ve got to save the world and all."

"Y/N…" He leans closer, like he wishes he could reach through the screen. "I’m sorry. I know how much Christmas means to you. I tried to wrap things up in time, but it’s just not happening."

"It’s okay," you say automatically, though the lump in your throat betrays you. You don’t want to make him feel worse than he already does, but the idea of spending Christmas alone sends a pang through you. "I know it’s not your fault."

His face softens in a way that makes it harder, not easier. "You sure? Because if there’s anything I can—"

"No," you cut him off, forcing a smile you don’t quite feel. "No, really. I’ll be fine. Just promise me you’ll stay safe, okay?"

"I promise," he says, his voice low and steady. "You’re too good to me, you know that?"

You laugh, though it comes out more brittle than you intended. "Someone’s got to keep you humble."

"Keep the tree warm for me," he says, and his smile is back, even if it’s tinged with regret. "I’ll make it up to you, I swear."

"You better," you tease, though your voice cracks slightly. "I expect something shiny under that tree when you do."

"It’s a deal," he says, and for a moment, you just look at each other, neither of you wanting to end the call. Finally, he sighs. "I should go. But I’ll check in when I can. Love you, Y/N."

"Love you too, Tony." The call ends, and the screen goes dark, leaving you staring at your own reflection in the glass.

The house feels too quiet now. The music still plays, but it doesn’t seem as cheery. You sit for a moment, the roll of wrapping paper abandoned beside you. The ache of missing him settles in, but you shake your head, trying to push it aside. It’s not like you didn’t know this was part of loving Tony Stark. He’s Iron Man, after all. Saving the world comes with the territory.

Still, you’d be lying if you said it didn’t hurt.

You force yourself back to the task at hand, wrapping gifts with renewed determination. If Tony can’t be here, you’ll make the most of it anyway. You’ll put up the star, drink the eggnog, and watch the cheesy holiday movies you’d picked out for the two of you. He’d want you to enjoy it, even if he can’t be part of it.

The hours slip by, and the house fills with the quiet hum of your efforts. You finish wrapping the last gift, arrange them neatly under the tree, and light a candle that smells of peppermint. The ache in your chest lingers, but you try to focus on the little things, the things you can control.

Later, as you sit by the fire with a mug of cocoa, you let yourself daydream about what it’ll be like when Tony does come home. You picture him sweeping you up in one of his dramatic airport reunions, showering you with that over-the-top charm that only he can pull off. You’ll tell him how much you missed him, and he’ll tease you for being so sentimental, even though you know he missed you just as much. The thought brings a small smile to your lips.

The snow falls heavier outside, blanketing the world in white. You curl up under a blanket, watching the lights on the tree twinkle softly in the dim room. It’s not the Christmas you planned, but as you sit there, you remind yourself that loving Tony means taking the good with the bad. And no matter where he is, you know he’s thinking of you. That has to be enough—for now.

The week before Christmas is quieter than you expected it to be. The festive buzz around the city doesn’t reach you in the same way it usually does. The joy of decorating, baking, and planning feels hollow without Tony to share it with. You go through the motions, trying to keep yourself busy. Wrapping presents, watching Christmas movies, and even putting up the star on the tree—all of it feels muted. There’s no one to laugh with you when you drop half the sprinkles on the floor, or to playfully complain about the holiday music you insist on keeping on repeat.

You try not to let it get to you. Tony’s doing something important; you know that. You tell yourself that he wouldn’t be away unless it was absolutely necessary. But every time you see the empty space beside you on the couch or pass by the photo of the two of you laughing in front of last year’s Christmas tree, your chest tightens.

He calls when he can, though the timing is sporadic. It’s usually late at night when you’re bundled in pajamas, the house quiet around you. The grainy video calls are the highlight of your day, even if they’re brief. He always has that same soft smile when he sees you, the one that makes you feel like maybe, just maybe, things will be okay.

On one of those calls, a week before Christmas, you decide to bring it up. You’ve been holding onto the idea of sharing at least a small moment with him on Christmas. Even if he can’t be here, maybe a video call at midnight would be enough to close the distance.

"Hey," you say, trying to sound casual as you lean closer to the screen. "I was thinking… Since you can’t be back by Christmas, what if we video call at midnight? You know, to celebrate together in some way. It’s not the same, but… it’s something."

Tony’s face shifts, and the easy smile falters. There’s something guarded in his expression now, and you feel your stomach twist before he even says a word.

"Y/N," he starts, his tone careful, as if he’s trying to figure out how to soften the blow. "I was going to tell you… The mission’s entering a different phase. It’s more secure now—strictly off-grid. I won’t be able to call you anymore until it’s done."

The words hit like a punch to the chest. Your breath catches, and for a moment, you just stare at the screen, trying to process what he’s saying. No calls. No texts. No way to hear his voice or see his face for who knows how long.

"Not at all?" you ask, your voice small and unsteady.

He shakes his head, guilt etched into every line of his face. "Not at all. It’s protocol—classified stuff. I hate it as much as you do, believe me."

You bite your lip, fighting the tears that are already threatening to fall. "So, that’s it? You’re just… gone until whenever this mission’s done?"

"Y/N," he says softly, leaning closer to the screen as if he can somehow reach you. "I don’t want this any more than you do. If I could, I’d drop everything and come home right now. But I can’t. And I hate that I’m leaving you alone during Christmas—especially Christmas."

You want to tell him it’s okay, that you understand. But the words stick in your throat. It doesn’t feel okay. Not at all. Christmas is supposed to be about togetherness, warmth, and love. And now the one person you want to share it with is being pulled away even further.

"I know you have to do this," you say finally, your voice barely above a whisper. "But it feels like… like everything is just slipping away this year. First, you’re not here, and now I can’t even talk to you? It’s—it’s a lot, Tony."

He looks down, his jaw tightening, and when he speaks again, his voice is heavy with regret. "I know. And I’m so sorry, Y/N. I wish I could make this easier for you—for us. But you have to know how much I love you, even if I can’t say it every day. That doesn’t change."

Your heart aches at his words. You know he means them, but it doesn’t stop the pain. Tears spill over despite your best efforts, and you quickly swipe at them, not wanting to break down completely in front of him. "I just miss you," you say, your voice cracking. "I miss you so much, and it’s hard knowing I won’t even have you for Christmas."

Tony’s face crumples, and for a moment, he looks as helpless as you feel. "I miss you too, more than I can put into words. And when I get back, I’m going to make this up to you, I swear."

"When?" you ask, though you know he doesn’t have an answer. The uncertainty stretches between you like a chasm.

"I don’t know," he admits quietly. "But as soon as I can. That’s a promise."

You nod, though it doesn’t feel like enough. There’s so much you want to say, but the words get caught somewhere between anger and sadness. Instead, you stare at him, memorizing every detail of his face—the way his eyes soften when they meet yours, the faint stubble on his jaw, the warmth in his gaze even now.

"I love you," you say finally, your voice trembling. "Even if it hurts right now."

"I love you too, Y/N," he says, his voice breaking just a little. "Always."

The call ends not long after, and as the screen goes dark, the silence of the house feels suffocating. You press your hand to your chest, trying to steady the ache that feels too big to contain.

Christmas is going to be harder than you imagined.

The house is quiet, almost too quiet for Christmas Eve. You sit curled up on the couch in your coziest pajamas, the flickering lights of the Christmas tree casting soft shadows around the room. A holiday movie plays in the background, but you haven’t been paying attention to it for the past hour. Your phone sits beside you on the coffee table, its screen dark, a constant reminder that there’s no call coming this time.

Your friends had called earlier, trying to coax you into joining them for a little Christmas Eve celebration. They’d promised laughter, food, and distraction from the heaviness that’s been weighing on you. But you couldn’t bring yourself to go. The thought of smiling and pretending to be okay when your heart feels so heavy didn’t appeal to you.

Instead, you’d stayed home, trying to cling to the smallest fragments of holiday spirit. But it’s hard. The room feels too big, too empty without Tony. Midnight is only minutes away, and with every passing second, the ache in your chest deepens.

You glance at the clock—11:59. In one more minute, it’ll officially be Christmas, but it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like any other lonely night, only worse because it’s supposed to be magical. Your fingers tighten around the edge of the blanket draped over you, and you take a shaky breath, willing yourself not to cry.

The clock ticks over to 12:00. Christmas. You squeeze your eyes shut, biting your lip hard to keep the tears at bay.

Suddenly, a knock echoes through the quiet house.

Your heart leaps, then immediately sinks. You tell yourself not to get your hopes up. It’s probably a neighbor or someone who got the wrong house. Still, you stand, your steps hesitant as you move toward the door.

The knock comes again, more insistent this time.

"Coming," you call, though your voice is barely above a whisper.

You unlock the door and pull it open, and the breath rushes out of you.

"Tony," you whisper, staring at him in disbelief.

There he is, standing on your snowy doorstep, looking tired and a little disheveled but very much alive. His hair is tousled, his jacket dusted with snow, and there’s a sheepish smile tugging at his lips.

"Surprise," he says, his voice warm and full of relief.

For a moment, you can’t move. You just stare at him, your mind racing to catch up with what your eyes are seeing. Then, before you can stop yourself, you throw your arms around him, holding him as tightly as you can.

"You’re here," you choke out, your voice muffled against his shoulder. "You’re actually here."

He wraps his arms around you just as tightly, burying his face in your hair. "I couldn’t stay away," he murmurs. "Not for Christmas. Not when I knew how much it meant to you."

Pulling back slightly, you look up at him, your eyes searching his face. "But the mission—you said you couldn’t call, and I thought—"

"I wrapped it up faster than expected," he says, brushing a strand of hair out of your face. "I pulled a few strings, worked a little Stark magic. There was no way I was going to let you spend Christmas without me."

The tears you’ve been holding back all night finally spill over, but this time, they’re tears of relief. You laugh through them, shaking your head. "You have no idea how much I missed you."

"Oh, I have an idea," he says, his tone teasing but his eyes soft. "Because I missed you just as much."

He leans down, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead, then your cheek, and finally your lips. It’s warm and full of all the things neither of you can quite put into words.

When he pulls back, he glances past you at the Christmas tree glowing softly in the corner. "Looks like I made it just in time," he says, his smile widening.

"You did," you say, wiping at your cheeks. "You really did."

He steps inside, kicking the snow off his boots, and you close the door behind him. The room feels different now, brighter and warmer, like the Christmas magic you’ve been waiting for all season has finally arrived.

As he shrugs off his coat, he reaches into the pocket and pulls out a small box, holding it out to you with a grin. "I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d make it up to you. Merry Christmas, sweetheart."

You laugh, taking the box and opening it to reveal a delicate necklace with a tiny, shimmering star charm. Your breath catches, and you look up at him, your heart full to bursting.

"It’s perfect," you say, your voice barely above a whisper.

He smiles, pulling you into another hug. "You’re perfect," he murmurs.

For the first time all season, it finally feels like Christmas. And as you sit together by the tree, your heart full and his hand warm in yours, you know this is a moment you’ll never forget.

You curl up against Tony on the couch, the warm glow of the fireplace illuminating the room as the faint crackle of logs fills the air. His arms are wrapped around you, holding you close like he never wants to let go. For the first time in weeks, your heart feels light, the ache of missing him replaced by the steady comfort of his presence.

But there’s a lingering curiosity in the back of your mind, one that’s been nagging at you ever since he showed up at your door. You lean your head back to look at him, a faint smile tugging at your lips.

"Okay, spill," you say, narrowing your eyes playfully. "How did you really get here? Last I checked, your mission was supposed to be classified and impossible to leave. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled you’re here, but I know you, Tony. You don’t just pull strings. You rip them right out of the piano."

He chuckles, his chest rumbling beneath you as he shifts to meet your gaze. "You know me too well," he says, brushing a strand of hair away from your face. "Fine, you want the truth? It’s a little embarrassing, but here goes."

You raise an eyebrow, intrigued. "I’m all ears, Stark."

He takes a deep breath, his lips twitching into a smirk. "So, the team I was working with… Let’s just say they weren’t exactly operating at peak efficiency. A lot of standing around, too much red tape, and way too much talking about doing things instead of actually doing them. After about three days of that, I hit my limit."

You bite back a laugh, imagining Tony’s frustration. "Let me guess—you took matters into your own hands?"

"Of course I did," he says, grinning now. "I’m Tony Stark. I’m not built for inefficiency. I started doing my own research, cross-referencing every bit of intel we had, building my own models, running simulations. And guess what? Turns out, when you stop waiting for a committee to make a decision, you can actually get things done."

You can’t help but laugh, shaking your head. "You solved it, didn’t you?"

"Five days," he says, holding up a hand like it’s a trophy. "Five days, and I had the bad guy’s location, his entire operation mapped out, and a strategy to take him down. I handed the team my findings on a silver platter and told them to execute it while I booked it home."

"Unbelievable," you say, your laughter mixing with genuine admiration. "You’re a genius, you know that?"

"Yeah, but it’s nice to hear it from you," he quips, pulling you closer. "Although I’ll admit, my motivation wasn’t exactly pure."

"Let me guess—me?" you say, teasing but already knowing the answer.

"Of course you," he says, his voice dropping to a softer, more serious tone. "I couldn’t stand the thought of you being here, alone, on Christmas. I know how much this time of year means to you, and the idea of missing it… missing you… It wasn’t an option. I had to make it happen."

Your heart swells, and you lean up to kiss him, slow and lingering. His hand slides to your cheek, holding you there as the kiss deepens. The warmth of the fire blends with the heat of his touch, and you feel yourself melting into him.

His lips trail from your mouth to your jaw, then lower, finding the sensitive spot just below your ear that always sends shivers down your spine. His hand moves to your waist, fingers brushing against the edge of your shirt, and your breath catches.

"Tony," you murmur, your voice a mix of hesitation and longing.

"Hmm?" he replies against your skin, his voice low and teasing.

You pull back slightly, placing a hand on his chest to stop him. His eyes meet yours, darkened with desire but immediately softening when he notices the hesitation in your expression.

"Wait," you say, a small smile tugging at your lips. "I want to give you your gift first."

He blinks, surprised, then sits back, tilting his head as he studies you. "My gift? I thought I already got it when you opened the door and let me in."

"Nice try," you say, laughing softly. "But no, this is something I’ve been working on for a while, and I’ve been dying to give it to you. Just… wait here, okay?"

He nods, his curiosity piqued. "You’ve got my full attention, sweetheart."

You climb off the couch and hurry to the bedroom, where you’d hidden the gift beneath a pile of blankets in the closet. It’s wrapped neatly in glossy red paper with a gold ribbon, and your heart races as you carry it back to the living room. This wasn’t just any gift; it was something you’d poured your heart into, something you hoped would show him how much he meant to you.

When you return, Tony’s eyes light up as he sees the package in your hands. He sits up straighter, reaching out as you hand it to him.

"Wow," he says, turning it over in his hands. "Fancy wrapping. Should I be worried about what’s inside?"

"Just open it," you say, settling back beside him and tucking your legs under you.

He tugs at the ribbon and carefully peels back the paper, revealing a sleek leather-bound book. He flips it open, his eyes scanning the pages, and you watch as his expression softens.

It’s a scrapbook, filled with photos, handwritten notes, and little mementos from your time together. There are snapshots of the two of you at galas, on lazy mornings in the kitchen, and on spontaneous road trips. You’d included ticket stubs from movies, pressed flowers from a trip to the countryside, and even a napkin with a doodle he’d once scribbled during a coffee date.

"Y/N," he says softly, his fingers brushing over a page where you’d written a heartfelt note about how much he meant to you. "This is… incredible. I don’t even know what to say."

You feel a blush creeping up your cheeks, and you shrug, trying to downplay the nerves bubbling inside you. "I just wanted you to have something that reminds you how much you’re loved. Especially when you’re off doing Iron Man things and we can’t talk. So, even if we’re apart, you’ll always have this."

He looks up at you, and the emotion in his eyes takes your breath away. "This is the best gift I’ve ever gotten," he says, his voice thick with sincerity. "You have no idea how much this means to me."

You smile, leaning against him as he pulls you into a hug. "I’m glad you like it," you whisper, feeling his arms tighten around you.

"I love it," he says, his lips brushing against your temple. "And I love you."

"I love you too," you say, tilting your head up to kiss him again.

This time, the kiss is slow and sweet, a promise of everything you’ve shared and everything still to come. The fire crackles in the background, and the snow continues to fall outside, but in this moment, it’s just the two of you, wrapped up in each other and the magic of Christmas.

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