#no respect for assholes because of their office

[reaping-the-benefits]

Content warning: Omegaverse, alpha Simon, toxic boyfriend (not Si), Simon’s a little bit of a freak in this (I'm not sorry), reader is an omega and described to wear panties but gender neutral beside that. Spicy but no smut. Enjoy!! :)

Coming home from deployment is supposed to be relaxing. Key word: supposed. But this time, dragging his feet towards his flat, Simon is anything but relaxed. Not when that damn smell is clogging his nostrils, so sweet and thick in the air - it’s like he can taste it. Practically swallow the damn scent, drown in it from breathing alone.

It haunts him for the first week of his leave, before he finally figures out where, more like who, it’s coming from: you. The absolute angel of an omega, who’s just recently moved in with the alpha - your boyfriend -  that lives across the hall from Simon. (Simon didn’t like the other alpha to begin with. Too boisterous and demanding, always trying to throw his second gender around. As if that’s a reason to respect him.) 

Unlike your asshole boyfriend, you’re kind and caring, just like an omega should be. You stare at Simon with big, innocent eyes, and give him a shy smile when you drop off cookies. Your cheeks flush, when his fingers brush against your hand, as you exchange the tupperware container. And, for a brief moment, Simon imagines how you’d look with your cheeks flushed for a different reason.

An imaginative thought that quickly gets interrupted, when your boyfriend comes slinking across the hallway, your sweet scent easily overpowered by the absolute bitter pheromones rolling off your partner. Simon’s eyes narrow, when your boyfriend grabs you, a little too harsh for Simon’s liking.

“Come on. You’re done gawking,” your boyfriend mutters, practically dragging you across the hallway and back to the apartment. 

Simon keeps bumping into you after that. In the elevator, heading back from the gym, while you’ve got an armful of groceries. The elevator smells like him, pheromones rolling off him in waves from the workout. The scent makes your face heat up, mainly because he smells absolutely divine, and you have to stop yourself from rubbing your thighs together.

In the laundry room, where he’s waiting on his clothes to finish drying. And then you walk in with a basket of dirty laundry that smells like you, warm and sweet. You give him a shy smile, a kind hello, as you load your clothes into the washer. Simon watches you from his peripheral, fighting back a growl at the sight of all your panties. Maybe you won’t notice if he grabs one from the wash.

In the mail room, where you’re trying to sort your mail because somehow it’s gotten mixed up with his. You apologize profusely, completely unaware that Simon did it on purpose. He reassures you that it’s fine, these things happen. And the two of you end up chatting, as you sort through the mail. 

It’s through this little chat that your friendship blossoms. You drop by Simon’s flat for afternoon tea, where you tell him your office gossip. Gossip that he seems to be able to retain better than your current boyfriend ever does. Simon offers to take you out, never calls these outings dates but it certainly feels like one, especially when he’s got you giggling at his bad dad jokes. Sometimes he gives you flowers, and you have to ignore the way your heart hammers in your chest at the gift.

It’s on one of these outings, brunch at some fancy place you’d never be able to afford on your own, that Simon finally asks the question he’s been dying to know. 

“Why hasn’t that git gone and claimed you?” He asks it so casually, despite the way his own instincts are howling at him to lunge across the table and do it himself.

You sputter, nearly choking on your drink. Your face heats up, embarrassed by your reaction. It’s not a horrible question, and you’ve certainly told Simon far more intimate things than this. But, despite only knowing him for a few months, you do know Simon well. And you know how he’s going to react to this.

“Uh, well… I’m not entirely sure if Devin is the right choice, and I’m trying to give him a chance to prove himself,” you admit. You go to explain how your own parents had been an arranged relationship, forced together when your mother had gotten pregnant. It had been a disastrous pairing, and you witnessed firsthand the abuse an alpha can cause. Because of that, you refuse to let yourself be claimed until you’re absolutely positive that your partner is the right one. You can’t let your own pups be put through what you had to endure as a child.

To your surprise, Simon’s understanding of this. He goes on to vaguely explain how he’s experienced something similar, and he thinks you’re making the right choice by protecting yourself, and your future children, like that. “What’s got you hesitating with this bloke?” he asks, but he’s got a feeling he already knows the answer.

Simon’s not stupid, and he can read your body language, as well as the suddenly sour note in your scent. In all honesty, he doesn’t need you to answer the question. He’s heard the way Devin speaks to you, as if you’re stupid, as if you’re beneath him. And Simon just hums in acknowledgement at your lack of a response, and thankfully decides to change the subject.

Things are quiet after that. You're busy with your job and your boyfriend. Simon comes and goes with missions. You make time to see each other, and you find yourself enjoying Simon's company far more than you should. He's never pushy for information, never makes you feel bad for falling asleep during movie night. He's practically the perfect guy, the perfect alpha. 

It's this revelation that has you pulling away. Not from Simon, of course. But from your boyfriend. He just can't compare to Simon, especially when he makes you feel guilty for even wanting to spend time with Simon to begin with. And you can’t help but suddenly notice all the red flags in your relationship.

It’s your second heat, since you moved in, that things change.

You insist that you can handle it on your own, just hole up in your room and work through it by yourself. It’s what you did last time, and at the time Devin had been understanding. However, this time, he’s far less considerate, insisting that he should be allowed to help you through it.

It’s when the fight takes a physical turn, your boyfriend threatening and attempting to hit you, that makes you run out of the apartment. Right across the hall, and directly into Simon’s chest. He wraps one arm around you protectively, really just making sure you don’t fall over. 

You barely get one word out, teary eyed and shaking, before Simon’s pushing you into his apartment, telling you to make yourself comfortable. And then he’s gone, only to come back an hour later with bloody knuckles and some of your belongings. 

When you try to explain yourself, or get an explanation out of him, Simon just shakes his head and ushers you to his guest bedroom. It’s nicely furnished, with an excess amount of blankets that has you wondering if he was prepared for this to happen. You decide not to ask, far more distracting by the opportunity to build yourself a nest on the bed, a mix of blankets and pillows arranged into a carefully crafted structure. 

It’s fantastic, perfect for you to spend the next week curled up inside. But.. it’s missing something. And you can’t put your finger on it, not until Simon comes into the room to ask if you need anything else. It takes you a moment to gather the courage to ask him to scent some of the blankets. And the look he gives you, proud and maybe a little smug, makes your cheeks flush, as you pass over a blanket for him to scent. 

The next couple days pass in a blur. The only thing Simon lets you focus on is resting and relaxing before you officially start your heat. He handles gathering your things from your now ex boyfriend's place. You don’t have anywhere else to go, but Simon insists that you can worry about that after your heat. 

It’s night number three of staying in Simon’s guest room, that your heat finally kicks in. You wake up in the middle of the night, skin flushed and sweaty. It’s far too hot in the room, and you carefully peel your clothes off, practically moaning as the cool air hits your skin. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do anything to help the throbbing sensation between your legs, thighs wet from more than just your sweat.

You’re up and moving before you can really think about it, legs wobbly and unstable. But the alpha scent in your nest - musky and masculine - drives you out of the room. You need more of it, need it to stick to your skin until it’s all you can smell. It’s that need that has you stumbling out of the guest room, and into Simon’s. 

You’re not surprised to find him awake. You can only imagine how hard it must be to fall asleep when there’s an unclaimed omega just a room over. And you’re incredibly pleased when he doesn’t immediately push you out of the bed, pressing your body up against his.

“Simon,” you whine. 

All he does is hum in response, the bastard. One large hand on your back, rubbing circles along your spine. It feels nice, and has you relaxing into his touch.

“Need your help, please.”

“Thought ya wanted to wait,” he replies, voice low and rough. 

You do, or at least you did. But these past few months with Simon have proven he’s more than the right choice. The ways he’s courted you, listened to you, taken care of you - Simon’s the perfect alpha. You had just been too blind to see it, distracted by your failure of a boyfriend. But he’s out of the picture now, and there’s nothing stopping you from finally admitting how badly you want Simon. 

“Waited long enough. I want this, want you. I- Simon, please.”

There’s something almost predatory in his eyes, when Simon finally moves his head to look at you. But it’s quickly replaced with a smug smirk, and he tells you, “Don’t need to beg, love. I’ll take care of ya.”

(@purplepaladinsworld ur tag as promised, pookie! <3 Happy birthday!!)

[jethrowest]

let me see you stripped down to the bone…

- stripped by depeche mode

congratulations! you’ve been hired as homelander’s entire glam squad! what an opportunity! now let’s try real hard not to let the fumes get to you, okay?

pairing : homelander/afab reader

word count : 5.6k

warnings : homelander in and of himself, toxic workplace environment, something akin to stockholm syndrome, fingering, smut. 18+, mdni

special thanks to @blindmagdalena @sehtoast @homeb0ys and @clockworkzeppelin for letting me scream at you about this!

writing tag

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Homelander is an asshole.

That doesn’t bother you much. You’ve dealt with plenty in this field, which means you’ve learned how to make life easier for all parties. That particular learning curve includes when to stand out and blend in, at times concurrently depending on what variety of asshole they happen to be.

As a whole, the makeup artists and hairstylists at Vought take care of The Seven and go where they’re needed. And as a cosmetologist, you were hired to provide both services for Homelander and Homelander only, which you consider to be one of the most prestigious stamps one could add to their professional passport.

Before you became official, you were colorfully threatened by a Ms. Ashley Barrett, who, after the fact, had no qualms throwing you into the lion’s den to figure your own shit out.

In no uncertain terms were you told that if you fucked any part of this up, your sparkling resume would look best as something to sit her smooth, bare ass on while getting fucked on top of her desk. No lube or protection. It would then be tossed exactly like her salad.

Not an image you could have ever predicted crossing your mind. Honestly, you should have stopped her right there and walked your happy little ass out of her office toward pastures that might have not been greener (you were being handsomely compensated), but certainly not as toxic. While the red flags were a color you couldn’t quite ignore, you were also curious about why they stood out so much more than they did regarding previous employers.

None of this is to say you live under a rock. Anyone who has access to the internet is ambushed daily by these Supes’ personal lives. Homelander’s track record as far as choice in partners went hadn’t been ideal, so you understand that made him less popular at the time. That of course has nothing to do with you or your capabilities.

You opt to wear gray-colored glasses, seeing everything with a neutral blend of black and white. As much as possible anyway.

Nevertheless, curiosity killed the cat. But hopefully not your career.

The first day was awkward to say the least. Immediately, you knew you weren’t going to like your coworkers.

Glints of sympathy changed how they perceived you. A target, whether they intended for this to happen or not, was nailed to your forehead, and it made them buzz around you like avid, greedy wasps keen on seeing how rapidly the honeybee will be brutalized. You didn’t much care for going cross-eyed while staring at that target whenever you crossed paths. They didn’t know you, yet because of who you were working under, deemed you helpless. They didn’t give you a chance to establish yourself before branding you a victim.

Why should you respect them?

Small talk wasn’t entertained either, as their judgment tarnished any future encounters. They ostracized you once you showed no interest in engaging with them. That didn’t disappoint you. You weren’t here to make friends.

You do wonder how those before you fared: if they were jaded when they arrived or if they couldn’t help but succumb to the pressures of being at the top rung of a very unstable albeit sought after ladder.

Ms. Barrett quickly introduced you to Homelander, her parting gift before leaving the two of you alone.

You weren’t completely nervous in his presence. He wasn’t any different to you than the other celebrities you’d worked on, except he could rip you in half like a piece of paper if he was so inclined. But he’s the hero of this country’s story, so really, you should have nothing to worry about.

His demeanor, you noted, suggested arrogance, annoyance, and boredom. All things you’re used to. So you offered your hand to shake, which he eyed with a slightly upturned nose before grabbing, told him it was a pleasure to meet him and got straight to business.

Looking back, he was clearly expecting more out of you. Maybe not a display as excessive as getting on your knees and professing your undying love, but close enough. Somewhere in the middle, perhaps.

Part of you believes he might have also counted on fear. To you, he’s not anything or anyone unknown. Another big name in a fancy suit with impossible demands.

You were given a routine to follow and products to use. You did as you were instructed and found the process to be simple and, as Homelander’s expression revealed, uninspiring.

While you were utilizing a face brush to apply powder, he must have decided he was done enduring your lack of enthusiasm, because he suddenly asked, “What are you wearing?”

You stopped for a split second, no longer than, and continued. “The name of my clothing designer, you mean?”

He scoffed, waving his gloved hand at you, almost knocking the applicator you held to the ground. “No, your perfume. What are the top notes?”

You laughed and that seemed to confuse him. “Why, you want a bottle?”

“I don’t like it.” He sniffed sharply and cleared his throat. “Smells like you should be on the corner selling your used body parts.”

Ding ding ding. Alarm bells and red flags galore. You enjoy a challenge, however, and are a bit of a masochist, so you persevere.

“Well, what doesn’t smell like a cheap hooker to you? I’ll start wearing that instead.”

He cocked a brow, studying you. Trying to figure out if you were being serious or mocking him.

“It’s your first day.” A warning. “Are you on your best behavior, or can you do better?” He leaned forward in his chair, forcing you backward. “You should be working harder to prove yourself. Prove your worth.” He sat back again and shrugged. “Or maybe you really are worth as much as that dumpster juice you doused yourself in.”

At this point, he more than likely envisioned your happy little ass getting offended and storming out of the room. Breaking down, sobbing. Questioning why he was being so rude. One of those or, better yet, a nifty combination.

You’ve heard worse, unfortunately for him. Not always directed at you, but that doesn’t matter. You can handle it.

“You’re absolutely right,” you stated calmly, folding your arms across your chest. He looked at you with pretentious, petulant intrigue. “It is my first day, and I want to make a good impression. Which is why I’m asking you what you would like me to wear so I can continue to keep that good impression intact and, as our professional relationship develops, stay on top of it.”

Homelander’s mouth twitched. He sighed deeply and slouched in his seat, staring at the wall to the left of him. Then he deigned to cast his gaze back at you, resting his cheek on his index and middle finger. He tapped the arm rest with his other hand.

“Ugh, fine. Whatever.” A pause followed that lasted longer than necessary. Were you meant to guess? “Just wear something, I dunno, less. If you would have done your homework like a good little peon, you’d know I have super senses. Highly developed. Can you even imagine what that entails?”

Finally, he freed the canvas you were nearly finished with, and you flicked the soft bristles across the bridge of his nose. You smiled, more to yourself than him.

Felt rather on the nose, as the saying goes.

He didn’t comment on your grin. You didn’t give him time to. But he did huff like you were being obtuse on purpose.

“I can try. And my imagination is giving me some less-than-ideal scenarios,” you replied. Another pause. At least he was letting you do your job again.

You don’t know what compelled you to keep going, but something about his lack of a real answer made you carry on. “Do you have a favorite flower or baked good? Maybe a spice?”

Homelander almost glared up at you. You say almost because, for whatever reason, it didn’t seem like he was directing that harshness at you, though former words and actions proved otherwise. Something inside, perhaps. Or outside of this enclosed space.

“I already told you what to wear. Don’t make me repeat myself.”

You took the hint and remained quiet the rest of your session. Soon, you were done.

As you were packing and tidying up your station, he took it upon himself to stand behind you. He lingered over your shoulder, watching the scene play out like he was director and star and you were barely an ant on the sidewalk he acknowledged before squashing.

The heat radiating off of him was impossible to dismiss, a wall of it barricading your backside. He clasped his fingers underneath his cape and inched closer. You thought he was as close to you as he could get without touching you. He was that warm.

When you glanced up, he was staring at you through the mirror. As absurd as it was, you managed to get chills. Goosebumps broke the surface of your skin.

“Fresh chocolate chip cookies. Straight out of the oven. Like mom used to make.” He flashed an unnerving smile before turning to exit.

From there on out, even after you bent to his will and found a gourmand scent that matched what he described, Homelander tested you. Your work ethic, clothing choice, eating habits, and most of all, patience.

Your parents would ask how you were liking your job, how it was working alongside the Supes- not to mention the most famous of all- and you’d lie through your teeth. You felt you had no choice, Ashley’s threat ringing in your ears.

Resume, bare ass, tossed salad...

Oh yeah, it’s going great! They’re all super flexible. I couldn’t be happier!

At least that pun made you feel a little better about hiding the shame of what you’ve allowed yourself to take on.

This was all in the first few weeks. It started to get a little easier after that, which is surprising considering more was added to your to-do list.

You should have moved on before starting. But, for whatever asinine reason, you didn’t.

Every time you go back to your apartment and assess your appearance in the bathroom mirror, you wonder who’s making who up here. He’s changing your looks more than you are his. You’re like his human doll.

You’ve put up with a lot over the years, but this takes the cake and shoves it in your face. As fucked as it is, the flavor is growing on you. Like a fungus. Growing, nonetheless.

You can’t stop thinking about him.

It’s innocent enough, you try convincing yourself. Making sure you have the right outfit laid out the night before, the right lunch (no onions or fish or anything “freaky”!), etc. He is your superior, after all. You shouldn’t be viewing him in any other light.

He’s the most frustrating aspect of your existence these days, but he’s also the one you’re around the most. His penchant for workplace gossip and how unintentionally funny he is tends to make him palatable, which has regrettably become an understatement.

Months go by. You’ve witnessed how alone he truly is. How he has nothing outside of performing his tricks on Vought’s all-encompassing stage. And when he begins asking for your input, starts doing things for you that are so blatant it’s perplexing, you find your stress and vexation melting into cumbersome fascination.

It’s embarrassing. You don’t have the courtesy of enough time to dwell on your feelings toward the situation either, from beginning to whatever end you might be met with. You suppose that could be beneficial in the long run.

It also hits you when you least expect it; when you really don’t want it to.

Your body doesn’t wait until you finally have a moment alone. It decides, while you’re helping Homelander with his skincare routine that he insisted upon because you know more than these vacuous corporate douche-bags, to heat up without warning and slither from your head to your heart until it grasps you unfairly between your legs.

You try not to step into momentary paralysis. You understand to what extent his powers reach. It’s not like he doesn’t go on and on about them. About himself.

Whatever he notices, it’s not right away. A palpable tension fills the air between the two of you eventually. But it takes a more significant amount of time than you would have anticipated to permeate the natural flow of things.

Fuck, you can’t even be safe inside here, where your thoughts, whatever they may be, are yours. You can’t even have yourself. He has every part of you, and you are willingly relinquishing that control.

Your evening, once you can have it, consists of combing over every decision you’ve made leading up to this strange, disorienting space you find yourself occupying. All it does is leave you exasperated in a much different way than before and with an unsettling observation (or hallucination):

Was that the tail end of the American flag outside your window?

You are unacceptably late.

Rushing around, you throw on the first top and bottoms you see from your closet and spritz some perfume on your neck and wrists. You don’t check your phone. You’re afraid of what will pop up on your screen. And, frankly, you don’t have the time.

Your only option for transportation is the subway, as you’re sure the special vehicle from Vought is long gone. Why would they wait for someone like you, even if you’re practically Homelander’s personal assistant? One of his only friends. You doubt he has more than Black Noir, and that isn’t as perfect as it appears to the casual viewer.

You dread what kind of explosion you’re without a doubt walking into once you show your miserable ass up. You’re going to smell like everyone on this train. He’s going to go ballistic.

The question remains: why are you continuing to put yourself through this? It’s not your circus, yet somehow, the monkeys have become your liability.

You know, deep down, what keeps you going back. It’s simply too ridiculous to admit aloud.

Making your way past security, hurriedly presenting your badge, you realize you forgot to brush your teeth, or at the very least, gargle some mouthwash. You thank your lucky stars when you open your purse to a pack of gum tucked away in one of the compartments.

It will have to do.

When you open the door to Homelander’s dressing room, you see a couple of employees standing near the counter where the bag of supplies has been opened and rifled through, looking like they might soil themselves, a frantic Ashley, and an extremely pissed off Homelander in the middle of it all.

Reflexively, you cringe. You attempt to wipe any trace from your features, but it’s too late. Ashley is glaring daggers at you and Homelander can hardly bring himself to look in your direction. The others don’t matter to you. They never did.

“I’m so sorry I’m late. I know there’s no excuse-”

“You’re goddamned right, there’s no excuse! I don’t give a shit if god and his whole fucking choir of angels came down from heaven and divinely called you to give them a makeover! What were you thinking?!”

You’re about to answer, though you comprehend her query is more or less rhetorical. She interrupts your slightly open mouth while gesturing wildly, proving your point.

“Oh, that’s right! You weren’t thinking at all, were you?! But I do believe you���ve thought long and hard about what’s at stake here. And you know damn well we at Vought don’t tolerate this kind of sloppy behavior. Not to mention the way you’re dressed! It’s adding insult to injury!” Her hand swipes at the air, the length of your outfit, and you glance down, recognizing how comically mismatched you are. Her correct observation affects you more than it would have months prior, stinging your ego- one of the many things that’s been shelved in order to accommodate the person who won’t even grace you with a glance.

A dramatic groan cuts short any further commentary from the redhead, perpetually stretched thin between her absurd duties.

“Jesus Christ, Ashley, why are your big fucking horse gums still flapping?” Homelander’s booming voice slices through your mind like a jarring, dense migraine. He pinches his brow between middle finger and thumb, eyes closed. “I want you and Tweedledee and Tweedledum t’get the fuck out. Now.”

Ashley is plainly dumbfounded, struggling to see where she went wrong (a pattern when it comes to dealing with the volatile leader of The Seven), mouth agape. She shakes her head. “But sir, are you-?”

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about or doing. Clearly.”

Ms. Barrett turns a shade paler, staring at Homelander and blinking owlishly before snapping herself out of her stupor. She hurries her lackeys out of the room, shooing them along like a pair of misbehaving toddlers. She doesn’t give a final look, no further warning. She merely shuts the door behind her.

You also hear it lock.

What the hell does she think is going to happen?

You should have stopped this while you had the chance. You should have never taken this job. You should have stood up for yourself and walked out. You should have you should have you should-

“Who the fuck do you think you are?”

His caustic tone sends shivers down your spine. It’s unlike anything you’ve heard come out of him. And you’ve heard enough.

Again, you open your mouth. It fills with blood, thick and metallic and more potent than the mint from your gum. You’re silenced by it.

He stalks toward you and grabs you hastily by the shoulders, swiveling you around so you’re face-to-face with the choices you’ve made. Your mirrored image is reflected back at you, exhausted and searching for any last shred of who you might be beneath his heavy palms.

“Look at yourself! Do you even recognize who’s staring back at you?” No.

“What kind of game are you playing, hmmm? Is this… humiliating spectacle you’re putting on for the money? Your pathetic career? Like it’s goddamned rocket science to pick up a can of hairspray and use it. Monkeys have hands.” He makes a noise that’s akin to a snorting horse, exhaling forcefully past his nostrils. “I mean, did you really think you could pull a fast one on me?” He clutches your jaw, squeezing it between middle and thumb. Every muscle in your body tenses, your heart picking up rhythm.

“Spit that fucking gum out. Don’t think I can’t hear you grinding it between your molars like a dumb animal. You aren’t a mama bird, are you? Y’don’t have cute little baby birds t’force-feed your regurgitated leftovers, do you? Eugh, gross.”

You take a deep breath and exhale through your nose. It presents you with a false sense of security. You do as you’re told, and it lands on the floor in front of your shoe, saliva dangling on a thread as withered as your sanity.

Suddenly fresh breath seems like the most insignificant issue, when Homelander himself once made it out to be something earth-shattering.

You’re such a fool.

He leans in and sniffs your throat. Your fingers lengthen and bend.

You’re so many things at once. Confused, angry, nervous, scared. And, to your dismay, warm. God you’re so fucking warm. He’s heating you up from the inside out. You clench your jaw, still held in place by a firm bind.

“Get rid of those ugly clothes. I don’t care what you have to do. I can’t stand the sight or smell of them.”

You shut your eyes. When you open them, all you see is red. The other emotions are smothered in favor of that brand of heat. What happens next is a blur. You temporarily leave yourself.

“Fine. Have it your way, Homelander. You always do.”

Breaking free of his fluctuating hold, you start tearing at what you’re wearing, tossing everything- including your bra and underwear- to the ground. Your shirt winds up with the gum sticking to its loose fabric. You even take your shoes and socks off, not paying any heed to where your belongings go. Just that they’re gone.

You don’t process the glaring fact that you made yourself naked in front of your boss. In front of the most powerful man this country, and possibly world, has known. You don’t care that things have escalated this far. That they shouldn’t have. They shouldn’t have. But guess what? They did. And these are the consequences you both have to deal with.

“You wanna know what game I’m playing?” You turn around, forcing him backward. “It’s funny, I thought you’d be able to answer that for me, considering all the hoops I’ve had to jump through to not only save my ass, but make sure you had someone to talk to at the end of the day! Who on your team can you say goes above and beyond like that for you?!” He blinks at you now, eyes wide. Features fall to the floor where your clothes reside. You have his full and undivided attention.

An impressively dangerous thing to have.

“What more do you want from me, Homelander? I practically live with you without any of the benefits that usually includes! You’re really going to stand here and berate me like I haven’t given you fucking everything you’ve ever asked me for? Because I made one mistake? I gave up my entire world, which I know doesn’t mean shit to you. But it does to me.”

You fold your arms over your chest. Nothing covers it. You have to know before you lose all dignity. So you ask once more, hoping it won’t get lost in this bizarre mess.

“What do you want from me?”

Nothing. He can’t stop staring at you. You aren’t aware enough to be ashamed, but you are aware enough to be upset.

His infuriating silence compels you to bend down and gather what was a barrier between the two of you. You are no longer needed if he can’t do what he does best, which is spout off, leaking bottled words everywhere like a broken faucet. It’s a pretty simple question, you think.

That’s when the glass behind you shatters.

You flinch, pause what you’re doing and slowly stand. Cautious in whatever your next approach will be.

Surveying the aftermath, you’re relieved to find that you’re far enough away from the mirror so no injuries were inflicted.

When you finally lock eyes with the source, you see red. The atmosphere surrounding you heaves like the distended belly of a rotting corpse; hisses like an overflowing tea kettle; pierces you like lightning.

Homelander’s expression is rigid. His jaw quivers. Irises are a bright, shining scarlet. If you try anything rash, you might be next. But, having been around him for so long, you’re more inclined to believe he’s having trouble processing his own emotions. And that might have been one of the only ways to release them.

You drop the top and pants you managed to reclaim. Your brain hasn’t fully recovered from the constant devastating hit it’s taken, so you don’t want to put a name to what’s pushing you forward. You don’t stop until you’re directly in his line of vision.

Swallowing, you carefully extend your hand. The ruby color begins to crumble and give way to the vast ocean you might have drowned in one too many times. You lost track, blocking what you could out. Too real and intimate to accept for a realm that thrives off of inauthenticity and misfortune.

Homelander inhales harshly and you retreat, pupils hooking themselves to his. Searching for any sign you shouldn’t be right where you are.

Of course there are several; unfortunately, you are currently blind to them. Blind to everything but him.

That’s how it’s been for awhile, hasn’t it?

He has a habit of not granting you the luxury of time.

Quickly, he snatches your wrist and brings your palm flat against his cheek. He exhales, eyelids fluttering, nuzzling into you.

It’s so simple, yet it disarms you in ways you aren’t accustomed to.

Homelander basks in this chaste display of affection, and so do you, in awe of how enraptured he appears. Soaking you inside of his pores.

In turn, your cognizance reappears. You nearly topple over, realization infiltrating every part of you.

You’re not wearing a stitch.

A knock at the door startles you both. You glance over in that general direction and hear from the other side, “You’re on in fifteen, Homelander, sir!”

Gazing back up at him, you witness that same fire expand at a rapid rate. You use your other hand to bring him back down to reality, to ground him. It rests against his chest, delving into and cracking his ribs, flaying him open.

What strikes you is how vigorously his heart is beating. How you can feel it through his uniform.

This is how much you affect him. (Can you fathom that you’re only privy to a fraction?) Having evidence of the tiniest reciprocation drains you of any unwanted discomfort.

His fury subsides. You breathe out. He does, too.

“Go sit in your chair. I came here to do my job, after all.” The tenderness with which you speak seems to ease him further, his shoulders deflating with each word.

That aside, you’re playing with a lit match. You’re unsure who’s going to set who ablaze, but you’re willing to go down with this entire building to find out.

He does as he’s told, watching you the whole way like a mutilated mixture of a snarling cornered animal and a man fervently in love. He almost trips into his seat, not an ounce of grace in his gait.

Sacrificing his entire image just to get a glimpse of you.

Whipping his cape to the side, he sinks into the cushion. You get things ready as you typically do, your movements a bit jittery from the adrenaline sending haphazard jolts to your limbs. Despite this, you’re focused. You are more focused than you remember ever being.

You work efficiently, keeping in mind the limit that’s been put on your time.

Homelander bores holes through you. He doesn’t need lasers for that. You’re exposed and vulnerable and he pries what he fostered apart until it’s distinguishable by no one else but him.

You relearn his perfectly manufactured features. Different lights shape shadows you either haven’t seen before or feigned ignorance of. You commit to memory how he looks, smells, feels, the side of your hand grazing his cheek and hanging on.

He’s invigorating, your excitement building to a crescendo you can’t neglect. The heat in your core disperses, most of it congregating low in your belly and behind your expanding rib cage. His pupils drink you in, urgently and violently.

Your arousal is heady. He licks his lips. A hint of a whine caresses your ears and it makes you dizzy.

How could you have ever denied yourself?

You decide to take further control, testing the waters to a greater extent.

It’s your turn to watch him the whole way down. You straddle him, easing yourself atop his taut thighs.

After a few moments of humoring yourself, of pretending to concentrate on your work, dusting his nose with powder, you straighten. Eye contact has not been severed.

You motion toward his hands, balled into tense, repressed fists at his sides.

“Take off your gloves.”

Initially, it feels like maybe you said the wrong thing, or said it the wrong way. He doesn’t budge. You’re patient, however, so you wait like you’ve always done, the warmth from your cunt mingling with the hardness beneath you. Your mouth waters.

At last, Homelander nods and removes his gloves, tugging on the index of each. He places them on the armrests and transfixes himself to you once more.

“Do you want to touch me?” you ask, voice and body staying impossibly still in spite of your nerves.

Immediately, he shakes his head, “Yes,” the first time he’s spoken since your outburst, and without hesitation, reaches for your chest. You close your eyes, falling into his snooping lifts and tugs and squeezes, giving yourself permission to become possessed by the inhibited imaginations of how selfish, how rapacious his touches might be. How smooth his bare hands are, how ardent each digit is.

Leaning into you, he sucks one nipple into his mouth and palms the other, moaning and vibrating against your flesh. He digs his fingers into the pliant softness of your hip, steadying you with disciplined pressure. You squirm, attuned to every minuscule shift.

The lit match is tilted toward you now, swift and stunning. Your fingers release the brush you’ve been holding. It aligns with the slit of the cushion, forgotten and purposeless.

You wrap your digits around the hand on your curves and guide him toward your throbbing center. He doesn’t fight you. Doesn’t stop your movements. Doesn’t scold or challenge you. Instead, he curls his fingers in a way that makes you unabashedly moan, cupping your folds and pinning his thumb to your clit, adapting to your anatomy.

Your wants.

It seems like breaking away from you is a daunting task, but he does for a moment, brow furrowed, more engrossed and invested than you’ve ever witnessed.

“Fuck.” The curse sounds downright edible, your new favorite flavor. Your name tumbles from his lips like he’s been practicing, a sweet, rich icing on top. You gasp, his tongue adhering to you again, swirling around your peak before lightly biting it.

Rocking your hips back and forth, side-to-side, you grind hard into his palm. He strokes you like he’s studied what pace you prefer, how much friction you crave. You’re so wet, even you’re thrown off by it.

Once he’s finished with your chest, he’s back against the seat, unable to peel his gaze from you. Your full, swollen, glistening breasts.

His mouth hangs open, obscene, desperate whimpers slipping from it. Pupils are like whirlpools that drive you under. Drive you mad.

Homelander adeptly slips two, three digits inside your sopping cunt, unrelenting in his intentions to make up for lost time. The voracity of his actions propels you forward, balancing against his chest. He grasps and pulls at your other hip, groaning loudly in your ear, confirming his approval of how close you are to him.

It’s still not enough.

Pulling you even tighter to his blinding sun of a body, he encloses his free arm around you and desperately bucks his waist. “I want… I want… I want…” he chants. Your nails drag up his neck and along his scalp, overwhelmed by his warmth, his scent, him. Your lips ghost the sliver of skin above his collar, making him growl.

You anticipate and dread and yearn for what’s been building for so long. You clench and release, clench and release, clench and release, body chanting with him.

You’re intuitively thankful for the chair’s sturdiness; however, if it would have collapsed, you’re honestly not sure you would have noticed. Or cared.

You hear him come first. Feel the temperature rise temporarily. It’s so sudden and all-consuming that you naturally follow, his name an instinct you can’t help but divulge. You haven’t come down from the turbulent emotions rushing through you earlier, and that combination catapults you over the edge.

Your orgasm draws more deliberate, vehement grunts and sighs of satisfaction from him, as if your pleasure is inexplicably the same or worth more than his.

You can’t crumple into a boneless heap like you want to. You just can’t. You have to look at him. Look at his bliss; the glazed, barren-yet-so-full-of-you expression, of what these months of working in close quarters have done to him.

What you uncover is not what you were picturing. There’s a mixture of that haze with something almost apologetic below the teeming surface. Clouds of red to skies of blue. Destructive in and of themselves.

Sliding his fingers from your wetness, he wraps his lips around each one that was inside of you and spreads them apart. Your slick sticks to his glossy skin and stretches between digits, a generous amount. You whimper at the loss- the emptying, hollow feeling- and watch, mesmerized and delirious as he savors you.

Swallowing you whole, Homelander sweeps his knuckles across the apple of your cheek and presses his lips hard against yours. He wastes no time inhaling your gasps and moans, licking your mouth and the faint taste of mint, stealing it from you. You ingest what you can of him as well, exploring what was open to you longer than you realized.

He then seizes your wrists. It’s a rough gesture that evaporates into gentle circles along your pulse points. Still, you know you’re going to bruise where he turned the key and locked you into place: wherever he is.

A visible sheen coats his lips.

“I want you to tell me I’m good. Great. The best.”

His breathing is labored. So is yours.

He kisses the inside of the wrist smeared with perfume, your fluids, his saliva; ends with your hand and rests his cheek against the slope of it.

“I want you to be mine. All mine. Mine alone.”

You’re shaking. He moves forward and pets your hair, twirls it; grabs your nape and holds his thumb to the front of your throat. Securing you. Keeping you there.

“You have to stay. Be mine and stay.”

You thrum with an ache he forced upon you. He’ll claim you were starving and he was the only one who could satiate.

You nod. You were never going to leave to begin with.

Homelander made you his. And you thanked him for it.

[mcuamerica]

Loving Flames | Part Three

Pairing: Eris x Reader

Summary: Eris finds out where you've been the past two weeks Requested by anon here.

Warnings: 18+ only, canon level violence ish, alludes to SA, Rhys is an asshole still, PTSD, (kind of proofread), let me know if anything was forgotten...

Word Count: 1.7k

Disclaimer: I do not own SJM’s characters, only the ones I create for the purpose of this story. This is a work of fiction. I do not give permission to repost my work on any other platform or medium. Please be respectful.

Dividers from @saradika-graphics

Part One | Part Two

Eris was worried beyond belief. For the past two weeks, he wasn’t able to feel the bond from your side at all. Wasn’t able to hear the excited squeals you unintentionally sent down the bond. Or the slight moments in the night when you would wake up from a nightmare, a scream or yelp chilling him to the core.

He wasn’t able to feel you at all. He was hoping it was because of some wards you put up to keep people away from your vacation. But when the two weeks were up, and he still didn’t hear anything from you, he was really worried. He tried writing to you but he didn’t get a response. And when he wrote to Lucien asking if you were back yet, he said he hasn’t seen you either. Though, he thought you just extended your vacation.

And then Eris wrote to Tarquin. And Tarquin said you never arrived. So, instead of writing any other High Lords, he showed up at the River House. He might get exiled for it, but he needed to know where his mate was. At the very least, he needed to know you were safe

Feyre opened the door when Eris knocked, his hair tousled and unkempt. “Eris? What are you doing here?” She asked.

“Is (Y/N) here?” He asked, more like pleaded.

“No.. Rhys said she extended her stay in Summer. Something about working out her-“

“Where is Rhysand?” He growled, getting a growing feeling that something was very wrong. And if the High Lord of Night was the only one who knew about where you were, he would burn everything down to find it out.

“In his study.” Feyre said, but stopped Eris before he could go towards it. “Why do you need to see him?” She asked.

“Tarquin said (Y/N) never arrived in Summer. Why would Rhys say she extended her stay when she never even went?” Eris asked, looking down at the High Lady.

Feyre didn’t show her shock, instead turning to go to Rhys’s office.

“Rhys, where’s (Y/N)?” Feyre asked, Eris standing just on the other side of the door.

“I told you, Feyre darling, she’s in summer.” He said.

“Tarquin said she never arrived.” Feyre tested, arms crossed on her chest. “Where is she?”

Rhys froze his writing, setting the pencil down. “She’s in her room. And she’s not going to come out.” He admitted.

“Why?” Feyre asked, narrowing her eyes. Rhys never lied to her about anything. Or kept something from her. Not since after the war.

“Because I’m now allowing her to. She wants to go see Eris because she has it in her head that he’s her mate.” Rhys said and stood up.

“You aren’t allowing her? What does that mean?” Feyre asked. “Rhys… don’t tell me you locked her in her room.” Feyre said quietly.

When Rhys didn’t answer, Eris walked through the door, bypassing any wards that Rhysand had up around him. Eris grabbed him by the shirt, forcing him against the wall as his hands started to heat up. “What. Did. You. Do?” Eris growled out, fire practically burning in his eyes.

“You will not be seeing my sister. If you try, it’ll be an act of war.” Rhys said.

“Not if I challenge you to a gods damned Blood Duel because you’re keeping my mate from me.” He growled. “Take down the wards. Right. Now.” He said, pushing Rhys against the wall harder.

The High Lord of Night could smell his shirt burning underneath Eris’s hands.

“I will not let you hurt her anymore.” Rhys said.

“Rhysand.” Feyre said, walking over to him. She was seething. Even though she had complete control over her powers, darkness was reeling at her feet. "Take down the wards. Now. Or I will go get Helion myself to break them." She gritted out.

"Feyre-"

"Now, Rhys." She said.

Rhys looked at Eris, who now had burnt the tips of his shirt. The new High Lord powers riled within Eris, barking to be let out and torture this male who harmed his mate.

Rhys shut his eyes for a moment and when they opened, they looked to Feyre. "It's done." He said.

Eris let go of Rhys, bolting up to your room where he could now scent you... and feel the terror that eddied down the bond. He burst through the door and his heart broke at the sight of you.

You were curled up on your bed, shaking. There was a tray of food that hadn't been touched on your nightstand, along with a glass of water. Your back was to him and he was afraid of what you would look like when you turned around.

Eris heard Rhys and Feyre stop behind him as he walked over the threshold of the room. "(Y/N)?"

You jumped at his voice, and in relief and realization, you sat up. You were still shaking, your eyes were bloodshot and there were bags under them.

"Eris?" You rasped, your voice shot from sobbing and screaming.

"(Y/N), my love... I'm so sorry." He whispered, walking over to you slowly. "We're going to get you out of here." He said, sitting at the edge of the bed as he held out a hand.

Instead of taking it, you flung your arms around his neck. "I-I can't leave. Rhys- Rhysand locked me in here Eris. I can't-" You started to sob and Eris held onto you tighter. His blood boiled at the thought of your own brother locking you in a room after what you had been through. The brother he thought wouldn't harm you. That he left you with. But instead of burning his entire house town, he only comforted you.

"Shh, princess, it's okay." He whispered. "The wards are down. You can leave." He said. "Do you want to see?" He asked, slightly pulling back to cup your cheeks and wipe away your tears.

You searched his eyes for any lie, any doubt. When you found none, you nodded. But when you stood up and found Rhys, who's eyes were on you with nothing but sorrow shown in them, you paused. You could've cowered into Eris's chest or yelled at your brother for what he did to you.

Instead, you forced yourself to hold your head high, took Eris's hand, and walked right out of the room. You stared your brother down as you said, "I'm never going to forgive you for this." And then, you turned towards your mate, looked into his concerned yet proud gaze, and smiled. "Let's go home."

When you arrived at the Forest House and were standing on the balcony of Eris's (and now your) room, you finally allowed yourself to collapse into his arms.

You told him how terrifying it was to be trapped in that room, but even more so it was terrifying to be away from him. Your mind plagued you with images of his court turning on him, finding out he was the one who killed Beron, and committing mutiny to punish him.

When you finally calmed down, and Eris got you to eat something, you agreed to go back inside. But only if the doors and windows stayed over to allow the Autumn breeze to blow in.

"I'm surprised you didn't burn the River House down." You said to Eris, legs crossed on the bed as you sat across from him, drinking tea to warm the chill in your bones.

"I wanted to... but I wanted to see you were safe first." He said, eyes searching yours. "Will you truly never forgive him?" He asked. Eris knew he would never trust you to be alone with Rhys again, no matter if he was your blood. Hell, he wouldn't trust you alone with his own brothers, save Lucien. But a male who locked you up in a room? Never. That being said, he knew you were close with your brother. And wasn't sure your words were 100% true.

You took a sip of your tea, briefly recalling the words you uttered to your brother before leaving. "I will... eventually." You said. "If he promises to never lock me up or deny the mating bond between us again." You said. "Having a rocky relationship with the Night Court doesn't help you as High Lord... and if I am to be your mate.. I can't exactly hate the High Lord of Night." You said. "Besides, Feyre and the rest of my family will beat him to the Cauldron and back, so I have faith he'll get what he deserves." You said. While you were still pissed at Rhys, and you would be for a while, you didn't want to give up your relationship. He did think he was protecting you, in a terrible way, but he doesn't know Eris. Only knows him to be the cunning, cruel male that Eris lets shows. If you were going to rebuild your relationship with Rhys, you would need an open mind. Plus, you really wanted to see your nephew again, and if you never forgave Rhys, you doubt that would be easy.

"I don't want you to just be my mate." Eris said.

You, however, missed the just part of the sentence and shot your eyes to his. "What?" You asked, more emotion bubbling up in your throat.

"I want you to be my High Lady, if you'd like it." He said.

You blinked a few times, taking a moment to adjust to what he said. "You- you want me to be High Lady of Autumn?" You asked.

"If you want to... I know it's a lot to ask.. and we aren't even officially mated yet.. but-"

Once you set your cup of tea down, you flung your arms around Eris's neck. "Yes." You whispered into his neck. "Of course I will be.. I will rule by your side." You said and pulled back, cupping his cheeks. It was at that moment you realized you had never kissed him before. Your mate.

In sensing the same thought, Eris's eyes flickered down to your lips. "I'm so glad you said yes." He whispered.

With that, your lips were on his, softly moaning at the feeling. Your fingers tangled in his longer hair, tugging roughly as Eris bit down on your bottom lip gently.

You stayed like that for minutes, hours maybe, you weren't sure. But when you finally pulled away, lips plump and red and eyes staring lovingly at Eris, you knew that you would love him until you left this life. And any life after.

Part Four

A/N: There will be a part four, just not sure when or what it will entail (possibly a mating ceremony? make up session with Rhys? High Lady inauguration?) ....

Join the taglist here (I will not be adding people from the comments)

[skyahri]

Get Over it |Madara Uchiha X Reader| HC

Summary: You're the Hokage's assistant just trying to do your job.

Warning: Fem pronouns. Madara is an asshole.

- - - - -

Hashirama was definitely behind you and Madara meeting.

Anytime he needed something delivered to the Uchiha compound, he sent you- his cute little assistant.

Despite the fact that Madara was at the Hokage's office almost daily, you still found yourself making a trip to the compound every evening.

Madara was always rude, asking you why you were bothering him despite already knowing. He'd have you leave whatever it is was you had brought on his desk and shoo you away.

Today, he was a little moodier than usual. Maybe he was having a bad day, maybe he was just fed up with you, who knows.

When you knocked on his office door and slid in, he immediately started yelling.

"Must you bother me every day, woman?"

"It's Hokage's orders, Madara-sama."

"Then ignore them. I'm tired of you interrupting me every day."

"I'm afraid I cannot-"

"You can and will. I am Madara Uchiha, head of the Uchiha clan and I order you to-"

"Well, Mr. Madara Uchiha, head of the Uchiha clan, I don't answer to you. I'm afraid you'll just have to take it up with Hashirama or get over it."

And with that you left his office, shutting the door a bit harder behind you than you usually would.

To say Madara was stunned would be an understatement.

Was he just belittled by a civilian woman?

He wouldn't stand for this.

So he immediately made his way to the Hokage building to confront his dear friend about his unruly assistant.

Hashirama just laughed at him, and that made Madara all the more sour.

"Keep your people in check, Hashirama."

"Why? Are you threatened by her? Can't handle being yelled at?"

He stormed out after Tobirama started snickering at him.

The next day, he anxiously waited for your arrival. He'd been stewing over your encounter from the previous day and it wss fueling the fire in his belly.

So when he heard your usual knocks, he stood up and made himself as big as possible, like a bear.

You walked in, unphased by his damming aura, handed him a single scroll, and turned to leave.

He moved in front of the door to stop you from leaving, not satisfied by how this encounter was going.

"You will speak to me with respect from now on. I do not tolerate such behavior."

"Yeah, I still don't answer to you. My job is to be amicable, not a kiss ass. So again, take it up with Hashirama, or get over it."

You put your hand on his arm and gently moved him out of the way of the door. He allowed this, for whatever reason, and just watched as you made your way out.

Now you'd definitely caught his interest.

It's not that he liked being talked down to, it that he loved being challenged.

For the next few weeks, he allowed you to do your job without issue. He'd just stare at you as you came in, delivered whatever stupid thing Hashirma had sent, and left.

That is until today, when you had shown up several hours later than usual. It was dark out, and you were visibly tired.

"You're late."

"My apologies, Madara-sama. It was busier than usual today."

You handed him the envelope and turned to leave, ready to finally be done with the day.

You noticed Madara get up and move alongside you, but didn't pay much mind. It was entirely possible he was just making his way home as well.

Until you'd arrived at the gates of the compound, he was still at your side.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm escorting you home."

"Um, okay? May I ask why?"

"Hashirama is a fool for allowing you to wonder the village at night unaccompanied. I feel I must make up for his stupidity and ensure you get home safely."

You just nodded. It was honestly a relief.

The office had been overwhelmed today because of rogue shinobi reports in the area. Having Madara with you basically guaranteed you'd have a safe trip, so you didn't argue with him any further.

The next few days went similarly.

A cluster of reports and actual captured rogues had kept you up to your neck with work until odd hours of the night.

After the first few instances of you showing up late, Madara had taken it upon himself to meet you at the Hokage's tower. You were thankful, with for the relief from walking all the way to the compound and also to have your own personal guard.

He kept doing this even after things had settled down, and before he knew it, he'd grown quite fond of your presence.

Your nightly walks had turned more casual and became more frequent outside of your working hours.

Over time he'd opened up to you and that's when the relationship really blossomed.

He was torn between his traditional values and his aversion to emotions, but eventually, he caved and asked to court you.

Obviously, you said yes, and so started the beginning of a lifelong relationship with the unlikely man.

[star-suh]

Do Your (Blow)Job

Kim Mingyu x Male Reader

cw: office au, handjob, blowjob, assjob (i just made that up, don't know if that's how it's called 😭), teabagging, rimjob, facial, cum eating, just yn pleasing mingyu, creampie, there's no sex here btw, blackmailing, sort of exhibitionism, semi-public sex, spanking but just one time.

—

it's 4:00 am and the alarm is ringing and yn gets up to turn it off, "god, i hate my life," he exclaims, muffling his screams with his pillow. today his boss called him early because he had a very important meeting and yn was the perfect person to make sure everything was fine.

“he's such an asshole, making me go at five am when the meeting is at nine ugh!.. i hate his ass with passion” he was murmuring while walking quickly towards the building.

yn started to hate his boss, mingyu, when he unexpectedly began to overload him with work, yes, he is his secretary but that doesn't mean he has to do everything, now he did not have a moment of rest.

mingyu made him go to the other side of the city just to buy his favorite coffee and not to mention the times he had to clean his office after his "meetings" with daughters and sons of important industry people to “seal deals”.

like always, yn went to get his boss’ coffee, he came just in time, way before the meeting ended, "here's your stupid coffee” he murmurs as if mingyu were in front of him. “shit!! i need to go to the bathroom” he exclaimed going to his boss’ thinking that he wouldn't notice because he was busy.

the meeting was over, unfortunately for yn mingyu arrived at his office and locked the door. yn was too busy checking the elegant bathroom that he didn't hear his boss arrive "this looks much more luxurious than my entire house”.

mingyu unzipped his pants and pulled out his dick, he started stroking it while watching a video on his phone that one of his many hook ups sent. thick pre-cum drops rolling down his thick shaft “fuckk” he moans quietly.

suddenly the bathroom door opens and mingyu yelps in surprise, both stare at each other for seconds but it felt like hours, yn's eyes went down staring at the other’s hard dick, “oh my fucking god it's huge” he almosts yells that last word.

“shit yn what were you doing at my bathroom” mingyu questioned, turning around to hide his dick. then an idea came to yn's mind “damn boss you're such a pervert” he smirks “it would be a shame if someone finds out that such a respectable gentleman is a naughty man”.

“fuck off” he says angrily “what do you want?”; “an increase in my salary and to stop overloading me with unnecessary work" the other responds quickly. "mhmm… smart" mingyu praises "ok, deal".

yn was ready to leave when a pair of strong arms pushed him against the door, mingyu was behind him, his thick dick rubbing against yn's clothed ass "where are you going? as my secretary you should already know how i like to seal deals" his deep voice making yn's knees feel weak "but mingyu... boss.. i don't.."; "what happened with that confidence from before? i thought you were a tough one”

yn's hands were going up and down his boss’ dick while he squirted more lube on top of it “fuck your doing a good job” he said throwing his head back due to all the pleasure he's feeling. yn decides to speed up the pace, wanting to see his boss' dick squirting jets of white sticky cum, he feels the dickwa aas throbbing and getting ready to came but mingyu stopped him, “not yet, i want to use you properly”.

mingyu unzipped the other's pants and pulled them down along with his underwear “holy fuck look at this ass” he spanks it leaving his hand printed on it “if i had known that you have all that under your pants i would’ve made you my bitch a long time ago”. he puts his dick right in between both cheeks and starts to rub it, the friction producing a pleasurable warm sensation “if this is how it feels outside it must be way better inside, don't you think?”, yn was too flustered to speak “y-yes boss.. i’ll make sure to make you feel good” he bit his lip trying to contain his moans. “you better do, but that's for another day”.

“come in” mingyu said when someone knocked on the door, it was one of his employees. they started to talk about business and all that while yn was under the desk sucking his dick. he was being careful to not produce a moan or a wet sound, if someone finds out about what he is doing he would be doomed.

as if it was a tasty lollipop yn kept sucking and licking mingyu's salty pre-cum “mhmm” he let out a not so quiet whimper that mingyu has to disguise as if he was yawning “i'm kinda tired so can we talk about this tomorrow?” mingyu demanded and the employee just nodded and left the office.

the taller pulled yn out from under the desk and sat him on top of it, discarding his pants “it's my turn to make you feel good”, his face was now inches away from the other’s hole, his breath making yn’s hole to clench. “it looks so tasty” mingyu’s said in a low whisper as if he was hypnotized by that sexy ring of tight muscles. the boss keep teasing yn, kissing around and blowing air around that desperate hole “please, just do it already” yn cried, tears starting to form on his eyes, mingyu laughs “okay as you wish, sir”.

mingyu bury his face in between yn’s ass, his tongue reaching deep inside that hole. mingyu was trying so hard to reach yn’s prostate with his tongue that his grip was leaving marks on the other's ass, “fuck” yn bit his finger trying to contain his moans, he slowly pushed his hips back and forth trying to meet his boss’ tongue thrusts. after some minutes mingyu and yn were reaching their climax, mingyu’s dick smeared and dripping a mix of pre-cum and lube, his face smeared in thick saliva with some of it dripping down his chin. meanwhile yn kept stroking his dick “keep going i’m c-close” and as he said he came spurting white ropes of cum over the shiny glass of the desk.

mingyu stopped his rimjob, threads of saliva connecting his face with that ass, god he really loved eating it, “look at this sloppy mess” he says getting up and jerking his dick right above the puckered hole. with some final strokes he aims the tip to the hole so all the cum goes inside of him and to make sure that no drop is wasted he used his fingers to maintain the hole open.

yn with his face down against the desk rolled his eyes back when he felt the warm liquid going deep into his insides.

“come here” mingyu grabbed yn by the shoulders and make him kneel again “look at you, you're a hot mess… and that made me hornier” his dick got hard again and he started to stroke it his balls resting on above yn’s nose and mouth so he can play with them, the intoxicating smell of it making him feel dizzy “give me that load sir” yn begged while kissing the other's shaft, “that's the idea” mingyu says as he came again covering his secretary’s face with his cum then scooped it with his tip and put it all on the other’s mouth who licked clean the other’s dick, not leaving a single trace of sperm on it, “good job” the muscular man whispers and slaps gently yn's cheek who just smiles feeling proud of what he did.

people started to notice how mingyu's meetings with members of other companies lasted less time, many assumed that he had found a partner and that was why he stopped his habit of sleeping with them, but actually mingyu no longer sell deals with them he now prefers to celebrate the deals with his secretary.

[artiststarme]

A Grudge Be Held

Based on an enabling comment from @estrellami-1. Hope you guys like it and please leave me your opinions in the comments!

~*~*~*~

There are a few well known facts in the universe; the earth revolves around the sun, George Michael is gay, Tim Curry has sexy legs, and Eddie Munson holds grudges.

It wasn’t because he was a bad person or because he thought people were inherently bad, he’d just been through too much to waste his time on people that had already wronged him. He didn’t give more than one chance and if they fucked that up, well, they didn’t deserve another one.

He was usually lenient on what constituted a grudge to be held. Unless someone did something directly to him or someone he cared about, it didn’t really bother him and they certainly didn’t make his list. His parents were on there (because why wouldn’t they be?), Mrs. O’Donnell was on there because he was positive at least one of his failed senior years was due to her having a bone to pick with him, and Principal Higgins was on there too because fuck that guy.

Tommy Hagan was on the list because of a rumor started that made life hard for Eddie for awhile (it was true but needless to share), Jason Carver was on there now for starting a mob trying to kill him, and Billy Hargrove earned a spot for being an asshole to anything that moved.

A person that many people were surprised wasn’t on the list was Steve Harrington. The DnD party was shocked when they heard King Steve wasn’t an object of resentment in Eddie. But he’d never done anything out of malice to Eddie specifically. Where others saw confidence and pride, Eddie looked at a lonely and broken teen that was willing to do anything to fit in. He couldn’t hate him for that. And the time where Steve stood up for Eddie against Billy Hargrove at a drug deal gone wrong forever cemented him as a good guy in Eddie’s eyes.

After his experience with the Upside Down, psychic murders, and overall shitshow that was his Spring Break, Eddie and Steve got closer. Steve coerced everyone of authority to clear Eddie’s name with help from Robin, Nancy, and the passed Chief Hopper that apparently wasn’t actually dead. He housed Eddie and Wayne until they could find a new trailer that they could afford. Then he spent every waking moment making sure Eddie was alright and included as part of the group. In laymen’s terms, Steve saved his life.

So in true Eddie fashion, he made the internal dramatic decision that he would hold grudges on Steve’s behalf. He would be a guard dog of sorts, protecting and defending the love of his life his friend. What he didn’t consider was how difficult the task would be.

Through a new lens, Eddie saw that everyone walked all over Steve. The cashiers at the grocery store blatantly charged him extra, the customers at Family Video talked over him nearly every sentence in response to questions they asked, and teens on the street laughed at the scars in their view. Worse of all though, the Party didn’t respect him. Dustin and Mike told him several times a day how stupid he was, Nancy looked at him in pity and shut down all of his opinions, Lucas talked about not having sports in common with anyone right in front of him, and Robin kept blowing off their plans to hang with Vickie.

Through it all, Steve appeared fine. He smiled and nodded in all the right places but as soon as he thought the eyes moved on, his smile would slip to reveal something sadder. And so Eddie’s vengeance began.

He “accidentally” knocked over sales racks near the registers in the grocery store when they charged an extra $2 for milk. He keyed the cars of the teenagers that laughed at the evidence of Steve’s pain. When he saw Officer Callahan yacking at Steve for speeding, he picked up a dozen eggs and pelted the man’s house in revenge.

Dealing with the kids in the Party was trickier. His glares and barbed comebacks were clear enough for Nancy and Robin to change their ways. The kids though just weren’t observant enough to pick up on the clues Eddie tried to drop. One session of a campaign though, the perfect opportunity presented itself.

“I didn’t know there were dragons in the game. If you losers had told me there were dragons, I might’ve considered playing ages ago!” Steve exclaimed from his seat on the couch, intrigued eyes meeting Eddie’s.

Eddie smirked at him. “Oh yeah, Big Boy. You should know by now that I’m full of surprises.”

Steve blushed a little bit but as he went to respond, Mike interrupted. “Steve, you’re not even playing. You shouldn’t even be here much less interrupting the game!”

Steve’s flush turned pale and he shrunk into himself. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I can just uh, I can go. I’ll see you guys later.”

As he moved to get up though, Eddie stood and towered over the table.

“Wait Steve, you’re gonna want to see this part.” He glowered at Mike and rasped his voice to transition back to DM’ing. “A comet flies from the dragon’s cavern and lands on Sir Madeon. Roll for damage.”

“What the hell! No, you can’t do that!” Mike stammered with a dropped jaw.

“I just did, pipsqueak. Roll for damage or die trying.”

“14,” Mike muttered. He glared at Eddie then Steve before pouting in his seat.

“The comet is too large to escape from. Sir Madeon tries to run but he’s not fast enough to avoid the flying stone. It lands on his back in a fiery crumble. The intense heat eats through his flesh, bones, and organs at once leaving only his head and limbs intact, scattered amongst the rest of the Party. He dies a horrendous death and his friends are left alone with only the smell of charred remains to remember him by.” Eddie ends his tirade with a quirked eyebrow. That’ll show these little assholes what happens when they mess with him. A quick glance at Steve shows him excitement and surprise, he absolutely was not expecting that.

“What the fuck. This is supposed to be PG,” Dustin stares at Eddie in horror. “You really just killed a character in the middle of a campaign for Steve?”

“Roll stealth and damage.” Eddie tells him deadpan.

“God-fucking-dammit! Eddie, no, please…”

“Roll or face the consequences!”

“3 stealth, Nat-20 damage,” Dustin whispered with his face in his hands. The other kids watch Eddie in a mixture of confusion and aghastment. But Steve is beaming, teeth shining from ear to ear.

“The dragon hears your cries of grief and turns its burly head towards you. Its glimmering eyes reach the you and the rest of the Party and you see its scaled lips open in a human like smile. With a speed you could never have anticipated, it slithers toward you before standing on muscled hind legs and flapping its leathery wings. Its lips curl around a blue flame. The last thing you feel is a flash of ice before you see no more.

Your friends see you disappear into a pile of ash, the heat of the flame too powerful to escape. The dragon whips its tail towards the party while they stare at where you used to stand. Will the Wise can’t even list his magical staff before the weight of the tail crushes him to the ground in a pile of shattered bones and bloody sinnew.

Luther is impaled by one of the dragon’s back spikes and killed immediately. The light in his eyes fades and all he sees is a figure with a crown waving at him in the distance. Prince Stephen and his pet dragon prosper in the face of their trespassing adversaries once again but the only witnesses to the horror are erased from the Earth.”

The boys stare at him in shock while he arranges his papers and stands. “The end. Steve and I are going to the movies. You bitchasses aren’t invited and if you’re even a little bit nasty to Steve again, I’ll pulverize you in real life just like I killed you in the campaign. Think on that.”

With that, Eddie grabs the hand of a stunned Steve and drags him from the Wheeler’s basement. After that debacle, he’s sure that the kids have gotten their point. And now he’s got a movie to see with his main man.

(The kids absolutely get his point and moving forward are a lot nicer to Steve. And a little scared of how Eddie’s mind works.

Eddie holds a grudge against the kids for months and will still reference their comments when he sees fit for the rest of their lives or at least the rest of his.

And Steve? He starts dating his DM in shining armor a mere two hours later.)

My Permanent Tag List: @doubleb11 @nburkhardt @zerokrox-blog @newtstabber @i-less-than-three-you @carlyv @pyrohonk @sherlock15 @conversesweetheart @estrellami-1 @suddenlyinlove @yikes-a-bee @swimmingbirdrunningrock @perseus-notjackson @anaibis @merricatty @maya-custodios-dionach @grtwdsmwhr @manda-panda-monium @lumoschildextra @goodolefashionedloverboi @mentallyundone @awkwardgravity1 @devondespresso @gregre369 @mysticcrownshipper @disasterlia @lillys-weird-world @messrs-weasley @orangesunsets12 @awkotaco24 @pukner @strangerthingfanfic @dangdirtydemons @bookworm0690 @hannahhook7744 @dreamlandforever @marsbars97 @precursorandthedragon @romanticdestruction @5ammi90 @death-thee-nervousqueer @panicatthediaz @justforthedead89 @futuristicnachostranger @breadboi66 @fandommaniac123

[bella-goths-wife]

Yandere Vs reaction to pet reader accidentally killing someone out of anger

Warnings: toxic relationships, mentions of drug use, SA mentions, Valentino, death, description of wounds, forced affection, forced father-daughter relationship, workplace bullying, grooming mentioned, guilt

You were used to your coworkers being assholes to you

You were a fellow working soul yet you were treated nicer and given many more privileges then them, of course they weren’t going to like you

Everyone referred to you as a lost puppy or as a pet

They didn’t even know your name, but know one really knew your name in fairness

They sneered when they saw you enter a room, and if the Vs weren’t accompanying you then they would get physical by tripping you or shoving you around

Angel dust does his best to defend you when he sees this happen, but angel rarely has time to think nevermind look after you

But the rumours were the parts that upset you the most, to here small parts of your life become exaggerated and spread around

They’d also dump their workload on you so you had to do even more stuff while also balancing three very obsessed bosses

But something pushed you over the edge today, something that angered you so much that your power spun out of control

You’d had a certain guy around the tower spread vicious rumours about you lately and you could always hear the whispers following you because of them

“I heard she killed her friends”

“I heard she was a whore who overdosed with her junkie boyfriend”

“I heard that she only gets good treatment because she’s fucking one of the bosses, or all of them by the looks of her”

Many misinformation or misunderstandings spread around by this man would end up being whispered near you

So one day when you were in voxs office alone and this guy walked in, you knew something bad was going to happen

He made a few smart ass comments about your rumoured past but you just rolled your eyes and ignored him

But he pushed it to far when he uttered the words “they really groomed you into their perfect little pet huh?”

You shot him a glare as you questioned what he meant by that

He then went on a long rant about how it wasn’t fair that you got better treatment all because you were willing to throw away your dignity for their enjoyment

With every word he uttered about the luck you supposedly had caused rage to spark in your chest

The cherry on top was when he said “I wonder what your mother would think if she found out what a fucking whore you are and how she must have fucked you up real bad for you to have this little self respect”

One minute he’s standing over you and smirking at you, the next he’s crumpled on the floor covering his ears and screaming in agony

You couldn’t stop using your ability to create loud and excruciating noises directly in his ears, it’s like you’d been completely taken over by the anger you felt

You saw blood pouring out of his ears like a fountain and you couldn’t help but smile and increasing the volume, until he stopped moving except for a few twitches and you saw what looked like brain matter leak from his ears

You had killed him

You just stood in shock and stared at his body while processing this information that you’d killed a man in cold blood

And the Vs saw it all happen from the open door

Vox:

Vox almost felt like a proud dad as he watched you kill someone purposefully for the first time

He came up and patted you on the shoulder with a wide smile, as if you’d just passed some sort of test

He wrapped his arm around your shoulders and rambled on about how you could improve and what you did well, almost like a performance review for a singers night show

What had been a world changing and traumatic experience for you, was purely just entertainment for him

He couldn’t understand your shell shocked expression, you had killed this man while smiling so why were you overreacting so much

But he still walked you back to your room and cleaned the blood off of your body and sitting you on your bed

He went on a long rant about how you shouldn’t feel bad about your murder, he was provoking you and it was clearly all his fault

He said that he understood why you did what you did, and that he was proud of you for your decision

“I started out like you, but you’ll improve over time and get used to it” he had said with a wide grin “soon enough you’ll be just like me”

And the fact that you were seen as in any way comparable to Vox only sent a chill down your spine and doubled your guilt

After that day, you noticed people were much nicer to you and Vox only gave you a ‘told you so’ look

But since becoming aware of the harassment you were subjected to, he did give voxtech employees a strict warning and he broke a few bones to get his point across

He couldn’t have something like a little murder bring his favourite girl down, even if it did prepare you to become his heir one day

Velvette:

Velvette doesn’t really understand the big deal

Your in hell, you fraternise with murderers and worse on a daily basis

You live in a tower filled with the worst of the worst kind of criminals

So why are you overreacting so much over a little murder that could easily be sorted out

She does scold you slightly on doing your own dirty work and doing it on the expensive carpeting

She explained that if you really want someone dead then you should just tell one of them and they’d have their security deal with it

But she did express some pride for you efficient killing and you experiencing your first purposeful murder

She does nothing to comfort you at all, you should be over it already is her thought process

But she does kill more people around you in her own sick away to reassure you that murdering people is okay in her books, she only makes you want to peel your own skin off though because every sight of blood just makes you think about the fact you ended a man’s afterlife

She also makes an example of the man you killed to her employee, harass her pet and her pet will bite back

She makes a few more private examples or your bullies, but she’ll wait until the rumours of the event hits you before she explains

Valentino:

This entire situation is just a joke to this man

His little princesa bites as much as she can bark, and he’s meant to take that seriously?

He does much worse stuff then murder every day and you don’t see him she’ll shocked and crying on the floor do you?

He will actively crack jokes about one of the most traumatic things you’ve ever done in front of you

Every time he does and you get a guilty or shocked expression, he bursts out laughing at the ridiculousness of your reaction

But he would clean up the body for you

He’d either just dump it into the cannibal colonies or he’d just get his workers to get rid of it and clean up the office

But he’d definitely keep a body part of a piece of jewellery from your victims body to taunt you with when he’s bored

He also gave a few extremely rough video sessions to some of the people from him workers that contributed to your harassment

He can’t have his little musical toy become too tired to sing him a soothing tune to calm his ever present temper

Sorry this was so small, work exhausted me today :(

Tag list so far:

@buttercupfangirl @repostingmyfavs @lilyalone @the-faceless-bride

[beomglocks]

☆.｡.:* pairing: asshole ceo!hyuka x assistant!reader

☆.｡.:* warnings & other : enemies to less hated enemies/lovers, kai is an asshole, very mean, reader is nonchalant, sub!reader, softdom!kai but like meandom aura idk how to explain it, reader lowkey likes kai but like hell no that's ur boss!, unless..., idk if i will ever expand on this concept but fhwuwe i just love the thought of mean CEO kai, im back just for this ig

☆.｡.:* wc : …

you hum to yourself quietly, picking up a white collared shirt that you believe best fits the vibe of the upcoming business meeting.

"what do you think of this one?" you ask calmly. you watch silently as your boss glances up briefly from his phone to look at the attire you've chosen. he cranes his neck back and forth before groaning dramatically.

"i hate it."

you stare at him with a neutral expression on your face as he goes back to gluing his eyes to his phone as if whatever he was doing on there was more important than the task at hand. "that's the fifth one today sir," you speak up.

there's not a hint of mockery in your tone whatsoever. you're just doing your job after all. was it easy? hell no. however, you weren't about to let this stuck up brat get you out of line.

you were used to kai's constant demands. as his secretary and right hand women it's only normal for you to be able to deal with whatever bullshit was thrown your way. you were tougher than he gave you credit for and he had never acknowledged it but you were the only one who had stuck around.

the thing was, kai was used to getting everything he wanted but that all halted once you became his assistant.

normally he could get anything and anyone no matter what. the latest car or prettiest girl to play around with, you name it. he had a habit of fucking around with his assistants until you showed up. the moment you stepped into his office for the interview you were already on his hit list. thankfully you had a friend who worked here already so you knew of his advances towards the woman he worked with.

"its a good thing you're pretty, we'll look good standing next to each other," he had quipped once you sat down. you had held a straight face and answered plainly, not giving in to his advances.

"with all due respect sir, im here to work, not be a trophy on a wall to you." you still remember the way scoffed at you. as if to say, "we'll see". you can tell he didn't like that one bit.

sure, he had hired you despite the rudeness you gave him on the first encounter, why wouldn't he? your resume was impressive. long list of amazing companies he rivaled with in the past and you were smart. sure, he cared about all that in the grand scheme of things but he mainly hired you because you were his type. however, he kept you on a tight leash. metaphorically but he wouldn't be opposed if it were literal. he knew you weren't the type to condone his flirtatious advances and he hated that so he made your life a living hell in return.

no longer was he the boss who occasionally flirted with you and held the door open whenever you were running late. no. he had turned into somewhat of a tyrant, throwing fits over you not liking him in that way and penalizing you for even being just a second late. everyone in the office knew it was never a good day for you if you had to physically be around him.

he sighs, throwing his phone haphazardly on his bed. he rubs his face with his hands as if he's trying to cool himself off from exploding at you. you put the shirt down on the chair closest to the walk in closet, preparing for whatever he has to say to you.

"y/n-" he pauses to look up at you. his blonde hair is strewn all over the place and he has a bored expression. his eyes are narrowed and the way he's looking at you should make you feel small but it doesn't work. at least not outwardly. you'd be lying if you said the way he looked at you didn't make you throb a bit. but you couldn't and wouldn't ever let him win. you didn't care if he was nice or mean to you.

right now though, he's clearly masking the irritation in his eyes with a neutral face.

"i give you the keys to my very expensive, very lavish house not so you can chastise me about my fashion choices and my likes and dislikes but so that you can do your goddamn job and choose the best option for me."

"if i knew what i wanted to fucking wear i wouldn't have hired you in the first place don't you think?" he finishes. you raise your eyes row when he curses at you but remain silent.

he must've really been in a bad mood to curse at you because you don't think he's ever done that. he was mean but never to the point of swearing at you. that's how you knew today he wasn't having it.

he walks up to your still figure at the front of the closet. you're significantly shorter than him which he uses as a way to assert his dominance. he holds your jaw and inspects your face. he hates that you have such an indifferent expression on your face, you swear you see his eye twitch a bit.

"i hate that stupid look on your face," he mutters. "i curse at you and you don't even flinch, i flirt with you and you turn me down.. what do i do to break you?" he asks more to himself than you.

he holds that position for a while, waiting for anything, any sign that will help him out in this situation. you purse your lips because you know exactly what he's waiting for.

an invitation.

"im just here to do my job kai. i don't want to fool around with you." you say. "no matter how you are," you say to yourself. you hope your voice isn't faltering because kai has always respected your personal space but now he's all in your face. "are you serious? you're telling me you haven't thought of me fucking the mess out of you not even once. i mean.." he glances at his king bed for a second. "we're in my room right now, don't be so crass, its offensive.." he smiles a bit at his own intentions.

you hold your stare to the best of your abilities although the wetness that's pooling in your underwear is telling you to just give in. sure, he's your boss, your hot boss who has mentioned time and time again how badly he craves you, so what harm is it?

before you almost let your pussy do the thinking, suddenly you remember the fact that he only wants you just to say he broke you. it was almost like a game to him and you were the prize. you definitely weren't gonna let him win.

you clear your throat, trying to pull away from his grasp. "your meeting will be soon can we please get you dressed?" you say it with so much monotonous that it causes kai to blow another short fuse.

with a light shove he removes his hands from your jaw and sighs heavily. "the day i fuck the indifference out of you will be the day this whole building hears my name," he says to himself as if already imagining how it'll go down. "but it's ok, i suppose i can keep playing this game."

he turns around to look at you still standing stupidly near the closet.

"although im not sure how much longer im willing to play."

[pparacxosm]

blue-eyed son

(homeless era!patrick zweig x jaded businesswoman!reader; tw themes of poverty; tw strangely intimate vaguely unnerving eating scene; maybe i got carried away with characterising the motel receptionist; but it was necessary; tw corporate ennui; tw scathing outlook on new rochelle; i’ve never even been to new rochelle; there is a real prompt from the NYT mini crossword in here, and the answer was ‘aches’ but ‘zweig’ is also five letters; also maybe i got carried away with reworking the dialogue from the motel scene; but i maintained the essence of tragedy; in fact i enhanced it; tw enhanced essence of tragedy)

‘Not too shabby…’

The blue light miasma permeating from the screen of your brickheavy, moltenhot company laptop casts taunting shadows across your visage as you stare at the subject line of the email from your boss. You drag your finger across the mousepad and click.

Just got off the phone with Mr Smith from Kanonda Corp., and they had some great things to say about our chat today. Kudos to you for handling that. Just a quick reminder, though, that your numbers aren't quite up to par this month, so let's work on ramping those up. Keep it up!

Cheers!

You find three things hilarious about this email: 1) the use of the words our chat when you’re pretty sure you endured those three hours of Mr Smith’s overt attempts to incite a clunky game of footsie under the wobbly table in the shitty steakhouse in bumfuck New Rochelle completely solo, 2) the notion that adding an exclamation mark to the phrase ‘keep it up’ makes it read more like an encouraging pat on the back than a barked order, and 3) the use of the words your numbers when there’s about five other assholes on your team who aren’t in bumfuck New Rochelle, whose combined time spent sitting on their asses in the office, if harvested as energy, would be large enough to power up a small town for all four days of this wretched business trip.

Actually, the “kudos to you” is also pretty funny. Your boss, the comedian.

You shut the lid of the computer, drawing your knees to your chest and ignoring how the sharp lump of an errant spring in the old mattress is digging straight up your ass. You’re nursing a lukewarm can of Coors you’d snagged from this motel's halfway functional vending machine. You’re trying to ignore the noise from the room next door, where some douchebag is doing his best impression of a broken washing machine in bed.

New Rochelle sucks. New Rochelle sucks dick. The weather sucks dick. The food sucks dick. Your job sucks dick. Sunny Skies Motel sucks dick. And you’re considering redownloading Hinge, and setting your radius to ten miles and your standards to hellishly low, just so that maybe you can suck a dick, too, because you’d hate to feel left out.

The company you work for so graciously comps the room in the seedy motel. Real nice. The room reeks of piss and potpourri, old cigarettes and beer, and looks like a relic from the 70s. As in, peeling, avocado-green wall, visibly stained moth-eaten carpets that are an alarming shade of brown, and an ancient CRT TV whose only available channels are reruns of sitcoms from the 90s. Everything about this place wails ‘temporary,’ but, to you, there’s the stark, resigned misery of a lifetime sentence. The room is like your life, in a way: suffocating and stagnant, with no change in sight.

It's the kind of motel that no one would ever choose to stay at if they had a choice, or, perhaps, a modicum of self-respect. But you, poor you, eyes going misty as you look out the window facing an alleyway, are beginning to contend with the fact that you have neither of those things.

You’re lying supine on the bed, arms spread out like a crucifix effigy, and your back is learning every lump and valley of the shitty mattress. You’ve downed your beer, and it’s sloshing about in your belly, and there’s a dampness gathering beneath the underwire of your bra.

You cast a glower to the thermostat, an old model with yellowed plastic and faded lettering. You note the temperature display.

“65, my ass.”

And who are you talking to? The roaches? They’re probably waiting for you to die of heatstroke so they can dine on your miserable, sweatstrewn flesh. The vent shudders droningly, spewing tepid air like bad breath, and you do consider just lying there. Sweating out your bitterness. But no. You need your bitterness. Your bitterness has always served you.

Like this, bitterly, you peel yourself off the bed, swinging your legs over the side.

You slip your tights-swathed toes into the firm leather of your kitten heels, tugging the hem of your skirt down your thighs, but choosing not to bother with the rolled cuffs or the top four unbound buttons of your button down, the dampness where the fabric clings to your back and armpits growing cool as you step out into the nighttime.

You’re twentyeight, which is seventyfive in corporate years.

You’re a wonder with a spreadsheet, and you work hard, and you’re reliable, but these are the sorts of things that only get you so far.

So they send you to New Rochelle. Fine. Here’s their thinly veiled, lastditch attempt to motivate you, or something.

And everyone’s probably sipping on fancy espresso in their cushy corner offices or having lunch in some upscale bistro back home. And you’re in sucksdick New Rochelle, wondering how many different ways a woman can feel disconnected and uninspired.

The Sunny Skies motel lobby is a hollow shell. It is lively as a morgue. The vending machine flickers with the weary lament of someone who is sick of dying. Not pained, or begging mercy. Just over it. Someone who wants to get the dying part of being dead over with.

There’s another roomtemp Coors can in there singing you siren songs, but you’re trying not to be tempted.

You’re stood in front of one of the twin front desks, tapping your manicured nail against the countertop.

You’re staring at a small sign behind the front desk, and trying to ignore the strange sort of aura of decay that seems to hang in the air. Sunny Skies knows her days are numbered, and it shows. Your eyes flick up to look at the clock as you hear footsteps approaching.

Enter Sally. Dear Sally. Sally and her jet black pixie cut and cold shoulder blouses and perennial disinterest. You identify with Sally on a deep, primordial level, because Sally has that soul-sucking look that only comes with years of forcing enthusiasm when you don’t feel any, and you can only hope to one day wield with as much grace that distinct emanating air of exhaustion. Sally is your hero.

“Can I help you?” she asks flatly, casting you a bored, fleeting glance over her narrow pink rectangle rimmed spectacles.

God, it’s artistry.

“I think the air conditioning in my room is broken?” you say. You pull out your phone and flip open the cover, retrieving your key card, because you have one of those flip phone cases. “I need someone to come take a look at it. The last repair guy said he’d pass the message along and no one’s come by yet.”

Sally takes the card and looks up at you sceptically.

“Are you sure it’s broken? Sometimes the thermostat just needs to be reset.”

You bristle a bit at the implication that you don’t know how to work a thermostat. You respect Sally like a soldier respects a war general. Which is to say, do you particularly like the woman? Fuck no.

“Yes, I’m sure,” you say firmly. “I tried resetting it myself like the last guy told me to, but it’s still not working.”

Sally sighs and jots something down on a piece of paper.

“Alright, I’ll send someone up to take a look at it,” she says. “Is that all you need?”

You want to say no, that that’s definitely not all you need, that you need to go home to your quiet, cozy, doesn’t-smell-like-musty-carpets apartment, to lay on your comfortable bed and eat a warm meal.

You just nod curtly.

“Yes, that’s everything. Thank you.”

Sally turns away to pick up a phone receiver, but freezes for a moment, her head tilted in an odd direction. You follow her gaze, your eyes landing on a figure at the far end of the lobby.

The first thing you notice is that he is a total mess. His hair is sticking up in different directions, like a child’s hair after a windy day, and his clothes are rumpled and chaotic, as if he’s just woken up.

You’re trying to determine if he’s extremely tall, or if it just looks that way because you can see his entire two legs with how short those shorts are.

You’re trying, too, to determine why he strikes you as being somewhat out of place here.

You suppose harsh fluorescent lights can sort of warp a person. But there is something almost striking about him. His face is sharp and angular, all hollowed-out cheekbones and fierce, saxe blue eyes that house the sort of self-loathing hunger you only see in Eastern European gay porn. And they are staring directly at you.

He approaches the counter, and comes to stop at an odd place, almost slightly behind you. And you can feel a splendid heat radiating from his body, and you shift uncomfortably to put some distance between you.

Sally, from behind the desk, has been watching the man with a wary sort of glare, but she looks at him now with the same flat, exhausted expression she had used with you. No bullshit Sally. Unaligned and unimpressed.

“How can I help you?” she asks, monotone all the same.

This guy looks at her for a moment, still staring directly at you out of the corner of his eye, but then shifts his gaze to Sally completely.

“I need a room for the night,” he says. His voice is slightly hoarse, as if unused for a while.

Sally is already unconvinced.

“Do you have a credit card?” she asks, her fingers hovering over the chunky computer keys.

The man digs around in the pocket of his athletic shorts and pulls out a wallet whose leather has long ago seen the best of its days. He rummages around in it for a moment before pulling out a credit card and handing it over.

Sally holds the card between two fingers and begins to type something, eyes narrowed at the monitor. She looks at a screen for a moment, then looks back at the man.

“This card is declined,” she says matter-of-factly.

The man’s forehead creases up, a look of the defeated suffusing across his face.

“What? No, that can’t be right,” he says, but he sounds like he thinks it probably can be right. “Can you try again?”

Sally sighs, but, for her part, types the number in again.

Then she waits.

And a moment later, she turns the computer monitor to show him the word DECLINED on the screen in angry crimson.

His expression swims somewhere toward frustration and he leans forward, his voice taking on a hint of desperation.

“There has to be a mistake, that’s my only card.”

Sally looks at him with an air of very mild irritation colouring her general apathy.

“Sir,” says Sally, “I can see the balance on the card. It’s declined. You don’t have any other cards?”

The man’s face shifts again—his face is really very expressive—now bordering on despair.

“No, no other cards,” he says. “Is there anything I can do? I really need a bed for tonight, I’ve been driving all day, I’m exhausted…”

And—what, is he gonna seduce Sally? The thought alone is so funny (not him seducing Sally, really, but rather Sally being seduced by him, or maybe just him trying and failing) and you pull out your phone to keep from laughing, or, at least, then you can blame Twitter, or something.

Sally holds up a hand to stop him, her bangles jingling.

“Listen, sir. We don’t give rooms out for free,” she says, tone all no-nonsense. “If you want a bed for the night, you need to have a valid form of payment. Do you have cash?”

Now this man’s head is bowed, and he is visibly deflated. He looks up to meet Sally’s gaze, sadness and helplessness doing a miserable pas de deux behind his eyes.

“No, no cash either,” he says quietly. “I don’t have anything. I just need somewhere to sleep tonight. Just one night. Please.”

And, at that—at that, if my fleeting glance serves me correct, Sally’s expression softens a little. I think Sally probably watches a lot of AGT. She clearly has a soft spot for a pathetic story, but her job is, of course, to keep the motel from going under. And Sally has no golden buzzer here.

“Sir,” she says firmly, “I have bills to pay too. If I just gave away rooms without payment, we’d be a homeless shelter, not a business.”

Fuck, that’s funny, too. In a way. You’re actually not so tempted to laugh anymore, because this is all becoming a bit painful to witness.

The man lets out an exasperated sigh.

“Can I pay in the morning, then?” he asks, and you can’t see from here, but his hands may be clasped together, because he certainly sounds like he’s pleading. “I’ll have cash by then, I swear. I’ll sign something, give you my driver’s license, anything. I just need a place to stay. Please.”

Sally leans forward on the counter, her tone growing a little terse. Whatever softness she’d started feeling now seems so far gone it may as well have never existed at all.

“Sir, I can’t do that either. If we let someone stay in a room without upfront payment, and you just disappear, then we’re out of a room and out of money. I’m really sorry, but we don’t make exceptions.”

And, to her credit, she does sound sorry, but she’s certainly not budging.

The man is definitely practically begging now.

“I won’t disappear!” he stresses, “I swear, I— Listen, I’m a tennis player. The tournament down the road. I just need a place to stay so I can rest before my match tomorrow. If I win, I get seven thousand dollars. I just need a bed for the night, that’s all. Please, you have to help me.”

Yeah, no, this is really painful. Like, uncomfortably so. You have the cruel thought of just turning around and leaving, and going back to your hot room, to go about your own—now considerably lesser seeming—wallowing, but an even crueler part of you regards this whole thing as a slow motion train wreck.

And, in your defense, you’re only halfway eavesdropping, because you’ve now struck up a passive aggressive argument with a coworker over a Microsoft Teams chat.

Sally raises a brow.

“A tennis player?” she asks dubiously, eyeing his disheveled appearance.

The man nods urgently.

“Yes, yes, I am! My name is Zweig, Patrick Zweig. You can look it up. I just need a bed, please, just one night. I’ll sign whatever you want, give you anything, just please.”

Sally now looks really unimpressed by his plea, her face betraying a hint of disdain.

“Yeah, sure,” she says, her voice laden with sarcasm. “You’re a tennis player. And I’m Beyoncé.”

And it’s funny again. Fucking Sally. You should try and ask her for a drink before you leave. She’ll say no, but you should ask.

The man’s face contorts in abject sorrow and impatience.

“Please, ma’am, if you just look me up—” he begins, but Sally cuts him off before he can continue.

“Sir, do you think I just have time to look up every person who comes in here claiming to be somebody?” she asks, her face growing increasingly pinched with annoyance.

It is then that Sally turns to face you, whose fingers are now really tapping away at your screen, because your coworker’s a bitch, but then,

“Ma’am, do you know who this man is?” Sally asks, gesturing a rednailed hand toward him as though presenting a case on Deal or No Deal.

And fuck if you hadn’t halfway tuned out of the conversation, because you’re suddenly being put on the spot.

You look over at the man, who is fidgeting and biting his chapped upper lip, and his wide blue gaze is a mural of anxious anticipation and pleading hope, and—okay.

So you hadn’t really been paying attention. But you now feel a palpable twinge of something resembling sympathy.

This guy’s face is so earnest and desperate, like an abandoned, infant monkey, or something equally as devastating, and there is something about… whatever he’s got going on that really compels you to give him the help he is so desperately seeking.

But that’s the thing. You were so busy insisting to Deirdre over Teams that saying you’re so articulate is, in fact, a microaggression, that fuck. You really don’t know who this man is.

But he’s looking at you, so desperate and pathetic, and his bottom lip may as well be jutted out and quivering, yet there is something—something—about him that intrigues you. In a stupid way. The way a kid may be intrigued by the mushrooms that have appeared between the wet grass after it’s rained.

So—okay—you give it a think. Because you do think he said it, his name, at some point. Your eyes flick over him. Your phone is still raised up to your face.

“… Peter Zeppelin?” you shrug, raising a brow.

And the guy’s eyes widen comically, and his face falls like the London Bridge, and Sally gives an amused sort of scoff. That seems to be the final nail in the coffin for her, and she holds up her hands in a resigned sort of there you go motion, going to turn back to the computer. And Peter Zeppelin—who is not Peter Zeppelin apparently—all but throws himself over the counter, and now you do see his hands clasp together, with all the desperation of Jesus in Gethsemane.

“No, no, no, come on, come on, that was close!” he says desperately, “Patrick Zweig, that was close, come on!”

But Sally seems done entertaining him, and the poor guy’s face twists with a dozen different alloys of disappointment and frustration and acceptance as he sees the conversation is over, and the gavel has been banged.

But despite his disappointment—and there are veritable oceans of disappointment he’s working with here—there is a hint of something else in his expression, something almost like amusement.

He shoots you a sidelong glance, as if trying to understand you. And you cannot help but notice the way his eyes linger, but you quickly look away, feeling a scattering prickle of guilt cascade over you, and you almost shiver. And why should you feel guilty, if you were only honest? You can’t be sure. Because you feel it all the same.

He lets out a sigh and gathers his things, wounded by the harsh blow of reality straight to his heart, it would seem. This was surely among the saddest interactions of his life.

But, as he turns to leave, he shoots another glance over his shoulder, his gaze once again finding you with magnetic haste.

It is a strange look he wears. A mixture of disappointment, curiosity, and something almost like… interest. You drop your arms, your phone hanging at your side, because that’s enough for you to feel a jolt of something. Something. Something you quite literally try to shake off as soon as he has departed, like a crestfallen cartoon character with all his belongings in a bandana on a stick over his shoulder. But his image seems to linger in your mind. His plaintive eyes and disheveled mien causing an odd sort of sensation to rise up in your stomach. You think it may be nausea.

Or the guilt is really having its way with you.

And the door swings shut behind him with a loud thunk, and you’re feeling a pang of regret, even. And fucking Sally, of all people, is giving you an odd look, as if to say you couldn’t have helped that poor man out a little more?

And you want to say hey, you mythic shrew, I don’t even know him, which is true, because you don’t.

And even if you had, would that have made Sally drop to her knees and throw him a room key? Who are you, arbiter of fame? You want to ask her. If you were less of a masochist, you probably would ask her. But the guilt makes a funny little home in your tummy, and you start to think it’s what you deserve.

You think, at some point, you were generous. In some tender, faraway time in your life, you housed a massive soft spot for anyone who needed help, you couldn’t help it. You’d grown up in a household with a Methodist and a Social Worker, and compassion and kindness were espoused with breakfast in the mornings. And now that you’re working in a cutthroat office full of bloodthirsty Type-A’s, you’ve been made hard as granite. Great.

You’re walking through the parking lot towards your room, and you spot a beat up Honda, its park job beyond redemption.

And who should you see slumped in the backseat, looking utterly dejected, but Peter fucking Zeppelin. He is staring at something on his phone, the glow illuminating his face in the darkness. And you’re holding another Coors from the vending machine like a world class capitalist shit stain.

Seeing him like that, so defeated and alone, makes the spot of guilt you’re nursing in your belly stand up and do a little jig.

And is it your fault? No. Kind of? Either way, you feel the tug of responsibility, and an unfamiliar need to make amends.

You reach your room. You unlock the door with your keycard. You do not walk in. You linger, of course, staring across the parking lot at the man sitting in his car. He hasn’t moved, still slumped down, head bowed over his phone. Your guilt seems to metamorphose into something more discomfiting, and its jig becomes a stomp.

Why refuse to help him?

It is so unlike you, that coldness.

You stand there for what tires you like an eternity, more than a little torn. But, ultimately, the image of his big blue pleading eyes, and the way they had laved you in abject despair, wins out. You’ll see them in your nightmares if you don’t do something. You can’t leave him like this, alone and dejected in his car. You certainly want to. You’d love to go back into your too warm room and drink your too warm beer and hope for Sally to have a come to Jesus moment. But you really can’t.

With a weary, longsuffering sigh, you gather your courage and make your way across the parking lot towards the car, your heels clicking against the tar.

You knock the knuckle of your index against the window, “Oi! Zeppelin!”

And the man’s head jerks up.

He looks… surprised to see you standing there. But there’s a gleam of expectation in his eyes.

The door is locked when he first goes to open it, which—good. At least he has a sense of self-preservation. And then he unlocks it and takes off his grey track jacket and scrambles out of the car with a disoriented sort of grace, stepping out and straightening up to his full height.

So, yes, he actually is very tall. Much taller than you’d realised, actually, and you have to crane your neck to look at him. The light from the motel sign illuminates his face, accentuating his pallor and the tired lines around his eyes.

He is standing very close, this homeless stranger, and it suddenly occurs to you not to let your softness get the better of you. You look him up and down.

You wait for him to speak.

You want to see how he’ll react. And a furtive little part of you hopes that he’ll be a little angry, a little annoyed, at your still getting his name wrong. Because then you get to keep your guard up and maintain your distance, because even Mother Theresa knew the implications of standing alone with a large man in the middle of a motel parking lot in bumfuck New Rochelle.

His eyes, weary, harden just a fraction, the dim apparition of a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“It’s Zweig,” he corrects, his voice frayed at its edges but firm. “Patrick.”

He isn’t quite angry, but there’s a glimmer of irritation there, just enough to give you the satisfaction you hadn’t realised you’d been craving, and a strange sense of triumph tingles through you.

Oh, how much easier to be cold and standoffish when you have something to work with.

“Right, right, sorry about that,” you say, your voice dancing almost imperceptibly with sarcasm.

You cross your arms, raising an eyebrow at him, as though… assessing.

And then Peter—not Peter, Patrick—looks at you for a moment, his weary eyes registering your defensive stance and your rigid gaze.

He seems to recognise something. Something. A need to maintain something. To push him away and make a run for it before it’s too late. And yet, he doesn’t quite seem offended. Or even irritated, anymore. More amused, really, as he gives you a slow, crooked smile.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, the corners of his eyes crinkling in an odd, charming, almost absolute sort of way. Like he’s smiling, and that’s all he could be doing. Even as the smile itself has all sorts of nuanced implications. “I’ve heard worse,” he says.

The way he is looking at you, that easy grin, makes the guilt in your tummy flutter and still and wait. It does feel like he is seeing something, and, of course, that isn’t nice.

You feel a growing unease at his active refusal to react the way you expect him to, and maybe want him to. You work in white collar. There’s nothing easier to delineate than an angry guy. A guy frustrated by your callousness. But this guy seems almost entertained by your standoffishness. It is unsettling. Maybe strangely captivating. But mostly unsettling.

“You look exhausted,” you say, and you make sure any detectable concern is ostensibly feigned.

“Yeah, thanks for noticing.”

Simple. Dry. A note of humour.

He reaches up and runs a hand through his messy hair, the movement drawing your eye to his long, lean arm, the way it strains against the fabric of his helplessly rumpled T-shirt.

So you start feeling irritated again. Uneasy, unsettled, annoyed, these are easy things to start feeling, and you start feeling them. But not for this guy himself. Not necessarily. No, more by the way he is making you feel. And you think, fuck, has it been so long since I’ve had a beer that I can’t hold it down? And maybe that’s it. Or, maybe, you can’t help but find him marginally attractive. The fabric of his shirt, worn to gossamer, brushing over and revealing a glimpse of a toned, hirsute chest. His athletic shorts, which seem laughably short now, or maybe his legs seem laughably long. And strong. Maybe he should run for money, that’s a thing, right?

So anyway, you’re unsettled. And you find yourself growing even colder in response.

“No, you look really exhausted. Like medically. You look like you’re about to pass out. You look like you just crawled out from under a freeway overpass,” you say, and the words come out a tad sharper than intended, which was already quite sharp anyway. “Are you sure you’re not just some bum pretending to be a world-class tennis player?”

This time, his smile turns into a full-blown toothy smirk.

“Oh, I’m a bum alright,” he says, leaning against the side of his car as he regards you with that flaying sort of intensity. “A real loser, actually. The kind of guy who ends up sleeping in his car in a motel parking lot because he’s too broke to even get a room for the night.”

The guilt in your tummy—remember that guilt?—yeah, well, it feels uncertain if it should even be there any more. If it shouldn’t be replaced with something more commensurate with the dense thump of your heart. But you don’t want to let him see how much his self-deprecating attitude has affected you. And you don’t want to let yourself see his reaction, if you were to give into a very strange sudden compulsion to tell him he isn’t a loser.

Instead, you roll your eyes.

“You’re really laying it on thick, aren’t you?” you say, a wry hoist of your brows. You press your face against his car window, cupping your hands around your eyes so you can see in through the tint. “Where’s your guitar? Are you gonna start singing an acoustic version of ‘Hallelujah’ and begging for change?”

He chuckles at this, eyes lingering on the little patch of fog left by your mouth on the glass. “Ah, did you miss it?” he says, feigning sympathy, but his smile is still so wide, “I was strumming like a beast over on that street corner earlier. Gave my strings to this other homeless guy, though, in the end, figured he needed it more than me. Not ‘Hallelujah’, though. Dylan’s what really gets peoples’ hands in their pockets.”

“Righ… t.” You hesitate. You hesitate, because—well—he’s singing.

Yeah, no, he’s definitely singing. He’s closing his eyes and leaning against his car and singing Bob Dylan.

“Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son? I’ve stumbled on the side of ten thousand graveyards.”

And—okay—those are the wrong lyrics, but the song choice certainly feels relevant to his current situation.

“It’s a hard—” He’s still singing. “—it’s a hard, it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna—”

“O-kay,” you say, and he opens his eyes and for all their fatigue they are glimmering with mirth.

You try to remain expressionless, but his undeniable charm and abiding levity considering his obvious predicament make it difficult for you to justify being mean.

“You seem awfully comfortable with your circumstances,” you observe, a vein of scepticism threaded through your voice. “Most people would be freaking out right now, you know.”

He shrugs, hands in his pockets now, and makes an ambivalent sort of noise. “Well, what good would that do?” he says. “Won’t magically make the cash appear in my account.”

He pulls a hand from his pocket, the nylon rustling, and runs it through his hair again. You find yourself watching the movement, watching his hands now, which you think look oddly large. You’re unsettled again. Or maybe you’ve been unsettled the whole time, and you’re just still unsettled.

“So, you’re just gonna sit there in your car all night and hope a miracle happens?” you ask, a strange tremor in your voice that even you cannot presently put a name to. “You don’t have any… I don't know, friends you can call? Or parents you can beg money off of?”

And his expression seems to go dour at that, a noticeable trickle of humour draining from his eyes. “Parents are out,” he says bluntly. Pauses. Gives a humourless laugh.

Doesn’t mention friends, you note. But then you’ve never had many either.

Your guilt seems to settle again, deciding it is needed, and it is accompanied by whatever had had your voice tremoring seconds ago. You cannot help it. This is fucking sad. The way his self-deprecating remarks have suddenly turned into self-deprecating revelations. It’s fucking sad. And you don’t realise you’re staring into the middle distance all sadly until he’s ducking down into your field of vision, eyes searching your face, vaguely bemused, but sort of disgruntled.

“You feel sorry for me,” he says—says, not asks.

And then he straightens, and you think he’s gotten taller.

“Well, you’ve got no friends, no family, no money, and nowhere to go,” you say, trying to keep your voice neutral, despite the fact that, yes, you find you are feeling quite sorry for him. “It sounds like you’re in a pretty shitty situation, Patrick.”

And where he could probably break down into tears—and maybe he should; you’re willing to give him your lukewarm beer and rub his shoulder a bit—a glimmer finds his eye. A fissure in his nonchalance. A look of surprise, and what almost seems like hope. He doesn’t even try to disguise it, and his smile is coming back, with the ease of something never departed.

“Hey! Look who remembered my name,” he says, and his voice has suddenly gone weird and tender, and the change sort of makes you shudder.

“Ah, shit, did I?” you say, looking down, rolling the beer can in your palm and letting it flick off your fingers and land in the other hand. You toss it back and forth like that a few times, and you’re trying to be… not too much of anything. You try to be Sally, unaligned and unimpressed.

It's hard, though, with the way he smiles like he knows something you don't. Like he's in on some kind of secret. You’ve always had a weird suspicion that everyone is keeping something from you. No one could surprise you, as a child.

Patrick—fuck, there you go—has the impish simper on his lips of a cat who’s just seized and maimed the canary.

“You did,” he confirms, voice still strange and heavy, like it’s laden with something.

You try to keep your gaze focused on the can—left, right, left, right—and the metal makes a little tck noise each time it hits your palm, the liquid inside sort of singing as it moves. But your eyes meander up to his legs, where a small patch of bright red road rash is visible on his knee. The guilt in your belly is up and dancing again, but it seems to have invited a whole bevy of other emotions alongside it. Stupid stuff, like sympathy, and shyness, and lots of other somethings of various discomfort.

And then you say, “Well, don’t get used to it,” and the can slips from your palm and onto the ground.

“Okay,” he says, stopping the can from rolling away with his foot.

And then he’s bending down to pick it up, and then he’s freezing, crouched down, like his whole body is wincing, and he makes a noise, like a guilty sort of noise, and he looks up at you, and says,

“Fuck,”

And stands up and sighs, shakes his head like he’s made a mistake, and shrugs his shoulders and says, “I’m used to it,” with a rueful sort of smile.

“Oh, are you?” You hold your hand out for the can, but he doesn’t give it to you.

He makes a tsking sort of noise, his elbow raising to rest on the top of the car, “I think I am,” he says, like it pains him, “I think you’re just gonna have to keep remembering my name.”

“Well, I won’t.”

“But you did.” He parrots your intonation.

Everything suddenly seems very loud. The sound of crickets chirping, the buzzing of the neon signs, the nylon swipe of his tiny shorts as he moves. He keeps moving.

“Because I feel sorry for you,” you say, and things seem quiet at that, as if for that, “You’re right, I feel sorry for you.”

He sort of kisses his teeth, nodding slowly and glancing off to the side in thought. And when he looks at you again, it’s with a gleam of vulnerability, like he’s conveying a silent message that you cannot quite decipher.

It is disconcerting.

His vulnerability is like a gaping black hole, something that will suck you into oblivion. You don’t really know what to do with your hands now. You wipe your palm off down the side of your pencil skirt.

“You’re not gonna spend the night in your car, are you?” you ask, like, maybe, if you ask, he’ll come up with a new plan of action.

But no. No plans. Only questions. He suspects you have a plan.

“Why?” he asks, “Are you offering me a place to crash?”

His smirk is returning, though it doesn’t reach his eyes. He is clearly a seasoned scholar in deflection, but he bears the cross quite poorly, and his words send a shiver down your still-damp spine.

Sunny Skies is the kind of place you'd expect a scene out of a thriller to take place.

You can picture the headline now: Woman found murdered in cheap motel room, career dead in the water long before.

You hesitate for a moment, torn between your better instincts and your uncanny appetite to help this man.

You know what you should do; you should tell him no, leave him with the beer, and walk away. Keep yourself safe from getting involved in his mess of a life, and potentially being found days from now with a racket jutting out your abdomen, long since festered in a pool of your own blood because the damn air conditioning still won’t be fixed. Fuck, Deirdre would love that.

But the way he’s looking at you, that deep dark supernova vulnerability you’d spied in his eyes just moments ago, it makes you hesitate.

“I…” you start to speak, then stop, sighing as you fiddle with your nails. “I'm gonna ask you something.”

Patrick's smirk falters slightly. He seems to sense that something significant is about to happen, and he tenses, as though bracing himself for an impact.

“Shoot,” he says, a thinly veiled wariness in his tone.

“Why the tennis?” you ask, your eyes on his, flickering, searching, like a bloodhound. “Why are you still doing something that’s clearly not working out for you? Why not give up and do something different? Something that pays, for one.”

And, now, you really do steel yourself for anger, but, to your surprise, anger doesn’t come. Nor do defensiveness or hostility.

Instead, he’s letting out a cynical, protracted sort of pfft noise. “You think I haven’t asked myself that a million times?” he says, his voice cloistered in irony. “There’s only tennis. Since forever. Maybe I fucked up with that, but that’s what I did, and now it’s all there is. I’m not exactly standing before you with too many marketable skills. I can run, I can hit a ball, not much else.”

And you’re frowning at that, at the resignation in his voice. You want to say something, some platitude about not giving up, about trying harder, but you know he won’t appreciate it. Instead, you ask another question.

You ask, “If you had a choice, what would you do instead?”

Again, Patrick surprises you. He doesn’t scoff or obfuscate. He actually just thinks about it for a moment, his whole face turning introspective.

“I don’t know,” he says eventually, his voice low. “I guess I never really thought about what else I might be good at.” He runs a hand through his hair again, letting out a soft sigh. “It’s hard to imagine another life when this is the only one you’ve ever known.”

And that just makes you frown harder. You really want to say something now. But you don’t. Because you can’t. Because what would it be?

He’s an almost-has-been who’s fallen from the top of the ladder and is now scraping the bottom.

He'd once had it all, and now he has nothing.

How do you comfort someone like that?

You look at him for a moment, his lingering charm swirling like a wandering bee around you, pulling on your senses. You think about Ted Bundy, and how he lured women to demise by strumming their heartstrings like Bob Dylan. But then you suppose that any man trying to victimise a woman is not first going to try their luck on Sally, so. Well. You make a decision.

You make a decision, and take a deep breath, looking him straight in the eye. “I have a deal for you.”

He chuckles at that, his eyes dragging downward, a slow descent. He looks at your dishevelled working girl get up, and you realise, with a passing breeze that wafts the acrid, musky, but vaguely not unpleasant scent of him toward you, that your shirt is still half open, and your cleavage has been on exhibition this whole time, but you’re only realising now, because he’s only looking now, and he wasn’t looking before, and he says,

“I’m sure you do,” and he says, “You got a contract for me to sign?”

“My room has a queen and a sofa pull out couch,” you say, not-so-furtively, furtively creeping your fingers up to pull your shirt closed, “You can stay tonight—“

“I can’t let you sleep on a sofa pullout couch in your own room,” he says, and he’s able to feign absolute concern for but a moment before his smile is back again.

“—you can stay tonight,” you repeat, “on the couch, on one condition.”

He crosses his arms, the beer can slipping beneath his armpit, and you don’t even want it anymore, not the least because it’s now probably undrinkably warm.

“Let’s hear it,” he says.

You pause before responding, to make sure you haven’t been briefly possessed and given the suggestion by passing poltergeist, that it’s actually what you want. Maybe you’re tired, or charitable, or maybe it’s just whatever strange, striking quality he seems to have, but you say, “I’ll let you stay in my room if you let me come to your match tomorrow.”

And now you have managed to shock him. He’d been expecting some sort of request for a favour, or payment, but certainly not that.

“You…” his eyes are searching yours for sincerity, “… want to watch me play?” he asks.

“I’ve never seen a tennis match before,” you admit, and, for a fleeting, ludicrous moment, you feel a flush of embarrassment at your confession. “It might be interesting. And…” you steel herself, not sure you’re going to go through with sharing the next bit, “I’ve had a really shitty time here. My meetings here were… horrific. I could use some entertainment.”

He lets out a soft laugh at that, though maybe it’s a scoff. “You want me to entertain you?” he says, and his cadence is jesting, but there is something else there too, something in his eyes that makes your heart start thumping densely again. “You realise tennis can be pretty boring unless you know the sport, right?”

You shrug, affecting an air of nonchalance. “Hey, I’m willing to give it a shot. I have one day left in New Rochelle, and a day at the courts is a lot better than another day stuck in a meeting from hell. At least with you I’ll be watching someone actually do something, instead of pretending to care about some idiot’s idea for a corporate wellness retreat.”

Patrick’s eyes house a genuine amusement, his smile wide. “Corporate wellness retreat,” he says slowly, raising an eyebrow. “You in finance?”

“Worse. Way worse. Marketing,” you admit, like this is the most harrowing thing you can say. “But it’s all the same, really. It’s mostly idiots with big egos in boardrooms trying to out-bullshit each other.”

“So you’d rather watch idiots with big egos trying to out-bullshit each other on a court,” he nods solemnly, but, in a way, he’s issuing a warning. A beat, then he asks, “You always this sour?”

And you bristle for a moment, your pride affronted at his words. But you quickly relax as the irony of your current situation occurs to you—you’re letting a practically homeless tennis player stay in your hotel room, and you’re letting him joke at your expense.

And you suppose, not for the first time, that you deserve it, to some extent.

“Oh, no, usually I’m a blast,” you say wryly, and then, smiling vaguely with an odd sense of honesty, “But it’s been a long three days, and I’m not exactly in the best mood.”

He spends a moment studying you, taking a thoughtful breath. “You work too hard,” he says, as though coming to a profound conclusion.

“And you don’t work at all,” you reply, “Maybe we should swap problems for a day.”

“You got a house? I’m in.”

“An apartment, yeah,” you say, your voice lilting as though genuinely considering the prospect, “But I don’t have a car. Maybe we should just merge and form a symbiotic, corporate drone/middling athlete hybrid life.”

And there’s a pause there, and everything sounds loud again. The vague nyoom of each passing car rattling your teeth, because, in a way, what you’re suggesting is intimacy. And it’s beginning to occur to you that, though perhaps in different ways, you and Peter Zeppelin are two unspeakably lonely people. And to suggest such a thing as beastly as to share what’s tender, well… it feels a little unkind. A gentle brush against an open wound hurts the same way a slap does. 

Patrick takes a moment.

Then, sucking in a contrite bit of air through his teeth, he shakes his head, “I couldn’t wear a suit.”

“You could wear a suit,” you respond, shaking your head, rolling your eyes like he’s being silly, like that’s a silly thing to say. But now you’re picturing him in a suit which certainly feels like an untimely gust of air against that very same wound.

“I couldn’t,” he insists, shaking his head like he’s resigned, “I couldn’t, I’d look ridiculous in a suit.”

“You’d look great in a suit.”

“So, it’s a deal then? I get a bed to fall into tonight, and you get a ticket to the Patrick Zweig extravaganza tomorrow?”

You laugh at that, a sharp, amused ha, because that’s certainly some audacity he’s got on him.

“Slow down there, cowboy,” you say, and you’re smiling. “You get a sofa pull out couch to fall into.”

Patrick’s face swims with feigned despair at your words, a mock-offended noise leaving his mouth. “I thought this was a mutually beneficial arrangement,” he says, a picture of exaggerated disappointment. “I scratch your back, you scratch mine.”

You sputter a laugh. “I’m letting you stay in my room,” you remind him. “Free of charge, might I add. I think I’m scratching your back plenty.”

His eyes widen. He gives a dramatic sigh. He says wow like he just can’t believe it. He pretends to sulk. But the twinkle in his eyes ruthlessly betrays his amusement. “Okay,” he nods, like he’s doing something very big of himself, “Okay. I’ll take the couch. I’ll be good. It’s just a shame such a beautiful woman will be sleeping all alone in a massive bed.”

Something hot definitely flares deep in your gut, burning away all the guilt and concern and embarrassment and whatever else. There is something to being called beautiful by a man who looks like… well, like him. You’re not above admitting that he is becoming increasingly more handsome with passing time, like his face is blooming and ebbing and flowing before you. And that weird, vaguely unshowered musk is making your nostrils flare with something primordial.

“You’ll survive,” you say dryly, though your heart is back to thumping like a heavy fist.

The sound of the shower running is a vague cloud of pitter-pattering, an ambient thrum, and you can hear the water rushing through the pipes behind the wall like a faraway steam engine.

You’re sat against the headboard, your nuclear reactor of a work laptop balanced on your knees, the fan whirring, the bottom permeating your skin with a volcanic heat and probably giving you radiation poisoning. You’re typing like a court stenographer, a sharp, erratic clacking of your nails against the keys, accompanied by the muted rush of waterflow from the next room over. You’re traversing the minefield of your emails. The light of the computer screen casts a pale, eldritch glow on your features, your brows creasing in irritation as you quickly scan and delete all your accumulated unreads.

You’re still in your tights, skirt, and button down, but now you’ve untucked the button down as well. You’re still sweating. The room is still a tepid rat hole. And it’s washed in the warm dingy glow of the beside lamp.

The only other light in the room comes from the ensuite bathroom, the door slightly ajar, leaking out a bright white beam that illuminates the swooping, swirling streams of mist that flow out.

You think the water pressure here’s a bit aggressive, but Patrick nearly sheds a tear when the sharp stream of hot water thrashes against the aches and knots in his muscles.

His whole body is sore. He sometimes feels like an earthbound corpse. It isn’t just the hours spent in his car, but it’s also the ardour of the matches, the unheard of notion of a good meal. The stress and toil of his lifestyle has taken its due toll on his flesh and bones, and here, in the shower, haloed by the thick fog of water vapour, he allows himself a moment of vulnerability.

The water sluices through his hair, emulsifying with the soap and sweat, creating a slick, frothy, chalky-floral scented trail down his face, chest, and arms. He lathers himself everywhere with the little motel bar soap until it is the size of a coin.

He braces himself against the shower wall for a moment, jaw slack and breathing laboured, letting the water batter his shoulders, feeling the muscles there tighten and loosen simultaneously under the hot, cascading stream. The steam and the heat seem to soothe something inside of him, and, for the briefest moment, he feels something approaching peace.

So Patrick is having his spiritual awakening in the shower, and you’re at the mercy of your emails. Deleting messages from your boss about the meeting notes and potential follow ups.

And Patrick spends the first ten minutes in there making unholy sorts of noises, like his skin is being torn off, which is a little disconcerting, but you figure he’s not had a nice long shower in a while, so you leave him be. And the next five minutes are just heavy breathing. And then he starts singing.

“It’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall!”

Which would be fine, but your irritation’s mounting; each new communication in your inbox serves as a needling reminder of the tragic, tedious day you’ve just had. The tragic, tedious life you've been living.

You rub your temples, and Patrick’s singing the guitar refrain of the song, and you’re trying to ease your burgeoning headache, but it’s proving stubborn. The more you read, the more you just want to thwack something. Or scream. Or both.

And so it is bad timing when Patrick emerges from the bathroom.

You’d been expecting an awkward moment. He seems the type to wear his towels irredeemably low on his waist and you weren’t particularly keen on knowing the intimate distribution of all his body hair.

But Patrick walks out in something else.

Patrick walks out in a baby blue Hello Kitty robe.

Patrick walks out in your baby blue Hello Kitty robe.

And you’re pretty sure your blood turns molten.

Your eyes widen like saucers, and your lips part softly. It is certainly both the most absurd and, perhaps, endearing thing you’ve ever seen, and you feel almost strange and lightheaded at the sight. You’d been imagining all sorts of stilted scenarios in your head, but this… this is beyond any of those.

“What… the hell are you wearing?” you manage to sputter, your chest kindling with both embarrassment and amusement.

Patrick glances down at the robe.

You’ve had it since you were nineteen, is the thing, and it only just fits you now, so, naturally, it looks absolutely comical on him. The sleeves come up to his mid-forearm. The hem is immodest, to say the least, rivalling his shorts in that regard. And the plush belt only just about encircles his waist, but he had the decency to tie a tiny knot at the front.

He looks back up at you. He seems remarkably nonchalant.

“Ah, this?” he says. “I thought it was, like, a complimentary thing. Y’know, like the little shampoo bottles?”

And he has the nerve to add a little shrug for effect, though, when you look closer, you can see the corners of his mouth are twitching slightly with suppressed laughter.

You don’t know whether to laugh or cry. A possessive part of you—well, the possessive part of you—wants to incinerate the robe with him in it, because he’s definitely naked under there. You can see the damp hair on his chest peeking out from the neckline, and water runs in rivulets down his legs, dripping on the carpet, and he’s getting your robe wet.

But the image of him raiding the bathroom, thinking he’d found some sort of freebie, is so strange and amusing.

You raise an eyebrow, trying to keep a straight face.

“You thought the motel—this motel, Sunny Skies motel—gives out Hello Kitty robes as complimentary items?”

Patrick grins in response. He is utterly thrilled with the effect he is having on you.

“Hey, Hello Kitty is a timeless icon,” he says.

And your eye twitches. You feel a little deranged.

“Yeah,” you say, enunciating sharply, eyes still a little wide, and you slowly move the laptop from off your knees, “That’s why I bought the robe.”

“You know, you’re not a very generous hostess,” he says, like he’s been sitting on the grievance for a while.

You release a laugh that is halfway a winded breath, “Oh, really?” because he’s not exactly getting a five star guest review on AirBnB either.

Patrick he tsks and nods slowly like he’s sad to break the news. And he saunters around the poky room, hands hiked high in the pockets of the robe.

He gives an exaggerated once-over, inspecting the room, before his gaze settles on you. You are now cross legged, leaning forward, your laptop immolating in front of you as your fingers fly across the keyboard.

"Can't believe this place actually has a TV," he muses, walking over to the small, ancient box. He glances at the remote, lifts it, and turns the TV on. A bright red screen flashes No Signal.

"Nevermind." He flops down on the edge of the bed next to you. "What’re you doing?”

You suppress an eyeroll, or violent screech, or spontaneous second degree murder at his question.

He knows what you're doing, but he's clearly itching for some sort of attention, a stray pawing at the restaurant door in search of warmth. And you wonder how long it’s been since he’s spent so much time with someone. You're a little hesitant to indulge him, partly because you're still processing your callously stolen garment and all the flesh with which it’s become familiar.

"Email," you say tersely. "Work stuff."

"Oh, right, right," Patrick nods and nods, as though only now realising that you're in the middle of a task.

He peers over your laptop screen, looking at the rows of email threads.

"Looks stressful," he comments.

You spare him a glance. His proximity is a tangible, intrusive thing, and robe gapes open, exposing a damp triangle of his chest and collarbone, his bare feet crossed at the ankles.

“Yeah,” you say, not even bothering to sheathe the irritation in your voice. “It is.”

For his part, he seems unfazed by your tone, or at least not willing to acknowledge it. He continues to peer at the screen, a hint of amusement dancing in his eyes.

And you don’t know why, but you feel a strange, singeing humiliation at his scrutiny. You and your stupid mire of spiritdecimating emails. You feel pathetic enough to belong in a museum. An abstract sculpture portraying modern melancholy.

“Can you not... stare, please?” you croak, then clear your throat, your fingers against the keys growing jerky and feverish, like the sputtering adrenaline of something soon to perish. “I need to finish this.”

“Sure, sure.”

Patrick holds up his hands in surrender.

He looks around the room for a moment, as though contemplating his next move, and when he seizes beside you, like he’s just spotted a motion-activated grenade, it is so noticeable that it actually makes you stop typing and look up. He is facing away from you, is the thing.

There's a moment of silence. You watch his back. It looks like he’s not even breathing. The hum of the laptop fan and the low drone of the TV and the thick, tepid waft of the ventilation system compete with each other.

Slowly, slowly, as though you, too, have spotted the bomb, and you’re bracing yourself for flakspray, you look over his shoulder. And oh. Oh.

You see what has arrested his attention.

On the bedside table is a little black cardboard to-go box, Meyer’s Butcher & Grill printed atop in block lettering.

You blink. You had forgotten about the box completely. A relic of a day you hope will be extracted irrevocably from the flesh of your cerebral matter via some sort of alien abduction or government experiment.

But Patrick—well—he hadn’t been tightly shutting his legs as the polished toe of a hoary businessman conspicuously crept up his shin. He didn’t have to feign interest in golf for three hours while a cracked leather seat scraped the back of his knee.

No, Patrick is looking at that box like it houses nirvana. When he leans forward a bit, you can see how his throat moves involuntarily. He swallows. You see the muscles in his jaw flex with primal intensity.

For a moment, neither of you speak. The moment is heavy with tension, like the air before a storm.

And this seems to be an apt metaphor, because there is suddenly a deep noise, like the sky churning after thunder. And it is coming from his body. And it is such a loud, visceral noise of human urgency that you almost recoil.

A strange mix of shame and pity swell in your throat. The box, as it were, had filled you with such a strange sort of repulsed nostalgia that you really had let it slip your memory. You have no interest in its contents. But this man’s raw response rekindles the abject guilt in your tummy.

Patrick turns to you. He turns to you very slowly. And you can see how his eyes are almost glazed over. He wears the look of a man staring at the Holy Grail. A tentative shock, like he’s been marooned on a deserted island for a dozen years, and has just stumbled upon civilisation.

He opens his mouth. His jaw is slack and leaden. His tongue pools with saliva. And if a string of drool slips past his lip, it’s the least you can do not to mention it.

After a while, he manages thickly, “What… uh. What is that?”

“It’s, uh… steak. From the restaurant.”

He nods. He nods very slowly. As though he’s been rendered physically incapable of saying any more, though his words come suddenly, “Steak?”

“Uh, yeah. Filet mignon, I think. The… fucking… guy ordered it, but…” you feel, in a fleeting moment, a feral sort of fear, like a fawn caught alone by a wolf in the forest. And it’s silly, obviously, but that’s how intense his gaze is right now. You clear your throat, “I mean, I’m not hungry.”

Patrick’s breathing is growing increasingly laboured. His tongue flicks out of his mouth, the wet muscle glistening in the dim light.

A moment passes.

“You can, uh…” you hesitate, a bit transfixed by his carnal hunger, your voice sounding oddly fragile, “You can have it… if you want…”

Patrick's eyes flicker almost imperceptibly at this. And you’re sitting there, and you expect him to just go ahead, and, maybe, in the background of your mind, you feel bad that the meal’s gone cold.

But he’s not eating. No, he’s suddenly become very still, as though waiting. As though trying to discern your sincerity.

"Are you sure… you don’t want it?" he asks.

And there is something about his voice, small and corporeal. It sends a strange, hurtful waft of pity through your chest. It sounds like it’s been scraped over barbed wire. It is raw and vulnerable and painful.

And you have the sense that, even if you did say no—which you wouldn’t—he has the look in his eye of someone who will definitely end up eating that steak, one way or another.

You shake your head, clearing your throat, “No, no, of course not. Take it. Please. It’ll just go to waste.” And your voice is sort of coloured by the notion that you’re on the verge of tears.

For a moment, Patrick's reaction is oddly unreadable. It's as though he can't quite believe his luck. And then, he turns, scrambling for the box as though it may spontaneously disappear now that it’s his.

He tears the lid off and, from here, his face looks cast in strange shadows, a shimmer flickering past his face as the low lamplight catches the foil in the carton.

There is something about the instant greasy, bloody aroma that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. You’ve never liked steak. But he's already reaching inside.

Patrick can’t seem to chew quickly enough. He almost whines softly with each swallow.

It’s an animalic scene of consumption.

You think of hyenas mauling their prey, but he also looks very small, and vulnerable, and certainly odd, because he’s still wearing your robe.

He devours the meat voraciously, and he doesn’t even bother to wipe away the stream of red dribbling down his chin, but he has the decency to hold the box right under his chin so he doesn’t make a mess.

His fingers are covered in blood and mashed potatoes. There’s a little plastic container of chimichurri in the corner of the box, but he seems content ignoring it.

You have a strange sense that this whole ordeal is something you shouldn’t even be watching. And that, when a loud knock sounds at the door, you should be sort of embarrassed, but you don’t know why.

“Maintenance.” The man at the door seems so bored as to be disgusted. He towers over you, and is peering down, arm resting against the doorframe. He is gnashing open mouthed upon a wad of gum.

You are suddenly conscious of your dishevelled appearance, and find yourself scrambling to button your shirt up.

“Um?” you say, skewing your face a bit confusedly as you slip the buttons closed.

You let your sleeves roll down, the rumpled flare of the open cuffs falling over your wrists.

“Air conditioning maintenance,” the man repeats, as though you are a bit dense. You notice, now, he has a friend behind him.

And, “Oh!” you say, “Right, yeah, the air conditioning, the thermostats showing 60, but the air’s still hot.”

He blinks down at you, his head lolling to the side, and he tongues the inside of his cheek. His arms are big as boulders and tattoo strewn.

“You try resetting it?” he says.

Your jaw clenches.

“Yes,” you smile tightly. “It’s still not working.”

He harrumphs and then sort of coughs loudly and then sniffs, “Yeah,” he drawls, “we been getting a lot of complaints.”

“Lotta complaints,” he friend chimes boredly, tugging up the sagging waistband of his comically oversized grease stained jeans. He is idly twirling a screwdriver.

And then the one in front, the larger one, flicks his gaze over you. And then over your shoulder. He seems vaguely disinterested, for his part, in the story behind your blowsy, tousled appearance, and the half naked man tearing into a steak takeout in a Hello Kitty robe behind you. You figure working in a motel begets much stranger sightings, but you cringe to think of the conclusions he may be drawing. A disillusioned businesswoman and her famished prostitute? Does he think the robe gets you going? You shake your head of the embarrassment.

"Ah... ma'am," he utters, shoving his hands into the pockets of his faded overalls. "You and... your friend need to vacate the room for about twenty minutes while we work on the unit."

Outside, Patrick strikes his chest two times and manages a distasteful burp.

A draught sweeps past and the hem of the robe he’s still wearing sways dangerously. You aren’t even wearing your shoes. The soft soles of your feet lay flat against the warm tar through the thin gauze of your tights.

You’re holding the Coors can, still unopened, warm to the touch between your fingers, and Patrick’s got a cigarette he bummed off one of the workers between his lips.

“Nice outfit,” the guy had said—the shorter one, with the baggy jeans and crew cut and scar on his temple.

“Thanks,” Patrick had grinned, unashamed.

“Are you supposed to be smoking?” you ask.

The night is sticky in the mouth, sultry and thin, like a yawn.

The candescent red pearl of the cigarette’s end bobs with Patrick’s each inhale. The smoke curls past his lips like wisps of grey fog, the humid wind carrying them off like fragments of a weary conscience.

Patrick shrugs. Inhales deeply, his eyes trained lazily on the sky above.

You’re far enough from him, now, that when you look at him, he’s a strange tableau all on his own. This boy not yet a man, scantily wrapped in vivid blue, his too long legs and too large feet and too farfetchedness. He stands against the hellscape of Sunny Skies. Sickly yellow-orange streetlights casting looming shadows that writhe like living things on the ground.

His lips and fingers still glean with the greased detritus of his cold steak dinner.

“Night before a match?” you ask then, and you find yourself following his gaze heavenward. The sky is effectively starless, but you appreciate the deep shade of indigo. “Doesn’t seem smart.”

“Smart,” he echoes.

He reaches up to pinch the cigarette, takes another drag before tugging it off his lips and flicking some ash off. You watch how the smouldering grey specks float down to the ground before dissolving into nothing.

When you look up at him he is looking at you.

“It’s not Wimbledon,” he says, like he’s breaking the news to you, a meandering coil of smoke swirling from his now halfway smirking mouth, the plume veiling the dim streetlight glow in an almost tender way. His voice is kind of loud, when he’s speaking to you now, because there’s a few feet of parking lot between you, but it’s quiet enough that he could just talk normally, if he wanted. But he doesn’t. He says, loudly, pointing at you with the brilliant orange end of the cigarette, “Helps me relax.”

He shrugs again, brings it to his lips again, and slowly turns around. And you think he’s hiding, but he’s made a full rotation by the time he exhales, the smoke streaming out his lazy smile and billowing all around his face, so you suppose not.

“It’s mostly a mental game,” he says, gesturing with the cig again, bringing it close to his temple in a way that makes your brows knot in slight concern, “Tennis. I could be the most disciplined guy ever—“

The concern in your furrowed brows turns to dubiousness. “Could you?”

“—could cut out drinking, cut out smoking, eat all the green shit, sleep at nine. But if I’m fuckin’ pulling my hair out about stepping onto a court, I’m fucked.”

You think he has a point. You think you remember a therapist, at some point, saying something about compartmentalising. But you don’t really know what that means. You stopped seeing her after three sessions, anyway, so who are you to cast judgement on discipline.

Still, “Where did you say you’re ranked again?”

Patrick chuckles at that, a slight nod as if to say touché. He takes another deep drag, the ember smoldering bright for a moment before the smoke spills past his lips again.

“Two hundred and one,” he says, and he’s ostensibly unwounded by this sentiment.

“Not exactly Federer or Djokovic,” you say, and it seems like he’s strolling towards you now.

“You want a good show tomorrow?” he says, hiking a hand into the waisthigh pocket of the robe.

“Oh, I expect one.”

He pauses, closer now. Cocks his head at the can in your hands.

“You want that?”

You snort, hide it behind your back as though he’s got object impermanence.

“You can have it if I see you win tomorrow.”

Patrick scrunches his nose up at this, like a kid who’s smelled something nasty and doesn’t know how to keep it off his face, but he’s really just considering, and maybe disgruntled at the dissipation of your giving mood. But he tilts his head to the side, raising his brows like he’s conceding.

Then, looking down at the robe.

“You want this?”

You laugh, “Yes?” you say, like it’s obvious.

But he seems surprised, “Still?”

“Yes!”

“I’m naked!”

“I’ll run it through wash twelve times. It’s mine.”

He throws his head back, making a real show at being putout by this. A protracted groan of longsuffering leaves his lips.

And now you’re really laughing. “You can buy your own with your prize money. Warm beer and a new robe, that’s the height of luxury.”

He takes his hand out of the pocket, claps it hard against his chest as if wounded, and his lips shape around the cigarette in a way that’s almost artful. He takes a long, terminal inbreathe. Drops the cig. Crushes it beneath the sole of his foot. Faces away, and all you see is a large, cascading cloud, swishing away from him and out into the night.

“First my beer,” he turns around, “Then my robe. What next? My car keys? You’re gonna take my car keys and hold them hostage until I win.”

You make a face of sort of abject disbelief, though you’re still smiling.

“My beer,” you say, slowly, like you’re speaking a different language, eyes still sort of manic with the shock of his gall, “And my robe.”

The robe in question is now halfway open, but then he seems unconcerned with modesty. The dark hair on his chest looks almost silver beneath the street lights, the faint glimmers of water still clinging to his skin catching aglow.

“That’s a real shame,” he says, and he’s walking towards you, the hand he had slapped in his chest to show you how you’d spurned him now stroking the soft material of the robe with a carelessness that borders on intimacy, “I feel like it brings out my eyes. Don’t you think it brings out my eyes?”

Your gaze flicks from the robe, to his eyes, and back again. He’s standing in front of you now, and he’s sort of towering over you. He has an ease when he moves, like a stray cat or a rogue cowboy. Or something else. You suppose you can’t think of it.

“You can get another blue robe, Patrick.”

He shuts his eyes. He’s savouring your saying his name, or mourning the robe, or both. But probably the latter with how his fingers caress the lapel.

“One that fits, maybe. Definitely one with a higher thread cou… nt.” You hesitate. Because he’s singing again.

“Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?” he’s doing something with his face; something like he’s trying to feign a compelling hurt, but he’s smiling too hard. “What’ll you do now, my darling young one?”

You laugh, and he’s close enough to you that when your head falls forward it hits his shoulder, and your nose brushes against a plush outline of Hello Kitty, and he smells like cigarettes and motel soap and—well—you because of the robe.

“I’m going back out before the rain starts a falling! And it’s a hard—”

“Okay,” you say, because he’s getting louder, but you’re still laughing and grinning wildly.

“It’s a hard—sing it with me—it’s a…”

He holds the note. His eyes are still closed. You roll your eyes and you don’t step away from him, and you’re still holding the beer behind your back.

Your voice is low, but, “A hard rain’s gonna fall,” you supply grudgingly—well, you’re still smiling—and he throws his arm around your shoulder and pulls you against him and sings, loudly,

“It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall!”

“Okay,” you say again, pushing away from him, and having to sort of extricate yourself from his hold by slipping beneath his arm. “Very nice, you want some cash?”

“Whatever you can spare,” he says.

And you’re so intrigued by the way he looks at you. He has the sort of face that demands to be catalogued in intimate detail. His eyes crinkle at the corners now, in a way that makes them look almost wolfish.

“I love tennis,” he says, and he says it loudly, because you’re seven feet apart in an empty parking lot, and it makes it seem like he’s declaring something.

An empty Funyuns packet drifts by like a tumbleweed.

“What?”

“I love tennis. That’s why I do it.” He seems resentful, but resigned.

You hesitate, but when you open your mouth to speak again, he beats you to it,

“Doesn’t love me back though,” he’s shaking his head, sporting a huge rueful smile that seems to coruscate in the night, “Doesn’t love me back.” He huffs a sigh. “Story of my life.”

Across the lot, the two maintenance men emerge from your room.

Inside, the air conditioner blows frigid.

You're starting to think everything isn't half bad. You're a good person, letting a homeless man crash on the pull out couch in your dingy motel room, and you leave New Rochelle tomorrow. At this rate, you should extend an olive branch to Deirdre.

You brush your teeth. You change into your pyjamas, the satin of which Patrick is a little disappointed to see a lack of Hello Kitty printed on, but he doesn’t mention it.

He himself is now wearing a T-shirt, and a pair of boxers, and if he quite literally kissed the robe goodbye when he gave it back to you, then you don’t mention it.

And now he’s sprawled on the pull out couch, a thin sheet draped across his lower half. And you’re cross legged on the bed, the duvet gathered around you, and you’re doing your NYT word games because that’s part of your nighttime routine, even though you tell people it’s tea or reading or yoga. This is kind of like reading. You have to think about stuff.

What’s a five letter word that means ‘has a lingering soreness’?

Anyway, so, Patrick is sitting—kind of halfway laying—on the pull out couch. One arm behind his head and the other across his chest. And he’s wearing an expression that’s both intense and a little vacant, like he’s trying to read your mind.

Or like he’s having a silent argument with himself.

Or he’s just tired.

Yes, definitely tired, you think. His eyelids flutter, like they’re desperately trying to stay half open, and he’s sort of drifting in and out of awareness.

He’s quiet for a while, staring wearily into the ceiling like it houses the solutions to all the world’s problems.

And then he closes his eyes fully, and rubs the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

Your own gaze follows that hand, his right hand—the hand not behind his head—the one that falls from his face back onto his chest, the one that’s rubbing his sternum like he hasn’t had a good sleep in years.

And he can tell that you’re staring. So he clears his throat and opens his eyes, catching yours. And you look away instantly. Maybe a little too quickly. Certainly a little too guiltily.

He smirks. He knows he’s caught you. And you keep your eyes averted, because you know that he knows. But you can feel his stare still on you. And you can sense a kind of curiosity in it.

Earlier when he’d said it—just a shame such a beautiful woman will be sleeping all alone in a massive bed—you’d laughed. You’d laughed it off. And you’d taken a bit of pride in being the sort of strong, independent woman who cannot be charmed into sharing a bed with a stranger.

But that had been then, and now it is—well—now, and the pull out couch, in retrospect, looks firm as stone. And here you are, sitting in this (comparatively, which must be emphasised) comfy bed, and, not for the first time, you feel like a heartless cow.

There are rings around his eyes, dark shadows like bruised flesh. And there’s just this look to him—something weary, but not just in that way that says he hasn’t been taking care of himself. It’s more an aching kind of weariness that’s sunk into the very marrow of his bones.

Patrick is watching you as your eyes flit from the bed, to him, and back to the bed. His eyes follow yours. The way he looks at you is vivid and penetrating. It makes you feel like he’s seeing all of you. But he still looks like he’s struggling to figure something out.

He lets his gaze linger for a moment longer, and then he sits up and leans forward, elbows resting on his knees and hands hanging limply between his legs.

Looking at the way his shoulders are hunched over and the way his neck kind of juts out when he cranes his head forward is kind of reminding you of a pigeon. Or maybe a falcon. No, probably a pigeon. But a handsome, scruffy, feral little pigeon, maybe. And you’re staring at him, trying not to focus too closely on any one part of him.

He rubs the back of his neck, lets his shoulders sag, and looks back at you, and now he has this kind of pleading look on his face.

And you can’t tell if it’s genuine or if he’s faking it to get what he wants, but there’s that veritable exhaustion in his eyes that’s making him look so vulnerable.

And so you say, “Get in the bed, Patrick,” and you say it like he’s been sitting there begging you relentlessly, even though this is the quietest he’s been all night.

He’s surprised. Surprised that you’ve suggested it, but that it was more a statement than a question. And he’s studying you intently again, and he’s trying to figure you out, and you’re trying to figure him out, and there’s a tension in the air that was there before but feels heavier now.

And he looks like he’s about to protest, like he’s going to put up some sort of token fight, but then he nods and says, “Uh, yeah, that’d be great, yeah,” and the relief in his voice is clear.

He scoots off the couch and walks towards you in these slow, silent strides, and when he’s standing in front of you, you look up at him—you forget, whenever he recedes, that he’s quite so tall—and he looks down at you, and there’s something expectant in his gaze, like he’s waiting for you to tell him that you were kidding, and he’s bracing himself for it.

His eyes flickering all over your face, you can see his individual lashes, and the freckle on his lip, the faint lines around his eyes, the way his nose is a little crooked, and you have to really look up at him, and that makes you feel a little small, a little vulnerable, and then he says,

“You’re serious,” like he just doesn’t believe you, like what he really wants to say is you’re shitting me, but he’s too tired not to be polite.

And you shrug. And you nod. Just once. A little nod, but it’s sincere. He can tell it’s sincere.

You do the stupid, twenty-year-old, wall-of-pillows thing. Because you refuse to go top-to-toe when he’s just been outside barefoot.

You peek your head over the pillows, like a child looking over the wall between two neighbouring gardens, and you look down at him. And he looks up at you.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly through his nose, but he doesn’t break eye contact.

You’re a little unnerved by how unblinking he is, but you don’t look away either, and you both just sort of linger there silently for a few moments more.

“What time do you need to be there tomorrow?”

And he looks away a second and furrows his brow in thought.

“Eight,” he says, and he looks back up at you, and you can tell that he’s trying to stay awake.

“I’ll wake you up at six,” you tell him, playing with a loose thread on the pillow, and you’re whispering very quietly like you and he are the last two kids up at a sleepover, “Maybe six thirty. I wanna shower first. Then we can go get breakfast, we can get, like—McMuffins or something. Then we’ll go to the country club.”

And he does something like a nod, though it’s a hardly discernible motion, and his blinks are getting longer with every beat. You don’t know if you should say more, so you just wait a moment, and he’s still staring at you. He’s still looking at you like that. His jaw a little bit slack. He looks a little less present each time he blinks, his eyes closing a little longer each time, and his eyelids are drooping.

But he’s got that look like he’s trying to read your mind. And then his brows sort of twitch.

And you give him a suspicious look and whisper, “What?”

But he just lets out a heavy breath of a laugh and gives a little shake of his head. And he’s got a small, amused smile on his face as his eyes fall shut, like he’s thinking, if you only knew.

[negansfavlucille01]

NEIGHBOR

Negan × f!reader

Summary: Y/N's noisy neighbor, Negan, throws another party while she tries to sleep, so she makes yet another complain, which leads to his dick deep in her

Warnings: smut, 18+, unprotected sex, creampie, Negan being an asshole noisy neighbor, choking, rough (not so rough) sex, enemies to sex buds...?

Word count: 2,5K

Choosing a new place to live was kind of hard. How many tries it took to find the perfect apartment? Y/N didn't know herself. But she found it and decorated it in her style. When she moved in, some of the neighbors brought her cookies, pies and whatnot else as a "welcome to the building". Most of them were nice, old people who were already retired. She was glad she had finally found a place where all the neighbors were nice... Or she thought. Until she met Negan. He was the man living above her apartment. With all the parties he threw, Y/N had to go ask him to quiet down many times, but he always kept being loud. None of them liked the other. She even wondered how the old ladies liked him and always talked about what a "great young man" he was. What was so nice about him? He always looked grumpy and mad at the world. She had to admit, he was pretty good looking, but that wasn't an excuse for being an asshole. Later on, she learned he was a baseball coach. How could someone so grumpy work with kids? It didn't sit right in her mind.

Work was hard that day and Y/N was tired. Her shift finished in half an hour and she couldn't wait to get home and take a hot bath. After what felt like forever, her boss walked into her office and announced that the work day was off. Y/N quickly closed her laptop, grabbed her bag and left. Friday was over, no more work for the week. What could go wrong? Oh, of course... It was Friday. There was no way the dickhead above won't have friends over. So, no. She wouldn't be able to relax. Not tonight, not tomorrow, not the next day. As she drove her car into the parking lot of the building, she noticed Negan getting off his motorcycle and taking off his helmet. He looked so good with messy hair. No. She couldn't think like that about someone who had zero respect for people. She thought about saying hi, but didn't. Instead, she walked past him like he didn't exist.

"Oh, you don't know me now? And people say I'm fucking rude..." He smiled arrogantly and started walking next to her with his helmet in hand. He walked faster and passed her. Reaching for the front door, he opened it and walked in the building. He wasn't the gentleman the old ladies said he was and didn't hold the door for Y/N. It closed right in her face and she sighed heavily and searched for her keys in her purse.

"Gentleman, my ass. What a moron..." She unlocked the front door and walked in, impatient to get to her apartment. Life, though, wasn't on her side because one of the two elevators was taken and Negan was already walking to the other. She sighed quietly and walked towards the elevator, getting in with the devil himself. She could feel his judgmental look on her. What was the dudes problem? She brushed it away. Going up to the sixth level wasn't long, but with Negan there, it felt like she was getting old waiting. She got home, took off her make up, poured herself a glass of white whine and got in the hot bath. She relaxed for about 30 minutes before getting out. Drying her body with a soft towel and laying down in a robe, reading was great, until something from above made a loud thud. "Not that fucker again.."

The noises continued, relentless and unyielding, a constant barrage that chipped away at her sanity. At first, it was just the occasional creak or thud, but as time went on, they grew more frequent, more insistent. And then, as if the noises weren't enough, loud music started blaring, the kind that shook the walls and vibrated through the ceiling. Desperate for relief, she tried everything she could think of. She would sit cross-legged on her bed, forcing herself to take deep, calming breaths, trying to keep herself from going up and murdering Negan. She switched to listening to her favorite music on earbuds, tried sleeping with two pillows pressed firmly over each ear, the soft fabric muffling the world outside, but it wasn't enough. No matter how she adjusted or what she tried, the noise was still there. She finally accepted that sleep was beyond her reach. After hours of tossing and turning, trying every trick she knew to drown out the relentless noise, she realized there was no point in continuing the fight. Y/N didn't even bother getting changed from her robe when she walked out of the apartment. She got in the elevator and got on the next level, ready to kill Negan if necessary. She reached his apartment, her frustration bubbling over as she raised her hand and knocked on the door loudly, the sound echoing down the hallway. Her patience was thin, and she was ready to demand that he quiet down, the words already forming on her lips as she stood there, bracing herself for the confrontation.

Here's a slightly longer version of that text:

The music lowered slightly, as if someone had finally noticed the knock. A moment later, the door creaked open, revealing a man with a disheveled appearance and a bemused expression. He glanced her over before turning his head back inside the apartment. "Hey, Negan," he called out, a hint of amusement in his voice, "there's a hot chick standing here."

Negan strolled over to the door, his usual confident grin plastered on his face. But as soon as his eyes landed on her, the smile abruptly faded, his expression shifting to something far more serious. "What can I do for you?"

She shot him a glare, her frustration evident as she glanced past him into the chaotic scene of his apartment. Music still hummed in the background, and the remnants of the party were scattered everywhere. "Well, I'm sure you're not surprised," she began, her voice laced with irritation, "but I'm gonna need you to quiet down."

Negan raised an eyebrow, then shrugged nonchalantly. "No worries, the party’s over," he said with a hint of amusement as about twenty people began to stream out of his apartment, laughing and chattering as they passed by her. He turned back to her, leaning casually against the doorframe. "If the noise bothers you so much, why don’t you just move?"

She folded her arms and met his gaze defiantly. "I just switched apartments to get away from the last set of noisy neighbors. Wouldn't it be easier if you weren't so loud?"

Negan smirked, his eyes lingering on her for a moment longer than necessary. “You didn’t bother changing out of your robe, love?” he asked, his tone teasing, his mind clearly wandering to inappropriate places. He leaned against the doorframe, his gaze drifting over her lazily. “I like it. It’s cute... suits you.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, refusing to be flustered by his playful remarks. “No, I didn’t,” she replied, her voice steady as she met his gaze without flinching. “I wanted to sleep, but your party was in my way.” Her words were firm, her frustration evident, but there was a hint of something else in the air between them—a tension that neither seemed willing to acknowledge, yet neither could ignore.

Negan's teasing grin softened as the tension between them thickened, his gaze locking with hers. Without another word, he stepped closer, closing the distance between them. She didn’t pull away when he reached out, his hand brushing her cheek before he tilted her chin up slightly. Their breaths mingled, and then, almost hesitantly, his lips met hers.

The kiss started slow, a tentative exploration, but quickly deepened as their frustrations melted into something else entirely. His hands slid around her waist, pulling her closer as she responded in kind, her fingers tangling in his hair. The pull between them was undeniable, electric, and before they knew it, they were stumbling toward the bedroom, never breaking the kiss as they crossed the threshold and fell onto the bed together. As they tumbled onto the bed, the world outside seemed to fade away, leaving only the two of them in the quiet, dimly lit room. Negan’s hands roamed over her back, pulling her closer until there was no space left between them. The kiss grew more intense, driven by a mix of lingering frustration and unexpected desire. His lips trailed down her neck, leaving a trail of heat in their wake, while her fingers traced the contours of his shoulders, feeling the strength beneath his skin. Their breathing quickened, the moment charged with a shared urgency. Negan shifted, rolling them over so she was beneath him, his weight pressing her into the mattress as he gazed down at her with a hunger that made her heart race. The teasing smirk that usually played on his lips was gone, replaced by something far more serious, almost vulnerable. For a brief second, their eyes met, and something unspoken passed between them, a silent acknowledgment that this was more than just a fleeting moment. Then, with a low growl, he claimed her lips again, deepening the kiss as his hands slid under her robe, exploring the soft skin of her ass.

She arched into him, the last remnants of resistance melting away as they surrendered completely to the desire that had been simmering beneath the surface. His hands moved expertly, pushing the robe off her shoulders and letting it fall away, revealing her bare skin to his eager touch. He broke the kiss just long enough to pull his own shirt over his head, exposing his torso, before descending on her again. Negan’s lips and hands were everywhere, worshiping every inch of her body with a fervor that left her breathless. She gasped as his mouth found her breast, sucking and teasing the sensitive peak with his tongue while his hand slid down her stomach, finding its way between her legs. His fingers moved with deliberate, tantalizing slowness, driving her wild with need. She moaned, her hips bucking against his hand, craving more of his touch. Negan obliged, his fingers slipping inside her, finding her wet and ready. He groaned against her skin, clearly enjoying the effect he was having on her. "You like that, don’t you?" he murmured, his voice rough with desire. "Tell me what you want."

"I want you," she whispered, her voice barely more than a breathless plea. "I need you."

Negan grinned, his eyes dark with a primal hunger as he looked down at her. "Then you’ll fuckin' have me," he promised, his voice a low, rough whisper that sent shivers down her spine. With deliberate slowness, he reached for his belt, the metal buckle clinking as he unfastened it. His gaze never left hers, the intensity in his eyes making her heart race. He took his time, letting the anticipation build as he slid the belt out of its loops and tossed it aside. With a confident smirk, Negan unbuttoned his jeans, pushing them down along with his boxers, freeing himself from the last of his clothing. He stood there for a moment, completely exposed, letting her take in every inch of him. His cock was huge, about 8 inches and thick, veiny. Then, without another word, he climbed back onto the bed, his body hovering over hers as he prepared to fulfill the promise he had just made. He entered her with a forceful, eager motion, not giving her a moment to adjust before he began moving with a powerful rhythm. "Fuck, that pussy is tight..." His thrusts were fast and driven, each one filled with a raw, unrestrained energy that matched the heat of the moment. The room was filled with the sounds of their shared passion—the rhythmic slap of skin against skin, their breathy gasps, and the creaks of the bed.

"Negaaaannnn...!" She cried out, the tension getting to her. She was close and he knew it. The way her pussy was squeezing him, the way her legs shook, the way her eyes rolled back and her mouth hung slightly open. He reached down, rubbing her clit, his hard thrusts never stopping, but only getting harder. Some men liked doggystyle because they had control of the situation, but Negan wasn't that man. He loved missionary. What wasn't perfect about this position? Tits bouncing, eye contact, seeing the persons face, their legs shaking and so on.

“Yeah, come for me, baby,” Negan growled in a low, throaty voice, his breath hot against her ear, his hand going to her throat, taking away her breath. “Soak my fucking cock...” His words were rough, filled with a mix of desire and command as he continued to drive into her with a relentless rhythm. The sensation of her walls tightening around him only fueled his passion further. He grunted with each thrust, the intensity of their connection building to an almost unbearable peak. His hands gripped her hips firmly, guiding her movements as he pushed them both closer to the edge. With a final, deep thrust, he let out a primal groan, the tension within him releasing as he came deep inside her. The moment was charged with raw, unfiltered pleasure, leaving them both gasping and trembling in the aftermath. He collapsed next to her, his breathing heavy.

She turned to look at him, her expression a mix of exhaustion and amusement as she caught her breath. “Can you be quieter next time?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper but carrying a playful edge.

Negan’s eyes sparkled with a mixture of mischief and satisfaction as he chuckled softly, his breath still coming in ragged gasps. He propped himself up on one elbow, his gaze meeting hers with a teasing glint. “Oh, if we do this again,” he said with a smirk, “I’ll make sure to be as quiet as a mouse.” He leaned in closer, his lips brushing against her ear as he added in a low, conspiratorial tone, “Wouldn’t want to disturb the neighbors, now would we?”

She laughed softly, shaking her head as she snuggled closer to him, the playful banter a pleasant counterpoint to the earlier intensity. “I’m sure they’d appreciate that,” she replied, her voice softening as she nestled into the warmth of his embrace.

Negan’s chuckle rumbled through his chest, and he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her close. “Alright,” he said, his tone more sincere now, “I’ll keep it down. Just for you.” His smile was genuine as he pressed a tender kiss to her forehead, the earlier fervor giving way to a more relaxed, intimate moment between them.

[lila-lou]

✨ His only exception - Pt. 3/? ✨

Summary: 12 months ago, Butcher went above and beyond to have you join his team. You had a simple office job at Supe Affairs. The same thing every day, working from 9 to 5 and watching Butcher and his team defeat one renegade after another. One evening, however, something changed.

Pairing: Soldier Boy x Reader

Warnings: Language

Word Count: 1303

A/N: This is part 3 of “His only exeption”.

English isn’t my first language, so please be lenient. 💙✨

When the next morning came, you were rudely woken up by Butcher plopping down on the couch next to you.

“Well, how are you feeling?”. He hit your bare thigh a little too hard. “Glad to see you’re still alive". You couldn't tell whether he was serious or sarcastic.

“Uh-huh”, you replied, rubbing your eyes as you slowly sat up. “I really need my own damn room again", you grumbled.

When Annie called out to you from the kitchen, asking what happened between you and Soldier Boy, the memories of last night came flooding back to you. You no longer knew what disgusted and bothered you more. Ben's actions or what you did afterward. Your cheeks immediately blushed.

You only woke up from your trance when Annie waved her hand in front of your face. Blinking a few times and looking around, you saw Hughie, Frenchie and Annie standing in front of you questioningly, while Butcher gave you a doubtful look.

"What happened? Soldier Boy always left you alone, or rather, protected you?”, Hughie raised his hand, completely astonished. Your gaze slid to your bandaged wrist. “I… I don’t know… Ugh, I feel sick”, your voice cracked, before you stood up and fled to the bathroom.

"What the hell happened yesterday?", Annie turned to Butcher.

“Don’t look at me! I have no idea what Barbie did. In any case, Soldier Boy was beyond pissed. I'm surprised the house and especially (y/n) is still standing", Butcher shrugged before patting on his legs and getting up to grab a coffee.

As you got to the bathroom, you were so deep in thought that you didn't notice Ben getting out of the shower. The words caught in your throat as your eyes found him. You wanted to tell him that you didn't know he was in here. But instead of saying something or at least leaving the room, you stood rooted to the spot.

“Do you fucking mind?!”, he hissed, roughly shoving you to the side. Without shame and only a towel around his waist, Ben reached for his razor and began tracing the contours of his beard. He could see your helpless look in the mirror, but didn't say anything at first, even though he clearly felt his heart swell at the sight of you. To be honest, he didn't know what to say either. Instead, there was an uncomfortable silence in the bathroom. You could have cut off the air, it was so thick. Again he was torn by his emotions.

After a few seconds that felt like minutes, Ben dropped his razor with a clatter into the sink and turned to you. "Look, dollface. If you don't want to sit naked with your legs spread on this fucking sink, I'd really appreciate you get your little ass out of here and leave me the fuck alone before I make you do it". His Voice was deep and loud enough, to finally wake you up. His anger and his wounded pride won out and pushed everything else aside.

It took you a moment to remember who you actually were. Of course you had a healthy respect for Soldier Boy. After all you weren't an idiot. But you weren't afraid. You knew he wouldn't kill you, because you knew how he felt about you. Well, after last night more than ever.

“Asshole”, you hissed, pushing past him towards the door.

“Don’t you fucking forget your fucking attitude”, Ben called after you, pushing the door shut.

Before anyone could say anything, you raised your hand, took the cup of coffee from Butcher's hand and sat down at the dining table where Frenchie and Annie had already set breakfast. Hughie struggled with himself for a moment before opening his mouth to say something. You, on the other hand, quickly interrupted him. “Don’t fucking start. I don’t want to talk about it”, you grumbled, pulling your legs up on the chair and examining the cup in your hand before sinking back into your thoughts.

On any other day, Butcher would have complained about his coffee, but when he saw that you weren't really yourself at the moment, he just hissed "bitch" and grabbed another cup.

Less than 10 minutes later everyone was already sitting at the table and eating. Just as Butcher was about to bring up today's mission, Ben entered the room and everyone fell silent. As they waited to see what would happen, everyone looked between you and him.

"What?!", Ben hissed annoyed and sat down on the chair next to you, his usual seat.

Nobody answered him. Instead, Annie just mouthed a toneless “alrigth”, raised her eyebrows and turned back to Butcher.

"So, what's the plan?", She took a sip of her tea.

It wasn't until Ben reached across your plate for a donut that you became aware of his presence. Even though it wasn't easy for you, you did your best to ignore him as good as possible.

As Butcher announced what was planned for today, Ben gave him the same attention as always. Enough to accommodate what matters most to him. Not too much and not too little. He rather gave you his free attention, constantly looking at you from the corner of his eye.

“And don’t forget. Even if we want to, we can't kill anyone", Butcher looked at Ben.

“Don’t fucking look at me. I won't do anything. I'm just trying to make sure your incompetent asses don't get kicked", he said while he stuffed the second donut into his mouth.

"(y/n), you're still on a team with Soldier Boy", Butcher said firmly, even if his look seemed a little worried.

“Sure”, you muttered to yourself.

“I can’t wait to see you in that tight dress”, Ben shamelessly winked at you, making you roll your eyes. “I bet,” you grimaced. He always managed to exceed your expectations. How could he carry on like nothing happened. After last night? Was he really such an Asshole?

“Alright, girls”, Butcher stood in front of your apartment two hours later. “While (y/n) is, well… seducing that fish-fucking-bastard, this fucker here is keeping an eye on the two of them”, he placed his hand on Ben’s shoulder, who immediately shook it off. "MM, Frenchie and Annie are taking care of A-Train and Hughie and I will keep an eye out for Homelander. We only have this one chance. Don't screw it up!".

The car ride felt like an eternity. Usually, hand on heart, you had the best conversations with Ben. Even if he wasn't the best driver and you were constantly worried about getting killed in a car accident, you always had a great time talking to him. After driving through the middle of nowhere for a while, Ben finally broke the silence. “I won’t fucking touch you again. Calm the fuck down", he grumbled. You looked over at him cautiously. It was probably your racing heart again that gave you away. Or the fact that you held your buttoned-up coat to you like a second skin through your folded arms. “I'm a lot, but not a fucking rapist”, he met your gaze for a second before looking back at the road and gripping the steering wheel tighter with his left hand.

The, in your opinion, bad side of you, wanted to say so much more. Do much more. This side of you wanted to pounce on him and feel what the moaning women in his room were feeling.

However, your rational side remained in control, so you simply answered, “Good”.

———————————

A/N: Please let me know what you think.🥰

-

Part 4

-

Taglist: @deangirl96

[fuctacles]

A tale as old as time

For @subeddieweek Day 7 | M | 2696 | cw: age gap (about 25-30y difference, Eddie's age is not stated, Steve's aligns with canon) | camboy Eddie, transmasc Eddie, kinda sugar daddy Steve?, modern AU, simp Steve, virgin Eddie, chatfic, pre-anything, gray ace Eddie | Ao3 Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Ao3

"Hawkins High '86? How old is this guy?" Eddie asks himself, his eyebrows raised. There is a letterman in front of him, a gift from one of his top subscribers. Hell, his top subscriber. His number-one fan, who was responsible for about half of his revenue.

He's opened a PO box recently, with no little amount of worry about what kind of stuff he might get. He only gave the address to his top subscribers but he knew that the ones with the most money were usually the most unhinged. He went to the post office with his heart in his throat but all he got was a set of lingerie, a toy, and the letterman he was now holding.

He tried not to think about what kind of people would pay for his content. As long as he was making money he didn't care. But now he got a piece of one of them in his hands. Staring back.

1986.

Meaning the guy must be nearing 60. Double Eddie's age. 

He tries to imagine that. An older guy, with wrinkles, maybe a beer belly, a gross old t-shirt, and his hand permanently in his sweats, beating it to his photos. 

It was gross. And in a way, alluring.

Though someone with so much money to spend on a camboy must have a well-paying job. Some rich asshole, exploiting others to do the work for him. That's a more likely scenario. He tries not to think about big, rough hands on him when he puts on the jacket and takes pics for Shar.

He edits them a bit before sending them, knowing the guy will get a kick from seeing him in his jacket. The appeal of wearing your boyfriend's letterman eluded him in high school, but being claimed like that gave him a heady feeling. The fact that the guy could be his father apparently worked for him too. 

He doesn't put his phone away fast enough and sees the message that pops up.

Shar: So hot. You look like every repressed teen jock's dream

Shar: Definitely like mine

Eddie thinks a moment about his response, channeling the persona he takes on for the camera. 

PuppetOfMasters: Would I be your dirty secret?

PuppetOfMasters: Would you fuck me in the locker room behind your girlfriend's back?

Shar: I'd make YOU my girlfriend

Shar: Wait no

Shar: NOT LIKE THAT

Shar: A girlfriend but in a manly way

Eddie snorts.

You're good, he types. I know what you mean, don't worry.

He wouldn't keep around someone who didn't respect him. Besides, he made it clear he's saving for a transition with his Only Fans.

Thank god, Shar types. I respect who you are 

Shar: In fact, I spend so much money on you because of it. 

Eddie rolls onto his other side, his mood souring. One of those trans fetishists, then. That's fine, as long as he's being respectful and paying... Even if it leaves an unpleasant taste in his mouth. 

Ah, a connoisseur! Well, I hope I'm your favorite tranny, then, he jokes. He waits for an answer, but it doesn't come for a long while, so he flips his phone screen down and turns away, hoping for sleep.

A response is waiting for him when he wakes up. 

Shar: I guess it sounded that way, but I'm not that kind of pervert. You're the only trans sex worker I follow, but not the only trans person I've sent money to.

Eddie sauntered to the bathroom, not taking his eyes off his phone. He wonders if continuing the conversation is even the right move. He's talked to one too many guys who thought sending him a dick pick was okay after ten minutes of small talk between a content creator and a fan.

But he's kind of curious. When he has money to spare, he sends some change to other trans folks to help out, because he knows how hard it is from his own experience. But why Shar, a seemingly loaded old guy, would spend his money on queers instead of, let's say, starving children?

PuppetOfMasters: So you're just an ally with cash? Or is there more to it? I'm curious.

He goes through his morning routine, washing his face, and brushing his teeth, not expecting Shar to get back to him any time soon. So he's surprised when he picks his phone back up and a response is waiting.

Shar: Long story short, I hope my father is rolling in his grave while I spend his inheritance on people he hated so much.

That's not what Eddie expected at all. 

PuppetOfMasters: So I'm a means of rebellion against your bigoted dead father? I'll take that. I hate rich assholes

Shar: Me too

They don't talk for the whole day after that, but when Eddie's done running errands and editing in the evening, he looks back at the letterman hanging on the door of his wardrobe. 

How is sending me your letterman an act of rebellion? he asks. Because he's a curious little shit. 

The response comes fast like the guy is glued to his Only Fans chat. Gross. Eddie wonders briefly if he's talking with other sex workers there.

Shar: A souvenir of his precious high school fetishized on a queer ssex worker? He'd die if he hadn't already

So it is a fetish thing! Eddie smiles triumphantly at his phone.

Shar: Okay, fine

Shar: Sticking it to my father is just a bonus for you being really hot. 

Shar: And I do love seeing you in my letterman, I've jerked off to it three times already

Shar: is that what you wanted to hear?

Eddie grins, rolling on his bed.

PuppetOfMasters: Yes 

Shar: So yeah, I'm an old man who peaked in high school, laugh it up

PuppetOfMasters: I'd rather you peaked in me

Shar: Insufferable

Shar: Menace

Shar: Yeah, I'd love that. A man can dream, right?

Eddie bites his lip. How far is too far? The guy seems genuine and after the amount of creeps that's been chatting him up, he thinks his creep radar is quite good. Tentatively, he starts typing.

PuppetOfMasters: I don't know. I think people would like seeing me get railed by an older guy

Shar: An old guy, you mean

Shar: You'd make a video with me?

PuppetOfMasters: I record most of the sex I have, yes

Shar: Huh. I've never seen one before, then

PuppetOfMasters: warm, warmer

Shar: ... There aren't any?

PuppetOfMasters: din ding ding! ya boy is a virgin

Shar: shit

Shar: fuck

Shar: that's so hot

Shar: you'd let me?

PuppetOfMasters: Would I let my best-paying subscriber be my first time on camera? Probably

Not necessarily to be released but he couldn't lose the possibility of such golden content in case it was watchable. 

Shar: I'd better keep my spot then. Just in case.

PuppetOfMasters: No worries, you seem the most trustworthy so far anyway.

But as he types it, a new notification appears. Shar sent him a hefty tip on one of his photos.

PuppetOfMasters: That's really not necessary

PuppetOfMasters: But I hope your father is kicking and screaming in his coffin

Shar: I fucking hope so

----

It takes Eddie another day to google Hawkins High's yearbook photos. He'd thought about it before but didn't want to break the bubble of anonymity between himself and his fan. But the thoughts of big hands on his hips, and beard rubbing against his neck, took root in his brain and were tainting his mind.

Not fully in tune with his body and distrustful of others, Eddie has been single for most of his life. And now his stupid horny brain was drooling at the thought of losing his virginity to a grandpa on the internet. 

Hoping it would help his thoughts calm down, he looks through the photos from the year 1986, in search of a Harrington. And he finds him.

Steve Harrington. Basketball captain and swim team co-captain. His hairdo was magnificent and his smile was self-confident. Eddie would hate him in high school. Should probably hate him now. So he expands his search further, beyond the Hawkins High memory lane.

He finds one single photo on a LinkedIn profile. 

The current Steve Harrington's hair is no less magnificent, just peppered with silver. He wears glasses now, which accentuate the line of his jaw and make his neatly trimmed facial hair pop out. He's wearing a yellow jacket and a white golf, which should be hideous but weirdly, works for him. Eddie doesn't get to see his eyes, unfortunately. The photo looks like a candid photo shoot take-out after someone told him a joke. His head is tilted down, eyes scrunched and lips pulled in a smile, as a bubbling laugh got immortalized on camera.

Eddie shouldn't be finding a sixty-year-old man this endearing. 

PuppetOfMasters: I like your LinkedIn photo

PuppetOfMasters: Well, I hope it's you. 

PuppetOfMasters: Steve, right?

He can't forget about this for the whole day, not as he budgets his income, and especially not when he records a short video jerking off in the shower. He tries not to look at his phone but it's his only one, so he does while trying to budget in a second one, just for sex work. Maybe then he wouldn't be feeling so insane about not getting a response from a stranger who is an old pervert spending loads of money on him. 

He tries to be normal when a chat notification finally pops up. 

Shar: If you saw the golf and yellow jacket photo, that's me

Shar: though please don't make me type my full name in here.

no worries, Eddie types back so fast he should be embarrassed. It's a good photo.

Shar: Thanks. My best friend took it 

PuppetOfMasters: Your friend has a good eye

Shar: I'll let her know

Shar: I'm surprised it took you this long to search me up

Eddie's surprised too. Usually, his curiosity would take over him sooner.

PuppetOfMasters: I tried not to pry. But I had to in case we were gonna meet up one day

Shar: So you were serious?

Shar: I've been wondering if you sweet-talk all your followers like that 

PuppetOfMasters: Only the ones that don't send me dick pics

Shar: I knew holding back would pay off

Eddie snorts at his phone. 

Though I might need one before we meet up, he types. Gotta know what I'm working with

Shar: Right. Of course

Shar: So how would that work?

Eddie hasn't thought about it this far.

PuppetOfMasters: I need to read about OF's policy on collabs. Never had to before, since I work solo. Would probably have to hire you, well, sign a commission/gig contract or something like that. So it's all legal and shit.

Shar, Steve, doesn't answer for a long while, and it might be the end of his devirginizing journey. Well, if the guy doesn't want to make this legal, put his name on some paperwork, then he isn't trustworthy, and that's the end of it.

It's half an hour later and Eddie's bitten all his nails off trying not to follow up with any messages and focus on anything else when an answer finally comes.

Shar: Sorry my friend was bothering me

Shar: this sounds more complicated than I anticipated. So I would be like, a co-creator, then?

PuppetOfMasters: Precisely

Shar: Holy shit okay

Shar: Thought I'd be you know, less involved

Though you could hit it and quit it, huh? Eddie scrunched his nose. What was he getting himself into? Gods.

Shar: If that's what you wanted I'd take it

Eddie shouldn't be blushing over this one. It's like he's throwing the man scraps and he's licking them up.

PuppetOfMasters: Simp

Shar: I am what I am

Shar: With that said, I'm willing to make it work. Do all the paperwork you need

PuppetOfMasters: Doing paperwork just to fuck me? so romantic

Shar: I suck at paperwork so my friend would be doing it anyway

Shar: If that's okay

PuppetOfMasters: I think it's best if someone looks it over, yeah

Eddie hesitates for a moment.

PuppetOfMasters: That friend doesn't happen to be your wife?

Fuck no, comes the immediate response

Shar: I'm perpetually single and she's as gay as they come. 

PuppetOfMasters: Good. Wouldn't want to be the other girl

Shar: If I had the chance you'd be the only one

PuppetOfMasters: Jesus.

Eddie squeezes his legs together unconsciously.

PuppetOfMasters: Stop sweet talking me, I've already agreed to fuck

Shar: But we haven't signed anything yet. Even then, I'll keep sweet-talking you. It's what you deserve. 

For the first time, Eddie thinks he might not survive their meeting. And not because of the possible killer scenario. Thankfully, Steve gets back to business talk.

Shar: How would this work, legal stuff aside? Do you script this?

PuppetOfMasters: Do I look like I script shit?

Shar: I'm not the one with Only Fans

PuppetOfMasters: Fair. I think we could just set up cameras and do whatever we feel like. Then decide together if the footage will be released or not. 

Shar: Sounds reasonable

Shar:When would you want to do this?

When?

Eddie hasn't thought that far. In fact, he felt like he hadn't been thinking for the past couple of days. 

I'm the sole god of my schedule so I'm open to anything, he types evasively.

Shar: I have some time off next month, could fly to wherever you need me

Next month seemed close. Extremely close. Or maybe it wasn't? He never worked with anyone before. Hell, he didn't even have that many friends to meet up with. 

Next month works I guess, he answers despite his nerves.

Shar: Wanna face time before we start the legal work?

His nerves escalate, making his mouth dry. He reminds himself he's done this before, he's on camera all the time. 

PuppetOfMasters: Like, right now?

Shar: Yeah?

PuppetOfMasters: Ok, give me five minutes.

Eddie shoots up, checks himself in the mirror, and finds a good angle for his phone to set up. He lowkey hopes Steve picks up with his dick in the frame so Eddie can block him with a clear conscience and forget about the whole thing. When six minutes from his last message pass, he hits 'call'.

"Hi," Eddie squeaks when the video connects. Steve Harrington's arms are in the frame, crossed on the desk, and toned where he's leaning on them.

"Hi," he greets him with a dazzling smile. 

It is the guy from the photo, so at least he's not being catfished. And he has none of the creepy simp energy Eddie feared. He's just... a guy. It's both a relief and a disappointment. 

"Well?" the guy asks.

"Well, what?" Eddie frowns. 

"Are you disappointed? Am I too old?"

Eddie looks at him properly. His hair is lighter on the sides, but not grey yet, and the video quality doesn't make any wrinkles stand out to him. Maybe some worry lines, crow's feet if he squints. He looks like he keeps in shape, too. Eddie wouldn't call him old. Mature, maybe. A DILF slowly transforming into a Silver Fox. 

"You look fine. Good. You look good. Attractive," Eddie fumbles with his words and barely stops himself from facepalming. This is why he mostly texts.

Steve smirks at him. And holy shit, a dude twice his age smirking at him shouldn't be doing things to his body.

"You sure? You're not gonna block me after we hang up, are you?"

Eddie shakes his head.

"I stand by our plans. You're passing my creep radar so far, but uh..." He scratches his cheek nervously. "I'd like to keep in touch in case, you know. A red flag pops up. I hope you get it."

Steve nods, his expression growing serious.

"Absolutely. We're strangers, after all."

"Yeah." Eddie nods, relieved. It would give him ample time and opportunities to back out.

On the screen, Steve leans more on his arms, closer to the camera. 

"So I think dick assessment is next on the checklist?"

Eddie might not even survive video calls with this guy, after all. 

[cuubism]

HURT/COMFORT PROMPTS YOU SAY *pulls out giant scroll* okay what about (probably human) trans chronically ill dream dealing with a health crisis and hob is trying to support him through it? bonus points: maybe dream's parents are being shitheads so dream and hob have to get _married_ to make sure dream's wishes in hospital or wherever are respected?

(from meadow. i am not having feelings about anything in particular, Why would you Ask.)

@meadowziplines this was supposed to be angsty but it just ended up kind of wholesome tbh. that's the opposite of what usually happens to me

you've seen married for tax purposes before, now see married for next of kin legal rights

--

Hob knew he wanted to marry Dream within two weeks of their first date, but he tried to be reasonable about it. Dream was shy and guarded his hard-won independence closely, and Hob felt that just declaring his eternal love too quickly was a sure way to scare him off. So he didn't.

Now he's regretting it, because hell, it would have made this so much easier. That's not how he wants to think about marrying Dream, about it making being in a hospital easier, but here they are. And he is.

And it's why he's hiding around a corner as Dream's parents are "visiting"--more like being complete assholes--his hospital room. God, Hob hates them. This whole situation is the only reason he's even met them--Dream doesn't talk to them anymore, and for good reason, but the moment they caught wind of vulnerability they pounced on the chance to regain control.

Dream is an adult and can make his own decisions, but Mr. and Mrs. Cunt have proven very slippery and manipulative and have played the 'Hob's not family, we're family' card at every possible turn to get him kicked out of the room. Hob's gotten a couple of the nurses on his side on account of not being a complete asshole but he still doesn't like his chances duking it out in front of hospital administration over who gets to make Dream's medical decisions if he's incapacitated.

Dream's fought so hard to have control over his own life. Hob won't let him lose it.

Which is why he's currently hiding behind the vending machines until they leave, rather than going in there and telling them where to shove it.

He waits with bated breath until they're gone, then scrambles out, rushing down the hall with his paperwork and slipping into Dream's room. He feels like a criminal. Which is exactly why he's doing all this.

"Hob," Dream breathes, as Hob closes the door behind him. He looks exhausted. Terrible parents who insist on disrespecting you are not good for fragile health. "I thought you left."

Hob flashes him a grin, but feels how it wobbles. "Never. Just had to go get something."

He's so nervous about how Dream will react to this. It feels so likely to go wrong.

He sits in the chair by the bed so he's on Dream's level, takes his hand. "Listen, baby. This-- this really isn't how I wanted to do this. But I just-- I really don't want things to go wrong, you know? And if they do go wrong, I want us to be able to do something about it. I want to be in your corner."

His anxious rambling makes Dream's face start to fall. "Hob..."

Hob thrusts the paperwork at him. "Will you marry me?"

He had something so much more romantic in his head for the moment he finally asked Dream to marry him. He would have swept him off his feet and made him feel special. If only it could have been different.

Dream picks up the papers, seemingly in shock. "This is..."

"I did all the paperwork already, it just needs signatures," Hob tells him. "And I bribed one of the nurses to let us out for an hour to go to the registrar's office. If. If you want."

Dream keeps staring at the papers in silence. Hob doesn't want him to think this was just some act of desperation, even if it kind of was, at least timing-wise. God, this isn't what he wanted at all.

"I wanted to marry you anyway," he says, shifting nervously in his chair. "But now it's just-- I don't want you to be scared that something will go wrong with the surgery but I want you to know that someone will have your back and do what you want. Not--"

"--my terrible, terrible parents?" Dream finishes, lips finally quirking up in a half-smile.

"...Yeah." He swallows hard to calm himself. It's a lot, what he's asking, in a sense. All the legal rights it creates. But. "If you can trust me with this, then I'll protect you. I promise."

"You have already," Dream says. "As you did with the hospital admin. I think they hate you now." He seems quietly delighted about it.

Hob's always known he can be a bit annoying at times but this experience has taught him how truly annoying it is possible to be. When they got there, none of Dream's chart info was under the right name or gender, and nobody seemed particularly inclined to update it. At least not until Hob pestered them, and pestered them, and pestered them.

So yeah, they kind of hate him, but he got to be Dream's hero so it was all worth it in the end.

It's another reason he needs to get this legal shield in place now. Between Dream's slick parents and their money, and Hob who's being a continual nuisance, he thinks he knows who'll come out on top with the administration.

"...So?" he says. "Will you marry me?"

Dream starts tearing up, and Hob thinks, oh god, oh god, I've ruined it-- then Dream pulls him close and throws his arms around him. "Yes," he breathes. "I will. I-- I wanted to for so long."

That makes idiots of the both of them, then.

But Hob doesn't dwell on it for long. He hugs Dream back, then kisses him, pressing his face between his hands. Now that the stress of asking is over, the real feeling bubbles up inside him. Joy. Elation. He's marrying Dream.

"I love you," he says, and Dream smiles. "Now let's get out of here."

--

Their makeshift ceremony at the registrar's office is very emotional despite being completely spontaneous. It's just them, plus Death who Hob got to come along as their witness, and they don't yet have rings to exchange--but at the end of it, Dream is his husband.

Truthfully, Dream deserves better, he deserves a lavish romantic ceremony with flowers and fine clothes and desserts and anything he could possibly want. But... Hob is his husband now. He can give him better, later. And what a joy is that.

Dream is exhausted by the time Hob gets him back to his room, but seems happy nevertheless. He takes a nap while Hob goes to show a copy of the marriage license to hospital admin and gets them to update their records. The next time someone tries to kick him out of Dream's room it's fucking on.

And he doesn't have to wait long. He gets one peaceful day of being able to sit in Dream's room unimpeded, reading to him and just generally being able to enjoy his company without hiding behind the vending machines, before Dream's parents come back.

Dream tenses at the knock on the door, and Hob's never felt more powerful than when he stands up and says, "Don't worry, I'll tell them to leave."

"You needn't--" Dream starts, but Hob shakes his head.

"Oh, no, I'm looking forward to this."

He opens the door with a grin to find Dream's mother on the other side, and stands conveniently in the doorway, blocking her view of Dream. "Hey."

Hob can practically see her blood pressure rise at the sight of him. "You. I thought we had dealt with you."

"I'm hard to deal with," Hob says. "Sorry." He's not sorry.

She tries to push forward. "Out of my way."

Hob blocks her, and can't help a rather vicious smile. "Dream wants you to leave."

"You have no right to even be in here, never mind to tell me to leave," snaps Dream's mother.

Hob hands her a copy of the marriage certificate. He's got several. "On the contrary."

She stares at it, and is, for a moment, completely speechless.

"As Dream's husband," he says, and oh the words are delicious, "I'm telling you to leave. And I think you should do it before I call security on you." An echo of what she and Dream's father had said to him in the past.

Her jaw clenches and she shoves the paper back at him. "That they even let people like you marry in this country is an abomination. You are perverting the sanctity of marriage."

"That's my absolute favorite thing to do," Hob says, and shuts the door in her face.

"I think you enjoyed that far too much, Hob," Dream says as Hob turns back to him. Then he starts giggling. "Did you notice?"

"What?"

"Mother finally agreed that I am a man so she could be homophobic about it," Dream says, and dissolves into giggles once again. "She always said I needed to find a husband; I can't imagine why she isn't happy that I have."

"'Apologies, Mother,'" Hob says, doing his best imitation of Dream's posh accent as he sits down beside him again, "'I know you would have preferred that I marry a respectable young heir from the polo club but I'm afraid I'm shacking up with the guy running the local tavern. In lieu of a gift please just don't attend the wedding.'"

Dream laughs again, then says, "Will there be a proper wedding?"

"You want there to be?"

Hesitantly, Dream nods.

"Then there will be."

Dream smiles, and Hob takes his hand, squeezes it. "And think on what sort of ring you want," Hob says. "By the time you get out of surgery next week, I'll have it for you."

"I do love you," Dream sighs.

"Not regretting not marrying Lord Whoever from polo club?"

"There was no polo club," Dream says. "There was croquet, however--"

"Oh my God--"

"--however, you are the one I want to be married to."

Hob smiles. "Good." He kisses Dream's hand. "And you know, right? You know I wanted to marry you anyway? This was just a-- a timing thing."

"I know. But, I admit, I've found this all far more entertaining than I'd have thought." He smiles up at Hob. There's nothing better in the world than that clever smile. "You are a gallant husband."

If Hob can get Dream to keep looking at him like that, he thinks he'll be happy for the rest of his life.

"Promised to protect you, didn't I?" he says. "And so I will."

[partycatty]

professor!kenshi takahashi > again

you just can't seem to do professor takahashi's reading assignments.

warnings: smut kinda? idk ur freaky and so is he

notes: hi guys im sorry i havent been posting, brain went numb after i lost a 2k kung lao fic because god hates me. enjoy a new brainworm!

@crimsonbubble come get yo juice

[ masterlist ]

• professor takahashi was a major asshole, every student on campus whispers about his attitude and ridiculously complicated assignments, particularly his reading assignments. they were long, tiresome, and often so complex in word choice you swear your eyes are crossing. unfortunately, you needed this credit to get the hell out of that school.

• he was presumably indifferent about you, wandering the aisles of the desks with a never-changing scowl. he was pretentious, always clean in a suit. his hair was neatly done and his back was obnoxiously straight. you tried to be mad, but you respected his devotion to his career.

• when he'd assign one of those readings, nine times out of ten you chose to skip it. they were only worth five points, it felt criminal to waste that effort when you could be enjoying college life. what's a few points here and there? it's not like you were studying for a phd like your physics professor, dr. carlton.

• midterms were approaching, grades were set to be due within the week and it seemed to be all crashing down on you. the readings and journals following them were costing you about seventy points that could easily bump your grade up a letter... if he let you submit them this last second.

• knocking on his office door, you hear an immediate groan and shuffling. his dress shoes clacked against the floor before he opened up. his height was alarming at such close proximity and you found yourself dizzy under his scrutinizing glare. the glasses on the bridge of his nose jump as he scrunches.

• "it's after office hours," he states, eyes shooting to a clock on the wall behind you. "3-7. it's on the syllabus."

• "i—i know, but—" for the first time, you found yourself stuttering in front of him. "i didn't have the t-time to do the assignments and i was hoping you could take them before the end of the week...? i'm sorry, i know this is sudden—" his large hand raises itself, putting a spell on you to stop talking just as quickly as you started.

• "you're missing fourteen of them," his voice is low and cold. how did he already know how many you were missing without checking? it takes a long time before he sighs and steps to the side, eyes inspecting your every move. "we... could probably knock a couple off if you need the help." ...we?

• swallowing, you step into the small office. you never really noticed a distinct smell on him, but the faintest cologne and his natural musk fogging up the room made you suppress a whimper of surprise. he squeezes past you to get to his desk, and you try to ignore the brush of his touch against your waist as he subtly moves you to the side. you feel trapped in this room, backing into a corner and fidgeting with the dead skin by your fingernails.

• he shuffles papers around on his desk, retrieving the printed copies of what you're missing and slapping them on the desk. you jump, trying to back even further into the corner you had buried yourself in.

• "don't look so afraid," somehow his harsh tone offers a smidge of comfort. "it's not rocket science." he beckons you over with two fingers and your insides curl.

• the passage is long and aggravatingly complicated just from a glance, the backside of the page being a few short answer questions. professor takahashi stands close behind you, forced into closeness from how much his desk was positioned against a wall. you hear him try to stifle his breathing but each small gust on the back of your ear made reading all the more impossible.

• your eyes skin the page, lips trembling as you mouth the words on the paper. just as focus overtakes you on the final paragraph, your professor's sultry voice grumbles in your ear.

• "what did the curtains symbolize?" he gruffly asks, tapping a finger on the first question. you stutter over your words, in a blind haze you couldn't even recall the mere mention of curtains in the writing. you swallow thickly, trying to pull an answer from your ass in typical student panic.

• "concealing true thoughts?" you wince, ready for his disapproving tone to burn your ear. instead, the tense air is cracked through when professor takahashi slams his hand palm-down onto the desk, making you whimper in surprise.

• "again," he groans, already frustrated with your ignorance. "and get it right this time."

• how were you able to focus like this? it was cruel. it was sick, and you wouldn't be able to tell that kenshi agreed with your panicked thoughts from his stone cold expression. he was just thankful you had just enough wiggle room to not be pressed against his aching boner through his slacks.

• you swallow thickly, eyes fluttering over the passage again in a haze. this was too much, you should have just failed instead of participate in whatever this was. "the barrier between private and public manners?"

• kenshi groans again, head dropping in frustration and nearly putting his head on your shoulder. you tense up, his hot body feeling like too much and he's not even touching you. something about a big, authoritative man telling you what to do was getting you going... damn you and your late night assignment recovery plan.

• professor takahashi raises his head again, rolling his shoulders as he tries to keep himself together. his eyes glance downward, and he looks down his nose at the sight of you rubbing your thighs together ever so slightly to relieve the tension. a chuckle is pulled from deep in his throat, amused by your small figure and just how caged you were in this situation. he had all the positioning to... no, he shouldn't think that way.

• something ugly and disgustingly horny tugs at him anyway and pulls a swift movement. professor takahashi swings his thick leg between yours, parting your thighs and forcing you to stand with your legs further apart, pulling all satisfaction from you the moment it started. the smoothness of it all sends your heart into overdrive as you try to make sense of his motion.

• you're too afraid to turn back and look at him, to ask what he's doing. you can't, it's too much to ask of you. your legs are weak and knees are buckling, so you attempt to subtly rest your weight onto his desk with your elbows, unintentionally(?) bending over his desk.

• you feel his body loom over yours, and he manages to position his leg just right to press flush against your ass. his torso bends down, just barely above yours, just barely pinning you to the wood.

• "innocence," he answers the assignment question lowly, his brow twitching desperately. "purity... shame."

• his words tug at your core. "oh."

• kenshi wonders if he should pull away, if this was too much, if you'd run away the moment his grip loosened... but you show no ounce of disagreement to the predicament. if anything, the shake in your body and the emanating heat from your cunt through your bottoms told him you needed this... maybe even more than you needed this grade.

• testing the waters further, his fingers dip into the sides of your waistband, tugging the fabric away from your hips curiously. if now was your time to decline his advance, you certainly wouldn't have taken it. involuntarily, your ass presses against his thigh in anticipation, a motion that makes him jolt in surprise. no words are being exchanged, yet your heat was telling him all that he needed to know.

• "question two," he mutters, eyes transfixed on your back. "in the main character's dialogue during the theater scene, who was he speaking to?"

• this question came to you easy even if your mind was escaping you. your voice is weak, barely there enough to answer. "the audience."

• "which one?" his growl makes you yelp as he tugs on your waistband, pulling you impossibly closer. your clothed pussy was just barely able to rub against his thigh.

• a hot breath escapes your lips, why he's torturing you like this is beyond you. "the—the real audience. us." a reward was given as kenshi pulls your bottoms to the floor, letting them pool at your ankles to give him a display of how soaked you got through your panties. he takes a sharp intake of breath, unable to stop his hand from dragging along the fabric or diving in straight away... no. you wanted this, you had to earn it.

• his lack of response but delight in touching you was confusing. your head drops in embarrassment, hiding the heat creeping up your face. "was... that right?" professor takahashi only replies with a hum, tilting his head to inspect your arousal further.

• he dives right into the next question, just as hungry as you were without admitting it. "what was the meaning behind the title?"

• you part your lips to pathetically guess, forgetting the passage had a title to begin with. your eyes are glassy, the words nearly impossible to distinguish. you want to cry by now, needing both a grade and something, anything to relieve what he's not providing you with. all you can sputter out in a shameful "i don't know."

• "yes you do," he really hopes so as he pulls your panties to the side, fully exposing yourself to him. he prays to god you know the answer, then he'd be able to take what he wants, fuck you into how he desires. he considered himself a pervert, a sick and twisted individual that shouldn't have the job he does. but seeing the way you ache and writhe for him assures he's right where he belongs. "think."

• you can't, you honest to god can't. your mind and body are fully disconnected, unable to access any cohesive part of your thoughts that would either tear yourself away, push yourself in deeper, or just completely shatter. his voice was pulling you apart, and in hindsight, maybe it always has. maybe he was just so alluring during his lectures you found it hard to focus on the work in front of you.

• a belt buckle clinks behind you, a sound that makes you clench onto nothing. kenshi frees himself, one hand squeezing the base of his cock and the other one pressing your back down, bending your body into a 90 degree angle. a mortifying wet slapping sound shocks your body as he taps his shaft against your cunt, your juices sticking and stringing in connecting threads each time he pulls away. your mind runs wild, wondering just how big he is, if his face is flushed or cold as always, but even still you dare not turn around.

• "again," he instructs with a huff, breath escaping him as he tries to regain his own composure. you're tearing him apart just as much as he is to you. "read it — hhh — again." the hand on your back trails to the back of your head, grabbing a fistful of your hair and guiding your sight back to the passage. through fluttering lashes, you manage to get a clear image of the text, racking your brain for an academic response when all you can focus on is his tight grip and heat from his cock.

• "s'a reference," you sputter out, hoarsely. "to the... irony."

• "of?" you can hear the smirk as he notches his tip into your entrance.

• "the... character's... fuck—" you pound a fist onto the desk, back arching and attempting to fruitlessly bounce back onto him, something he wouldn't permit just yet. "the main character's thoughts and inhibitions..." you try to crank out an answer as you clench your eyes shut, chasing your potential reward. "how good of a man he claims to be when he's just as evil as the villain." you speak so fast you're afraid professor takahashi misheard you, or was displeased with your tone. his silence is deafening and you feel tears prick at your eyes.

• you whine at his silence, but before you could cry his name out in frustration, his hand curls around your head and slaps against your mouth, pressing firmly to stop any noise from escaping.

• you feel like a wet, silenced, needy dog with the way he handles you, demanding and controlling the situation in a cruel and torturous manner. it makes you sick, he makes you sick. it's a terrible awful desire to want to be stuffed full of a professor, one you paid to teach you, and all he's teaching you is how to behave like a toy.

• as you near the verge of fighting back, a firm knock echoes on your professor's office door. a feminine voice pours through, authoritative and with obnoxious intent.

• "mr. takahashi," the calls through the door. "the board wanted your approval for the next steps we discussed in last week's meeting. is now a bad time?"

• his cock still pushing against your entrance, he clears his throat and adjusts his glasses, standing straight. "not at all," he replies nonchalantly, feigning innocence behind a thin wooden door. "one moment, if you could."

• she approves and you hear her lack of footsteps — she's right outside of the door. in one swift moment, kenshi discards the assignment, hoists your bottoms back into place nearly making you jump in the process, and cramming his dick back into his pants. you want to cry, whimper for any sort of guidance, internally laughing at yourself for suddenly needing his attention and help instead of being the aloof student you typically were.

• professor takahashi nods his head toward his desk, and you understand immediately — crouching down and tucking your legs against your chest, you bury yourself underneath his office desk and hold your breathing, trying to calm your racing heart... tonight has been a lot for it.

• he clacks toward the office door, swinging it open. you can only catch the faint noises and changes in lighting as they move about the office. kenshi's sure to circle back to his desk and sit down, giving his coworker no opportunity to join his side of the room.

• your breath is held tight as they talk about office jargon, words you're too afraid to hone in on in case you get spotted. you try to focus on the faint stripe pattern of his slacks, the tapping of his foot as he intently listens to the muddy words.

• "i must admit, tonight's a busy one for me," he bluntly admits to the woman, shifting his hips in his seat. "i've got a lot to catch up on, a lot of grades to fix. if you don't mind, it would be best for the both of us to put a pin in this and come back tomorrow morning." a polite smile graces his stern features, one you can yet again hear in his tone. your heart flutters at the thought of being alone with him again.

• "i'm at a crossroads here," the woman sweats, nervously chuckling. "we were hoping to do a late follow-up meeting after your approvals... as soon as our conversation is done. they're all waiting in the board room."

• professor takahashi audibly groans, leaning back in his seat. you take the brief moment of adequate lighting to smirk at the sight; his cock was still raging and angry from denial, pushing hard against his slacks. he was dying inside.

• "if we must do it tonight," he draws out his tone, standing abruptly. "alright."

• your stomach drops at the thought, cunt aching and drooling for more after getting only a taste. you wouldn't be able to sleep, eat, function until you're able to be split in half by his dick. fuck the assignments, there's something else you want to chase now.

• and you wish you could chase, frowning as you see them both leave the room, kenshi stock-still as always just as you peer over the wood to ensure you're free to escape. tonight was a disappointment all around, and not even five minutes on your walk back to your dorm your phone pings, a new email sitting in your inbox.

just now - ktakahashi@school.edu

subject: office hours

thank you for reaching out for after-class help. my office is open anytime if you need anything from me. i'll be expecting you tomorrow to start.

[starkwlkr]

Hiiii! So I do not know if you are making requests but if you are doing can do: Charles x Reader where she is a medical student and will do an internship in formula one, Charles does not like her much until he gets hurt and have to take care of her which makes the two approach

kiss with a fist | charles leclerc

warnings: needles and blood mentions and charles being an asshole <3

Y/n was nervous. She was starting her new internship with none other than F1. She watched a couple of races, but she wasn’t a die hard fan. But she wasn’t here to watch men drive in circles, she was here to work.

When she first arrived to the paddock, she was already making enemies. She didn’t mean to, but a certain Ferrari driver had woken up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. Y/n bumped into Charles, nearly dropping his hot coffee on himself.

“I’m sorry! The photographer was backing up and I-”

“Do you not watch where you’re going? There’s all this space around you.” Charles groaned as he dropped his coffee into a trash can. “What? You want an autograph?”

Y/n rolled her eyes. “Not everyone wants your autograph. And I said I was sorry. By the way, I’m more of a Red Bull fan.” She really didn’t know anything about Red Bull to be honest. You could have someone explain every single detail of f1 and she still wouldn’t understand. All she knew was that Red Bull probably had more haters than supporters.

She quickly left Charles and walked to her boss’ office where she was supposed to meet him. Y/n was already wishing the day was over so she could go back home and bury herself in her blankets after her interaction with Charles, but she had a long day ahead of her.

“Charles Leclerc crashes into the barrier!”

Y/n watched from a monitor as Charles’ Ferrari crashed. The replay kept on going, sort of a reminder to the Ferrari fans that this season wasn’t going their way. Charles stumbled out of his car, almost tripping over his feet.

“He’s okay, right?” Y/n asked her boss. Sure, he was an asshole to her that morning, but she would never wish for someone to get injured.

“Yeah, I got confirmation that Leclerc is fine. Have you met him yet?”

“Sort of. Had to leave before I could even get an autograph.” She said sarcastically, but her boss didn’t pick it up.

“I’m sure you’ll get one.”

Yeah, no.

After the race, Y/n was going through the piles of paperwork she was told to do. She was writing down on her clipboard when she heard a knock on the door. She figured it was her boss or someone else other than Charles Leclerc.

“Yes?” She looked up to see the driver. “Oh. Finally brought me an autograph?” She went back to writing in her clipboard.

“No, someone made me realize that not everyone wants my autograph. I was just wondering if you have time to check if I’m dying.” He said casually.

Y/n dropped her pen and looked at him, wondering if he was serious or not. “Check if you’re dying?”

“Yeah, I crashed today. My head is hurting, I think I might pass out. I’m not dying, right?” Charles explained.

“Fine, I’ll check. Sit down.” Y/n pointed to the examination table next to the desk she was currently using. Charles followed her instructions and sat on the examination table.

“Are you going to give me a shot? Because I hate needles. And sometimes I get weirded out if I see my own blood.” Charles admitted.

“Why would I give you a shot when your head is hurting? I can if you want me to.” Y/n said, standing In front of Charles.

“Nope, I am good.”

“Great. So just let me check if you’re dying real quick.”

Before Y/n could even do anything, Charles spoke up. “My head actually doesnt hurt at all. I lied, I wanted to come here to apologize for this morning.”

“Did your mom find out and made you come apologize?”

“No, my mother doesn’t know but if she did she would pull my ear and tell me to treat women with respect. And I do treat women with respect, but I’ve been having a bad…” Charles sighed and looked down.

“Day?” Y/n guessed.

“Season actually. Point is, I shouldn’t have been mean to you and I’m sorry and i understand if you don’t accept my apology. If I were you, I wouldn’t.” Charles nodded and got off the examination table. Before he could leave, Y/n called his name making him turn around to face her.

“You forgot your lollipop. I have this thing where I give my patients a lollipop no matter what age they are so here,” Y/n handed Charles a red lollipop. “You’re still an asshole, just the sweet kind.”

“Was that intentional? The sweet comment then you giving me a lollipop?” He chuckled as he took the candy.

“Just take the damn lollipop, Leclerc, or I will give you a shot.”

[dyaz-stories]

'You smell nice' — Day one of Inukag Fluff Week

Just a fun lil one-shot for day one of @inukagfluffweek! There is a hint of background SessKagu too because I love them.

Mild warning for Inuyasha's potty mouth and that should be it.

Public transportation was the bane of Inuyasha’s existence.

First of all, whichever human had come up with the idea that half the population would stuff themselves into tin cans to get themselves to and from places, following the same precise and regular schedules every single day, deserved a trip straight to hell. It was easily the dumbest fucking concept known to man, and no self-respecting demon would have agreed to it.

Then there was the fact that there were people everywhere on public transportation, and man, did Inuyasha hate people. Gross, stupid bastards with no self-awareness and no regard for others. There were the students who’d bump into you without even noticing, the women recounting their day far too loud over the phone, and, the worst of them all, the gaggle of salarymen drunk off their asses after some reunion at work. Those ones were rude, entitled, clumsy, and, what was by far the biggest offense, they fucking stank.

And that part was what took the public transport experience from shitty to downright awful. The smells. Inuyasha was no fan of cities in general, their pollution, the sheer amount of things everywhere, whether restaurants, stores, or, of course, public toilets, and, well, the people. It wasn’t always the lack of hygiene, though that was an issue for sure, but the sweat after a day of work, the deodorants, the perfumes, they all came together to produce the foulest of stenches. He hated it here.

The train veered sharply to the left, and Inuyasha tightened his hold on the overhead bar he favored using. Fewer human hands had grabbed it, and since his height meant he had no issue reaching for it, he preferred that to other solutions. In front of him, Kagome hadn’t been so lucky, standing right against the door with nothing to hold onto. With a squeak, she stumbled backwards on her kitten heels, her back colliding with Inuyasha’s broad chest — not that there was really anywhere else for her to go, with how tightly packed the train was.

His free hand closed around her hip, stabilizing her. It came naturally, just instinct, no need to think about it or how nicely her body slotted against his.

She tilted her head back, pretty eyes looking up to him pleadingly.

“Sorry, Inuyasha,” she apologized, lips forming a cute pout.

“You’re good,” he replied, voice gruff. He sent a nasty look to the man on her right, who’d bumped into her. People usually steered clear of him, so the closer she was to him, the better. “You’re getting off at the next stop, right?”

“Yeah,” she beamed, and as always, he marveled at how easy it seemed to be for her to smile and distance herself from the mess of the world around her. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shut down the noises, the smells, the flashes of people’s screens — well, unless he had her to focus on. “I can’t wait to get home.” An eyeroll. “Today was the worst.”

A smirk tugged at his lips.

“Really? You didn’t enjoy Kagura making a scene?”

He knew he had. His sister-in-law was probably his favorite person in the family, actually, with his nieces a close second, and watching her strut into her asshole husband’s office to yell at him about him cancelling their anniversary dinner had absolutely made his day. They could never stay mad at each other very long, so he was sure a very expensive reconciliation was coming, but he’d had his fun for sure.

“No, I like Kagura,” Kagome replied. “But I got cornered by Hojo at the coffee machine and he wouldn’t stop talking about some miracle diet he thinks would cure my allergies and it took me forever to free myself.”

“Want me to do something about that? He never bothers me with that shit.”

“That’s because you terrify him,” she sighed, “so no, that’s not necessary, don’t—” Another turn, but this time he kept her pressed against him, clawed hand on her waist, and her voice barely wavered. “—worry about it. And thanks for that, Inuyasha.”

A knot formed in his throat at the way she leaned back into him without hesitation. He swallowed around it. Where most people cowered away from the hanyo, Kagome had never acted like he was a threat. Sometimes, he felt she was even a little too trusting. Made him feel and think all sorts of things he wasn’t very proud of.

“’s nothing.”

From how he stood behind her, he couldn’t help but catch her scent, especially when she moved and her hair were right under his nose.

And, fuck, she was a breath of fresh air. He’d known that from the first day she’d strolled into the office, of course, gust of wind blowing through the open door and sending her smell throughout the whole office. He didn’t know what it was, if it was the reiki he could guess at under her skin, that gave it such a pleasant flavor. Either way, it could become overwhelming even in the wide open space. Here, on the other hand, it was the perfect distraction against everything else, and it took more willpower than he’d like to admit to not just sniff at her.

“Everything okay?” she asked, catching him off guard, her big inquisitive eyes staring up at him.

“Yeah, it’s—” Damn it, he’d known she was always noticing things no one else cared about. “That’s— You smell nice,” he blurted out at last, and immediately, he wished he could slap himself in the face. What a fucking weirdo. Turned out, everyone who had told him his mouth was too big for his own good, usually before they got their asses handed to them, had been right. Couldn’t he have kept it shut this one damn time?

“Oh,” Kagome said, and her expression turned thoughtful. He waited for the inevitable judgment to fall down. “I read that demons often find perfumes difficult to deal with, so I haven’t worn any since getting hired at Taisho Inc. Is that really better for you?”

There was the knot again, but this time it wasn’t embarrassment, and rather another, deeper emotion. Of course she’d pay attention to that kind of stuff.

“Yeah, it is,” he answered, clearing his throat. “Makes it hard to be around too many people.”

“That’s good to know,” she said with a nod. “Let me know if I can do other things to help you, alright?”

He would not be telling her anything about the thoughts that were running through his mind at her proposal. Nuh-huh.

“That’s my stop,” she grinned up at him, grabbing the hand at her waist and squeezing it gently in hers. “Thank you again, Inuyasha. I’ll see you tomorrow!”

She waved at him, and a second later, she was lost in the crowd, and his world was just a little darker, duller, blander. He let his hand fall back to his side, flexing it reflexively as if to remember how it had felt, touching her.

Keh. He couldn’t believe she was making him look forward to another day in the office.

As a lot of you know, it's been ages since I last wrote for this pairing that's still near and dear to my heart, so I'd love to hear your thoughts on it! Don't hesitate to scream at me about it in the tags, in the reblogs, in my askbox... anywhere your heart desires lol. Thank you for reading!