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bonbonly · 1 month ago

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𝐘𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐌𝐲 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐨𝐧

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: when I'm down on my knees, you're how I pray - when bishop!max decides to stay for the christmas festivities, chapter!charles leclerc finds it harder to hide his true religion: you. (this is a continuation of Temptation) 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: this is a dark fic! you have been warned! do not read if you are not comfortable with dark fics or any of the following: noncon/dubcon, slapping, p in v, fingering, lactation, oral (m receiving), stoning, almost burning at the stake. this fic contains heavy catholic themes/guilt, and also includes angst and redemption. 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 9.4k 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: based on popular demand, i've made the sequel for Temptation! (read it if you haven't already!) writing this series made me a charles girlie omg

from the light through the cathedral's glass windows, the heavenly father centered his glory around the statue of virgin mary carrying her holy son, the loving baby jesus. above the ledge from where you stood, you glimpsed down to see the swarm of people shuffling into the main altar, getting on their knees as your child's father offered the lord's blessings to each loyal devotee. you watched the gentle smile on his face as he bowed his head, forming a cross on his chest with his hands. a soft amen fell from his lips, his eyes creased together as he giggled at something a child had said to him. his soft nature contrasted his demeanor towards you every night when he snuck into the attic to deliver another basket of bread and milk. he was a different man past the hours of the cathedral, the devil himself. you glanced down to your blissfully asleep bundle of joy in your arms, his tiny hands wrapped your finger as you gently rocked him back and forth. you could've loved the being in your arms had it not been out of a horrendous union that brought you turmoil more than love. you could've had the heart to smother him in kisses like any mother would to their child, to gift him every joy in the world had he been born to a man that you loved.

"you look cold, here have my cloak," charles leaned forward to kiss your forehead, draping the fabric over your shoulders. his head nestled onto your shoulder, ignoring the disdainful expression on your face. both your eyes fell down to your son, his soft coos echoing in the dark room where charles stored his obsessions. love was not in his vocabulary. for if he loved you, you knew he would let you go. charles gave your cheek a soft kiss, letting his warm lips linger on your cold skin, so that you could understand he would always be a part of you. a reminder of your new life as the mother to his child, another servant of god. your shoulders sagged at the declaration inside your head: this was your life. this was how you would spend the rest of your years. buried away in a dark attic where no man shall ever know of you existence - save your son - and you would rot away without the luxury of having a stable family. you envied your friends who were married and had a robust family tree, a dozen children to their name which they had wanted willingly. charles could see the sadness in your eyes, the way your head cast downwards with tears rolling down your cheeks. his breath hitched when the rays of light shone down on you; he saw the weeping virgin stand before him for a split second, her pain from the earthly world, from him. his eyes cast down to his child giggling with his arms outstretched for his father, and charles picked up the infant.

"leo is looking very healthy," he whispered, his eyes flickering to you for confirmation. you slowly nodded your head, your gaze transfixed onto the stone cracks. "i expect some words from you, mon ange."

"he is very healthy," you murmured, slowly lifting your gaze to face his. his eyes hardened into a glare, not happy with your attitude as of late. you acted as if it was the end of the world. what better pleasure would a woman such as yourself have if not being a servant of the lord, the mother to his child, his only possession far greater than the rosary he hung around his neck. he placed his son in the wooden cradle secretly made a long time ago when he first learned you were pregnant, and he grabbed hold of your arm to have you stand on your feet. his fingers dug into your jaw, forcing you to stare at him,

"what is wrong with you? have you forgotten your duties?" he questioned, watching you squirm under his grasp. your pitiful attempts to push him off were swatted away with his free hand, "you could've been a whore on the streets had i not rescued you. the grace of the holy father has led you to me, this is your chance at salvation and yet you act as if you'd rather live in perdition than with the heaven i have gifted you!"

he watched your tears collect onto his fingers, those rosy lips of yours now a small pout. he sighed out loud, repenting for his mistake of treating you so harshly and he leaned down to capture your lips into a kiss.

"oh, ma chère reine, come now. i am only doing this for your good," he kissed away your tears, caressing your face with his thumb. "it is not good for you to cry, i hate to see you cry. i only want to ever see you happy, n'est-ce pas vrai?"

your response is ignored as he sweeps you off your feet, carrying you to the bed he had placed besides the cradle. there was a small curtain that separated the "room" between yours and your son. charles laid you onto the mattress as if you were a dandelion, at any second you could be blown away out of his arms. his lips found your forehead once more, his touch gentle that for a moment, you were fooled into thinking that maybe he did love you. maybe, despite all the horrible things he had done to you, you could be safe in his arms. with parted lips, he cradled your face in his hands to pepper your face with kisses. your weeping eyes, your red nose, those cold cheeks and those rosy lips that always beckoned to him like the devil that you once were. his lips traveled down your neck, providing your bosom with open-mouthed kisses that were sure to leave marks. you were his, and had it not been his fate to serve for the lord, he would've married you as soon as your belly swelled with his child. it would've been a child out of wedlock and it still was but he didn't really care, but you were a mother. a beautiful mother that gave birth to such an extraordinary child. he undid your corset, letting the fabric slide down as his fingers popped through the strings of your shirt, revealing your swollen tits, already leaking with your milk.

the cross on the valley of your breasts was now a pale scar, and his fingers ghosted over the memories of events precisely a year ago. when he made you his. you weren't even looking at him, your attention on the curtain with your son's soft snores flooding the room. it sickened you that there was no comfort anywhere. charles rolled your nipples around with his thumbs, applying pressure on your hardening peaks as your milk trickled down gently. he squeezed them, leaving his mouth wide open to catch your strays. you always tasted so good. he almost envied his own child for being able to nurse off of you. he moved to nestle himself between your legs, hiking the skirt up. he kissed your ankles, using his free hand to push your panties to the side. spitting onto your cunt, he watched his own saliva glide down your folds, spilling onto the bed beneath the both of you. he would've taken his time with you had he not been occupied with his role as the chapter priest, but nonetheless his throbbing cock was free from its confines and he pushed into your velvety walls, groaning at the sensation. even after birthing a child, you still felt so good. so warm. you felt like home to him. he rocked his hips against yours, smiling when you finally broke your vow of silence to moan out loud and he leaned over to capture your areola in his mouth, drinking up the milk you had to offer him. his thrusts were always sharp, burying himself to the hilt to ensure that even without him filling you up, you'd always feel him inside.

"si parfait et tout à moi," he whispered, tilting his head up to watch you throw your head, completely gone in pleasure. he wrapped his arms around you, pressing your body flush against him, his cock drilling into you with fervor. "that's it, you can cum for me..."

that's all you needed to let yourself go, lips parting into an oval shape as you let out a guttural moan, sobbing into his arms. he silenced your whimpers with his lips, his cock still pummeling into you with erratic thrusts that signaled his climax was approaching. his goal was to fill you up again and again, hoping you'd be able to grow his family. you were so beautiful like this, slumped out against the bed, completely spent. upon hearing leo fussing, he dressed himself up quickly and scooped the baby up in his arms. you deserved some rest anyway.

"you have such a beautiful mother, you are so lucky leo. the lord has bestowed everything you ever need to you, un garçon vraiment très chanceux" he smiled. your eyes traveled up to the debilitated ceiling, unsure if your body could take the toll of having any more children. leo's birth was so tiresome, and it didn't help that you were kept as a secret. charles had acted as if he wasn't the actual father of the child, and he had your face covered so that no one could see that you were back from the supposed dead. you barely had time to recover from giving birth when charles immediately placed you on the wagon to head back to the cathedral. it was a nightmare you never wanted to relive ever again.

charles had left you and the baby to sleep, locking the door behind him. he trusted you enough not to try and escape him, but he knew for sure if you were willing to stay with him. the lord worked in mysterious ways, and perhaps his doubts were best to be cleared after a few hours of prayer. as he descended the back staircase, he passed by father gasly's cell who grinned at the sight of his friend.

"father leclerc! i was just wondering where you could've gone, mon cher ami, you almost could've missed it!" the french man slapped his hand onto charles' back, guiding him down the hallway.

"missed what?"

"bishop max is coming to spend christmas week with us. he was issued by the pope to see how large the spirit is during the holidays," father gasly explained, and charles rolled his eyes. since the day he joined the church, he'd always hated max. it didn't help that max had such close connections to the former pope at such a young age. if charles was the golden boy to his church, max was the son of the catholic religion. it was so clear that in another 10 years, max would become the pope one day. charles hated him for it, he already saw what was going to happen: max would come over and gloat in his face. he always used to beat him to prayer, getting the guidance offered by the senior priests first and charles would get the crumbs. he sucked his teeth, stepping into the main altar to find archdeacon vasseur laughing along with a man in a pointed hat, a cane in his hand that he tossed from one side to another. the archdeacon glanced over the man's shoulder to see charles, a wide grin on his face as he greeted the young man.

"ah, father leclerc! look who has brought glory to our cathedral with his presence!" the old man laughed, and charles' jaw went taut at the sight of max standing there, a crooked smile on his lips.

"ah, father leclerc! such a pleasure to see you again!" max's accent was still as thick as charles last remembered,

"good to see you again bishop verstappen," charles bowed his head slightly, feeling all his anger boil up to his head. he bit his tongue, remembering father bozzi's words from a year ago: never let your emotions get the best of you. keep that tongue of yours in check. charles clutched onto his rosary, hoping the holy cross would burn into his palm so that he would remain silent.

"you may call me father, no need for even more formalities," max laughed, "now i haven't been to this cathedral in quite some times. looks a bit worn, does it not?"

"we have so many visitors that our focus is mainly on them," charles snapped, ignoring the blatant side-eye father gasly was giving his friend. max raised an eyebrow, a hint of an amused smirk on his lips,

"i suppose so. i might need to go around this entire place. do some checks and see what could be added before christmas. pope hamilton said this place was one of the holiest in the world, and it ought to look like it." max adjusted his hat, glancing around the altar with an indifferent expression on his face. using his cane, he pushed charles to the side before walking off.

"what did pope hamilton see in him to promote him to bishop?" charles seethed, and father gasly nudged him with his elbow,

"father leclerc, jealousy does not suit you. if he heard you, he'd have you-"

"let him hear, i don't care. walking into my church and acting like he owns the place," he scoffed.

"your church?" father gasly snickered, "is this church not in the rightful ownership of the holy father? you don't own anything save your bible and rosary."

charles stared at his friend with a very dark expression on his face. he did have ownership. maybe not to the church, but definitely you and your child. he held his tongue, moving towards the altar to get onto his knees and pray. the father from the heavens had to ensure nothing bad would happen with max's presence. christmas was only a few days away, and the last thing charles' needed was a reflection on his cruel actions. no matter how many times he convinced himself that he was doing the world good by having you as his personal whore, he still felt like something was amiss. the light from the cross above him always seemed to dim when he stood before the altar. the organs did not sing the same tunes it once did when he pressed his fingers upon the keys. a mystery that he could not understand. the rosary around his neck reflected the light from the glass panels, right onto his heart. his eyes were closed, however, blind as always to the message the lord gave him.

max had past the hallway to the individual cells for the priests, but his eyes quickly caught hold of the staircase that was covered in sooth and dust. he frowned, running his fingers over the railings and recoiled in disgust at the dirt that stained his pale skin. he shook it off and grabbed his cane, tapping at the wood to make it wouldn't collapse onto him if he decided to climb the staircase. when his checks were through, he carefully ascended up to the top of the cathedral where the gargoyles slept peacefully. the bell-ringers were out for break so he wouldn't have to deal with their thousand questions. from what he could see, it was an open empty space, a clear view to the village down below. there was a room at the end of the passageway that had a few windows. he assumed it was for the bell-ringers to take short breaks and was about to head back downstairs when he heard a slight hum travel through the air. he circled back to the room, taking note of the lock on the door. pressing his ear against the door, he could hear a baby laughing while another voice sang soft lullabies. max moved to the window, peering through the bars to see you sitting on the ground, holding your son up as you took note of the way his legs scrunched together. you bent down to kiss his nose, watching his little face light up.

"didn't know the church held its own nursery here," max watched you stare at him with wide eyes, fear in your features as you held your baby firmly against your chest, his little head nestled in your neck.

"w-who are you? h-how... what are you doing here?" you questioned. even the bell-ringers had never come over. charles had convinced them all that they could do their duty one floor down. the well kept secret was now in the hands of a man you didn't even know.

"no need to fear me, schat." he smiled, "i'm bishop verstappen. i've come here to celebrate christmas with your church."

there was some sort of an edge in his voice, something that you could not explain. you glanced around your room, trying to avoid his sharp gaze. you never realized how suffocating this room really was until now. you set leo back down in his cradle, feeling your back being burned just being in his line of sight.

"you live here?" max inquired, the sound of his cane raking against the bars of the window making you clutch your ears. the metal scraping brought back horrid memories of the confines charles had you in, the whip of air as the flog drew red marks on your tits. you clutched your chest, still feeling the edge of the rosary being dragged on your skin to form the cross.

"y-yes," you breathed out, peering over your shoulder to see what new devil was at your doorstep. he frowned, tilting his head,

"interesting. and who knows about you? other than me of course."

you debated on telling him the truth. should you tell him the events from a year ago? but what if he was just as bad as charles? what if he found out you were originally a heretic and wanted to kill you? you gulped, deciding to play safe in the moment, "father leclerc, but he is nice enough to gift me bread and milk for the baby and i. aside from him, no one else knows."

"father leclerc does charity work? that's new of him," max snickered, "he keeps you locked away in here, though. do you offer him service for his hospitality?"

"n-no," you whispered, gulping, "none of that kind."

"a child out of wedlock," max pointed towards the cradle where leo was fast asleep, "and father leclerc has pitied you for it? he never was the type to do so. he was always stuck up from what i remember."

"he has changed."

"very much so indeed." max's lips formed into a thin line, "well, i shall see to it that you are free from your confines. a woman such as yourself should have the right to roam around this cathedral freely. as long as no one sees your baby, you should be safe." had he known the truth of your situation, you knew he wouldn't have been so kind to you. you nodded your head, listening to his footsteps fade away. you collapsed onto your bed, head in your hands as you thought about what would happen if charles came to hear of this.

charles was listening to a father lament about his dying son, torn between wanting to give him a proper burial but not having enough money to do so. he furrowed his brows, feeling sympathetic towards the man and he took off one of the rings given to him a long time ago by his late father. it was made out of gold, and he usually wouldn't have parted with it but he figured his father would rather the ring be used for something good than just an accessory. he dropped the ring into the palm of the man's hand and bowed his head,

"it is not quite equal to your son's burial but as stated from genesis 23:6 - none of us will withhold from you his tomb to hinder you from burying your dead," charles began, watching the man's face light up, "bury your son with the money the ring offers. if one dares question you, bring him to me and i shall discuss with him. may the lord guide your son's soul to the heavens. i shall send a chaplain soon to your quarters for his last rites."

the man held onto charles' hand, kissing it gently with tears in his eyes, "thank you, father leclerc. thank you, thank you. the holy father has done us all great service by having you among us."

charles' chest tightened at his words, a sensation that became more frequent these days. guilt was eating him alive, but he did not know why. he knew he was continuing the lord's work, being a very devout servant. but in the back of his mind, he remembered you all alone up in that cold room with leo, the sad look in your eyes. he watched the man exit the tall doors of the cathedral, and he caught hold of the statue of virgin mary carrying the infant jesus. his chest tightened once more, remembering the weeping virgin he saw in your eyes earlier. right when he was about to head back to his cell, he felt a firm hand on his shoulder. much to his dismay, it was bishop verstappen and charles rolled his eyes, biting the inside of his cheek.

"father verstappen, did you have a nice tour of our church?" charles glared at him, wanting to make his disgust extremely evident.

"mhm, very nice. i just didn't think you to be so charitable. giving away your father's ring just like that?" max sighed,

"i had nothing to bury my father in when he passed away. i only wish for this man's son to not suffer the same fate. everyone deserves to be buried," charles responded.

"tsk, tsk, tsk, you have gotten much softer, father leclerc, last i remember you were very keen on banishing my soul to hell if given the opportunity."

"that hasn't changed, actually. i'm just trying to be cordial since pope hamilton sent you here." charles growled, "charity is a good thing."

"i never argued with you about it, i'm just surprised the extent to which your charity goes." max narrowed his eyes, "and in the name of charity, i hope you haven't abused your rights as a servant to the lord. the kleine duif wishes to escape her cage. don't keep dogs tied up for too long."

charles gaped in horror as max walked off with a knowing smirk. he straightened his shoulders, glancing up to the ceiling of the cathedral before grabbing his rosary and heading up the back staircase. unbeknownst to him, max saw the chapter priest swiftly ascending the staircase and the bishop laughed to himself, realizing that he had charles exactly where he needed him to be: beneath him at all costs. the pretty dove upstairs was a sight for sore eyes, and by no means was max a perfect man. he had flaws, too. as any man would. years of celibacy could not be easily achieved in this modern world. not when women such as yourself always tempted the innocent priests into sin. he wondered if charles had ever touched you, ever marked you as his. there was no way he wouldn't have, but charles was always known for being so perfect and prudish that it wasn't far out of the question to assume that he was only helping you and nothing else.

charles had unlocked the door to your room, his chest heaving in anger as he saw you laying on your bed with those empty, forlorn eyes. he slammed the door behind him, marching over to see you sitting up on the bed with a finger to your lips.

"you'll wake the baby," you chastised him, but he grabbed your arm and pulled you to him,

"did anyone see you?" he hissed, "answer the truth. if you lie to me, i won't hesitate to have you punished for your disobedience to me."

you swallowed, thickly and shook your head slowly. he could see your eyes gloss over, the rosary shining in your eyes. he grabbed your hair and yanked it backwards, disregarding your pained whimpers,

"do. not. lie. to. me." he punctuated each word with a slap to your face. you bottom lip quivered, your scowl deepening, "tell me the truth. who saw you here? was it max?" he would never give the title to a man he hated, much less the respect he deserved.

"max saw me," and you brought out your hands to try and calm charles down, "b-but i didn't tell him anything. i only said that you had me here to save me from the outside world. you were giving me a place to hide my baby and me!"

he raised an eyebrow, "and how should i believe you?"

"you have to trust me, charles!" you begged, growing frustrated at his lack of respect for you, "if i wanted to jeopardize your future at this church i would've done that a long time ago!"

"oh, really?" charles laughed bitterly, "so you've thought about that before have you not? is that what you're telling me?"

"charles, no!" you cried out, struggling to escape his firm grip in your hair, "you're not listening to me! the door was still locked, all max did was ask who i was and i lied to him! he does not know about our arrangement, he does not know anything!"

"get on your knees," charles hauled you off the bed, dragging you onto the stone floor, "open that mouth of yours. unless your mouth serviced me, i'll assume you have used it to speak lies."

you groaned out loud, clamping your mouth shut as you glared at him. that defiance, that anger in your eyes. he'd last seen it when he first captured you. if looks could kill.

"open your mouth, espèce de petit diable," he commanded, his voice brooking no disobedience. "take my cock into your lying mouth and let it purify your wicked tongue." he pressed the swollen, throbbing head of his cock against your lips, rocking his hips to let his cock slide against your sealed mouth. his fingers tightened in your hair, yanking it harshly and when you cried out in pain, he slipped his cock inside your throat, giving you no space to breathe as he began to fuck your throat harshly. tears streamed down your cheek, your drool seeping down your chin as you stared at him with pure hatred in your eyes. he took note of the expression on your face and he snarled as he forced your head to the base of his cock, your nose pressed against his pelvis.

"take the holy sacrament deep in your lying throat. let it purify your wicked soul." He held you there, buried to the hilt, as he ground his hips against your face, his heavy balls slapping against your chin. "god commands it," he panted, his voice filled with lust, "you cannot deny his will. you cannot refuse your sacred duty to serve his servant, to serve me."

you struggled to swallow all of his cum when he came, coughing and gagging uncontrollably, spluttering out his semen. you watched him tuck his cock back in his robes, grabbing your hair once more so that you could look at him, "let this be a reminder, mon cœur, i won't be so forgiving next time. no one sees you, no one other than leo and me." and with that, he stormed out of the room and locked the door. you laid on the ground with a hoarse throat, sobbing on the floor. was this the "lord's" method of punishing you for being a heretic? in what world was this supposed to make you love the holy father? your questions are silenced by the exhaustion that took over your body. your bitterness was only heightened when you noticed how leo was still fast asleep. the plump baby always slept without a care in the world after he had his dose of your milk. you wished you could sleep in peace like that.

it was a rule that after you misbehaved, you would have to seek forgiveness from the holy father. the only way to do this was to walk with charles down to the main altar very late at night when everyone was asleep. he took note of your busted lip from his abuse earlier in the day, running his thumb over your bottom lip as you winced in pain. he muttered a soft apology, kissing your forehead before taking leo from your arms. you needn't burden yourself so much, besides your only focus should be on being forgiven for your sins. while you moved forward to begin your prayer, father gasly had woken up from his sleep to grab some water when he saw charles holding a baby in his hands. he frowned, approaching the latter,

"father leclerc, whose child is that?" he asked, and charles was just about ready to punch his friend. having to explain himself out of this one would be quite difficult. charles glanced down at his son, taking note of his peaceful features. his little fingers were wrapped around charles' forefinger, and he smiled at the sight. it reminded him of the older man from earlier in the day, asking to bury his son. charles' felt the air in his lungs freeze for a split second, imagining if he would have to do the same for his little boy in the future. it was a thought that scared him. he never wanted to lose leo, he never wanted to lose you. he inhaled, sharply and looked up at father gasly,

"i saw this little boy at an orphanage. i didn't have the heart to leave him out there in the cold so i took him in. he's beautiful isn't he?" charles' cooed, kissing leo's nose.

in the meantime, you had gotten to your knees and clasped your hands together. no matter how many times charles taught you how to pray, it never was an easy task. not when you still refused to believe in the existence of a higher being. if such a god existed, why didn't he save you? why would he have let you be tormented like this? you stared at the cross, tears welling up in your eyes at how hopeless everything seemed. you casted your eyes downwards, remembering what charles had said to you months before when you were faced complications in your pregnancy. your eyes had to be hidden. no one should know about your existence. no one should recognize.

"and if in the case someone meets your eyes, and sees you as (y/n) (l/n) the whore who used to dance in festivals and preach hersey with her followers, i shall find a diamond-encrusted dagger and gouge your eyes out so that no one shall remember what you used to look like..." charles' words echoed in your ears. you shook as you pretended to pray, your head empty with silence surrounding you. you felt a presence besides you, and you turned to tell charles that you had finished your prayer when instead you faced max.

"he's finally let you out, what a surprise," he whispered. you snapped your head back to the cross, your breathing now rapid as you tried to calm yourself. he took note of the way your breasts - from the small glimpse he had under your cloak - rose and fell in quick successions. "schatje, i've told you before, you need not fear me. i won't do anything to you."

"i cannot risk it. i cannot bring attention to myself," you whispered, and max rolled his eyes,

"there's barely anyone awake at this hour. come, i know a good place." he held out his hand, standing up on his feet. you hesitantly accepted his offer, finding it strange that he was treating you so kindly. he was asking, rather than demanding. you knew following max into the confession booth would land you in much more trouble tonight, but sat down besides you with a very soft look in those blue eyes. "here, you can tell me anything, schatje. how did you end up here? who is your child's father? whatever you wish to tell me you can."

perhaps it was out of desperation to finally have someone to properly talk to, but you revealed everything to max. you told him about your previous life, you told him how charles was obsessed with you, how he fucked a prostitute dreaming about you and how he burned your house down when your parents were away, kidnapping you and storing you away in the top of the cathedral in that hidden room to teach you the bible. you told him of your baby leo, how he had your eyes. you cared for the baby, but you could never bring yourself to love him. you sighed out loud after finishing your tale, staring at max as you waited for his reaction. he merely licked his lips, leaning his head back on the wall of the booth as he processed your tale.

"so the baby... is charles'. i knew the bastard wasn't pure," he chuckled, dryly. your face fell, having expected him to say something else. you were oblivious to their rivalry, already caught up in your own misfortunes. max tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear, "ah, my poor lady, you have gone through so much. what all did he teach you?"

"he used to read the-" you stopped when you saw max shake his head,

"no, no, not about the bible. what did he teach you in bed?" he pried your lips open with his thumb, letting your mouth envelop around his digit as you began to suck. "such a good little slut, fuck... i can see why he chose you. i have to give it to him."

"for christ's sake, pierre," charles snapped out of the formality he usually gave his friend, "pierre, snap out of it. the baby was abandoned, no more questions out of you." he was still stuck up in the cell of father gasly, rolling his eyes at the millionth question he had to answer.

"oh come on, charles," pierre scoffed, dropping his act of formality as well, "it's a cute baby. what awful creature would leave this baby to die?" he turned to face the infant, peppering his little face with kisses before pressing his cheek against his own, "can i keep the baby, charles? he's so cute."

"he's not a dog, pierre. he's my-" charles paused, clearing his throat before continuing, "he's an infant."

"an infant abandoned so close to christmas! and he has come to our church! is this a sign from the lord?" pierre asked, and charles' shoulders sagged. he ran his hands over his face,

"pierre, give the infant back to me. i assure you, it's..." charles paused, picking up max's voice from the distance, "is that father verstappen?"

"possibly, i've been told he likes walking around churches at night since the lord has a different ambience then... isn't that right, leo?" pierre cooed, nuzzling his nose against the baby's face. the infant merely giggled in response, trying to grab onto the chaplain's nose. charles bit his lower lip, the realization of having left you alone at the altar crossing his mind. he smacked his hand on his forehead, hurrying out of the cell.

"wait, the baby!" pierre called out, and charles shook his head,

"you can take care of leo for the night," and he hurried down the hallway, grabbing a candle. his fingers looped through the hole of its holder, and he stormed around the dark cathedral, spinning in circles to see where you could've gone. you weren't in front of the cross, you weren't in the aisles. he stopped for a moment, hearing the squelching of juices coming from the confession booth. he could see a small candle through the holes, the shadows of two bodies dancing together like the flames before him. charles' heart sank for a moment, praying that it wasn't you. it shouldn't be you. you were his, only his. he swung open the door to the confessional, and saw a sight that burned his eyes.

max had the top of your dress bunched down to your waist, his lips wrapped around your nipple, drinking your lavish milk while your greedy cunt sucked his fingers. your head thrown back as you let out soft moans, bucking into his hand as his palm rubbed against your clit. max released your tit with a pop, licking his lips as beads of your milk dribbled down his chin and he brought his mouth to kiss your jaw. he was grinning like a madman, eyes snapping to face charles' anguished expression and he picked up his pace, curling his fingers inside you, scissoring your poor cunt as you let out strangled moans, trying to be quiet. you squirted all over max's fingers, your juices coating the walls of the confessional, breathing heavy.

"the dove's quite the slut, father leclerc," max snorted, "so beautiful and perfect. she'd be my personal whore if i took her with me back to rome," he smiled, licking his fingers and sucking on them to relish your taste. "oh schat, you taste amazing."

"get the fuck out of here," charles hissed, jerking his thumb to the side. max slid you off his lap, standing up and straightening his robe. he pushed past charles, placing his cane at charles' neck,

"she told me everything. you're lucky you're loved so deeply by this church, or i would've convinced them to throw you out a long time ago," he threatened, letting the edge of the cane dig into charles' chest. the sharp pain made him grit his teeth, and when max left to return to his special quarters, charles' dark eyes slowly turned to you. you were shaking in the corner of the confessional, hooking the sleeves of your dress back up your shoulder as you got to your knees,

"charles please, i didn't mean it... it just happened so suddenly, i don't know how to-" a sharp sting bloomed on your cheek as your head snapped to the side. charles' shook his hand, the crack of his lap even hurting him. he looked at you with such disgust,

"i should've known... the devil hasn't left you, has she? she's stored in your heart, n'est-ce pas vrai putain?" he pressed his finger against the scar on your chest, forcing you back up against the wall. his hand shot out to grab your throat, dragging you out of the confessional and onto the aisle. your head hit against the wooden furniture, your temples throbbing in pain as you felt him bunch up the skirt to your dress. without much preparation, he thrusted himself in you in one-go, clamping your mouth shut to silence your screams. he did not care if he was defiling you right in front of the holy cross. this would be a mistake you'd never make ever again. he was your rightful owner, not max. his fingers dug into your hips, hips snapping against yours as he continued to drill his cock into your overstimulated cunt your previous orgasm had still left you in a daze because of max's skilled fingers, and now with charles' cock ravaging you, you were crying and begging for him to have mercy on you. your tits were leaking with milk, your body unable to control the sensations you were feeling. charles' hands groped your tits, squeezing your milk out for his tongue to catch and soon he flipped you onto your stomach, bringing his cock right back into your spent pussy. your gummy walls tightened around him, trying to push him out but it only motivated him to drive further into you. he grabbed your hair, yanking your head to face him as your back arched.

"why can't you see it?" charles hissed, slapping your ass firmly, "why can you never understand? you belong to me! only me! you're mine!" and with each thrust of his hips, his hold on you was loosening. you were sobbing onto the carpeted floors of the cathedral, burying your face in your arms as his cock stretched your unwilling walls into oblivion. "how many times do i have to prove myself to you?"

charles' dropped his head down to the back of your neck, his weight pushed onto you as he continued to snap his hips relentlessly. you could feel tears on your back. charles' tears. "why can't you understand?" he whimpered, wrapping your throat with his hand as he brought you closer to him, "will nothing i do satisfy you? what more should i do?"

his words didn't make sense to you, and you couldn't follow along with what he was getting at. not when he was destroying your poor cunt like this. he pulled out of you just shortly after you silently screamed, cumming around his cock and instead flipped you onto your back so that you could face him. his cock was still achingly hard, the tip all red and angry, waiting to cum. a needy moan escaped his lips, his hands fighting the urge to finish himself off, to let his cum coat your skin. but he was denying himself. instead, he glanced down at you as began to sob,

"you know how much i love you?" he whispered, and your eyes widened, realizing that he had finally said the words you knew he would never feel, "my love for you... i love you... i love you so much. why can't you...." he took in a shaky breath, standing up and confining his cock inside his robes, "i love you so much. i just want to be with you, to be loved by you. i love you so much, why can you never see it?"

since charles' confessions, he distanced himself away from you as much as he could. he'd give sermons and return to his cell. the door to your room was permanently unlocked, giving you access to roam around the cathedral as much as you pleased. it was a stark difference from the man you once knew, and you didn't know if he finally cleared his soul, or if this was a storm brewing. father gasly took care of leo so often that you felt free from the confines of being a mother. charles' would escort you to pierre's cell, insisting that a proper woman could only take care of a child even though the both of you knew it was just so that your son still remembered who his mother was. you'd walk the hallways of the cathedral at night, admiring the various statues and glass panels up close, taking note of its details. charles would stand in a corner, never once meeting your eyes. the thought of even touching you made his skin crawl. his chest always felt heavy, a newfound burden taking a toll on his body with each step that he took around the cathedral. the light on the holy cross no longer dimmed when he stood before it, instead it shined brighter. a chance for redemption, but he did not know how to gain your forgiveness. everything that he had done to you finally freed his clouded thoughts; he was a monster. he was the very devil he had claimed to have seen in you. his lust brought his own ruins, he felt ill every time he gave a sermon about avoiding all sins. he'd whimper in his sleep, feeling like a kicked puppy as he replayed the nights where he'd keep you awake to satisfy his carnal urges. he'd wake up more frequently at night, crying to himself at how unfit he was to be a chapter priest. he should be publicly stoned to death for what he had done. he always felt more than he should, father bozzi always told him that. it surely didn't help his emotions when he saw bishop verstappen talking with you more frequently in the darkness of the night. you were opening up to him more often, actually smiling and enjoying his presence, in a way that you never did with charles. he deserved it, rightfully so. he'd shuffle back to his cell, taking leo into his arms from father gasly and would hum some small lullabies to usher the infant back to sleep. he could not stare at the statue of virgin mary anymore, could not stand to see the imagery of the weeping virgin. he brought this upon you. it was all his fault. he had to make it up to you, but he just didn't know how exactly.

bishop verstappen had slipped a piece of paper to charles to watch out for something important later in the day, a special early christmas present for the chapter priest. it was the morning of christmas eve, most of the people were getting ready to settle with their family for the night. the church had been fully decorated, the bell ringers coming with big wide smiles on their faces as they ran to and fro, getting small gifts from the archdeacon for their work throughout the year. charles had let the church discover leo's existence the night before, letting each of the divisions of priests fawn over his "adopted" son as they put it.

"commendable charity work," father sainz smiled, "you really know how to represent what christmas is really about." and charles smiled, thinly.

you had followed bishop verstappen into the streets of your village. the bright light so foreign to you after so long. you brought your cloak over your face, watching the small children run around. some of the faces you recognized as your neighbors' children, the very ones you'd laugh and play with after you finished your work at your stall. you smiled warmly at the memories, laughing as they nearly bumped into you in excitement for some magic show happening around the corner. the sounds of families giggling and embracing each other on the streets made you miss your own parents. you had to know what happened to them. what would they think if they saw their daughter well and alive. and your friends! frederick, oscar, all of them! you knew they must've missed you. you turned to max, grinning at him as you held onto his hand,

"i want to see my parents. they have to be here." but you failed to see the way his arm recoiled at your touch, the way he stared at you as if he had something far sinister in his mind. he merely pulled off the hood of your clock and with an accusatory finger, shouted at your face,

"the witch! she's a witch! she's back from the dead!"

charles had been on the second floor of the cathedral, pressing the keys to the organ to entertain his son who looked at the instrument in awe. he nearly missed the yelling downstairs if he hadn't stopped toying with the organ. he glanced down to the main altar to find bishop verstappen waiting downstairs with his hands behind his back, a grin on his face. charles could feel that something was wrong, but nevertheless, he approached his enemy.

"what's going on outside? a commotion?" charles' inquired, patting leo's back as he bounced the infant in his arms a couple of times. he took note of the crowd outside the gates to the cathedral and he furrowed his brows, moving to investigate before max grasped onto his shoulder.

"you're free from the devil, father leclerc." max smiled and charles scowled,

"what do you mean?"

"you have such an esteemed reputation at this church," max scoffed, rolling his eyes at the stupidity of charles, "we wouldn't want to ruin it. no one knows about this child, you can't keep the truth hidden forever. so you get rid of the truth."

"i... i'm not following along, what?"

"for fuck's sake," max groaned, shaking his head, "i accused her of being a witch, of coming back from the dead. she'll be burned at the stake later today, and you can thank me for it. all your guilt, all your lustful thoughts, all of it will be gone if she's gone. perfect, is it not? i would've kept her as my personal slut like i said earlier, but there's bound to be a million other women like her."

"are you insane?" charles yelled, startling leo who began to cry, "who asked of this from you? she... she trusted you!" he gulped, thinking about how you must've felt at this moment. putting your trust into a man after he had ruined everything for you, only for this cunt to betray you so openly in front of everyone. charles' anger knew no bounds and he shoved max to the side, storming out of the church to see the sight of you on a stick, hoisted into the air. your head hung low, bruises all over your body after being being stoned and flogged accordingly to your crime. charles' gasped out loud, pushing past the crowd to see them bring you over to the pile of hay in the center of the town square, ready to set fate. he watched the other priests, ones that he knew so well, cheer on for this heretic's damnation. leo cried louder, the screams hurting his ears and charles shielded his son into his chest, and with anxious eyes faced you. with what little strength you had left in you, you glanced up to the sky with tears cascading down your cheeks, blood spilling out of the inside of your mouth and there he saw it.

no longer was the weeping virgin just a flicker of his imagination or a sight meant to fool him, she was there right before him. he could see your tears as the holy water he used in his sermons, the glow around your head ready to accept your fate. no, he couldn't do this. after everything that he had put you through, he had to redeem himself. charles would never forgive himself if he stood to the side and let everyone take advantage of you, not to the virgin mary that he worshipped every day and night.

"enough with this foolishness!" charles' bellowed, stepping onto the pile of hay as he glanced down at the crowd surrounding you. "all of you stop this nonsense!"

he took in a deep breath, waiting for each idiot to silence themselves to let him speak. "enough... what are you all doing?"

"she's a heretic!" one man cried out.

"she's come back from the dead!" another hollered.

"a witch, a witch!" the crowd chanted in unison, and charles stomped his foot and screamed,

"silence!" he took in a deep breath, glancing down to see leo staring at him with wide eyes. he always had your eyes. he gulped, tilting his head back up to face the crowd once more, "today is christmas eve. tomorrow is christmas morning. you want to mark this holy tradition with the killing of a woman? is this what our holy father has taught us?"

he watched the crowd shift awkwardly and he continued, "she has progressed much in her religious journey. she is not back from the dead. she was actually... learning the glories of our savior. listen to me, all of you, put aside your fears. she will not... she won't hurt any of us."

"then what do you expect us to do with her? she's not welcome in this village," charles' stared at the man who said this; it was your own father. he sucked his teeth in, shaking his head and sighing loudly,

"we send her to exile. she stays alive, but she shall never step foot in this village ever again." charles' declared, and despite the crowd coming to agreeance, he glanced to see you staring at him with a look of horror in your eyes. he gulped, turning his back to you as he held onto leo, hoping that the holy father would commend him for saving your life.

the wagon sat outside the back of the cathedral. it was snowing outside, too cold for leo but he had his son bundled up in the finest fabric to ensure his little toes wouldn't get frostbite. he stared at the cross from behind him. something felt... empty inside his heart. he had saved your life, but the thought of sending you to exile. it was all his fault, all of it was his fault. and no matter how long he stayed at this church, no amount of penance could save his damned soul for what he had done to you. he watched you seat yourself on the wagon, face all bruised as you weakly smiled at him.

"thank you, charles... for what you did back there." you whispered, groaning in pain as you shifted in your seat. you saw the pained expression in his eyes, and you cupped his cheek, letting him feel the warmth of you skin. "what you did charles, that was real love."

he fell to his knees at your words, tears pricking at his eyes, "no... no, don't say that. i've done awful things to you. i've been a horrible person. my lust clouded my thoughts, i... i really love you. i can't bear the thought... of... no, i can't let you leave me." he grabbed hold of your hand, bringing it to his forehead as he sobbed. his cheeks flushed into a rosy shade of red as he glanced up at you, "t-take me with you. i can't... i can't live here. not after what i've done. i'll come up with you. we can live together in a small hut, we can just be by ourselves and i'll make it up to you, i swear i will, just give me one more chance mon ange-"

"no, charles," you snapped, "no... i deserve to be free. i deserve to have the life i wanted. and as for leo..." you stretched your arms out, ready to take your infant but charles shook his head,

"i refuse. i refuse to let you go, i refuse to let you take away my son. i love both of you. just say you forgive me, say you'll take me with you."

you sighed out loud, groaning under your breath as you felt a sharp pang of pain course through your veins. you bit your lip, "i think we can come to a compromise then."

your wagon departed with your belongings. you never once looked back at charles as you left. you had said what he wanted to hear: "i forgive you. a life for a life. your debt is paid." but it wasn't enough for him. you left leo to his care, knowing that despite how he had treated you, he would never commit horrors to his child. charles could learn to properly love. you knew he had it in him. his heart was always large, always taken by emotions.

he felt too strongly. it was his curse.

he took leo back into the church, and set him down on the table right before the holy cross. he glanced up to see the holy spirit shine before him, wiping away his tears. there was still a long road for him back to salvation, but he promised that he would attain it. he would make up for all the sins that he had committed. he would spend the rest of his life craving for the love that he felt for you. if only you had stayed. the longer that he served for the church, he realized that he was wrong all along. the holy father could not save his soul no matter how hard he tried. all the countless sermons, the masses, the christmas and easter holidays, the verses from the bibles, the holy crosses, the tears from the weeping virgin, all of it was in vain.

because you were his religion.

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saturngalore · 1 month ago

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orisabunmi 💗

surprise and happy new year! 🥂 im back with the super cute sister hair of my kipetaka braids hairstyle that was inspired by this hairstyle done by slayedinbraids on instagram! orisabumni (“the orisa gifted me”) is a traditional yoruba hairstyle that’s consists of two other traditional hairstyles, the shuku and the koroba. im not extremely knowledgeable and familiar with traditional west african hairstyles so, please let me know if im wrong!

v1 is simplest version of the hairstyle with only the braided bun or basket at the top. v2 has the braided bun and spiral braids in the front. v3 is like version 2 but with side braids with beads that come in a default multi-color brown bead pattern (not pictured but it’s the same as my paraíso hairstyle’s beads). the bead pattern has 29 color swatches which includes 2 pan african swatches and various lgbtq flag inspired patterns! i hope y’all like it! <3 download and details for the hairs are below!

i also would like to continue to spotlight this list i put together of fundraisers and resources that will help people in the democratic republic of congo and sudan. i am also including a fundraiser that will help african migrants in lebanon get back to their home countries. please share and donate if you can! anything truly helps! 🫶🏾

gofundme fundraiser for african migrants in lebanon

download via simsharefile (sfs) or on my patreon - ALWAYS FREE!

base game compatible (bgc)

maxis palette (24 swatches)

comes with a bead accessory (29 swatches)

teen-elder

both frames

not hat compatible (some accessories can fit!)

custom thumbnails

disallowed for random

all lods

please tag me if you do use my cc! i would absolutely love to see it! also, please let me know if you encounter any issues with my cc! here’s my tou.

tysm to cc rebloggers! @public-ccfinds @sssvitlanz

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fadeintosatoru · 2 months ago

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just thinking about the jjk guys getting you christmas presents...

cw: suggestive :)

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like ik Gojo would SPOIL you rotten, like your christmas tree would be STACKED with all the gifts he got you.

what did he get you?

anything youve ever laid your eyes on. Gojo is a good listener and observant, he'd take anything youve mentioned you wanted and add it to his notes app. And the best part is that youre alaays shocked when its an item you kentioned earlier in the year.

Now Nanami, ugh my mannn, i know hed be a good gift giver, though its not as extravagant as Gojo, he would maybe get you maybe like 5 gifts max? but they would all hold so much value.

He seems like the type to gift you a puppy or cat, or like an expensive necklace that hes worked sooo hard for, all that overtime means nothing to him, when sees the way uour eyes light up and your smile so big it makes his heart swell.

Mm next is Getooo, my other man, he'd definitely gift you things you need, like lets say you ran out of favorite perfume, but its too expensive for you at the moment so he'd definitely gift you it. Or maybe you're in need of a new bag or shoes, he wouldnt hesitate to gift them.

lets talk about Toji, hehe, mm id say he would try to save up for christmas but its hard for him :/ like he seems like hed rather give you wtv money so you can just buy what you want, or he'd walk into victorias secret to buy you cute lingerie for you (him)

ouu yesss, he loves buying you lingerie, its his favorite thing to do, bc he gets painfully hard imagining you wearing wtv skimpy thing he buys you.

Hmm, Sukuna, (im thinking of him in a modern au) mm youd def be his first girlfriend so he doesnt know what to get you, he finds it kinda dumb, but he doesnt want you to feel like he doesnt care, he does. He cares so much, that he will buy months prior just to make sure the things you want arent sold out and get on time. He cares so much, that he asks yuji to help him wrap the gifts. He cares SO MUCH, that he writes you handwritten letters, saying how much he loves and appreciates you.

Hm thinking about Megumi, since he didnt inherit his dad's gambling issues, he def have a good money saved up bc of gojo, i like to think gojo couldve given him an allowance, so hed probably gift you some sort of jewelry, or something you'd been wanting for a long ass time. Though hes not good at showing affection, he thinks he deserves the world and would gladly buy you anything youd want.

next up is baby Yuji, ugh hed def get u burr basket :( he'd get you face masks bc he knows how much u love them (he also loves them), he'll get you your favorite snacks, and some cute matching pjs and socks, he'd def write a cute little letter for you :(

He seems like the type to buy anything matching, he just loves it. So hell def buy you and him, matching grinch slippers, ouuu if ur into hello kitty or sanrio, he'd get you anything sanrio, from plushies, jewelry, to mugs. Hesss soo cute :3

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archiesbestgiftstore · 2 months ago

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https://archiesonline.com/product-category/greeting-cards/new-year-greeting-cards/

Ring in the New Year with heartfelt messages and beautiful designs from Archies! Their collection of New Year greeting cards offers the perfect way to send your best wishes to loved ones. Whether you're looking for a thoughtful, funny, or elegant card, Archies has something to suit every style and sentiment this New Year.

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bratbarzal · 2 months ago

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Let It Happen (LH43) 3/3

Pairing: Luke Hughes x Fem!Reader

WC: 17k

>PART ONE< / >PART TWO<

I'll spare you from everything, if you would still have me, I'll be waiting all my life

General Warnings: pining and longing and fluff galore!!! I think maybe sexual references but who remembers atp. angst (slut shaming, mentions of past relationships and I can't think of a better way to say daddy issues we've all been there)

A/N: we did it, Joe!!!! desktop tumblr really didn't want this to happen!!! I can't believe I finished this!! thank you guys so much for reading, and liking, and messaging me and reblogging and all the commentary, and all the love!!! I appreciate it so much!!

if there is a crossover of readers of on your side and readers of this fic (first of all ily) there is a little oys easter egg in here!! did I think through the logistics of this being set in the same universe? no. did I have fun anyway? yes. I fell in love with writing Luke in that fic so it was only right for me to add it in here!!

Happy New Year to everyone, thank you for reading my work!! 2024 was the year I finally plucked up the courage to write all my random thoughts down and the fact that it spiralled into this blows my mind a bit, but I'm grateful to be here!!

You can distinctly remember the first time you had properly taken notice of Luke Hughes, and it wasn’t back in the restaurant at the club like he probably thinks.

It had been early November, in your freshman year.

Ellie had finally convinced you to join her at one of the games at Yost, and you were bundled up in a coat two sizes too big, the only thing you had remotely close to team colours, and the only thing likely to keep you warm enough to tolerate a whole game and warm-ups.

You were watching the boys skate around, and he had caught your eye in an instant.

“Who’s that one?” You had asked, pointing down to where number 43 was reaching out awkwardly to sweep up pucks with his stick. You could see the soft brown curls peaking out the back of his helmet from all the way in the stands, and his height made it unmistakable to realise that you recognised him.

He had come up to you at a Halloween party the week before, and if you hadn’t been so preoccupied by the fact that your only-just-ex boyfriend at the time was in the same room, his tongue down another girl’s throat, you might have been endeared by the boy in the dog costume.

Friendly smile, boyishly handsome features and warm eyes that under any other circumstances might have made your heart skip a beat. It wasn’t the first time you had seen him - you vaguely remembered the gift basket, and you knew he was in a couple of your classes, but you had never really spared him more than a fleeting glance before that party.

As soon as he had noticed your teary eyes upon approach, his demeanour had changed in an instant, and where anyone else might have backed off, might have been uncomfortable or deterred, done a u-turn and given up on his mission to approach, his expression had softened - worried and caring in a way that made your throat go dry, and you had to dash off to the nearest bathroom to splash your tears away.

“That’s Luke,” Ellie had told you, “Luke Hughes, Jack’s brother.”

“Oh,” You had pouted, disappointed. Jack had made it painfully obvious that he wasn’t your biggest fan the first time you had met him, and if you’re honest, you were hardly a great admirer of his, either.

Ellie had noticed your expression, had nudged you with her elbow until you took your eyes off of the figure on the ice, and had narrowed her eyes right at you. “Why?”

“He’s in a couple of my classes, is all,” you shrugged, eyes travelling back and finding him in an instant.

“Luke’s cool. You’d eat him alive, though, probably get bored within a week.”

“I wasn’t thinking about him like that,” you frowned, watching him skate around the ice with the grace and enthusiasm of a clumsy puppy dog. Cute. “Just curious.”

“He’s waaaay too nice for you,” she scoffed, and you had tried to swallow down the pang of offence you had felt, knowing she had very little of your past to compare him to. The two of you had only been roommates for a couple of months at that point, and she had only ever seen you interested in your ex. “He’s also kind of a like a little brother to me. Dorky and annoying, but I’m very protective of him.”

You had bit your tongue at how patronising that had sounded, knowing Ellie was one of the youngest people of your freshman class - a July baby - and Luke might even have been older than her.

“Like I said, just curious.”

You had noticed Luke a lot more after that, though.

A quiet, recurring presence.

A seat behind you in business comms, a figure against the wall in the corner of the room at different parties, on posters that lined the walls and the perimeter of Yost Arena, in articles you edited for extra credit in the Michigan Daily.

You had even made small efforts to get him to talk to you - never being the type to make the first move, yourself - started talking to his friends, some of the guys on the hockey team, had made sure his name was on the list for your sorority parties, you’d even dropped your pen once in class, and he’d just handed it back over with a soft smile, never uttering a word.

You wouldn’t call it a crush, but it was somewhere around the borderline of that - especially looking back after the summer you shared with him.

And you think, in retrospect, that if he’d have ever made a move, would have spoken to you even just once after the incident at the Halloween party, you probably would have developed one.

You hate to admit it, now, but he had been right all those weeks ago in the restaurant.

He’s kind of inevitable like that.

By the time he disappeared in your sophomore year that little spark of something had mostly fizzled out, but it didn’t entirely stop you unintentionally keeping tabs. Stats that cropped up on the sports channels, articles in the paper, posts on your instagram feed.

And you don’t know what you would call it, the way he kind of stuck with you, but when you’d seen him in that booth in the beginning of summer - when he’d spoken to you in full sentences, had met your eye and held contact in a way that sucked you in like a vacuum - you kind of felt that spark reignite.

The boy you almost, kind of, could have known, once upon a time, finally making the effort to get to know you.

And Luke Hughes is persistent. You have a detached admiration for just how much. He pushes, and he presses, and he perseveres until all your resolve is gone - resolve you’ve spent years mastering, with quick wit and snark protecting your heart from anyone who dares to take aim for it.

But that detachment is waining.

Especially as you lay on your front on your childhood bed, the NHL awards playing on the TV in your room back at your mom’s house, and you try to busy your hands with the crotchet kit you had picked up from the mall before you came home for a couple of days.

Your admiration is blooming and blossoming in the depths of your stomach into something intricate and uncontrollable.

And it has nothing to do with his name, his career, the award he is nominated for.

It’s just him.

Larger than life on your TV screen, but it still doesn’t capture him in his entirety, and you think for the first time that you miss him. You miss movies in his bed, you miss watching him from the passenger seat of his BMW, the sun shining from the window beside him, illuminating his profile until you burn from the glare. You miss his stupid jokes and his teasing smiles, and you miss the warmth in your cheeks when he looks your way.

And it’s only been like 2 days.

You miss Luke Hughes.

You kind of think you missed him before he even left.

You might have even missed him before you knew him, but that would be crazy, right?

Maybe he makes you crazy.

Maybe you need this week to recuperate, to attempt to build those walls back up before they’re damaged beyond repair.

Luke hadn’t given much thought to missing you before he and his brothers left for Vegas. He’d been so caught up, internally, about his and Quinn’s nominations, that he had thought it would continue to distract him the whole time they had been out there, but boy was he wrong.

All he remembers about his trip is thinking of you, and when the boys got back, and you had been visiting your mom for the weekend, all he could do was think of you more.

He thought of you when they sat at the table for dinner, and your place across from his was empty. He thought of you when he watched movies alone, thought of texting you some sort of commentary as he worked his way through the list of rom-coms you had given him, but you hadn’t texted him yet, so he gave up quickly on that idea.

He thought of you in bed, thought of the last time the two of you had been in there, together, and if he’s honest, he thinks of that almost all the time. Of messy kisses, wandering hands, and connection so deep he doesn’t think it will ever fizzle out.

And when he finally sees you again, he thinks he might have to get Quinn to source some sort of defibrillator for the house, because he swears his heart stops beating.

You poke your head into his bedroom, a shy smile on your face, and your bag is still on your shoulder, which means he had been your first stop, before you’d even gone to drop your things in yours and Ellie’s room.

He sees you in the reflection of his mirror, and turns immediately, clumsy fingers releasing the tie he’s been struggling to get right for a couple minutes, and steps toward you before he can even begin to tell himself not to seem so eager.

“You’re back!” He grins, and when your face lights up in return, he can hardly find it in himself to care anymore how down bad he comes across.

“Yeah,” you breathe, stepping into the room, discarding your bag by the door and shuffling toward him. “You didn’t have get all dolled up for my return.”

You reach to take both sides of the tie into your hands, and he feels himself go warm all over at the mere proximity of you after so long apart.

“It’s my cousin’s wedding,” he tells you as you start to knot the tie, knuckles brushing slightly across his chest until he’s holding his breath, lungs expanding so that he feels your touch a little more. “They’re having their reception at the club, later, you should come down.”

“You’re asking me to your cousin’s wedding?”

“Not like that,” he chuckles nervously as he looks down at you, eyes focused on the task at hand. “Just, haven’t seen you in a week, wouldn’t want to leave you here alone, it could be fun.”

Not to mention the fact he’s been watching the door for the past two days while he’s been home, waiting for you to get back and hoping it would be before the event, and he could figure out some way to ask you.

“You can’t just invite a random person to your cousin’s wedding reception, Luke.”

“She said I could!” He reasons, frowning when you raise a brow at him. “Not a random person, she said I could bring a friend.” He grasps gently at your hands as they straighten the fabric, halting your movements. “We’re friends, right?”

“If you say so.”

That wasn’t a no, he thinks, courage building within him in such a way that he starts to buzz with it. That would definitely have been a flat out no, before.

“You’d be doing me a favour.” He bargains, still holding your hands against his chest. “Quinn and Jack are bringing Josh and Turcs, I’d be like a fifth wheel,”

“So what you’re telling me is that you have no other friends?”

“Sure, if that’s what tugs at your heartstrings.” He has plenty of friends he could ask. Eddy, Duker, Luca - they’re all in town. None of them would look as pretty in a dress as you would, though. He wants to say there’s no chance of any of them kissing him after a few cocktails, but that would probably be a lie. “C’mon, they’re not gonna be checking IDs at the bar,” he wiggles his eyebrows in an attempt to convince you, “The free bar.”

“I don’t have anything to wear to a wedding,”

“What about that blue dress you wore to the formal last year?”

He remembers his throat going dry at just a picture - frosty baby blue silk against glowing skin, hair falling past your shoulders, the prettiest smile he’s ever seen in every photo.

And that is where misplaced courage gets him, he thinks. Letting slip that he has been creeping on your Instagram like some deranged stalker, because where else would he have seen you in that dress? He’d been in Jersey, by then. Scrolling down his timeline and swiping at every photo dump in what he didn’t even realise at the time was an obvious attempt to catch a glimpse of you.

Idiot.

“That was Ellie’s dress. I think she gave it to the Goodwill or something.” You frown, barely even picking up on his slip - unaware to the point that his heart rate can level back out to normalcy.

“You’ve got time to go shopping, you could get another,” he shrugs, reaching into the pocket of his pants. “Here, take my card.”

“Gee, thanks, Daddy Warbucks,” you push at his hand when he attempts to give it to you.

“I’m not adopting you. I’m more like Richard Gere in Pretty Woman.”

“Are you implying I’m a prostitute?”

“No,” he scoffs, only because, unintentionally, he totally was, and now he can’t get the picture out of his head - you in thigh high boots, legs for days stood out of the blue skirt, and the white top with the cutouts, soft summer skin he’s been missing the touch of peaking through - and he starts to wonder if that would be too much too soon to ask of you; to dress up for him like that. Maybe for halloween, if the two of you have progressed past whatever this is, by then. Keep dreaming, Hughes, he can already hear you saying. “More like a sugar baby.”

“I don’t need your money.”

“I’m trying to do something nice for you.”

“You don’t have to buy me things for me to like you.” You pout, and his own lips curl up at your defensiveness - so eager to prove yourself to him over something he isn’t even actually pressing.

“Because you like me already?” He can’t help himself, a small voice in the back of his mind telling him to push, push, push at your buttons until you practically malfunction - craving you in whatever disoriented state it was that he had seen you in last, pliant and willing and crumbling so nicely for him to scoop up and piece back together. “Because you missed me?”

He shouldn’t want that - want to have to hold you in place, that is, not really - but he does. He wants to be the one that gets you like that. The only one.

“What time’s the reception?”

That should also have been a flat out no.

Interesting.

You give in so easily, then, to the point where Luke gets giddy, letting you know when and where he wants you - always and anywhere, if he’s honest - and you roll your eyes as you agree, but you stay right in front of him long after you’ve finished with his tie, and he’s so tempted to kiss you that he’s buzzing with excitement.

He sneaks a kiss to the corner of your mouth - quick enough that you don’t push him away, or make any sort of comment about it, and darts down the stairs at Quinn’s calls for him, leaving you to figure out whatever it is you need to do to be ready for later.

And he thanks his lucky stars that later comes before he has the chance to really dwell on it. His day passes in a blur, the ceremony over in a flash, family photos taken before he even realises he doesn’t need to force a cheesy smile, and only brief moments spared over the course of the early afternoon to think about the things he’s lacking.

As he sits in the church between his brothers, he realises that he wants to be sitting with an arm slung around you and a hand in your lap - your fingers swirling absentminded shapes into his palm as the two of you watch the ceremony side by side. Wants to look down at you staring up the aisle in bewilderment, a soft flush to your cheeks, a dopey grin on your face and a far-off look in your eyes. Wants to mutter stupid jokes in your ear and watch you twist your lips to bite back a giveaway smile.

As he rides over to the club in the back of Quinn’s car, sandwiched between Alex and Josh with his brothers up front, he thinks he’d kill to have you in his lap - as illegal as that may be, but it’s only 5 minutes, and he’d make sure you were safe with an arm curled around your waist.

And when he’s waiting in the reception hall at the club, the late afternoon ticking into early evening, hearing speeches about falling in love and finding your person, he wants you in the seat beside him. Wants to rest his arm on the back of your chair, play with loose strands of your hair or stroke soft fingertips against your warm skin, and press gentle kisses into your temple.

It’s alarming how quick these thoughts consume him - his college years spent pining, his summer spent basking in whatever attention you choose to give him - and he can’t help but let himself be carried away with the hope of it all, that maybe he is wearing you down enough to give in to such thoughts.

Especially when he sees you walking in, and he swears the world has started moving in slow motion like a scene fresh out of one of those rom-coms you keep trying to subject him to.

His legs stretch without any instruction from his brain, pushing himself up onto his feet until he can make his way over and meet you halfway.

Your eyes light up and your hand lifts in a nervous wave as you start heading straight for him, the action causing the thin spaghetti strap of your dress to fall down your shoulder.

“Hey,” he breathes out, in what feels like relief, mouth breaking out into a dreamy grin until you’re right in front of him.

“Sorry I’m a little late, it took me forever to find a dress, and then my hair wouldn’t go right, and then the Uber took every back road known to man despite me literally telling him,” Luke reaches to readjust the fallen strap as you talk, fingers trailing ever so slightly against the soft skin of your shoulder, “That I knew a quicker way, and then we ended up at those lights over on Palmer for like 10 minutes, I think I was in that car so long I’m all crinkly.”

His eyes drop slowly down your figure, the silky fabric clinging to your curves in all the right spots, the soft yellow a perfect match to the tie around his neck. “You’re beautiful,” he reassures you with ease, cheeks flushing ever so slightly when your eyes meet his - but he’s used to that, by now, the way his head goes hot when you look at him. “I was gonna get a drink, do you want one?”

He extends his hand out to you in invitation before you even nod in response, and when your fingers slide between his, the heat that is swirling around his head and face starts to spread down, past his neck, into his chest, settling there as the two of you make your way over to the bar.

This last week without you has been hell.

Sat in his hotel room in Vegas, checking his phone for any sort of update - a text, an instagram post, a story - and wondering if that night before he had left had been playing on your mind the same way it had on his.

Soft, slow kisses pressed into reciprocated lips, hands memorising every inch of each other’s bodies, desperate but intentional movements into one another. It was hardly his first time, but God, had it felt like it. It was definitely the first time he had ever felt anything that deep for another person - felt so connected, so attached.

And, despite the lingering insecurity that he thinks he might always feel when it comes to you, he knew you felt the same.

You had told him in the simplest terms - you wanted him - but you had shown him so much more. Eyes stuck on his as he moved against you, foreheads pressed together, lips seeking his at every given opportunity, nails scratching at the broad expanse of his shoulders when he had taken the lead and flipped the two of you over.

Gasps and moans, pleading and pining, begging and singing for him as you came undone for the first, second and third time.

He doesn’t know how you can possibly even try to carry on pretending you don’t feel even an ounce of the infatuation he does.

Not when you look at him the way you do, eyes sparkling and wanting. Not when he had spent the past week pressing his fingertips into the bruises you had kissed again into the lowest part his stomach like that had become your spot, hoping he could aggravate them enough to linger until you could make some more.

Not when, even though the two of you have been stood at the bar now for a good few minutes, you haven’t made any efforts to take your fingers from where his are playing with them between the two of you.

“You never answered my question, earlier,” he hums as the two of you wait for your drinks.

“You talk so much, Hughes, you’re gonna have to remind me which question that was.”

“Did you miss me?” His head tilts with curiosity as he watches the hesitation cross your features, lashes fluttering as you look up at him with your lips pressed together to keep them from spluttering out the truth. “I missed you.” He admits, in the hopes that expressing his candour might elicit the same in you.

“I’m surprised you found the time, you looked very occupied on your brothers’ stories.” Bingo.

“You been keeping tabs on me?” The smirk that accompanies the question is instinctual, and he manages to catch the slight shift in your demeanour before you can retreat, closing his fingers around your hand before you can pull it away.

“No,” you scoff, and when you pull insistently for him to release your hand, the strap of your dress falls loose down your arm again, Luke’s eyes following before he fixes it for you once more. “Just stumbled across some pictures, I guess,”

“Yeah, you just tripped and fell into stalking me?”

“Don’t act like you weren’t doing the same, I saw those little 3 dots come up so often I was starting to think you were typing up the entirety of War and Peace.”

Which means you’d been lingering in your message thread with him, too. Gotcha.

“You know, the world won’t end if you just admit you missed me.”

“Fine.” It slips out before you know what you’re saying, eyes widening like a deer in the headlights as you realise you’ve already given in. “I missed you.”

He smiles, but doesn’t press, and it’s a smile that lingers as the two of you just look at each other, his eyes drifting down to watch your lips twist and press together, biting back whatever insult or chirp you’re just dying to throw his way to cover up. He waits for it to come, but loves that it doesn’t, and loves even more that you’re holding onto the moment as much as he is.

“Do you wanna dance?” Luke asks a while later, once the two of you have gulped down a couple of drinks, have sat with the others for a little, and he’s watched you watch the dance floor with a yearning gaze.

Your eyes meet his after he poses the question, a confidence in his demeanour that has you crumbling immediately.

You nod, allowing him to guide you over to where a few other couples are swaying on the dance floor, and you let him guide you into his arms, one hand in his and the other resting on his shoulder.

It should be awkward, you think, remembering back on all the times you’ve tried this before. School dances and proms, clumsily shuffling and trying to avoid being stomped on by your partner’s feet - but the two of you move with ease, and you’d like to think it’s because his body knows yours by now.

“This is so weird,” you mutter, eyes cast down to watch his feet move in his fancy Oxford shoes, a soft flush to your cheeks.

“What do you mean?” He asks, nerves heightening as he stiffens like he’s waiting for you to let him go - to step away and cut this short like it doesn’t make you feel the same way.

“Slow dancing is for old folk like war veterans and millennials.” Your lips twist as your eyes meet his, and his lips turn up into a slow smile, a deep, melodic chuckle following closely behind.

“If you’d rather bump’n'grind on me, I get it,” he smirks.

“You’re such an idiot,” you scoff back, twitching to shake the hair from your shoulder, assuming that’s what is causing the shivers currently shooting down your spine, and not the large, possessive hand resting in the dip of your waist.

“Y’know, I’ve realised something about you lately,” he starts, voice low as he leans in, angling into your exposed neck and stopping his lips within mere inches of your ear, “You have a tell.”

“A tell?” You turn, brow raised as your gaze meets his, faces close enough that you can feel the soft pants of his breath on your skin.

“For when you’re enjoying yourself more than you think you should be,” he hums, his eyes fluttering a little as they drop to watch your mouth, the swipe of your tongue wetting your lower lip. “You call me an idiot,” his hand on your waist squeezes ever so slightly, your back arching a little into his touch, “Or stupid,” he uses his other hand, the one clutching at yours, to pull you closer, “Or dumb, or a dork.”

You can feel your heart thudding at the call-out, beating in time to the music, in time to the way your bodies sway together, creating it’s own rhythm for the two of you to dance to.

“Maybe you’re just a stupid, dumb, dorky idiot.” You squeak out, immediately hating the way the words taste in your mouth, your face souring and eyes narrowing in deliberation. There’s no way that was at all convincing, and the smirk that tugs up his lips is all you need to know he sees right through you.

“Maybe,” he humours you, anyway. “And yet, you can’t get enough of me.”

“A smug dorky idiot.” You correct yourself, cutting out stupid and dumb, the sharpness of those words cutting at your tongue like a knife.

The pointlessness of such discussion almost waters down the exhilaration you feel at being this close to him, in public, nonetheless, where literally anyone else could call you out on your growing tolerance of Luke, could connect the dots regarding all the time the two of you have been spending together and wave the evidence of your growing affection like a chequered flag for all to see.

This definitely feels like you’re crossing the finish line.

And, of course, it’s Jack who does the honours, primed all night to find some way to get between you and Luke upon your arrival, stumbling up to the two of you at the end of the song you’re swaying to and laying a heavy palm on your shoulder.

“Isn’t this cosy?”

“Fuck off, Jack,” Luke scowls before you get the chance, a pointed glare directed towards his brother, the palming grip at your waist growing faint as you try to wedge a little distance between the two of you, fighting a losing battle with your instinct to run and hide.

“I need to talk to your girlfriend.”

“I’m not his-,”

“She’s not my-,”

The two of you speak simultaneously, and despite the fact that you were saying the exact same thing, him saying it kind of dampens your mood, putting a good couple of steps between you and Luke with your arms crossing over your chest as you look toward his brother.

“Whatever. Can I borrow her for a couple minutes?”

“I’m not property, Jack, you can ask me directly.”

“Please can we talk? Alone?”

“Let’s go outside,” you huff, storming off before he has the chance to say anything else and making it all the way outside before he speaks again.

“Sorry for interrupting, you and Luke looked kind of cute-,”

“What do you want?”

“I’m sorry I said you were messing him around, and that you were toxic.”

You frown at him, watching as he diverts his gaze to the ground, nervously shuffling on his feet and fingers fidgeting with the cuffs on his shirt.

“I’m sorry for all the things I said and did at that party, I didn’t mean them, I was just drunk and upset. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

You chew nervously on the inside of your cheeks as he talks, arms wrapped around yourself to shield from the brisk night air, and you watch as Jack starts to unravel before your very eyes.

For as long as you’ve known Ellie, for as long as you’ve known him, you’ve never seen him as anything less than cool, calm and collected - it’s kind of the main thing that grinds your gears about him if your honest, the fact that he never seems real. Like he’s putting on some sort of persona to seem like he has all his shit together, when you know he doesn’t.

“I really like Ellie, you know,” he sighs, and you scoff, because of course you know that. “And I was blaming you for putting this wedge between us when it’s really me that’s been fucking up.” You know that, too. “I’ve been thinking about her this past week, and I really wanna pull myself together and finally do something about it. Stop being such an idiot.”

You bite your tongue from questioning the reality of that. He’ll always be an idiot, you think, but that’s best left unspoken. It’s not even personal to him, that’s just part of being a man.

“She likes you too,” You tell him instead, despite the fact that it goes against all sorts of girl code to do so. You’re doing them both a favour, and the universe should really just let you off, you feel. “I don’t know why either of you have wasted so much time when you’ve both felt the same way all along.”

“You really think she’d say yes if I asked her out?”

“I do,” you shrug, “And it doesn’t need to be done on some romantic boat trip or some crazy elaborate scheme, you should just ask her when she gets back next week. Like as soon as she comes through the door, it will save us all a headache.”

“You sound like Luke.”

“Yeah, well, he’s rubbing off on me, I guess.”

“I don’t need to hear what the two of you get up to when you’re alone, that’s my little brother.”

You reach over and shove at his arm, and for the first time ever, when your eyes meet his, neither of them are narrowed. He’s smiling, and you’re smiling too, and it feels a little like a weight has been lifted from your chest, fresh air filling your lungs.

“Let’s go back inside, Luke’s probably thinking we’ve killed each other.”

“I’m just gonna take a second, it’s kinda stuffy in there.”

Jack nods, before making his way back to the reception, and you make your way over to the fountain, heels working through the gravel until you take a seat on the side.

It’s a couple of minutes before you hear footsteps, and before you see the fancy oxfords come into your view, eyes roaming up the long, lean body of the boy who has your brain running marathons.

When your eyes meet, his gaze is warm, and it feels like he can see right through you. Like he’s looking into the depths of your mind, holding a big cheesy sign as he waits at the finish line for your thoughts to come to an end.

He sits wordlessly beside you, his knees knocking against yours, and waits for you to speak - although the silence doesn’t feel awkward, or forced. He waits, patiently and understandingly, and you feel like he’s giving you the time to figure out what you want to say.

It feels monumental, this moment, like you’re teetering on the edge of something real and honest for the first time in a while.

“The other week, when we,” your voice feels heavy, thick at the back of your throat, “You know,”

“I was strictly advised to forget about it, so no, I don’t know,” he teases, and you’re kind of thankful that he’s trying to ease the tension you’re building for yourself. “But if you wanna jog my memory.” You shove lightly at his shoulder. “I’m kidding. What about it?”

“I’ve never really done that before?”

“What, snuck a guy up to his room in the middle of a house party and rocked his world?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” You scoff, smiling to yourself, despite the weight of all that you’re about to admit to him. “I’ve only ever slept with one other guy, and he wasn’t very nice about it after, so I just,” you frown, “Don’t really do it.”

“You don’t-,” he frowns too, you can see it from your peripheral, eyes till on the hands fidgeting in your lap, “But I thought-,” You look over and meet his eyes, brows furrowed and lips parted in confusion. “What?”

“The first guy, Jamie,” you start, twisting to face him, knees knocking once more. “We started talking in the summer before my freshman year, got to know each other ‘cause he lived one town over from me and he’d come into work all the time, and then when I started college he was a sophomore, and he was the first guy to ever take, like, a serious interest in me. And we had a lot in common, he was on the soccer team, we grew up in the same area, we got on really well, it was the first time I ever really felt connected to anyone like that. But I’d never done anything before, so I wanted to take things slow,”

Jamie Reeves. Captain of the University of Michigan Soccer Team until he tore his ACL at the end of his last year, ruining all dreams of playing in the MLS, like it was entirely achievable for a player of his caliber anyway. You had been infatuated by him, though. The kind of infatuation that a younger you might have doodled little hearts around his name in all your notebooks.

And then he turned out to be a complete leech.

“Please don’t tell me he rushed you into it.” Luke straightens his posture, reaching to place his hand over yours in your lap, the touch immediately comforting, and his concern even more so.

“No. Not exactly.” You sigh, hating how dramatic you feel about the whole thing. “We went on dates, and things were going really well, so I figured I trusted him enough to be my first, then after we had sex he just went really off. He wouldn’t take me out anymore, wasn’t putting any effort in. And then people started asking me all these questions about him, and what we did, and I realised he was going around telling everyone all the details, like I was just some conquest he could tick off to the boys on the team.” You remember how ashamed you had felt, eyes on you in every corridor, whispers about you in every class. You couldn’t leave your dorm without someone muttering some obscene comment about you, and you just felt awful. “Every time one of them saw me they’d make all these dumb comments, and I just felt dirty all the time, like I’d done something wrong. Then I went to a party at Pike, the one at Halloween,” The party that Luke had approached you for the first time since you met, and you had stormed off in tears - not due to him at all, but due to the fact you had just seen Jamie sticking his tongue down someone else’s throat, mere days after you had seen him last. “And he was all over one of the girls on the field hockey team, didn’t even look my way again after that, not that I really wanted him to.”

“You haven’t been with anyone since?”

You shake your head. “Doesn’t stop people saying I have, though. I tried dating a couple times, but it always ended up the same way, rumours being spread about me sleeping around and being easy. And it’s so dumb, ‘cause it’s like I trusted one guy, and somehow it keeps backfiring on me.” You pay no mind, for the first time in a long time, to the crack in your voice as you say it, no longer afraid of showing any hint of vulnerability. Not to Luke. You need to get this out - get it out of the way, once and for all, so you can move past it. Move on, even, with someone you hope won’t treat you the same.

“Does that mean you trusted me?”

You try not to think too hard about all the times the two of you have shared any level of intimacy - the physical touch mostly initiated by you, and it’s hardly ever on a whim. You think a lot about Luke, if you’re honest. About how he’s honest, and he sticks by his word when he promises not to tell anyone anything. How he always tries to make you laugh or smile, even if it’s something stupid. He isn’t afraid to embarrass himself with you, isn’t afraid to give you power, to let you take the lead. And even though sometimes he jokes otherwise, the times you hang out, he has no ulterior motives. He likes talking to you, likes watching movies with you, likes meeting your eye in a crowded room and giving you one of those smiles that have started to make your heart stutter with something unidentifiable.

“I guess so.” Your shoulder lifts in a nonchalant shrug, your words anything, but. “I don’t know, I’ve been thinking about it since and I can’t explain why it happened but I feel like you and me are-,”

Connected? Compatible?

You know what he would say you are. You don’t know if you’re there, yet.There are so many things the two of you have become over the past few weeks, so many things you’ve wanted to be for longer than you even realised, so many things you’re afraid to say.

“I feel like out of everyone, you’d have no reason to lie to me. Or about me.”

“I wouldn’t. I didn’t know all that stuff,” he frowns, and it seems like his mind only just makes sense of all the times you threatened him after the fact, making sure he wouldn’t tell anyone that the two of you kissed, or hung out alone in an intimate space and maybe potentially enjoyed yourselves. He had thought you were ashamed of it - but all this time, you’ve been protective. Of yourself, of the trust you were building in him. “Why don’t you tell people, that those guys are all lying?”

“No one would believe me,” you shrug, eyes cast down to where his hand still rests on yours, and his touch prevents you from picking nervously at the skin around your nails.

“I do,” He assures you, “And I promise the next time I hear anyone say any of that stuff about you, I’ll beat their face in.”

“Yeah, you’d drop gloves for me?”

“Look at you with your hockey talk.” He coos, lifting a hand to caress your cheek, where you had barely noticed a tear trailing down until he wipes it away with his thumb, a proud smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah. I would. We’re partners, remember? I’ve got your back.” He extends his pinkie out to you, and you curl yours around it until he’s tugging it toward him, leaning down to press his lips to your knuckle, his kiss like a promise as his green eyes meet yours.

It doesn’t gross you out, this time. If you’re honest with yourself, it hadn’t the first time he did it, either. It was cute, in an entirely dorky and childish and almost nostalgic way.

And you’re compelled to do the same, leaning and touching your pouted lips to his pinky, eyes fluttering closed as you kiss his skin, the rush of blood to your head somehow louder than the steady stream of the fountain beside you.

“Listen,” he starts, lowering his hand but keeping your pinkies interlocked, resting them between you both on the stone. “If whatever this is that we’re doing makes you uncomfortable, or brings all that stuff back, I can back off a little.”

Something akin to disappointment floods through your system, your heart rate picking up in a panicked staccato, but you try to stay cool - still, for whatever reason, holding your cards close to your chest.

“I can make sure my brothers don’t make any more stupid comments about us, they’re doing it to annoy me, not you. And I can,” he takes a deep breath, eyes flickering between yours as if to gauge your desires before he has to reluctantly pander to them. “I can stop, too.”

You nod, because it’s all you can do to shake away the tears threatening to flood your lash line at just the thought of him giving up on you.

It’s the lump in your throat that blocks the words coming out to tell him as much, and your lips twist in discomfort as you take in the way he’s looking at you - gaze filled with dwindling patience and waining resilience. There’s only so far you can continue to push him, you can see that now, and if you’d have told the version of yourself that first sat down with him all those weeks ago - the version of yourself that refuted any chance of ever warming up to him, that saw him as nothing more than an annoyance, a disturbance to your tips for the day - that the thought of him stopping whatever you have would make you feel like this?

That cold-hearted bitch would have laughed in your face.

“Hey, lovebirds!” There’s a shout from across the courtyard, and Quinn appears in the distance with hands cupped around his mouth. The intrusion has you retracting your hand, and you can see the way Luke reacts in your peripheral, a resigned nod given instinctually before he looks over to his brother. “I’m driving home if you two want a ride!”

Luke doesn’t look back at you before pushing himself up, but he offers a hand to help you stand, and the two of you walk in silence to meet Quinn by the exit.

The car ride back to the house is silent, too, save for the soft hum of the radio that filters through the car. Josh sits up front with Quinn, head lulling against the window as he falls asleep worryingly quick, and you’re squished in the middle between Luke and Alex, Jack having stayed back with their parents. It’s hard not to press your legs against Luke’s - his are so gangly and long that they take up more than their fair share of room, and it’s much less awkward despite the circumstances to be touching him than touching Turcs. You feel a lot less tense when you’re touching, anyway.

And when Quinn pulls up, Luke still helps you out of the car - ever the gentleman, even in the face of apparent rejection.

Quinn and Alex work at lugging an overly inebriated Josh up to his room, leaving Luke to guide you through the house, and the silence starts to become unbearable as he whispers a quick and quiet goodnight, leaving you at the door to yours and Ellie’s room as he makes his way down the hall.

“Hey, Luke,” you call out in a whisper toward him as he retreats, his tall frame turning, a gleam of what you interpret as hope flashing across his green eyes.

“Yeah?” He hums back, voice low as not to disturb anyone else, gaze meeting yours, locking in place with an almost audible click.

“I don’t want you to stop.”

You’re worried for a second you’ll have to expand, that maybe his slightly intoxicated memory doesn’t stretch as far back as to remember the conversation the two of you had had out by the fountain.

Elaborating on it would be embarrassing to say the least - because what, exactly, are you supposed to say?

I don’t want you to stop flirting with me.

I don’t want you to stop kissing me when no one else is around.

I don’t want you to stop being the only person I can talk to.

I don’t want you to stop bulldozing into my very secure and sturdy walls, thank you very much. They’re starting to tumble down in what could be a very calamitous fashion.

Worried you might have to expose a little more of yourself than you had originally anticipated, you chew at the corner of your lip, waiting.

But then he smiles - in that easy way that makes your bones feel like jelly, your knees weakening to the point that you lean against the still-closed door of your room. In the way that has that loudmouth voice you’re trying too often to suppress within you screaming, God, he’s so cute!

“I know,” he smirks, the bastard, liquid courage running deep through his veins, “Inevitable, remember?”

You scoff, almost instinctively rolling your eyes despite the endeared warmth that floods your belly. “You’re an idiot.”

“I know,” he says again, “You coming?”

And all you can do is nod, biting back a fully-fledged smile before you’re rushing over and slotting yourself under his outstretched arm.

You definitely enjoy him more than you should.

Living with boys for the first time in your life has taught you a lot over the weeks you’ve been staying at the lake house.

The first is that they’re weirdly messy - in ways that shouldn’t bother you, but they do. It isn’t clothes left around, or dirty plates - but it’s hand soap crusted around the spout by the faucet, shoes kicked off and discarded at random points throughout the house, and they, for some bizarre reason, never put the lid back right on anything.

The second is that they’re loud - and that should have been anticipated. Guys are notoriously obnoxious. But it isn’t just their voices that carry. It’s footsteps up the stairs, stomping in the dead of the night when one of them needs a drink. It’s chewing their food, or slurping their coffee, or scraping the feet of their chairs against the floor when they’re sat at the dining table. It’s tapping their hands on their knees in haphazard rhythm whenever there might be an ounce of peace that they, without a doubt, misunderstand for awkward silence.

And the third is that they probably couldn’t organise a fire in a match factory. And that goes for a lot of things - the kitchen cupboards, their laundry loads, and, most importantly, one of the many parties they love to throw.

It wouldn’t bother you so much - they usually work out in the end - but this time, it’s Ellie’s birthday, and the way they leave everything until the last minute is about to give you an aneurysm or something.

There’s no food, no drinks, no cake, no decorations, and the party is tonight.

And Jack, who’s grand idea it had been to throw her a party in the first place, seems to have kidnapped her - disappearing and leaving you to try and figure out what’s going on.

Cole is the one who finds you in the kitchen, spiralling out, frantically trying to put together some kind of list so that one of the guys can go to the store and pick up the bare minimum to throw a party together - and he manages to calm you down - gathers the rest of the guys and helps come up with a plan, sharing out different categories. Quinn and Josh are down to get drinks, Cole and Alex are down to get food, and you and Luke are down for decorations.

And then within the next five minutes, you’re back up in your room, transferring things from one of your bags into a tote, so you can carry more stuff back to the car without having to bring back a load of plastic, and Luke is sat on your bed, leaning back onto his hands as he watches you, green eyes still tickling your skin with their tangible watch.

“I know we’re on a time crunch, but could we make another pit-stop at the mall? I still need to find a present for this baby shower.”

“Oh, actually, I made you something.”

“You made me something?” You can feel him watching you as you dig through the bag you’d brought back with you from being home.

“Yeah, I was bored, when you guys were gone, I forgot to give it to you when you got back, got kinda distracted by the whole wedding thing,” you tell him, reaching blindly to try and find the little figure. “I went by that art supply store and picked up one of those kits,” You finally find it, pulling out the little crotchet animal that may or may not have been your fourth attempt. The first had a stubby neck, the second had uneven legs, and you don’t think the third one’s face was anywhere near appropriate to be gifting to a child. This one isn’t perfect, but you’d honestly reached your limit with it. “Don’t make it a thing, it was like therapy while I was back home to be honest.”

“Oh that’s adorable.” He pouts, accepting it from you and immediately turning it back, bobbing it’s head as if to greet you. “Why a giraffe?”

“Long neck,” you smile, reaching out to pat it. “Reminded me of you.”

“Ha ha,” he rolls his eyes, but the laughter feels real enough. “She’ll love it.”

“She?” It slips out by instinct before you can check yourself, eyes widening as his meet yours again, his lips twitching in the corners. “Thought you said it was for your captain,”

“It is.” He smirks, “Men can’t carry babies last time I checked.”

You nod, because of course men can’t carry babies. Of course the shower is for the mother of the baby - who you vaguely remember Jack and Luke talking about - someone who works with them back in Jersey. Someone they’re both close to, clearly, if Luke’s stressing this much about a gift.

“Wait, are you jealous?”

“No.” You scoff, frowning purposefully, lips turning down in forced denial.

“You’re jealous.”

“Am not.”

“You want to take this back now, huh?” He holds the giraffe in a way that it bends, adorably, like he’s trying to taunt you with it, and it’s wonky eyes do little to distract from the charm he gives it.

“Nope.” You shrug, “You can give it to whatever girl you want, doesn’t bother me at all.”

“Of course not,” he stands, stepping toward you slowly, “You couldn’t care less what I do away from this house, right?”

“Right.” You gulp, looking into soft green eyes, your legs starting to wobble at the knees, strength and integrity waining as the seconds pass. You really don’t know why you’re still keeping this game up. Ever since that night of the wedding, you’ve been sneaking off into Luke’s room as soon as Ellie falls asleep. You fall asleep by his side, and he wakes you when he gets up early, so you can sneak back without Ellie realising you’ve even gone.

You’ve kissed him every day, sometimes tender, sometimes torrid - over the centre console of his car when he drops you off at work, in his bed before you drift off to sleep, in the kitchen when you sneak off under the ruse of refilling your drink. He can tell the difference between the flavours of lip balms you wear, comments on it like he has a little ranking system filed away somewhere in the back of his mind. You both whisper your secrets in the dark of the night, and you had promised him that you would try to open yourself up more to him.

“I thought we were past this,” he hums, stepping closer, voice low in a way that buzzes through your bones. “Thought we were being honest with each other, now.”

“Honest?” You ask, voice weak, neck craning now to look up at him, eyes boring into your own as he advances on you.

His hand reaches to cup your jaw, to tilt your head just that bit further, and presses his lips straight to yours instead of elaborating any further.

He’s tentative, at first. Gentle, even. Fingertips ghosting along the side of your neck, pulling you closer, less with any physical force and more so with pure magnetic attraction, your skin humming - buzzing, even, to be touched by him in any which way.

Your chin tilts as your mouths slot together in a soft, slow kiss, and when his lips touch yours, everything else fits perfectly into place. The fingers of his left hand press firmly into the flesh of your hip, now, using a slight force to manoeuvre you how it suits him - as close as he can physically get you - and those on his right reach around enough to slightly curve towards the back of your neck, applying just enough pressure so that your chin angles upward to deepen the kiss, his tongue pressing a pleading invitation into your bottom lip.

An invitation you immediately grant him, your hands finding their place on his body with ease, one flat against the warm expanse of his chest and the other matching his, soft fingertips grazing the skin of his neck until they tangle in the slight overgrowth of curls at the nape.

Everything feels so fluid, so effortless, and yet, so new - like this is the first time you have kissed, an eruption of fresh feelings bursting through you. There’s still a familiarity that lingers - one of ease, where it’s like your bodies have each other mapped out, already. You know every cell of him and he of you, and it’s evident in the way the moment escalates.

Your bodies naturally gravitate towards the nearest surface, his fingers reaching out behind your hip to soften the blow of him pushing you into the dresser, your back arching, feet moving in sync as not to tangle and trip, or stumble and break the kiss.

But there’s nothing else clumsy about it.

He lifts you with ease, the cold surface only a slight shock to the system, and it brings you to the perfect height where he can seamlessly move his kisses from your lips, past your jaw, down your neck and into the crevice of your collarbones, leaving a trail of the sticky residue of your lip balm.

Strong hands cup your thighs, parting your legs until he can stand between them, and your fingers bury themselves into his curls, pushing into him however you can.

When his fingers graze the inside of your thigh, his lips part from the hot skin of your clavicle, and his head tilts slightly until his darkened green eyes meet yours.

“Please,” you breathe out before he can even ask, beyond caring for whatever particles of pride you’ve been desperately trying to cling to when you watch his lips curve slowly into the most panty-dropping smirk you think you’ve ever seen.

“Please what?”

Your lips part as if by instinct, a biting remark fizzling out on the tip of your tongue as your mind works for some kind of comeback, for some semblance of resistance to whatever this version of him is, but there’s nothing. Just a frantic plea for him to do anything to you. Whatever he wants.

Your hips shuffle forward as if led by a mind of their own, trying to force his hand up, only for him to follow the movement of your thigh.

“Touch me,” you find yourself pouting, spikes of heat flashing through you at the way you can see the thoughts crossing his mind, of all the ways in which he can torture you - putty in the palm of what you thought were safe hands.

“Tell me you were jealous,” he prompts, leaning forward to press a teasing kiss to your lips, “Tell me that the thought of me even talking to another girl makes your skin crawl.”

Don’t let him get cocky, a voice prevails in the back of your mind, despite the accuracy of his words. Tell him he’d have to have an ounce of game for you to be remotely worried, tell him the only thing that makes your skin crawl is his incessant need to mouth off all the time. Tell him, tell him, tell him!

“I was jealous,” you breathe out instead, chasing the victorious smirk that stretches across his lips in the hopes you can kiss it away.

Jealous of a girl you’ve never met, in a relationship with another man, pregnant with his child, not remotely interested in Luke.

A girl who gets to see him all the time, who knows him probably in ways you might never, who he cares enough about to want to gift her something meaningful. Who he casually texts and smiles at his phone as he’s doing so, who he and Jack talk affectionately about in ways they’ll never talk about you.

You’ve officially lost it.

“And if you don’t touch me in the next 3 seconds,” you carry on, scrambling to claw back one single iota of your dignity, your hands gripping at his broad shoulders, “I won’t let you touch me again.”

Luke laughs. Practically snorts at you, eyes crinkling in the corners in pure amusement. Your dignity is long gone.

“1,” you start, your voice shakier than you’d ever like it to be, and his hands move to either side of your hips, clutching at the edge of the dresser.

“2,” you didn’t think you could sound worse than before, definitely longer than a second ago, but you’re quickly proven wrong as you watch him leverage that grip to push himself upright, creating a distance between the two of you that drains all the heat from your body.

“3.” he finishes, taking a step back and watching you with unadulterated hunger in his eyes, daring you to follow through with your threat - and the smug idiot knows you won’t.

He knows it’s coming, even anticipates the way in which you pounce on him, arms ready to catch you when you throw yourself down onto the ground in front of him, landing with a quick thud that jolts you straight into him. Hands at either side of his face pull him down, and he does half of the work in bending his back so it isn’t as clumsy.

You tangle yourself up in him, legs twisting between each other until you’re stumbling toward the bed, and it’s as soon as you get your fingers back into his hair, as soon as his hands are pushing your top up, grazing at the warm skin of your back, that you hear a call of your name.

You falter back from him just as the door swings open, managing to create a reasonable amount of distance as Ellie swaggers in, voice still raised as she asks, “Have you seen my-,” It’s Luke that she sees first, eyes zeroing in on his flushed face with pin-point accuracy, her brows furrowing as she takes him in, heaving chest and messy hair and all. “Lip gloss?”

Lip gloss? Is she joking?

“You came all the way back up here for lip gloss?” You ask, still slightly breathless and brain fogged, and feeling very much like you’ve just put all your chips on the table and watched them get swept away in seconds.

You watch as Ellie’s eyes dart to Luke’s mouth, watch him grow conscious of the balmy coating smeared across his lips, and you feel your heart stop in it’s place, your chest squeezing in anticipation of a thump thump thump that doesn’t come.

“No,” she mutters, diverting her attention back to you with a sobering shake of her head. “Balm,” she corrects, “The kind with SPF, I think I’m burning, I didn’t realise me and Jack were gonna be gone all morning.”

“Uhm, yeah,” you breathe, reaching up to tuck your hair behind your ears in the hopes it helps cool your head down, some. “I have some in my bag.”

Your tote is on the dresser you had just been placed on yourself, and you use the opportunity to dig through it to will the burning sensation in your ears away, levelling out your breathing as you root around for a tube of lip balm you know is in there somewhere.

“Could you check for my car keys, too? I was thinking we could drop by the mall for lunch. Catch up” She adds, with a forced wiggle of her brows, clearly what she had actually come up here for, and you fish those out too, throwing them across to her. “Quinn’s looking for you before you go, Luke, something about a list.”

“I should go check what he wants,” Luke mumbles, putting another few steps of distance between you before he offers an awkward wave, and departs the room with heavy feet that you hear stomp all the way down the hall, the last thing you see of him being a skinny, lopsided crochet giraffe poking out of his back pocket.

Apparently Jack’s plans of keeping some element of surprise for the party had gone out of the window as soon as he had got her alone - and you’re kind of grateful for the fact.

Keeping secrets from Ellie is stressful - you of all people would know, you’ve somehow managed to keep a pretty big one from her all summer - and she usually has a way of figuring things out on her own.

You probably would have folded to her - just the two of you out together, sipping smoothies in the food court at the mall - if he hadn’t already filled her in one the plans for the night.

It makes up a little for his lack of effort, earlier - especially now that your hands are clear of it. You don’t know how much you trust the guys to put something together while you and Ellie are looking for an outfit for her, but you have no choice but to leave them to it. Jack had reassured you he had everything under control, and despite the absurdity of that statement, it’s nice for that panic you had been feeling earlier to have been flushed away.

“I think tonight’s the night,” Ellie sighs dreamily, elbow resting on the table and her chin in the palm of her hand, “We had this really deep conversation while we were out walking, and he pretty much told me he has feelings for me, he was really nervous, it was kind of cute.”

“I’ll take your word for the cute thing,” you chuckle, sipping at your smoothie and smiling at how happy she looks. It’s nice to hear, her having hope about the situation for once, instead of dread or fear.

“He said you two spoke at his cousin’s wedding,”

“It was nothing,” you shrug, “He didn’t need any interference from me to realise he likes you, El, he just needed a nudge.”

“I can hardly call you out on interfering,” her lips twist, nervously, “I’ve kind of been doing the same.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you think I’ve been hanging out with Cole so much all summer?”

“Cole?” You frown, leaning back into your chair, “You’ve lost me.”

When you’d last spoken to Ellie about Cole, she had told you they just got along, and there was nothing more to it - and you had no reason to believe otherwise. When you and Luke had been in the midst of your own interference, and you had been playing third wheel to their hangouts, they had been getting along. Almost like siblings. Cole never flashed her those flirty winks or toothy grins that he gave everyone else.

“He’s into you.” She says, finger swiping in the ring left behind from her smoothie cup on the table, “And I was kind of giving him advice on how to approach you. I figured you wouldn’t mind, ‘cause he’s like your normal type, and you seemed like you liked him-,”

“I’m sorry, you think I like Cole?”

You’re taken aback. You don’t remember giving any sort of indication you were ever into Cole Caufield.

Maybe you could have been, before this summer - would have probably fallen victim to his cheeky smiles or his teasing banter. He’s probably closer to your usual type, if you even have one. Confident, with a presence that sort of demands attention. But you realise, now, your attention should be earned - in more than just a flash of cute teeth and boyish features.

In dumb jokes told just to bring you out of a bad mood, and a car with the AC dialled up waiting for you after a shift on a hot day. In hands that offer you help before you ever have to ask, and eyes that see so far beyond what version of yourself you try to put out there.

You could have liked Cole, in another world, or another life, if another boy wasn’t around.

“I did until I walked in on you kissing Luke, earlier.”

You blink slowly at her, mouth agape as she stares blankly back.

What the fuck?

“I wasn’t kissing Luke,” you scoff, denial making your face twist in funny ways that you can even feel look deranged. “We were talking.”

“Into each other’s open mouths?” She snickers, “Unless he’s been digging around in our stuff when we’re not around, I can’t think of any other reason he’d have left the room with Summer Fridays Vanilla Beige smeared all over his lips.”

“It was Brown Sugar, actually.” You correct her, guiltily, hoping the words you mutter next through pouted lips don’t quite make it to her ears. “He says it’s sweeter.”

“Oh my God.” She guffaws, mouth agape and eyes wide in realisation. “How long has this been going on?”

“Nothing’s going on,” you deny, although you can feel heat creeping up your neck, already. “We just get along-,”

“We get along, and you don’t welcome me home with an open mouth.”

“Ellie-,”

“Listen, he’s not just some guy that you can mess around with, he’s way deeper into you than you probably realise, and-,”

“I like him, okay?” you blurt out, voice just loud enough to be heard over her rambling but not enough to carry anywhere else, and the silence that follows is almost deafening - prolonged in a way that you can’t even remember if you said anything, or not.

But the way Ellie is looking at you tells you enough.

Why is everyone so caught up on you breaking his heart?

As if you aren’t putting the entirety of yours on the line.

“Luke?” She asks, like the two of you haven’t just been talking about him. “You like Luke Hughes?”

“Yeah,” you sigh, leaning onto your elbows and pressing the palms of your hands to your face, eyes scrunching tight to try clear up some mind space to make sense of what it is you’re admitting to.

It makes sense already, to you. Verbalising it is the problem.

He’s charming, he’s funny, he makes you laugh, most times unintentionally but that doesn’t make your feelings dwindle in the slightest.

He’s weirdly passionate about that one horse movie and won’t shut up trying to get you to watch it with him, but it’s endearing in a way that you want to kiss him to shut him up. Or maybe even watch it, God forbid.

He literally never stops eating, but it’s like his body is in tune to yours now, and he always makes double if he feels like you might be hungry so you don’t ever have to ask, which is weirdly sweet.

When you lay beside him in the middle of the night, you don’t feel pressured to do anything other than talk.

And when you do, he listens to you - retains information and checks up in a way that makes you feel seen, makes you feel a way you haven’t in a really long time. He doesn’t talk over you, or dismiss your feelings, or try to change the topic when things go a little too deep or get a little heavy. He shares the load, asks questions that make you think and process things in a new way, and he isn’t patronising when he does so. He doesn’t say things that sound like they’re straight out of a Psych 101 textbook like your feelings are valid or what makes you think that?

And he compares your wildly different worlds in a way that doesn’t feel like a competition. His troubles aren’t worse than yours, his life isn’t harder.

You’re equals.

You’ve never felt like anyone’s equal, not even Ellie.

It’s like with all the other parts of your life that make you hurt, make you feel small and insignificant - they fade away when you’re with Luke.

His corner of your world is bright - despite the seemingly inexhaustible snark-meter constantly ticking between you two - it’s easy, doesn’t weigh down on you or make your chest feel tight, not in that way, at least.

You’ve been introduced to a whole new influx of feelings in your chest by Luke.

You can give in to the ugly side of yourself that wants to bite at him until there’s nothing left, to push whenever he gets a little too close, and you don’t have to worry that you’ll scare him off or push too far, ‘cause he’ll just pull you with him and bite back - only, it doesn’t hurt like when anyone else does it. Somehow, you think he savours the parts that other people might spit out - chews and swallows and rubs at his belly in satisfaction like you’re the best meal he’s ever had.

Despite all the other things that have shattered your heart, Luke Hughes makes it feel whole, again.

And it should make you feel sick - lovey-dovey stuff like that usually does, your walls shooting straight up at the first sign of affection from anybody, metaphorical sneakers on and carrying your legs as far and as fast as they can run - but this doesn’t.

You don’t want to run from Luke, not really.

“I thought you said he was dorky and annoying.”

You’re pretty sure she had been the one to say that, at some point, but you don’t remember arguing the fact, so you don’t bring it up.

“He is.” You pout. He’s also apparently inevitable. “He kinda crept up on me, I guess.”

Ellie is quiet for a minute as she watches you, eyes narrowing as she takes you in - shoulders slumped, lips pouted, defeated.

“Why not just tell him, then? Why hide it?” She asks, leaning onto the table too until your faces are level when you peak up at her, “You know he likes you back, right? He’s got the biggest crush on you, it’s borderline problematic.”

“I don’t know, I don’t really understand why he likes me.”

“Does it matter?”

It does. You don’t want to keep running, but you can’t really help it. There’s something ingrained deep within you that is trying to shelter yourself from all the ways in which succumbing to these feelings will inevitably hurt you.

“Luke’s way smarter than me, and he’s way more successful, he’s kind and he’s generous, he comes from a great family, has this great house, we have literally nothing in common, and he doesn’t see that now because he just thinks he’s attracted to me, and he likes that I don’t just fold to him because he’s some superstar, but the second that’s gone,” you sigh, trying to swallow down the hurt in your voice, blink away the onslaught of tears, “He’ll just get bored of me like everybody else does, and then he’ll be gone. And I’ll just be some girl he broke up with and left behind, and that’s all I’ll ever be.”

Ellie frowns, a strained mutter of your name called as her hand falls to yours in an attempt to comfort you. “You’ll never know if you don’t try, babe.”

“No, I know.”

It’s all you’ve ever known.

Men who start off treating you like some prized possession - cherishing you, making you feel valued and loved - and the second the shine wears off, the second something even newer, even brighter, even sparklier, crosses their path, they’re gone.

And you’re left behind wondering what it is about you that keeps driving them to leave.

It happened with your dad, with his new wife and their perfect kids - the boys he always wanted, who he never had to force himself to like. The dream family he abandoned you to pursue. It happened with Jamie, with all the girls he saw after you, with the way he never even looked your way again, even after all the secrets you shared, and the promises he made. With all those other boys who never saw you as anything more than a fabricated story to spread for a few brownie points with their buddies in the locker room.

It will happen again.

These feelings you have for Luke - the comfort he gives, the contentment, the ease in conversation, the warmth he bathes you in until your skin prunes and he seeps in through the cracks - they’re better kept to yourself. It’s easier that way, to keep this whole heart under lock and key, not giving anyone a chance to break parts off and keep it for themselves.

It’s almost perfect the way it is.

Safe, even from the clutches of the boy who pieced it back together, brick by laborious brick.

“There isn’t long left of the summer, anyway,” you go for a nonchalant shrug, but your shoulders feel heavy, and it turns out more like an arduous huff. “I doubt he’s shy of female attention back in Jersey, he’ll forget I ever existed before he even knows it.”

“You should talk to him,” Ellie suggests, “At least let him know where you stand, even if it’s to tell him things can’t go further.”

The thought of it is too daunting. Looking into those gleaming green eyes and laying your heart on the line.

You can pretend all you want to Ellie, to yourself, even, that you wouldn’t want more, but you don’t think you could keep up the show with him.

“He deserves at least that.”

And damn it, she’s right.

Maybe he even deserves a proper chance.

Luke never thought he’d regret kissing you for any reason, but he’s wishing he had practiced some restraint up in your room, earlier.

If he hadn’t advanced on you, had let you pack your bag and got you out of the house before Ellie and Jack got back, he could have followed through on his plan of action for the day.

A plan he’d been hyping himself up for, all week - getting you on your own, talking things out, maybe even asking you out. Properly. Not just dinner at the mall, but a real date. Planned, perfected. A fancy dinner, or a trip to the movies. A picnic blanket laid out somewhere with a nice view, and an abundance of your favourite snacks.

He wants to kiss you without having to hide it, anymore.

He wants to walk with you tucked under his arm. Wants to have you in his lap when there’s too many people over at the house, and the group are struggling for space on the couches in the den.

He also sort of wants peace of mind, but what’s that compared to not having to sneak around, anymore.

He’d made his mind up in the morning, waking up beside you at 5am, rousing you from your sleep with soft mutterings of your name, and lips pressed to your cheek until he could feel you smile.

“Hi,” your voice had been croaky, and your movements slow, shuffling against him as your skin became illuminated by the soft glow of the rising sun slipping through the gap in the curtains. Your legs had been tangled with his under the sheets, and you did little to untangle them, and he was tempted to lock his so that you couldn’t.

“Hey,” he mumbled, lips still moving against your skin, nipping at your cheek, your jaw, your throat, and your fingers rose until they clutched at the back of his hair, curls wrapping around them as you held him in place.

“What time is it?”

“Around five,” his own hands landed on your waist, slipping under the hem of your tank, and trying to savour the warmth of your skin, your body hot from being against his all night. “Figured you’d need to be a little earlier today with it being Ellie’s birthday and all.”

“Thank you,” you used your soft grip on his curls to tug, until his face left the crook of your neck, and you blinked softly, smiled sweetly, and he felt his heart beat at twice the normal speed. You leant up and kiss him, straight on the lips, and he smiled against you just as you pulled away.

He felt cold all over as soon as you detached yourself, and he rolled onto his side to watch as you stood, arms raised to stretch and lifting the bottom of your tank top to rise up your belly.

He felt robbed. Like he deserved longer with you, and it had been as you crawled back over your side of his bed, and had kissed him once more before leaving, that he had decided he needed to do something about it.

His original plan had been to steal you away at some point in the night, everyone else too distracted by the party to notice or care, but being teamed up with you to go get decorations seemed like it would work too.

Until Jack came back and fucked his plans up.

Jack said that he would go get the food with Turcs, that he had already paid for a cake, and he had to show his ID when he picked it up. He said Ellie shouldn’t have to do anything, and that you would be the best person for her to do nothing with, which left Luke picking up decorations with Cole.

It wasn’t that he minded Cole’s company, but Cole isn’t you.

He probably could have tucked Cole under his arm as they walked side by side through target and picked up a bunch of of banners and streamers, given the logistics of their height difference, but it wouldn’t have been as cute.

He has managed to get a lot of unexpected information though. And of course, his only thought is that he can’t wait to share it with you.

Cole tells Luke how he and Ellie have only been hanging out all summer to make Jack jealous.

He bites his tongue to refrain from telling him that sort of trick doesn’t work on his brother, but Cole seems too pleased with himself for Luke to rain on his parade, and he finds it kind of funny that everyone’s been working to get the two of them to wake up to their feelings, not just you and him.

Cole might have even ended up putting more effort into it than you and Luke did, acting as a go-between for Jack and Ellie, and raising the stakes for both of them to make a move.

“And what do you get out of any of that?” Luke chuckles as he works at taking the banners out of their plastic wrapping, Cole taking the plastic and putting it straight into the trash.

The smile drops as soon as Cole says your name, though, and Luke’s hands stop in place. “Ellie’s been giving me insider info. I’m primed and ready to make a move.”

“Wait, I’m sorry,” Luke frowns, “You like her? Since when?”

He tries not to let the panic stirring in his chest reflect on his features, but it’s hard.

Cole and Ellie had been hanging out for a long time, now. He can’t have been into you that whole time, right? Not without saying anything to anyone else - Cole is kind of mouthy, like that. Word would have got back around to Luke if Cole’s liked you for months.

“Since I met her. She’s a really cool girl, really funny.” Cole scoffs, hand reaching out for more trash. “And she’s, like, one of the hottest girls I’ve ever seen, you know?”

Of course Luke knows. He’s seen the most beautiful sides to you - soaked head to toe from a garden hose, eyes crinkled from laughter, or the aftermath, curled up on a couch with just-dry hair and heart opening up to him for the very first time. In an orange baseball cap and a Mets jersey, twirling as you exit one of the fitting rooms you had found in the mall, a big cute grin on your face as you allow yourself to dorky with Luke, and only with Luke. Sat out on the fountain at the club, skin bathed in the glistening moonlight and your heart thumping in the palm of his tender hands. Laid beside him in the early hours of the morning, soft snores falling from between your lips and hair splayed out against his pillow.

But he can’t exactly say that to Cole - who has apparently been working to pursue you this entire time without Luke ever catching on.

“Ellie says I’m her type, so I don’t know why I’m stressing about asking her out-,”

“Out like on a date? Like you want to date her?”

Luke knows he sounds like an idiot without Cole giving him the weirded-out look he gives, but he’s starting to lose out to the dread that is flooding the pit of his stomach. He stumbles to follow Cole out of the kitchen and into the living room, where they had set up a step ladder before to hang the decorations.

“You really think I’d be trying so hard if I didn’t?” Cole scoffs, “Catch up, Luke, I’m trying to end my summer with a girlfriend-,”

“She’s hardly girlfriend material.”

The words taste sour in the mouth that moves before his brain has time to think - sour enough that he has to try not to grimace, wishing he could suck them back in and swallow them back down like they never came out.

“What do you mean?” Cole asks, his features dropping into a frown. “I thought you two were getting along.”

“We are,” he agrees, despite it seeming like an understatement, but words are starting to pour out before he can filter them, and he can already feel himself getting carried away. “And she’s a nice enough person, don’t get me wrong, but I just don’t think it would work out with her like that.”

“You think she’d be hard work?”

He knows you are. But he likes you that way. He doesn’t want anyone else to worm their way into your good graces like he has.

“Yeah,” he huffs, “She’s always out, and always flirting with guys at the club, you’ve seen it.” He knows he’s pulled that out of his ass, but what else is he supposed to say?

“I think she’s just fishing for tips, Lukey,” Cole chuckles, and Luke’s cheeks flush with humiliation at the pet name. He feels small, like he’s just something that Caufield can steam roll straight over without much protest. “Can’t blame her, some of those guys have deep pockets.”

“I’ve just heard stuff, you know.”

“Like what?”

Jesus Christ, Cole, he thinks, wishing he’d just take his word for it and get over you, already. As if it would ever be that easy. He doesn’t particularly enjoy saying these things out loud - using the words you had so carefully confided in him against you - but there’s a panicked desperation creeping up within him, becoming possible to ignore, and it’s cancelling out all other rational thoughts in his brain.

The second you find out Cole Caufield is interested, you’ll no longer have any need for Luke.

Luke, who your every conversation with starts or ends with some sort of bickering argument, who annoys you to no end, who riles you up like it’s what he was put on this very Earth to do.

Cole is charming, he’s always had an ease when it comes to talking to girls that Luke never quite found in himself, and he’ll win you over in no time - and that’s if you aren’t interested, already.

But Luke is building up to that.

He’s been building up to it all summer.

Even before then, without entirely knowing it.

The two of you have something, even if you refuse to admit it. You wouldn’t have kissed him all those times, otherwise, wouldn’t have come to his bed in the middle of the storm those weeks ago, and almost every night since he came back from Vegas, wouldn’t have slept with him before he left, wouldn’t have begged him to give in to you - not if you weren’t interested in him.

You’ve shared parts of yourself he knows no one’s ever seen, and he can’t let that be for nothing.

But now the rug is being pulled out from under him, and all he can do to cling on to the edges with an idiotic possessiveness that curls his upper lip and brings his heart to a screeching stop.

“Like how she’s with a different guy every week at Michigan. Apparently she gets around.”

“Oh,” Cole frowns, and Luke watches as his face turns, his own fists clenching at the urge to take it all back, to defend her and call Cole out on his immediate shift despite it being his own fault.

He’s made his bed, now. He has to lie in it.

“Ellie didn’t mention all that stuff.”

“She’s hardly gonna call her friend easy.” Luke scoffs, and he thinks the way the words are spat out of his mouth is some sort of reflection of the way his lips don’t want to say them. Like they’re disgusted that his brain would even conceptualise them enough to be spoken. “Especially when you were doing her a favour with the whole Jack thing.”

“I don’t know man, I think you’ve got the wrong idea of her.”

Luke rolls his eyes as Cole makes his way back toward the step ladder, banner in hand, jaw tensing as he scrambles to think of something to stop this.

“She’s not the kind of girl you date,” he manages to call out, despite the tremor in his voice, every fibre of his being fighting the words from being spoken. “And there’s like a month left before we all leave for camp, so if you were to start anything, it would just be for the summer, anyway.”

“Jack and Ellie have started something with just a month left.”

“That’s not the same thing, they’ve been into each other for years, they text and call all the time, nothing’s really changing for them except for a label, you really think you’re gonna keep that up after just a couple months of knowing her?”

He reaches out for the other end of the banner and holds it as Cole positions his side, lip tugged between his teeth and a frown on his face as he mulls Luke’s words over.

“You’ll be in Montreal, and she’ll be here, and you’ll be focusing on hockey, and training, and you won’t have time to keep up something serious with a girl you barely know.”

He tries not to think about how it’s the same distance to Jersey - an almost 2 hour flight - and how he’d be doing the exact same thing, swept up into the season before he knows it and potentially doing nothing but letting you down.

“And you know what she’s like, she’d find something to argue about with a monk, for God’s sake,” he scoffs, brows furrowed so hard he can feel the tension in his forehead, “All you’d get from her is an earache. She’s not worth it.”

Cole turns to narrow his eyes at Luke, but something else over the top of his head catches his attention, instead, and the surprised muttering of your name turns Luke’s blood to ice.

Frozen in place, eyes wide, heart thudding in his ears, he waits with bated breath for something to happen - for Cole to break into a shit-eating grin, and tell him he’s just fucking around. For the ground to swallow him up. For anyone - literally anybody else - to respond.

But your voice carries straight over to him. Travels through his ears, ricochets around the cavern of his skull, shoots down his spine and makes his legs go numb.

“We uhm,” your tone is shaky, and Luke, for the first time, maybe, ever, hates the way you sound. “We were just checking if you needed a hand with the decorations.”

He turns slowly, and it’s Ellie’s eyes he meets first. Pointed, narrowed, betrayed, even, she glares at him like he’s just kicked a wounded animal right in front of her.

“You can’t decorate your own party,” Cole laughs from behind Luke, as Luke’s attention drifts slowly your way.

His eyes meet yours, and he can see the watery glaze over them from across the room. Can see your throat working to gulp down your hurt as your lips twist.

Ellie says something in response, and he vaguely hears Cole speak too, but all that he can focus on is the blood rushing around his head, a whooshing and whirring that makes him feel like his ears are about to pop, or his brain is about to explode. His lips part to speak, to say something, anything, to explain what you had clearly overheard, but your gaze drops to the floor, and he sees your walls build back up right before his eyes, brick by brick, cementing themselves back in place.

He’s such an idiot.

He’s such a monumental asshole.

The last time he had seen tears in your eyes had been sat by the fountain at the club - he had wiped them away, and had promised you he had your back, and you had just caught him having anything but with Cole. And all that after you had told him why you had ever been hesitant to let anyone in the first place.

He doesn’t think he’s ever messed up like this.

He steps forward, unsteady on his feet, and you step back, still not able to look him in the eye again, before turning on your heel and making your way upstairs.

Luke hears the stomp of your feet as you go, watches Ellie go after you, wishing it could be him, and stands, motionless, until he feels a firm pat on his back.

“Don’t worry, man,” Cole says, “She’s cool, she’ll be over it after a couple of drinks.”

Luke doesn’t even think he says anything coherent when he responds, a grunt or a grumble - it can’t have been words, because he can’t even form them in his brain.

“I’m gonna ask her out tonight, anyway,” Cole chuckles, “So what you said won’t even mean anything.”

Great.

He’s just fucked things up with one of the greatest people in his life, the girl of his dreams, and it doesn’t even mean anything.

Not the kind of girl you date.

Not worth it.

All that from the boy who supposedly had your back not that long ago. The first guy in a long time, maybe even ever, to make you feel secure, and safe, and like you could trust someone again.

Luke thinks you’re an earache.

He thinks you’re argumentative, and only worthy of a brief, summer fling - that keeping up anything with you when he goes home would be a waste of the time and energy he should be dedicating to hockey.

And he’s probably right, you think.

It’s only what you’ve been telling yourself in the back of your mind all summer. Self-deprecating thoughts about how he’s far too good for you, and you’re only interesting when he can’t have you, and he’ll get tired of you before you can even realise he’s already drifted off.

Ellie had told you all the way back in your freshman year that the two of you weren’t a good fit. Jack had been telling Luke the same all summer. And you had only just managed to convince yourself otherwise on the drive back to the lake house from the mall.

You can hardly blame him for being two steps ahead.

You think that’s why you can’t bring yourself to cry - the sting of tears prickling persistently but never pushing through, eyes watering so much you can’t even put on mascara without the fear of it trickling down your face and ruining the rest of your makeup.

You’d tried crying, before. Had ran up to your room and had sat on the other side of your bed, hidden from the door and knees pressed to your chest. Your breath had stuttered, and your lips had trembled, but the tears wouldn’t fall, try as you might to have made them.

And when Ellie had found you, had sat beside you with an arm stretched over your shoulders, you had tried, then, too.

And it would be your luck that as soon as you press the inky substance into your lashes that they would finally fall, so you’ve been sat trying to wish them away for the past ten minutes - the tube clutched in a death grip in your hands as you sit at the makeshift vanity you and Ellie had set up all those weeks ago when you had moved in, taking deep breaths and willing the hurt to go away.

It’s where Luke finds you after knocking with no response - you barely remember hearing it - shuffling wordlessly into the room and perching himself down behind you on the edge of the bed.

You see him in the mirror, your eyes darting away before his can meet them in the reflection, and you stiffen your shoulders, bracing yourself for the blow.

“I didn’t mean any of what you heard.”

You breathe out a humourless chuckle, bitterness settling into the pit of your stomach and your lips trembling with resistance.

“I mean it, I don’t think those things about you, I promise, I-,”

“It doesn’t even matter,” you cut him off with a roll your eyes, pushing the mascara tube toward the mirror and figuring you’re just gonna go without.

“I was panicking, and it just came out like word vomit, and I feel really sick about it, and really stupid, and I wish I could take it all back-,”

“I said it doesn’t matter.” You meet his eyes this time, trying not to fall for just how distraught he looks behind you in the mirror.

“Of course it matters,” he frowns, and you look away as soon as he pushes himself up, knowing he’s coming for you. “I need you to know that I would never have said those things-,”

“You said them, Luke,” you scoff, “What do you mean you would never have said them, you literally did.”

“I know-,”

“It doesn’t matter-,”

“Can you stop saying that!” He frowns, appearing at the side of you, hands gripping your shoulders to get you to face him. “I’m trying to explain this to you, I’m trying to fix things, and you’re-,”

“What, giving you an earache?”

All those weeks ago, the backs of your legs sticking to the bench in the booth in the restaurant, leaning over the table and sparring back and forth with him, you had convinced yourself that he liked it.

That the glint in his eye was indication of as much, the twitch at the corner of his lips, the way he would bite back without a second to think about it, and had matched your every effort to get one over on him.

You had thought the two of you had something real. Something you had never found with anyone else. Quick wit, and similar senses of humour, shared boundaries, a mutual level of respect.

You had thought his persistence had been something that would stick.

And clearly, you thought wrong.

He whispers out an utterance of your name that hurts like fingers wrapped around your throat - clenching and squeezing until you go hot in the head.

“I keep saying it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t, Luke. You were right, we wouldn’t have been able to keep this up past the summer, anyway.”

Luke’s brows furrow your way, eyes darting between yours as his lips part to speak, but nothing comes out.

“You’re going back to Jersey soon, I’m going back to school, it was fun while it lasted but things have run their course.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“We both do.” You shrug, wearing your feigned indifference like armour, just like you know so well to do. “You don’t say the things you said on a whim, Luke, some part of you has to believe that they’re true.”

“I don’t-,”

“I’m giving you a chance to cut things off with no hard feelings-,”

“No hard feelings?” His disbelief cuts through you a little, the hurt in his eyes and the scrunch of his features, too, but if you give in, now, you’re setting yourself up for a world of hurt.

You had barely just built up the courage to give your heart to him, in whatever shape he had scrunched and squeezed it into before, and he had already managed to bruise it. Giving in will only result in it breaking.

“I have feelings. I have feelings for you. And I know you have feelings for me, too, you can’t pretend you don’t-,”

“It doesn’t-,”

“It matters.” You don’t think you’ve ever heard him sound like this - so sure, so serious, so raw - and when he takes a hold of your face, hands cupping your jaw, tender but firm, and forces you to look at him, you see the same in his features. “Cole is into you. And he said he was gonna ask you out, and I panicked trying to convince him not to. I should have had faith that you would have turned him down. And I should have been honest, and I should have told him that I’m into you. More than into you, I think I-,”

“I wouldn’t have turned him down.”

You lie with such ease that it makes your heart ache more than the truth, but it’s the only thing you can do to protect it.

If you let Luke carry on, you’ll let him back in.

You can’t let him back in.

Not with the tears that now well his eyes, or the way his face drops like you’ve just struck him in the gut - pained and powerless.

“What?”

Your hands shake in your lap so much you have to clench them shut, knuckles turning white as Luke’s touch slips from your skin.

“If he asked me out, I would have said yes.”

Luke runs a hand through his hair, blinking repeatedly before he tears his gaze away from yours, and you feel like you can see his walls building - a sight that should flood you with relief, but doesn’t.

“So, what, everything we’ve been through together, all the things we’ve done, all the things we’ve said, you’re just gonna throw it all away like none of it matters?”

You can hear the hurt - can feel it even, clawing at your skin as if it’s trying to find a way to dig past the barriers you’ve put in place.

But you have to do this.

“I guess not.”

Luke was always going to hurt you. Was going to burrow himself through whatever cracks you left bare to him, weasel his way into your heart and tear it from the inside out. And maybe you were always going to do the same to him.

“Alright then,” he mutters, robotic and distant, with his eyes stuck on the floor.

He stands from where he had been crouched beside you, backing away before turning completely, and he walks away in long strides, the door to your bedroom closing with a soft click behind him.

The tear that falls when he’s gone does so slowly. You feel it trail all the way down your cheek from the corner of your eye, until it drops, almost audibly, from your jaw and onto your lap.

And then the rest follow, uncontrollable and unrelenting.

Inevitable, just like he had said.

A/N: so...... please don't hate me I wrote the ending first lmao!! I imagine this will cause riots in the streets tbh but please let me know what you think hahahah this whole story has become my baby!! she's problematic but she's mine!!!!

#luke hughes #luke hughes x reader #luke hughes imagine #nhl imagine #nhl fanfiction #luke hughes fluff #*writing #luke hughes one shot #luke hughes fanfiction

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notiddygothgf · 1 year ago

Text

2/2

★ pairings: choso kamo x f!reader

★ synopsis: Yuuji Itadori truly was the best friend a girl like you could ask for, but he wasn't the only reason you came to visit. (His older brother, the devilishly handsome Choso Kamo, had always been the apple of your eye).

★ c.w.: slow burn, friends to lovers, eventual smut, childhood sweethearts, kinda, mutual pining, choso with a tongue piercing, rough sex, cunnilingus, backshots, unprotected sex, regular people au, two year age gap, PWP.

★ a/n: part two! its all smut lol. anyway, like I said, this one shot is finished (just split btw two chaps bc theres 11k words). but if u comment and persuade me who knows! I can always do another. im a whore for ur validation.

★ w.c.; 5k

best friend's brother ; chapter index

YUUJI COOCHIE <3

| come over tn?

| i got smth i wanna run by u first

YOU

| omw.

You stood on Itadori’s porch, finger poised over the doorbell a month after your eighteenth birthday. You had been anticipating to see your best friend, Itadori. But as the door swings open, what you don’t expect is to come face to face with Itadori’s older brother.

Your heart drops, and your breath catches in your throat as you take in his appearance. It felt for a moment as if time had stood still since you last saw him. He had only grown more handsome during your time apart. His dark hair was done back into two messy buns, deep bags residing beneath his deep eyes.

Choso looked absolutely breathtaking . His fitted black tee clung to his chest and arms, showing off his toned physique, while the baggy black sweats he was sporting gave him an effortlessly cool appearance.

His presence exudes a magnetic charm that takes you back to when you were 17. His half smirk sends a wonton shiver down your spine.

“Hey there,” He says, deep, rich voice sending ripples of familiarity throughout your body.

When his lips pull away from his teeth, forming syllables and words, you couldn’t help but notice a small glint of metal near the tip of his tongue. You realized immediately what had seemed so different about him, and your eyes widened in surprise.

“You pierced your tongue?” You blurt out, unable to hide your shock.

Choso nearly snorts, though his eyes never leave yours. “You’re not surprised to see me?” He teases.

“I am,” You retort quickly, trying to regain your composure. “You’re home for the holidays?”

He nods, gaze still fixed on your red face. “Just came home last night.”

That would explain why I didn’t see you, you thought.

“I’m glad you came, though, I’ve been holding onto your birthday gift for a while now,” He sighed, stepping aside to let you into the house but keeping his arm braced on the doorframe.

You slide under his muscular arm, doing your best to ignore the way your body bristled with electricity when you brushed up against him.

You set your bag on the ground near the door, kicking off your shoes and neatly pushing them aside while Choso locked the door behind you.

“It’s in my room,” he said, passing you.

You followed him nervously up the stairs into his bedroom, heart pounding a little louder with every step. This would be the first time you would find yourself alone in Choso’s room, and you couldn’t help but let your mind wander.

As you enter his bedroom, you drank in your surroundings – a rare sight. The room was a reflection of Choso’s personality; band tees all over the walls, sheets laid flat and clean, laundry sitting in a basket in a neat, folded pile – a subtle hint of organized chaos.

It felt both familiar and new at the same time. The air was thick with anticipation, and memories of your whirlwind summer fling with Choso came flooding back.

You brace your hands on the door. “Is Itadori home?” You ask him, hands tracing the doorframe while Choso rummaged through his drawer. You sat on his bed.

“Nah,” he replied casually.

Furrowing your brows, you tried to make sense of the situation. But told me to come over…

“Is he coming?” You tried again, voice tinged with uncertainty.

Choso rose up from the bedside drawer, extending a small box towards you with a slight grin. “Nope,” he said.

The realization hit you like a freight train. This was a fucking setup, and Itadori was the mastermind behind it all.

He wanted you alone with his brother. He knew about your fling with him.

He didn’t notice when the two of you had disappeared to the pantry for ten minutes.

Though the moment you returned to see him glancing at you with a curious brow raised, you knew he had finally caught on. Even if he didn’t say anything about it.

He knew.

He had set you up.

Your face was on fire. Still, you took the small box from Choso, an awkward smile on your face, and carefully undid the little bow. As you opened it, you revealed its contents – a tee shirt with Choso’s University crest on it, a glace pendant on a fabric necklace, and a box set of your favorite film saga.

Choso had never given you a gift for your birthday before, at least not anything beyond a card. Briefly, you wondered if it was his way of making up for your 18th birthday party, the one he had missed.

“Choso…” You began, a humorous grin on your lips. “Merch?”

He shrugged playfully, his gaze locked onto yours. “In case you miss me,” he replied, tone teasing yet sincere.

With a genuine smile, you leaned over and hugged him. “I love it,” you had told him.

Choso reached into the box for the necklace, gesturing for you to come closer. You leaned in, allowing him to loop the fabric over your head. His fingers brushed against your skin, your neck as he adjusted it.

He froze. You froze.

For a while, the room was quiet. There was an intense stare-off between you two. Choso cleared his throat, seemingly about to break the moment, but you had other plans. Gently, you gripped his chin between your index finger and your thumb, turning his head back to you.

Gently, you tugged his lower lip down. He stuck his tongue out to wet the corner of his lips in return.

Your breath hitched as your gazes locked, and the air in the room shifted. Choso’s dark eyes shifted beneath your gaze, and you found yourself drawn closer to him.

You swallowed. “How bad did it hurt?” You asked, eyes fixed on the sliver of metal you had caught a glimpse of inside of his mouth.

Choso raised a finger towards his mouth, bringing your attention back to his tongue. “This?” He asked. “Hurt like a bitch, not gonna lie, but it healed up real nice.”

Wordlessly, he stuck his tongue out so you could see it up close. You examined it carefully – it really had healed up rather nicely. There was a small, silver ball wedged into the pink muscle. You wondered how it would feel on your lips, your neck, your body .

Choso closed his mouth. “I got it the first weekend after move-in day,” He explained.

“Why?” You inquired, curiosity finally getting the better of you.

He shrugged with a smirk, “Thought it would look hot. What do you think?”

“I think it looks like a pain in the ass,” You retorted. “Don’t any of the girls you kiss complain about that thing?”

“Quite the contrary,” he remarked, licking his lips. “Why’d you ask?”

You tried to ignore the jealousy that bubbled up inside of you, deep inside of you at the thought of him kissing other girls. You had to remind yourself who you were talking to here. You would have been naive to expect loyalty from a college freshman.

“Looks cold,” you commented instead. “I don’t imagine that would feel very good.”

And his eyes, those dark, beautiful cesspools of emotion, dropped down to your lips, lingering for a moment too long before returning to meet your gaze. “You wanna find out?” He asked.

“Piss off,” You scoffed, hitting him playfully on the shoulder. But the blush on your cheeks betrayed the effect his words had on you. “Fuckin’ tease.”

He didn’t move back. No, instead, he leaned in a little closer. “You sure?” He whispered, warm breath grazing the shell of your ear. “I can show you how good it feels, if you want.”

And that’s how you wound up here, with his face buried between your legs. He kissed his way up and down the skin of your thighs. You made quick work of his twin buns, tugging the ties out of his hair.

His lips curled into a knowing smirk. He lifted one of your legs onto his broad shoulder, running his tongue along the length of your inner thigh, pressing a kiss right where your ass met your legs. The metal ball on his tongue felt odd against your skin, but not necessarily unpleasurable.

You had never gone this far with him before. You were turned on beyond comprehension, hungry eyes drinking in the rosey hue that dusted his pale complexion while he sucked on your skin – hard enough for it to hurt, hard enough to leave a mark.

Tenderly, Choso reached for your panties. He appeared to be on the precipice of a decision.

“Can I…” He panted, trailing his thumb over the thin piece of fabric that separated the two of you. “Can I take these off?”

You nodded quickly, lifting your hips up for him while he guided the panties off of your legs.

He licked his lips and parted your legs a second time, fully exposing you to his ravenous gaze.

“You look like heaven,” He breathed out, voice trembling. He took a moment to admire you, smiling at the way you tried to hide your face. “Wanna taste…”

You had never done this before. The one man you had ever dared to hook up with hadn’t bothered. So you swallowed the lump in your throat, watching him get down on all fours and dip his head down between your legs like a man with his head bowed in worship.

Though you were far from holy, in that moment, you felt like you were God.

His tongue was hot and wet against your skin, licking a stripe from bottom to top. The metal ball of his tongue piercing caught on your puffy clit, eliciting a quiet gasp.

“Feel good, baby?” He teased, relishing in the way your thighs tensed around his head. His eyes flitted between you and your pussy – spread open for him like a buffet – pupils blown wide with desire. His pink lips parted around his tongue a second time, and this time you watched him.

Watched him press the metal ball against your clit, rolling over it in slow, steady circles.

You felt like you could die here.

He adjusted his grip on your hips, pulling you down on the bed until you felt his nose pressing in between your folds. He kissed your heat, moaning into you. Then, without so much as a warning, he began to eat you out like a starved man.

“Fuck, Cho–” You cried out for him, reaching down to tangle your fingers into his inky black tresses. You had never felt so good in your life, like he had been waiting for this as long as you had. You were sensitive, far too sensitive to comprehend the way your body felt, the way his tongue piercing felt as it glided over your hot flesh.

He didn’t slow down. He licked, slurped, and kissed your swollen clit, keeping that unforgiving pace up until your hips began to jump against his tongue.

“Shit,” You hissed,

He moaned into you in response, meeting your gaze with an intense fire burning behind his eyes. His tongue massaged you up to what you know would be the hardest orgasm of your life – that damn piece of metal made for one hell of a stimulant. It felt like it was pressing right up into your pressure points, deeper than his tongue was able to reach.

You felt yourself come apart at the seams, reduced to a moaning mess in a matter of minutes, riding his tongue like your life depended on it. He stopped moving for a moment, letting you grip him by the hair and ride his face.

You couldn’t look away.

He looked amazing, fire burning behind his eyes, fingertips biting into the skin of your thighs, brows furrowed with concentration. His eyes never left yours, not even once.

You dropped your head onto the pillow, sitting back and allowing him to resume what he had been doing earlier – that thing with his tongue.

And resume it he did, assuming a more demanding pace this time. It almost made you want to cry – the pace, the ball on his tongue – it was almost too much to bear. It felt so good.

You felt that familiar coil in your abdomen, almost like you were about to cum, then in a moment’s width he had pulled away.

You struggled to regain your surroundings, vision cloudy and hazy with pleasure. You could hear your rampant heartbeat racing in your own ears.

Choso leaned back with a stretch, cracking his neck and licking his lips. The entirebottom half of his face was drenched, dripping with an obscene mixture of your slick and his spit.

He looked gorgeous, even when his face was tinted red.

“Choso…” You breathed, letting a breathless chuckle slip between your parted lips.

He grinned back at you. “Any complaints?”

You didn’t glorify him with a response, gripping him by the fabric of his shirt and tugging him up and over you. You searched for his lips, locking them between yours in a messy, heated kiss. The taste of you lingered on his tongue, tangy and a little sweet.

“Shut up and fuck me, Kamo,” You panted with a grin of your own.

That was all he needed to push you onto your back, diving back in to ravage your lips again. It was all a rushed, passionate haze – he tugged your tee shirt over your head, you shoved your skirt down to your ankles and kicked it off the side of the bed. He leaned back with a stretch to reach for the back of his shirt, tugging it over his head and flinging it to the side.

Your mouth nearly watered for him. He was everything you had dreamed of and so much more. Well defined arms, pecs, abs – a few tattoos littered the broad expanse of his chest. His torso tapered down into a thin, slutty waist. You let your hand slide down his abdomen, eliciting a quiet groan from him as your painted fingernails caught on his toned abs, ghosted over the large tent in his sweats that left nothing to the imagination.

He was big. Bigger than you had anticipated. The last man you were with was about 3 inches (which was probably for the better, because it had been your first time). He felt about three times as big as that. Maybe more.

It didn’t take long for him to flip you onto your stomach, pulling your ass flush against his navel. He reached for a handful of your hair, jerking your head to the side, then uttered against your ear, “G’nna fuck that attitude right out’ta you.”

He left you for a moment while he undid the strings of his sweatpants. You couldn’t watch. You knew if you saw it, you would have doubts.

But you found yourself looking back anyway, right as he had told you. “Wanna reach into that drawer and grab me a condom?”

“Are you um…” You swallowed. “You don’t have any diseases, do you?”

You knew you were clean because you were so disgusted by the man you had hooked up with before Choso that you’d taken yourself to the planned parenthood in town the day after to be tested. Even if you had used a condom.

Choso’s brow quirked up at that. “No, I don’t have any STDs. I get tested twice a year.”

Oh. Okay.

Again, you didn’t want to think about how many women had taken his dick before you.

“Never gone raw before, though,” He mused quietly, hand rubbing mindless circles over the skin of your ass.

“Really?” You asked.

“Is that a surprise?” He retorted, though he didn’t seem very hurt by your comment. “Can’t babytrap me.”

You thought about definitely didn’t think about Choso being a father.

“Is there any way for you to, like…” You hummed, trailing off. Your inexperience had never been more disgustingly apparent. “Pull out?”

“You’re talking like this is your first time,” he laughed breathily.

You paused. His eyes widened.

“Is… this your first time?” He asked again.

“I had sex with this one guy from my class a while ago,” You said after an awkward silence. “He was small and, like, really bad at it.”

Choso seemed humored by your honest admission, though it came at the expense of your own embarrassment. “Why’d you go through with it, then?”

“I only did it to get back at you,” You turned your head back to the pillowcase below you. With a pout, you admitted, “Thought for some reason that by me having sex, I was proving something. I was younger and stupider, okay?”

“So… you’ve only had sex once?” He asked. You didn’t realize this was an interrogation.

You nodded embarrasedly. Somehow this was more humiliating than being spread open for him like you were right now.

“You sure you want this?” He hummed, roaching forward to tuck your hair behind your ear. It was strangely intimate. When you nodded, he sighed. “We’ll go slow, then. I don’t wanna hurt you–”

“Don’t treat me like I’m fragile,” You cut him off, finally turning back to look at him. “I can take it, okay? Just answer the damn question.”

Choso leaned down over you, pinning you into the bed, kissing down your spine. “We can… do backshots,” he murmured against your skin. “Want that?”

“Mhm,” You sighed, easing into his touch.

You had waited far too long for this for something like a condom to get in between the two of you. You wanted to feel him. All of him.

Choso rolled back, slipping his tip between your fold and swiping it through your slick. You watched him, watched the way he bit his lip at the sensation, eyes glued onto the place where you met him .

He pursed his lips, letting spit fall from his lips. You watched it dribble down, landing right onto your twitching hole.

That was so fucking hot .

Then, without a word of warning, he pushed the tip in. You gasped at the sudden intrusion, feeling the burn, the stretch of his girth inside of you. He paused for a moment when the tip was the only thing inside of you, brows drawn together, breaths shallow.

It took everything you had not to cry out in pain. You had been waiting your whole life for this.

But, shit, it hurt. He was big. You felt your body struggle to accommodate him.

Maybe some prep should have been in order…

Oh well, gotta see it through.

As if sensing your internal dilemma, Choso reached down, intertwining his fingers with yours. He placed a soft kiss to the back of your neck.

“You okay?” He asked you.

No . Yes.

“Yeah,” You bit out. “Just… I ‘jus need a minute.”

“Just tell me when,” he pressed another kiss to your hot skin. “You’re doing so good.”

It took you a few more minutes to adjust to him. Every minute, he would slip in a little further, just enough to make your skin hot and flushed. You could feel him throbbing inside of you, throbbing against your spongy walls.

Eventually, you gave him the green light. And, fuck, it was like something inside of him had snapped. He slid the rest of the way in until his hips were flush with your ass. He drew out, slowly, then thrust back in again.

It felt like he was pulling you apart over and over again, snapping his hips against yours in a progressively harder fashion.

Choso whimpered quitedly, pausing his harsh movements to change pace. You clenched around him in response, something that made him double over. “Ah, fuck,” He gasped. “You feel so fuckin’ good.”

He drew back, thrusting into you once more. You felt your whole body jolt forward with a loud moan of your own.

With wild, passionate eyes, Choso pulled out again, leaving just enough room for the tip. Then, he slammed back into you. Again, again, again – he was relishing in the way you cried into the pillow.

“Fuck, fuck,” You chanted, like some sort of sinful prayer. “ Fuck me, Cho– ”

“Might not last long if you keep callin’ my name like that,” He gasped, tangling a large hand into your messy tresses and gripping it tightly.

You drew your brows together, allowing yourself to be lost in the pleasure, the attention he was giving you. What would Itadori think, you wondered, if he walked in on you like this – face down ass up in his big brother’s bed?

“Choso ,” You groaned into the pillow. It felt like he was scratching an itch deep inside of you – not your coochie, but your soul. It felt like you were made for this. “ Choso, Fuck. ”

Itadori slipped into his house with a quiet sigh. He kicked his shoes off, set his bag down on the floor, and then reached for his scarf. It had been one long, hellish day. He felt bad making you wait for him, but he didn’t doubt that you would have made yourself right at home in his bedroom by now. You were probably sprawled out over his bed, passed out or playing with his PS5.

He froze when he heard something come from upstairs. It sounded like furniture being moved around, or something like that. There were voices, too.

With knitted brows, he walked hesitantly towards the stairs. Was it coming from up there?

“Fuck, Choso,” He heard a vaguely familiar – albeit very muffled voice – moan.

It was you. You and another muffled voice.

“Choso, Choso!”

“Right there?”

“Fuck– yes! Don’t stop!”

He quirked a brow. Then, with a sigh and a dejected shake of his head, he hid away in the kitchen.

“Please!” You gasped, you fumbled around behind you in search of his hand. He grabbed it, pinning your arm behind your back and thrusting into your sore pussy from a new angle – one that made you feel dizzy. You didn’t know how long the two of you had been going at it. All you knew was that you never wanted it to end, that your mind was a blissful haze.

Your body slid up against the bedsheets – up and down, up and down, clenched fingers leaving wrinkles in their wake.

“Fuck me harder,” You pled.

And fuck you harder he sure did. His chest rolled against your backside, pinning you into the mattress and holding you right where he wanted you. Then he fucked you a little harder.

You were all but screaming his name at that point. “Choso–”

The head of his cock was bullying into you, beating against that spot deep within you that made your feet fly up, rubbing the back of his thighs as if to tell him ‘ keep going’.You gripped the sheets with unwarranted strength, feeling yourself drip and clench around him – hearing the obscene squelch you made when the two of you met in the middle.

“ Fu-u-uck ,” You cried, voice high and weak.

“Quit suckin’ me in like that,” He chuckled, though it was cut short by a deep, guttural groan as you did it again. “ Shit , you want kids or somethin’?”

There was a knot in your stomach. A vaguely familiar warmth that seemed to only grow hotter by the second.

“ So perfect, so wet ,” Choso commended you, licking the shell of your ear, peppering butterfly kisses to the back of your neck. Your name fell out of his pretty lips between a cacophony of sinful noises.

You felt yourself get lost in him, craning your head around to take another look at him. His angelic face, scrunched up with pleasure, mouth hanging open just slightly, pale face dusted with pink. Inky black hair plastered to his forehead and neck with sweat. The muscles in his chest and torso rippled.

“I’ve wanted you…” You gasped, trying your best to articulate despite the stimulation he was giving you – it was almost too much. “Since I was young – fuck .”

His hips stuttered. He pulled your hair away from your neck, kissing the junction where your jaw met your neck.

He gripped your hair to crane your head back, slowing his thrusts to long, deep strokes that had you trembling.

“The feeling was mutual,” Choso grunted, trying to keep himself together.

You felt your eyes roll almost all the way back into your fucking head, mouth hanging open, drooling shamelessly on his pillow, his sheets.

You were close. So close.

Those deep, lust-filled eyes of him weren’t doing anything to slow the train that was coming. Each thrust, each slide of his cockhead against your g-spot brought you closer and closer to the edge.

“You feel even better than I imagined,” He growled, and you nearly came right then and there.

He moved his hands so that your hips were up in the air for him, bringing his other arm around your neck to pin you there. When he picked up pace this time, you felt yourself drip – like, actually drip – all over him.

I wanna have his kids .

Your moans and pleas matched the pace of his sloppy thrusts. He was getting close, too. You could hear it. No, seriously, noises like that should have been criminal.

The feeling of being filled by him was driving you up the wall – almost as hard as he was currently driving you into the mattress. You never wanted it to end.

But, shit, it was about to.

“Choso,” You whimpered. He didn’t slow down. “Think ‘m g’nna cum.”

“Yeah?” he gritted out, breath fanning over your neck and your cheek. He reached a hand down, releasing your neck to rub slow circles on your puffy clit – a speed that felt foreign compared to the harsh strokes he was giving you, but not entirely unwelcome.

That was all it took to have you hurling towards the edge, ass jumping up and down to meet his thrust in the middle, to take as much of him in as you possibly could.

“Yeah, shit,” He gasped. He was trying to hold on for you, but you were making it realhard. “G’nna cum for me, baby? Lemme fuckin’ hear it.”

You were all but throwing it back on him, mindlessly chasing your release like a bitch in heat. The moment you got the green light, your orgasm snapped. You cried out his name one final time, arching your back all the way into the sheets, spasming wildly around him. The shock tore through you in waves.

Your hips jolted with hypersensitivity while he fucked you through it.

Choso’s hips stuttered. He twitched, like he couldn’t take another minute of this, then he remarked, “That was so fuckin’ hot, holy shit – fuck, wait–”

He slid out of you rapidly, leaving you to gasp at the sudden loss of him. The next thing you know, he was stroking himself to completion. He came with a broken whimper of your name, spurting ropes of warm cum all over your back.

You took a moment to catch your breath. He did the same. A few moments, actually.

The silence that followed was deafening. He groaned, running a shaky hand through his hair. You collapsed into the bed.

He had left the bedside at one point, though only for a moment before he returned with a warm wash rag. He cleaned his love paint off of your spine.

Then, tossing the rag into his hamper, he collapsed next to you.

You chuckled breathlessly, throwing your arms around his neck and kissing him with all of the strength you had left in you (not much). “Shit…”

“Shit,” he agreed, licking his lips. “You were great.”

“You were better,” You said. “I don’t think I’ll be able to walk home tonight, though.”

Choso shrugged. He reached down, pulling the covers over the two of you. “Sleep here, then.”

Sleep here.

You recalled many nights of him walking girls to the door. Choso never let girls stay the night.

He wants me to spend the night with hiim.

You laughed, reveling in the irony of it all. Years and years of pining led you here, to this. “What would Itadori think?”

Choso threw an arm over your waist, pulling you closer to his side. “Fuck what Itadori thinks.”

Your world went black a moment later.

Your eyes fluttered open as you lay in the aftermath of a steamy evening with the man of your dreams. Choso, your best friend’s brother. The one you had fucked.

His lips were pressed into the slightest pout. You watched him snore, taking note of how peaceful he looked while he slept, taking note of the way his tousled black hair fell into his pretty face.

With a contented sigh, you reached for a shirt that lay nearby – his shirt. The one he had taken off yesterday. You slipped out from beneath the covers, padding quietly out of Choso’s bedroom. Your feet were quiet against the wooden steps.

As you entered the living room space, you contemplated sneaking into the kitchen in search of some much-needed sustenance. It had to have been later in the afternoon at that point – you assumed that you and Choso had been sleeping for a few hours, at least. Your stomach grumbled in agreement.

Just as you were about to step into the familiar kitchen, however, you froze. There, sitting at the table, munching on a Kit Kat bar like it was no one’s business, was her best friend.

Itadori.

“Hey…” You said rather awkwardly, heart racing. “You’re… you’re home.”

Itadori quirked a brow, looking you up and down curiously. His eyes noticeably lingered on your neck, right were you had a sneaking suspicion Choso had marked you with his lips and teeth.

“Hey,” He finally said. “You two finally done up there?”

“You heard that. Of course you did,” You sighed, dropping your stiff arms and plopping into the stool next to him at the kitchen island. You faceplanted into the cold surface, groaning, “How much did you hear?”

“Enough to know my brother’s good in bed,” Itadori took another bite. He placed a heart over his chest, feigning an exaggerated cry of, “ Choso– oh, Choso, don’t stop, I’m cu–”

“He told me you weren’t coming home,” You groaned, even louder this time. You were glad that Itadori couldn’t see the nasty shade of red that had painted your features.

“He lied,” Your best friend chuckled, crumpling the wrapper of his Kit Kat bar and tossing it in the trash bin. He stood off, dusting his hands on his pants, reaching for his phone. Then, like nothing had happened, he said, “I’m ordering Chinese. You want?”

You raised your head at that, taking a slow glance at the room around the two of you. “I could go for some beef and broccoli…”

You loved the bond you had with Yuuji. Unbreakable, truly. Sometimes a little toocomfortable. This was, undoubtedly, one of those times.

Itadori dialed a few numbers into his phone. He paused, raising his brow again, “I think you’ve had enough meat tonight, don’t you?”

“Shut the fuck up,” You sighed, though you laughed a bit at his joke.

Images of Choso flashed through your mind. The image of him spitting on the tip before slipping it in. The image of him tangling a fist in your hair, craning your head back to look at him while he pounded you into the mattress.

With a faint smirk of your own, you remarked. “You’re probably right. I should save room for all of the meat I’m gonna be eatin’ tonight after you go to bed.”

“Please shut up,” Itadori sighed, running the palms of his hands over his exasperated face. With a shake of his head, he held the phone up to his ear. “I really don’t want to think about my brother putting his dick in you. Not while dinner is also in the question.”

You shrugged. Your phone buzzed. Turning it over, you read the new message you had received.

CHOSO just now

Whered u go beautiful

Your phone chimed a second time.

CHOSO just now

Steamed dumplings n fried rice plz

You turned the screen over with a grin, telling Itadori. “Your brother wants steamed dumplings and fried rice.”

“I’d say fuck my brother, but tonight’s game night and I don’t want you taking that literally,” Itadori sighed. Still, he unmuted himself, telling the woman on the other side of the phone, “Another order of fried rice and dumplings, too, please.”

Yuuji Itadori really was the best friend a girl like you could ask for.

a/n: hi there my little steamed dumplins <33 lmk what u thought!!! I love reading ur comments and dms. again, this is a one shot, but I would totally drop another part if yall would like -- gotta show papa choso some love. comment and lmk what u think pookiesss

comments + reblogs are greatly appreciated!!

I obviously do not own jjk or anything related to it. please do not reproduce, copy, or translate my works anywhere. dont fk w me im a bruja.

taglist: @missphanosaur18 ,

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