#nothin goin on on that head of hers | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

grugruel · 7 months ago

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Your daddy know 'bout this?

(Don't be fooled, there's no daddy kink!)

Pairings: dbf!cowboy!bucky x f!reader

MDNI/NSFW

Masterlist

Summary: A few days short of your 21st birthday, you decide to celebrate with your friend at the local bar. Unbeknownst to you, a close friend of your dad's is there.

When he sees you with beer in hand and in the lap of another man, things get heated. Somehow, you end up in his shirt, at his house.

Word count: 5.1k

Warnings: pinv sex, passionate sex, forbidden realationship, violence, blood, underaged drinking, slight angst, cum eating, I love yous', mentions of masturation, tension, arguments, slight jealousy and protectiveness, pet names (girl, woman, ma'am, princess, sweetheart)

AN: not yet proofread, might be rough around the edges! Enjoy girlies🥹🫶

It was his one free night in a long time, and his buds pulled him along for a drink. He had no real objections, for he was in a good mood and it'd get even better once he had a drink in him.

The group of men emerged from the damp, rainy night and dove into the smoke tainted air and usual bustle of the local dive. They ordered their drinks and made their way to the back where the booths were, a jumble of familiar faces greeting them on their way. Until-

Bucky saw a face he ought not to see in a place like this. "Excuse me a moment, fellas. I got somethin' to take care of."

Their group turned to him, confused. "Wha-" and looked in the direction he was already headed. "Well shit, good thing her daddy ain't come with us." The group shared a few nervous glances, then shrugged and chuckled. "Wouldn't want to be one of those boys right now."

"Well . . . " a voice chuckled loudly.

She could see the source approaching their table from her peripheral, his form vaguely illuminated by soft lamp light through the gloom. " . . . Aint this a sight?"

She knew that voice, she could hear the telltale grin that shaped it.

Catching onto the change in energy, the giggles and boisterous laughter of their small group died down. Tense glances exchanged between them, all eventually landing on the intruder, all except her own.

Commotion continued sounding around them, their table the only to emit an unusually low amount of noise. "Anyone wanna tell me whats goin' on here?" The voice asked.

Swallowing, she realised she'd been intently staring into a cadleflame. She belived that maybe she'd have a chance at going unnoticed if she sat still enough.

"I asked you a question, doll."

She winced. That was his nickname for her. Fuck. She tore her gaze from the candle, snapping it to her friend across the table and gave her a sidelong glance that meant 'trouble' to which her friend nodded in agreement.

The low light that made the place cosy just moments before now only existed to muddle her thoughts. But, it could work in her favour. She carefully pushed her drink behind her elbow, hoping it wasn't too late to hide, and her friend followed her lead.

She turned toward the man, a cheap grin plaster on her face. "Hey . . . Buck," she spoke slowly, as if it'd somehow make him more agreeable.

"Hey there, princess," he grinned. Hat on his head. "Wanna explain this to me?" Pointing lazily to their gathering.

She shrugged, attempting to act nonchalant. Because admitting your wrong would confirm it's wrong. "Nothin special, we were just leavin', in fact."

A scoff blew past her ear. "The hell we are." The lap she sat on stiffened beneath her, tapping his feet–once, twice–in a show of impatience, and rocking her body in the process. The man then whispered in her ear. "Who is this guy anyway?"

She inclined her head, nervous eyes avoiding the big cowboy that stood imposing at the end of their table, and murmured a quiet reply over her shoulder. "No one. . . in particular." A lie, of course. "Let's just go."

The cowboy chuckled. "You're not leavin' with him, you're leavin' with me." That drawl could make the most steeled stumaches jittery with butterflies. Her friend must've felt it too by they way she squirmed in her seat.

She had to screw her eyes shut in a moment of contemplation. Why'd he have to be here tonight? Why'd they have to go to a bar he frequented?

She looked back at her friend with panic in her eyes. Boy, were they in for it. She could think of nothing else then to simply ask nicely, hoping it'd appeal. "Please, just go."

He smirked, putting a hand on his hips and showing a stern but playful disposition. "Your daddy know 'bout this?" He tipped his hat in their direction.

She pinned him with her eyes, narrowing them with independent annoyance. "Im my own woman, B-"

'What's it to you?' The guy beneath cut her off.

Bucky switched his attention to the guy, and she could feel him shrink a little under Bucky's gaze. "Hell, no need for that tone! I was just sittin' with my buds over there." He pointed to the group of men Buck came with, no doubt to put some pressure on the poor guy. From the looks of it, they'd been listening in on our conversation, and now waved to her, idly laughing at the situation, ready to jump in at any moment.

She shyly waved back, a tight smile on her lips.

"See, I just saw your little group havin' a grand ol' time over here and wanted to join you," Bucky laughed. "And when I noticed that fine woman in your lap, I thought I'd have a chat with her." He disguised it well, but she could hear the anger beneath his humoured exterior.

"You two know each other?" The guy asked, I'll at ease.

"Well enough." Bucky took a moment to look her over, a scan for any harm. But his eyes stuck on the short skirt and thin shirt. If possible, he looked even more bothered. "Wouldn't you say, sweetheart?" He glanced at her, and she could see the danger that lurked in his eyes. It began to dawn on her more and more how knee deep in trouble she was.

She cleared her throat, a nervous blush creeping up her cheeks. "Mhm," she hummed. It felt like he could see through her.

The guy's hand slunk to the bare skin of her thigh, attempting to mark his territory when seamingly he'd decided his dislike of the situation. "Huh, what's with the hat anyway, you some kind of sheriff?" He asked. But cut Bucky off as he was about to answer. "Either way," he waved his hand dismissively. "She's fine where she is. She can make her own decisions." And just like that, he'd successfully stolen the point she'd been trying to make.

She shook her head. Stupid, stupid boy.

Bucky's face hardened, any sign of humour gone from him. "I assure you, I dont need a sheriff's badge to take her home, It's within my right." He braced his hand against the table, leaning closer to them.

Her uterus roiled at that. 'take her home'

"Now, get that hand off of her, boy." He snarled, annoyance and authority resounding in his voice, promising a solution to the mans cocky demeanor. "She ain't yours to touch."

"Why?" The guy asked. "She yours?" His hand slid higher, squeezing her thigh, challenging the much broader man.

She exhaled, releasing a frustrated hum in early defeat, he'd doomed them both.

The cowboys jaw tensed. Silently, but undoubtedly steaming, he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and pushed them above his elbows. The veins on his forearms pop from strain, knuckles turning white from his fists clenching. "Fella. . ." He began, calming his composure, then pointed two loose fingers at the girl in the mans lap. "Had she been mine, you'd be on the floor already. Now, that girl, ain't of drinkin' age, neither is she to be touched by a slimy bastard like yourself."

Fuck, so he did see the drink. She shook her head again, warning him. "Bucky. . ." A very bad attempt at dissuading him from doing whatever he was about to do. She could almosy feel the guy beneath her sink into the booth they were sitting in. Perhaps he had some sense after all.

Her friend grabbed her arm, loosely yanking on it as her anxious eyes flickered between the men in conflict. She herself sitting in the lap of the guy's friend, who was preparing to step in if necessary. "We should go before this gets ugly," her friend whispered.

"Respectfully, ma'am, she ain't going nowhere without me." The cowboy opposed, directing his attention to her friend.

No, no, no no. . . Dread filled her, he'd drive her straight home to her parents.

Bucky's eyes fell back on the guy, now shrunken and small under his gaze. "So. . . Stand up, 'n leave, boy," he spoke with the authority of a sheriff but stood with the confidence of an outlaw. "There's no need for altercations, I was enjoyin' my night. N' I don't wish that to change-"

"I'll call on the bouncer," the guy shot out, his face probably as pale as his overly white and fragile shirt, pointing to a man behind the cowboy. Her eyes followed the steps down from the seating area, and through the dimly lit dive where a big man stood posted by the door. The guy beneath her then glanced at his friend across from them, both extending curt nods to one another.

She wanted to wretch, he was acting a coward and standing up to Bucky with the threat of enlisting two other men to his side. She sighed loudly, making a point for him to hear as she eyed her friend. "Well, I sure know how to pick em'." And her friend, inspite of the commotion they found themselves in, covered her mouth in snicker.

Bucky narrowed his eyes in a second of silent fury, then answered with a laugh, not missing a beat. "You mean that bouncer?" He asked and turned around, calling a greeting to the bouncer, who in turn tipped his hat with a smile. The type of gesture that indicated a longstanding friendship. "We're well aquainted," Bucky grinned. "But im sure he'd love to sort this situation out."

If they had any sense at all, the two men would leave with what little dignity they had left and realise that they were already outnumbered inspite of being 2 to 2.

"Leave, girls," the guy easily dismissed them.

She gave him a pointed look, flashed her eyebrows, and jerked her head to the side in a 'you had it coming' motion, and then grabbed her friend's hand.

"Asshole," she sighed and steered them out of the booth, taking the cider in her other hand. Silly as she was, she thought she could simply leave, perhaps just slip by Bucky. But no, his strong hand grabbed her bicep as she passed by, and set his blues deep into her own. "Wait by the truck, I'll drive ya' home." He said, looking between the two girls.

"Fine . . . " She sighed.

"N' dont even think of running, cause I'll catch ya'," he warned, and she rolled her eyes inspite of the burning that settled in her core.

She tried to yank herself free, but he didn't let go. "What? You wanna hear a 'yes sir'?" She dared the words, teasing, as nervousity built in her gut.

His eyes searched hers, a slow grin spreading over his lips as he leaned closer, bending down to whisper in hear ear. "Dont get cocky with me, girl." And his hand began sliding downward, making her shiver, leaving goosebumps in the wake of his touch.

She swallowed, that tone, the hat? God. Her uterus purred, and in a sudden surge on confidence, she answered. "No, sir."

He grabbed the glass bottle from her hand and grinned, taking a sip. "Good, girl. Now go." And pointed to the door.

Would it be wrong to say she started salivating? His words, together with his lips making contact with the same surface she had? There was something about it, something that made her . . . Pulse.

Bucky whistled and his friend–the bouncer–came bounding up the steps, him along with the group of dad's and bucky's friends only a few steps behind.

The bouncer tipped his hat to her and her friend in passing, a smirk on his lips. Nice to know there was still some gentlemen in the world.

She smiled, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. He was quite handsome too.

"Dont even think 'bout it," Bucky warned.

She rolled her eyes, and then they were finally on their way out, meeting Bucky's group of friends on the way, all nodding and greeting her. "Tell your daddy we missed him tonight." One said, and they all chuckled.

The girls hurried off, giggling. But anxiety lingered in the depths of her chest. Those men were rogue witnesses in all of this.

As she held the door open, voices raised behind them. She could see the crowd turning to look in Buckys direction, anf she herself followed their gazes. And found them just in time to see Bucky's knuckles collide with the jaw of the guy she'd spent her night on, sending him sprawling.

Plunging into the deep night, the cold swept over them. "He's hot, ain't he?"

She didn't want to answer, or simply didn't want to admit it and just gave her friend a look of understanding.

"God, I was ready to pounce on him the second he called me ma'am."

The girl understood that too.

After about ten minutes wait, Bucky emerged from the bar. Unscathed, apart form bloody knuckles and dark cloud around his head. Before even saying a thing, he'd already removed his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. "I only got one of them. Apologies, ma'am," he told her friend and opened the truck door for them both. "The truck'll warm you up."

"Thats ok, thank you," her friend answered, and the girls shared a knowing look. Their thoughts connecting in fiendish collectivity.

"Alright, get in. We'd better get goin'."

The ride was relatively quiet. We knew better than to anger him further. Anxiety was growing within her, though, she didnt wanna know what would happen when her friend was let off.

"Text me ok? I'll se ya' later." Her friend said, eyeing Bucky. She leaned her head through the open window of the truck. "But- let me know how that goes," she whispered. "And good luck." She raised her eyebrows with a smirk on her lips.

The girl rolled her yes. "Sure will." And with one last wave, they were off.

When there were only the two of them, they could say whatever they wanted with confidence. But so far, there'd only been a few sighs and breaths of shared irritation. Neither of them were particularly pleased with the situation.

But she wanted to be the first to speak. "I'll be 21 in a few days, Buck."

"Doesn't mean you have good judgement."

She bristled. "I'm not a little girl anymore!"

" 'Course not, I can tell by the way you dress. That what a grown woman look like to you?" He nodded to her body, barely covered apart from his thick jacket over her torso.

She pulled it closer around herself. "Like what exactly? What do I look like to you? A slut, a hooker?" Her face stung from embaressment. She felt like a child again, being berated for something she wasn't able to puzzle together by herself.

He clicked his tongue, jerking his head to the side. His patience was running thin. "Dont twist my words, doll. I'm callin you careless."

"That dont matter comin' from you, you're not my daddy." She knew the comment would get a rise out of him, because she knew he'd ment no ill intent, and she knew he cared for her. But she was mad, and so was he.

"No, n' you should thank fucking god he wasn't there to bust you. I was the better option, I can promise you that."

She exhaled a frustrated breath, turning her attention toward the windshield. Watching droplets of water paving their way over the condensation covered glass. "You weren't the only one to bust me, though, were you?" She spoke lowly, feeling like a coward for even asking. "The boys gonna say something?"

He gripped the steering wheel harder, his roughed up knuckles tearing. "I told em' I'd take care of it." It must've stung, but he took no notice. Other things pestered his mind.

Worry mixed in with all other emotions as her gaze drifted to his hands, and her mind immidetly moved into recovery mode. "So what's that mean, you gonna tattle on me now?"

He looked over at her, brows furrowed right beneath the rim of his hat. He couldnt begin to understand her. "That all you care about?"

"Right now? Well, yeah. I dont want a scolding."

"All grown and still daddy's little girl, worried about his opinions."

"And if I say yes, what then, girl?

"I dunno, m' gonna have to convince you not to."

"Like you convinced that guy to buy you beer, huh? What'd you do, flirt with him? Give him a handjob, suck him off? What did I miss before catching you?"

Her mouth hung open in disbelief. "You fucking asshole!" She shook from anger, she never expected words like that to be thrown at her. Especially not by him. But she'd get him back, there was no reason behind her actions now. "Maybe I would've, I even bet it would've worked if I'd asked you. Right? You would've just loved having your friends pretty daughter gettin' you off, huh!" She half shouted the last sentence, her chest heaving with effort and fury.

"That's enough." His tone was unforgiving, shooting a sense of reality back into her.

"I'll shut up if you answer the god damned question Buck, would it have worked?"

But Bucky didn't answer, his jaw clenched and unclenched, biting back his words. If she thought the silence had been bad before? It was deafening now.

After calming down again, her words hit her like a freight train. She always had a friend in Buck, but now she wasn't sure. The words that'd been thrown back and forth had set them off balance, their entire relationship was on unsteady ground. Something had been rewritten in the rules between them.

There'd always been attraction, but that wasn't something they ever spoke of. They'd always been close, good friends even. But now, something had changed. And it made her feel sick. She'd had an ally in him, but now, she wasn't so certain.

After a long whole of shutting her mouth out of stubbornness, the fate of her father finding out was worse, so she broke. "Please don't bring me home, Buck. Dad'll throw a fit." She tried to smile, to soften her voice. But it felt wrong.

After a moments uncertainty on her part, and strained breathing on his, he spoke. "Im not makin' the detour, you can sleep at mine, that was always the plan anyway." He admitted, sounding utterly tired.

And now she felt extremely guilty, eyes studying him as he gripped the steering wheel harder. Her gaze drifted over his body, his face, his hands. Stopping on the roughed up and bloody knuckles. He'd beaten that guy for her. Out of jealousy, or simply because he was protective?

She turned away, her chest feeling hollow and followed the birches and sprucetress as they flashed by the truck. Their colors and textures blending together as they met the dark consistent sky above them.

Bucky's house was dark, he only lit a few tablelamps when they arrived. It was better that way, she recognized herself here, within the gloom and the safety of his home. It was second to her own.

"I'll get your something more comfortable," he said, his eyes avoiding her clothes, her body as a whole and disappeared into his bedroom.

Was it because he thought they didn't fit her, or the opposite? Had he been mad at himself for being attracted to her?

She nodded slowly, calling out to him, "we should do something about that hand of yours."

"It's fine, I'm fine." He said, re-emerging, meeting her eyes. "Here," he handed here a t-shirt and a pair of shorts, most likely too big for her. "I'll take the couch, n' you can take my bed."

She nodded again, and headed into the bathroom.

Buckys t-shirt was longer on her than the skirt she'd worn, so she opted out of the shorts. Luckily findig a roll of gauze in the bathroom cabinet.

She emerged from the bathroom, a pair of panties and the oversized t-shirt the only things on her body. "You want something to-" Bucky paused as she rounded the corner, and suddenly she herself stopped short–caught off guard.

Bucky stared at her, and whatever he'd been about to say was lost the second he looked up. Bucky cleared his throat, and with the weight of a 15 year long friendship on his shoulders, his eyes stayed glued to hers.

Inwardly, she smiled and hoped the lowly lit livingroom couldn't reveal the blush on her cheeks. "Found some gauze," she held the roll up, indirectly asking for permission to bandage him.

He opened his mouth to decline, she could even see his head begin to shake in dismissal.

But she cut in before he had the chance. "Just let me help, you can be mad and still let me help."

His eyes hardened, but hesitantly, he nodded all the same. "Im fine, doll."

She raised her brows with skepticism and made her way toward him, the fabric of buckys shirt doing its best at showcasing her breats.

Bucky clenched his fist in an attempt to control himself, he winced, the wounds on his knuckles re-opening.

"Yeah," she scoffed. "Sure seems fine to me." And placed herself infront of him. From his position on the couch, he had to look up at her. At that, a flicker of heat blazed in her core. Oh, those eyes. His big, pleading eyes, all sad and hurt. Did he want her gone or want her in some other way?

She kneeled, settling between his thighs and grabbed his hand. "You don't got to be so stubborn all the time. . . Just wanna help you." She wrapped his hand carefully, enjoying every second of his corse skin over hers. Once done, he tried flexing his hand, and winced again. He still hurt, that much was clear, but was too proud to admit it. "Want me to kiss it better?" She joked, hoping it would lighten the mood. But he did that thing again, where he said nothing, and instead clenched his jaw, as if holding back a yes. So she took her chance.

Keeping their eyes locked, she brought his wrapped knuckles to her lips, and kissed them through the bandage once, then moving further up to kiss the softer skin of the back of his hand. Again, his eyes were pleading, and he moved the hand to cup her cheek, stroking her cheekbone with his thumb. She took it as encouragement and kissed his palm, his wrist, his forearm. She stood up on her knees, kissing his bicep and reached for his shirt to pull him closer. She cupped his face and brought him inches from her own, nuzzling her nose against his.

Finally, when her lips reached for his, he pulled away. "Stop, stop," he nudged his forehead against hers. "We can't," he moved his lips away, cheek to cheek, he kissed the soft spot in front of her ear. "We can't."

"Cant, or wont?" She asked dully.

Those pleading eyes were back, begging her not to make him answer that question. She nodded absentmindedly, pulled into her thoughts. She stood up and moved away from him, his hand sliding down her arm and locking around her wrist, stopping her. "Dont leave."

"I'm comin' back."

After a few minutes of bustling in the kitchen, she returned to him. Sidling up next to him on the couch, her curled up legs lulling into his lap as she handed him a whiskey glass, then cradled her own. He whispered a thank you, looking into her eyes, and she whispered a you're welcome, looking into his. Then they sat like that for a while, quiet, unmoving. Bucky's hands finding their home on her legs, glas in one hand and her knee in the other. Somehow, this wasn't crossing a line for them, this was their normal, this was something not even her family questioned, this was them.

"Im sorry, doll." he said finally. "I never meant to imply-"

"It's ok, Buck." He opened his mouth to speak again, but she stopped him. "Really, It's fine. I'd rather not dwell on it."

Another moments silence passed between them, it was uncomfortable, but the unsaid lingered in the air like a thick wall between them, and hung over them with the threat of smothering. "We need to talk about us."

"I didn't like the way he was touchin' you," he said, choosing the topic before she had a chance at it. If he had to approach them, he would do it indirectly. "It didn't look like you were enjoyin' it."

Her eyebrows raised, "You would've punched him even if I were enjoying it." She commented sourley.

He squeezed her knee, gently rubbing circles into the skin beside. "He acted like he owned you," He turned his unscathed hand upside down, brushing his knuckles up and down her sensitive skin.

It all went straight to her head, veins throbbed with heat she didn't know she could feel. All brought out by a single touch of his hand.

But she wouldn't let off. "And what do you 'spouse beating him for it is?"

He stayed silent, his hand turned again, this time to grab her soft flesh, squeezing it with purpose. Much like the guy had done, but this felt different. This felt good, real good.

She swallowed, closing her eyes to focus on the words she needed to say. "What made you think you had the right? If not that I already belonged to–" she stopped, and their eyes met in a quick glance.

He let out a frustrated sigh. "I was only protectin' you." He defended, but it didn't quite sound like he believed the words himself. Nor did she. But if he wasn't ready to see it as it was, she wouldn't pressure him.

Instead, she laid her head on his shoulder. "It shouldn't be this hard."

He shook his head, the words seemingly struck a cord within him. For he sat insilence, pondering, a long while. "I would've said no, you know. And it would've killed me." She looked at him strangely, forgetting what he was referring to for a moment. "I would've said yes, if you hadn't felt forced to it, like it was a last resort to keep your secret."

Oh. . . "Had I wanted it, you'd said yes?" She stared unbelieving into the dark space infront of them.

"Nothin' could stand in my way." He slid his hand further up her thigh, fingers exploring the skin just beneath the hem of his/her shirt.

She sat up straight to look at him properly, she couldn't tell if he was serious. "You want me?"

"More than anything," his voice was breathless, barely a whisper. His index and long finger reaching further up, exploring more than he'd ever dared. "Cant even explain how many times I imagined you gettin' me off after you said it. How much I hated the thought, the sight of you with that guy, his hands all on you."

A pang of need shot through her. She put her whiskey down, and braced her hands against his chest. "But why tell me now, whats changed? Whats changed in this last hour?" His fingers rubbed the skin of her hips beneath her panties, sending shivers running over her body, shivers she'd only previously dreamed he'd be the cause of.

"You're right, it shouldn't be this hard. I'm makin' it too hard." His hand slid to her waist, still invisible to him, but no longer untouchable. Magnetically, they were pulled together, faces inching closer and closer to oneanother.

"And what about daddy?" It was becoming hard to focus, she wouldn't stop him for the world. Bow, they were close enough to feel the dampness of their breaths.

His hand continued exploring farthur up, fingertips finally reaching the soft, plush flesh below her breast. "Your daddy ain't here, is he?"

She began shaking her head in disbelief, lips brushing against eachother. "Dont promise something if you can't follow through."

His hand stopped, "I can, please," he begged, waiting for her go-ahead. "I can. . ."

His words vibrated against her skin, electrifying her body. "Fuck," she moaned, he's right there. Right, there, infront of her, for her. "Then do, please do, Buck."

And just like that, both hands were beneath her shirt, pulling her into his lips and squeezing her breasts.

Breathless moans filled the silent air, they tore at eachother greedily. Pulling and pushing eachothers bodies, fighting to get Bucky free of his clothes.

Snaking one arm behind her back, he guided her down onto cushions and placed himself above her. Still clothed by jeans, he rolled his hips against her core, grinding the rough fabric against her barely clothed clit. This, is what she had been craving. The exact static friction, the heat and movement between their bodies producing all the pleasure she needed. She moaned heavily, beacause still, she wanted more. Pulling her legs up and her panties off, she wordlessly signaled for him to do the rest.

With a groan, Bucky dove into her neck, kissing and sucking, all the while he unzipped his jeans and pulled them off together with his boxers. No time was wasted, he lined his member up with her core within a second, prodding and teasing at the opening. "Please, please, please." She sounded desperate, but fuck, she was. And feeling it was worse then sounding it.

"Yes ma'am." He said, and thrusted into her. A gasp escaped them in unisome. With the arm still around her waist, he pulled her into his hips, his body straining as he delved deeper inside her than she thought possible.

"Yes. . ." She whined. "More."

He kissed his way up her throat, their hips freed and collided into eachother with steady, strong thrusts, pushing her deeper into the cushions with every rut. Nothing could compare, he was unparalleled. Bucky, despite what he was already achieving, kissed his way up her neck, unfaltering in his duty.

Her hands found his face, cupping it and bringing him back to her, and their lips met again. "Taste so sweet," he murmured, sinking his tongue into her. The salt of her skin mixing with her saliva. "Want all of you."

She smiled against him. "Harder."

He did as ordered, keeping his pace and adding pressure. "Yeah," he moaned. "Being so good for me, girl." And pulled her deeper onto his member. Her breaths grew rapid and shallow, fingers clawing at his back as she had nowhere to go, all pleasure directed straight into her. "Close, so fucking close," she cried.

"Good," he chuckled breathely against her skin, and that was a she needed. Her back arched in euphoria, and stars stung her eyelids, speckling the darkness. "Good job, sweetheart. Just breathe," he continued thrusting into her, softly, easing her through the orgasm. "Good girl. Well done. . ." He whispered, kissing her jaw. The stars began fading and she regained her senses, tears rolling down her cheeks. "Beautiful, girl." He moaned, still rutting into her, chasing his own high while wiping the tears from her face. Her body began tingling, on the vege of breaking down.

"Dont know how much more I can take, Buck." She kissed his cheek, focusing on the skill of his lips.

"Almost there, almost. . ." he moaned, increasing his pace. The slickness of her core created a sickening sound together with the slapping of their skin. It was heavenly, but she could feel the pressure building within her again.

"Mmmh, m' gonna cum again, please buck, dont stop."

He didn't, he continued, intent on coming together with her. He bit into her lip, causing her to yelp and yield the hold on his face and licked a trail down her chest and breast, then taking it into his mouth. Sucking and slurping in an insane rythm with the slapping. "Yes, yes! Fuck, Bucky." she called out, and Bucky pulled out of her.

Coming only a second after, his seed spilling over her abdomen. "I love you, I love you." He moaned with faltering breaths, bracing himself on his forearms on either side of her, kissing every part of skin that he could reach.

Holy shit? "I love you too." She smiled lazily, drunk off of her two consequent orgasms. Laying her hand on her stumache, she felt his sticky substance coat her fingers.

His eyebrows knit together in guilt. "Sorry 'bout that sweetheart, I'll get a towel-"

She grabbed his bicep and shook her head, locking her eyes onto his as she brought the fingers to her lips and licked them off, popping them in her mouth to suck them clean.

Bucky stared, unable to form words.

"Cat got your tongue, cowboy?" She asked, a coy smile on her glistenting lips.

"Fuck," he awed breathlessly. "I just love you." He whispered, lowering himself onto her once again, this time striking his tongue into her core.

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peachsukii · 4 months ago

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✮ content. pro-hero!bakugo x pro-hero fem!reader. late 20 somethings + married w/ a toddler. family fluff while he’s away on a mission. slightly suggestive (aka Katsuki’s down bad for his wife). ;)

“Momma!” Your daughter shouts from the living room, the little pitter patters of her feet echoing down the hall as she sprints toward you with glee. “Phone’s ringing, pick it up, please!”

Her small hands shove the phone against your thigh, bouncing up and down in place with excitement. You tuck the folded towel in your arms into the closet and bend down to her level. When you take the phone from her, your husband’s name —💥Katsuki 👑💕— is displayed across the screen, accompanied by a photo of the three of you on your last beach trip. Clicking the “Accept” button, the visual of Katsuki in his hero costume appears, his attention focused on removing his gloves while waiting for you to answer.

“Hey handsome,” you greet, heart swelling when you catch him smirk at the compliment. “Someone’s been waiting for you to call.”

“An’ where’s my little girl at?”

Your daughter hops into view, jumping up and down with her hands waving frantically.

“Hi Daddy!” She giggles, dancing back and forth on her tip toes. “Did ya beat up the bad guys today?”

Katsuki laughs heartily, finally sitting on the bed in his hotel room. “Sure did. I’m keepin’ you and Momma safe. How’s school goin’?”

“S’good! I got a gold star today for my drawing.”

“Yeah? Proud of you, sweetheart. Can’t wait for ya to show me when I come home.”

The time on your phone reads 7:30PM, and like clockwork, your daughter begins to stretch, yawning the same way Katsuki does when he’s exhausted after a long shift.

“Why don’t you get ready for bed, sweetie?” You suggest while rubbing her back. “I know you’re tired.”

“Okaaay,” she pouts, trying to fight off her sudden sleepiness. “G’night Daddy. I miss you!”

“Only two more days. Love an’ miss you, Princess. Sweet dreams.”

With a wave and a smile, she trots off toward her bedroom to change into her PJs, leaving you with a few minutes to talk with Katsuki before tucking her into bed. You walk back into your joint bedroom, leaving the door cracked as you lay on the bed. Katsuki does the same, shifting the camera to follow his movements as he stretches out across the sheets.

“Goddamn, I miss you somethin’ fierce,” he admits, sighing into his forearm as it crosses his face to hide the soft dusting of pink on his cheeks. “You put a spell on me or some shit?”

“Not this time,” you chuckle, feet swaying in the air behind you like a giddy schoolgirl. “I miss you, too. How was your day?”

“S’alright, nothin’ crazy. Can’t wait’ta be back home, sleepin’ alone sucks.”

“Yeah, the bed is cold without you.”

There’s a short lull in the conversation before it shifts into something more sensually charged. Katsuki tends to get clingier the longer he’s stationed away from home — all the telltale signs of it are reflecting in his eyes through the camera, sparkling under the dim moonlight from his hotel room window.

“Good thing I know how to keep ya warm,” he purrs with a wink, the mischievous grin stretched over his lips telling you how he’s truly feeling. “S’how you got knocked up the first time.”

There it is, that familiar warmth flooding into your belly and heat spreading from your ears to your toes.

“Kaaats!” you whine, shyly tucking your head into your chest. “Shut up.”

“Don’t get shy on me now, Peaches,” he teases, laughing quietly at your bashfulness. “S’cute how easy ya are to rile up.”

You wave him off and roll your eyes lovingly. “I should go put her to bed. Are you gonna be up in an hour?”

His brow furrows curiously. “Prob’ly. Why?”

“Gives me time to get her settled, put away the laundry and finish the dishes. Up for a little late night date?”

Oh, Katsuki knows exactly what that means. Why was the thought of watching you doing chores around the house and taking care of your daughter making him suddenly break out in a sweat?

“Earth to Katsuki?” You call again and recollect his attention. “If you’re too tired—”

“Never too tired for you, baby. Go do what ya gotta do, I’ll be waitin’.”

“Okay, I love you!” You sweetly sing as you roll off the bed. “Get comfy, bye babe.”

“Love you too, Peach. See ya.”

The “End Call” screen flashes briefly in front of Katsuki’s eyes, the darkness of the hotel room returning once the screen dims into nothingness. He mumbles a breathless ‘fuck’ into the air before jumping off the bed to stomp toward the bathroom.

Only you can leave him hanging by a thread on simple promises, even when he’s miles away. And damn, did he love it.

#bakugo x reader #bakugou x reader #bakugo fluff #bakugou fluff #soft bakugou #mha x reader #bnha x reader #mha fluff #bnha fluff #cw children #☆.rei daydreams #☆.bkg dreamscapes #bakugo being turned on by regular domestic acts will never not be hot #he’s so enamored and in love that every little thing you do sends sparks through his body #taking care of your child and him? he’s a puddle on the floor #anyways :) he loves FaceTiming the fam when he’s out on missions!

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millersfinest · 28 days ago

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untethered⁵ | e.w

00s!ellie williams & 00s!miller!reader

wc: 10.6k

series: chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, chapter five (you're here!)

blurb: it’s been awhile since you’ve been back home; in upstate new york where you’ve spent most of your life waking up early and tending to the animals that moo’d and meh’d. after graduation high school, and then college, the city life has stolen most of your attention. enabling you to visit only a handful of times through the years. when your lovely adoptive parents (tommy and maria miller) invite you back for a thanksgiving dinner—a troubled old flame from your childhood manages to get your attention, despite its explosive ending.

cw: lmao flip phones, r and ellie NOT beating the cheating allegations, more use of y/n then i would prefer, she/her pronouns, vulgar language, some angst (not on ellie’s watch tho), fuckgirl!ellie (kind of), the millers, r is a writer (she doesn’t write much in this ch wink wink 3.0), using fuck as a conjunction word, ellie needs the reader bad, a few arguments sprinkled in, elements of longing, ellie is #1 lesbian yearner in the world, some early 2000s references, thanksgiving, r is very anxious, hella angst, the CAT may be out the bag (can mean many things), some adoption related turmoil, emotional cheating (from ellie), cute mother daughter moment, repressed emotions, lots of angst in this chapter, ellie is mean when she don't fw you, not a lot of reader x ellie in this ngl.

note: finally the 5th installment, hope it's worth the wait my lovely readers!!! i'm gonna be honest tho... this wasn't the most fun chapter to write (maybe cause the reader and ellie aren't as horny as i would prefer lmao), but the narrative shall prosper regardless of my feelings. this may or may not be the second to last chapter of this series. idk yet, i'm still planning right nowwww. i might post a poll soon to help decide. anyway, thank you guys for being super patient while i wrote this chapter, so without further ado... thousands of bisous ofc <3 and please enjoy this angsty ass chapter!!

Stood before you was a very disappointed looking Joel. His deep brown eyes squinted with fatigue and restlessness; arms crossed over his chest. At the alert of his presence, you shut your eyes trying to come up with some way to save yourself—even though there was none. It was laugh worthy, really.

I don’t wanna assume nothin'… So, I suggest you start explainin’ what in the hell’s bell’s is goin’ on here.

You were unsure if his southern accent was stronger because of his disappointment, or if he just sounded like that when he was tired. But, either way, the question was valid. What the hell was going on?

He called your name, snapping you from the rushing thoughts in your head. “Huh?” Those words came out of you more like a sound than words and letters. you were a child all over again, struggling under the fist of authority. Followed by a deep sigh, walking toward the counter, leaning your hands on the cool, smooth marble top. “Ellie and I are… Just catching up. S’all there is to it, Joel.”

He echoed a sigh, running his hand over his dark, graying hair and beard—he didn’t believe you. Not that you even tried to come up with a good enough lie that would be believable. “Now, Bug…” Joel began, shaking his head. “I know you’re not a liar; Tommy and Maria sure as hell didn’t raise you to be one—“

“Joel, please—“

“If I heard what I think I heard… In that bedroom of yours. You and Ellie were doin’ a lot more than just catching up!” He whisper-yelled, careful not to disturb your parents upstairs. The man could barely keep eye contact with you, pointing his finger, accusingly. “She has a girlfriend who is in that guesthouse—“

“I know, I know—“

“Then, what the hell were you thinkin’?”

You solemnly sigh, having your actions thrown back in your face. It sucked because he was right. “We… We have unfinished history. It just happened.”

Joel scoffed, averting his brown eyes. “Things like that don’t just happen…”

He was right—sex doesn’t just happen. There are steps that lead to that pleasurable event; it doesn’t just happen, and you knew that. But it was easier to say it that way. As if the two of you sleeping together, kissing each other was all acts of fate and prophecy. Something you had no control over. Even though, control was never stricken from you. If anything, you were always grasping for it.

You chose to invite Ellie into your room, into your body, into your mind—you wanted her more than anything.

That was something you couldn’t be sorry about.

“Please, don’t tell my parents.” You almost squeaked out, looking up at him like a child charged with punishment. If Maria and Tommy found out about this, she’d have your head! And Tommy will be trying to talk her down—it would be a mess. At twenty-five, it wasn’t that you were afraid of your parents; you just didn’t want to disappoint them. “We need some time to figure this out…” The fear that they would regret bringing you into their life weighed heavy on you.

With a raised eyebrow, he pursed his lips in thought. “Does Ellie plan on breaking things off with Cat?”

“Yeah, not right away, but yeah.”

“Not right away?”

“Thanksgiving— she doesn’t wanna do it today with everything goin’ on. And they live together, so she has to arrange a few things…” You trail off, deepening your eyebrows with worry. “Oh, my God… Is she two-timing me? Is Ellie two-timing me?” Slapping your hands to your forehead, you squeezed your eyes shut. What the fuck. What the fuck. You repeated curses in your mind. You were spiraling yourself into a stupor.

Joel walked around the corner, stabilizing you by placing his hands on your shoulders. “Ellie is many things, but she’s not a two-timer… All I’m saying is to handle this with caution. You’re hurting another person doing this—“

“Fuck, Joel, I know… I don’t need the reminder.”

“I’m gonna talk to her about this… About resolving this.”

You look at him with a pointed glare. “Resolving— there’s nothing to resolve. If everything goes according to plan—“

He grunted, rolling his eyes. “Things like this never go to plan. Come on, Bug, you’re smarter than this… You know better.” Joel told, narrowing his eyes. He walked around the counter to you, to squeeze your shoulder. But that didn’t change the fact that his words stung.

You know better.

You did know better, but you acted anyway. Perhaps, it was a mistake; it was a mistake you were willing to ride on until it met its end. Which could be one of two things: complete and utter destruction, or… Happiness. Why was there such a large gap between those two endings?

“Ellie,” He began, shaking his head, filling you with insecurity. “You know how she can be… Impulsive at times.” Joel pressed his lips into a line, looking past you, in thought. “I’m not even sure if she realizes the gravity of what she’s doing to her or you— not until it blows up in her face, which it will if you two keep it up.”

So, the both of you just had to work harder at hiding it. For now, at least.

He rubbed his hand together, glancing his eyes up the stairs. “I won’t say anything to your parents… Just do a better job of keeping this to yourselves, please.” The older man prepared to head back up, but he looked at you one last time. “This isn’t me agreeing with what y’all are doin’— because I don’t. I don’t agree nor do I support cheating.” He exhaled, shaking his head, disappointingly. Feet nearing the steps to ascend back to his bedroom. “Just get it together.”

Joel left you to gather your thoughts—but there was nothing to gather. Your mind was already made; you’ve already dug a hole for yourself. Seeing it through was the only option. Perhaps, the two of you had to shape up, though. Tommy even gave a side glance before you’d hopped off the porch to grab the wine; Ellie needs to be more careful. And so do you.

Shutting out the lights, you heavily creeped back up the stairs to your bedroom. The dim bedroom that had the remnants of your lover minced in the air… And under your pillow. Grabbing your laptop from the charger, you arranged your pillows to support your back—that’s when you noticed the red and white striped boxer shorts Ellie left behind. Even though, you purposely threw them at her to put on before you parted from one another.

Holding out the underwear that was marked with arousal, you threatened to smell it. Truly. But, before you could, your conscience got the best of you. Wasn’t it creepy to smell someone’s underwear? Let alone, a woman's... Instead, you stuffed it in the box you kept under your bed—which, very well, could’ve been worse.

Feeling the need to tell Ellie of their pending situation with Joel, you logged onto MySpace. There was a small green circle that appeared on her icon. She was already online.

BugsWritersRoom: Hey… Just ran into Joel. Not great.

There wasn’t a much of a long wait before she responded.

StarlightWilliams: duck what happened?

StarlightWilliams: fuck*

Her correction made you chuckle.

BugsWritersRoom: He heard us. That’s what happened.

BugsWritersRoom: We have to do better. Stop making everything so obvious…

BugsWritersRoom: At least, until you break up with Cat.

There was a long pause in her responses. Longer than you’d anticipate her response would take.

StarlightWilliams: noted.

Ellie’s response was dryer than you expected it to be, but the fatigue washing over you forbid you from investigating it.

Shutting your laptop, you nuzzled into your pillows with the auburn-haired artist on your mind. It was only right that you gave the relationship another chance; if it inevitably ends, you just hope it would be less explosive than last time. Amicable. Where the two of you could actually stand to be around each other after the fact.

If you had it your way, though, you’d never want to part from her again. It was easy to believe that Ellie was your person. Somebody who was only perfect for you. In a world of feeling nothing, she made you feel something more than lust or forced romanticism.

When morning came, you were exhausted as fuck, to say the least. Awakened by your programmed alarm, and a blaring rooster that didn’t know how to shut the hell up after his first few yodels.

Meandering down the stairs, you were told to speed through the morning chores, to begin help with the cooking, which you didn’t mind. However, Ellie wasn’t there for the spiel. Joel had appeared, saying that she was going to be little late. At the sight of him, you couldn’t help but be struck with anxiety. Although, he looked and acted the same as he always did.

Either way, you fed the chickens, groomed, and fed the horses—and that’s when she found you. Brushing Tokyo and feeding fresh carrots to keep him entertained and focused. He was a horse who only responded to pleasantries; Tokyo was a man of high honor. “Someone’s bein’ a good horse.” Ellie cooed, approaching you and Tokyo with her hands stuffed in the pockets of her jeans.

There was something off about her demeanor. Her shoulders were stiffened, cheeks flushed enough to insinuate an altercation. In addition to that pinched line between her thick eyebrows.

There definitely was one, but she wasn’t going to admit that to you. Joel and Ellie were officially on bad terms—but she said nothing about that because she doesn’t want to alarm you.

“Where were you this earlier? I thought I was helping you get in routine for your new farmhand position…” You tossed the brush aside, crossing your arms over your chest. Ellie didn’t stop walking until her body collided with yours. Hand finding a comfortable place along your jaw, preparing to pull you in toward her lips. Placing two fingers over her lips, you pull back. “What the hell are you doing?” You chuckle, looking around for any unwanted eyes.

Her hands slid down you arms, shoulder slumping. “What part of we need to do better do you not understand?” You questioned, looking intently into her dilated eyes.

Ellie ran a hand over her hair, sighing, tiredly. “What is wrong with you?” You press, deepening her eyebrows. Suddenly feeling the need to comfort her.

The truth was, she was stressed. Joel had stressed her out. He found out about them and was pressing Ellie to tell Cat about it—or break up with her because she deserves to know the truth. But, today, Cat woke up like the happiest person alive, which was off brand for her. She showered Ellie with kisses she didn’t want and hopped up to make breakfast for them. It was weird, but she was happy; Ellie doesn’t want to ruin that. She just wanted to linger in the happiness that was the memory of your lips on hers.

“I just woke up feelin’ funky— it’s nothing…” She looked down, twisting her foot into the sprawled hay over the ground. “A kiss could help my condition, though…” Ellie raised a scarred brow, lips curling at the end.

Pressing your lips into a line, you look over her shoulder than yours—making sure there aren’t any prying or peeving eyes. “Just one…” You mutter, pulling her close by the material of her unzipped jacket. She smirked against your lips, moving them in sync with yours.

The tenseness in her muscles loosened and relaxed under your touch, as she released a breath of fresh air against your face through her nose. Placing her soft, yet calloused hand at the curve of your jaw. Ellie made the kiss deeper by dragging her tongue against your bottom lip, begging for more—but you pulled away. She chased your lips, causing you to giggle as you turned your face. “I have a full plate this morning… I could use your help— as long as you stay focused!” You prodded your index finger at her chest. “Plus, it’ll help for when it’s just you on the farm.”

“Oh, I can stay focused.” She crossed her arms, overzealously.

“Okay,” You snicker. “Well, why don’t we split up to cover more ground?”

Her features fell. “Split up? Hey, I didn’t agree to splitting up.” Ellie pouted, taking a step closer to you. Playing with the frayed hem of the flannel sticking out from under your jacket.

Splitting up was the best course of action, so you could begin helping your mother in the kitchen—because you know she needs it. Unless Cat’s planning to take your place on that front. Anyway, them splitting up could help their developing case with Joel. You want to prove to him that you’re as smart as he think you are. That you’re not blindly love struck by a destructive idea—that the words he told you meant something. And, in a way, helping Ellie with her impulsivity.

“It’s for the best, Els. You get to put to work what you learned these past few mornings— so it’ll really stick.” You spoke, positively. “And there’s another half of the farm that you’re inexperienced with… So, it’s better if I just run through it alone.” You nod with a friendly smile on your lips. Almost too friendly.

“Hm…” Ellie hummed, peering around the horse barn.

“I already did half the work; the chicken’s and horses are already fed. I’m, basically, done with grooming Tokyo— just detangle his mane and tail, and do that same process with Sarah, which should be easy because she’s still a baby and barely has any hair.” You rambled like a professional farmer. It truly was muscle memory getting back into the chores.

“Wait, what’s the process…?”

“There’s a bucket of soap and water,” You point to the bucket at door of the horses’ space. “Use that to help with the brushing and detangling. That’s the process. Don’t worry about the horse shoes— my dad does all that.” You waved your hand, then reached into your coat to grab the notepad. Ripping the thin paper from the rings, you hand it over. “After this, all you have left is the garden. So, whenever you’re done, come find me.”

Ellie took the note paper from your hands, plucking it with her fingers. “Uhm, if I have any questions…? What if I do something wrong?”

You sighed, snatching the paper back from her. “Trust yourself. You’ve done this before, Ellie. But if you have any questions… Here’s my cell. I have it on me.” You scribble down your phone number, handing it back to her.

She giggled, taking the paper back. “You just gave me your digits…” Ellie teased, dangling the page in front of you.

“For professional purposes only.” You winked, before leaving her to finish the horse grooming.

When you skipped away, Ellie didn’t quite know how to take your place. After finishing up Tokyo, walking him to his open space to grift along with the other horses, Sarah was next. And you failed to mention that she was a bit of runner when it came to retrieving her.

It’s been made clear that she was already fucking up—said by Joel Miller—so, she didn’t want to fuck up the only job she had. The job you gave her.

So, instead of moping and overthinking the words of her adoptive father, she looked to that lined notebook paper as if it were the Bible. Ellie couldn’t let you down over something as specific as farming chores. These were living beings. If she failed to do this correctly, you may never fall into her how she hoped

Meanwhile, you hustled cows and goats, hastily. Rain boots splashing into mud and manure, leaving marks along its battered rubber soles. Tucked into your back pocket, your phone began to vibrate, sounding off the ringtone of your choosing. Without glancing at the caller ID—assuming it was Ellie. You pressed the phone button.

“Calling already?” You raised an eyebrow, while monitoring the chaotic goats around you. They were competitive eaters who’d rather trample over one another to eat their food, than stand by for their own servings. You scold them under your breath, pushing them off each other.

“You want me to come to dinner tonight, or not?” She snickered on the other side of the line.

“Oh, Abby, hey… Sorry that was meant for someone else— it’s been a long morning.” You pinched the bridge of your nose, shaking your head. “Yeah, I still want you to come. What’s up?”

Abby laughed, yawning. Did she just wake up? “When’s your family having dinner tonight— wanna make sure I’m planning accordingly.” There was raspiness to her voice that was soothing to your ears.

Rubbing a hand over your forehead, you thought. It was basically undetermined, but you had dinner around the same time every year. Six-ish. Seven-ish. “Sometime around six, I think. What? You plannin’ on makin’ a good impression?” Pinching the phone between the side of your face and shoulder, you pulled one of the goats back from the trough by her back legs.

“Stop it, Frankie!” She bleated in response.

“Was that a goat I just heard?”

“No, it was Frankie— she’s worse than a goat. She’s, like, goat-fucking-three thousand— fuck! Hold on.” She placed the phone on a bucket, to stalk over to the problematic goat trying to fight her own sibling. “You’re pushing it. You are pushing it, Francine Miller!” Gripping the antlers that rose from her skull, you forced her to look at you. “This isn’t your food— that’s your food. Over there.”

Picking her up, wrapping your arms around her stomach, you lifted her toward her own trough. That a few other goats huddled at to feast on their breakfast. “If I see you over there bothering your brothers again, I’m gon’ put you right back in that barn— don’t mess with me.”

You walked back to that bucket, picking up the small silver flip phone placed sloppily in the middle. “Sorry about that… But, yeah, sometime around six.” A tired sigh fell from your lips.

“That southern drawl of yours… Getting stronger by the day.” She chuckled, in amusement. You heard her shuffling against cloth—perhaps, blankets and pillows.

“The price of being around my family for too long.” You match her brief chuckle, twisting your toe into the dirt.

“I’m certainly not complaining.” Abby commented, inhaling deeply. “Well, I’ll be there for six— unless you tell me otherwise…”

“All right, sounds good, Abby.”

“All right, bye, babe.”

Babe.

The pet name made you freeze, but before you could say anything, she hung up the phone. You clenched you phone in your hand, gripping it tight enough for the blood to drain from your knuckles. Babe—since fucking when?

A snicker caught your attention, causing you to swivel around on your toes. Her shiny, obsidian hair was tucked under a knit beanie. The medium-length blunt ends sticking out from the bottom, hanging over the shoulders of her jacket. A jacket that was sickeningly similar to one of Ellie’s—it most likely was.

“Who’s this lucky girl… Abby?” She perked a slender eyebrow, brown eyes boring through you. Slightly squinting with taut features.

You waved your hand before placing them on your hips. “A girl I met in the city. She’s up here with some friends— thought I’d invite her to dinner. She's the one who dropped me off the other night.” You explained, shrugging at your last word. After sleeping with her girlfriend, the least you could do was open with her.

Cat leaned over the wooden fence, instead of coming inside. Her hands balling together in front of her body to keep her exposed skin warm. “Oh, really? What’s the status between the two of you? Since you’re… Inviting her to Thanksgiving dinner ‘n all?” She questioned, lips pressing together.

There was something bitter in her speech that rubbed you the wrong way. But, nonetheless, you answered. “It’s complicated…” A laugh falls from your lips—fake and deceiving. “It’s been off and on for about a year— believe it or not.”

“I believe it.” Cat chortled behind a fist. “Dating in New York is hard. People just don’t take relationships seriously anymore— I totally get it.” Her eyes rolled as she spoke, shiny lips curling at the corners.

Awkwardly, you nod. Her tone alarming you once more. “Yeah… Well, I need to get back to this— the quicker this is over the better.”

“Right…”

“Are you planning on helping the parents cook, or…”

She crossed her arms, lips frowning, slightly. “Yeah. Later, I’m helping Joel and Tommy with the steak. I’ve never really cooked steak before so… Wish me luck.” Cat chuckled, stepping back from the fence. “I’ll let you get back to work, though…” She began to walk off, after you waved, halfheartedly. Pausing in the well-kept grass, she looked over her shoulder. “Could you point me in the direction of my girlfriend? I’m sure you know where she is.”

Hm.

“Uh, yeah, sure— She’s either in the horse barn or the greenhouse… I would check the horse barn first.” You point towards the wooden paneled barn some meters away. My girlfriend. Did that not sound harsh? There was such diction in her proclamation for Ellie. It was an iron bar being burned into your chest, over your heart like a branding.

She didn’t say much of a thank you, only a head nod and a wave. Leaving you standing in the same patch of mud you were standing in when she arrived. That interaction felt oddly tangy, rather than sweet—like usual. Of course, you had your doubts about Cat, but this time it felt different. So much different.

For another thirty minutes, you monitored Frankie and the other goats. Giving her a bunch of kisses to make up for your irate behavior—after all, she was behaving better; she deserved them!

Finishing your work, you didn’t realize until your stepped into the house—leaving your shoes on the porch—that Ellie didn’t call or text you about anything. She was supposed to meet you when she finished her side of the chores, but she never showed. It was too cold to wait around for her, so you trotted back to the house. And it’s not like you had her number; she had yours.

In the back of your mind, you worried about the interaction she had with Cat. Why wouldn’t you? As the days went by, you were growing in possessiveness of someone that wasn’t even yours. She used to be, but that wouldn’t hold up in court.

You noticed Maria working in the kitchen, working on small side dishes. Before you jogged up the stairs, you let her know that you’d be back after a warm shower. Cooking food while smelling like actual animal shit wasn’t a great mix.

Tommy had already put the television on the channel where the game was playing. The direct speech of sports anchors playing as background noise on the first floor--bouncing off the walls.

When you walked up the stairs, you heard the soft tune of Joel strumming and tuning his new guitar from his bedroom. It soothed your ears—his playing always did. There was a song he used to play for you, and sometimes Ellie, when you were teenagers. Then, after while, she began to play it for you. Sat in the corner of your reading nook, in a t-shirt and plaid boxers (or whatever underwear she was wearing), strumming at the tough strings of her guitar. Looking into your eyes like you were unreal.

Everyone seemed to be doing something on this busy morning. And you were soon to jump right in.

Steam opened your pores as you cleansed the dirt and grime off your skin. You attempted not to drown within your own thoughts while the showering. Echoes of your parents’ voices bounced around your mind, along with Joel’s. It was overwhelming. You feared they’d never forgive you if they found out what you and Ellie were doing—or had done. Then, there was Cat; a part of you felt bad for her. That she was getting caught in the middle of unfinished business… Clearly, your attempt at clearing your head didn’t work.

Shutting off the shower, smelling like a happy mixture of vanilla and coconut, you wrapped yourself in a towel to walk to your bedroom. When you entered, you didn’t notice the frame of your estranged lover sitting on your bed—until you pivoted on damp feet. “Shit, Ellie… What the hell are you doing?” You gasp, clenching onto the material of the old beach towel you were using to dry off.

Her back was facing you, eyes cast toward the paneled window of your reading nook. The auburn strands of her hair were damp, leaving marks on the shoulders and back of her grey sweatshirt.

“She fucking knows…”

Your eyebrows stitched together, trying to take in what the woman before you had said. Shutting your door with a sigh, you turn back around slowly. “What do you mean…?” Your voice trembled, wanting clarification even though you already knew what she meant. That hole that you dug was only getting deeper. Or, perhaps, not. It’s already reached max depth.

Ellie peered over her shoulder, the whites of her eyes unnerved. Freckled cheeks flushed to oblivion. “You PM’d me last night on MySpace…”

“Yeah…?” You slowly approached her, shrugging your shoulders. Although, your heart was racing—beating throughout your entire body. If that was even possible.

“When I got back to the guesthouse last night, I basically conked out, y/n.” Ellie told, finally shifting her body to see your stunned frame in its entirety. Water droplets dripping down your arms and legs; muscles tightening in anticipation.

A hand shot over your mouth, eyebrows furrowing in remorse. If she went right to sleep, then someone else had been responding to you—and you don’t believe in ghosts. “Please, tell me you’re fucking with me.”

She placed her head in her hands. “I wish I was…” Ellie bounced her leg, nervously. “Why the fuck would you mention anything that happened over the internet?” Her tone shifted, scolding you with the same pair of eyes that once caressed your skin with adoration.

“I had no other way to tell you about Joel. I was trying to warn you—“

“Yeah, what a warning that was.”

You scoff, crossing your arms. “Okay, hold on… How do you know about this? D— Did she confront you— or what?”

She sighed. “She came and talked to me while I was grooming Sarah— Also, you forgot to mention that she doesn’t like to be brushed…!” Her round features were pulled taut, glaring at you.

“I met her, like, once, Ellie. How would I know that she doesn’t like to be brushed?” You retorted, kicking out a leg, narrowing your eyes. “And… She’s a fucking baby. You should’ve expected that.”

“She said if I don’t admit what I did by tonight… She’s gonna fucking do it.”

You bunched your eyebrows, shaking your head—utterly confused. “She’s gonna fucking do what? Wh— What is this, Ellie— fucking One Tree Hill?!” It was incredulous for Cat to make such a threat. Theatricals were never your choice of handling things. Hence the last time an explosive episode happened on the farm. You shut down and close off—it’s always too much!

The auburn-haired woman’s feature slightly softened, looking up at you from her seated position.

Noticing the tensing in your body—seeing that face she swore she never wanted to see again. “Uhm, what did you say…?” You questioned, carefully with pinched lips and drifting eyes.

“I said that I would…”

Record scratch. Again. How many of those were you going to experience in a single week?

“Ellie—!”

“To alleviate some of her frustration—!” She tried.

“I don’t give a fuck why you agreed to her stupid threat, Ellie— it’s the fact that you did!” You paced, squeezing the bridge of your nose. Thinking. Hard. Your voice had boomed, forgetting that the walls weren’t thick. “I will not have this random emo chick ruin the relationship I have with my parents… Because she wants to get back at you.”

She leaned back on her hands, shrugging. “And you… She’s getting back at you, too.”

“Seriously.” You snapped your head toward her, blinking with blossoming anger.

“Dead serious.” Ellie held your eyes, courageously. She never liked seeing you angry, but boy, did it set her skin on fire. You were always so concerned with how people perceived you, that you avoided acting within your nature. Even though, in your truest nature, you were the most beautiful thing.

You pointed a finger at her, strolling toward her. “Is this funny to you?”

“Is there a smile on my face?” She retorted, looking up at you through her thick, batting lashes.

“You look amused—“

“I am.” She simply stated, causing you to raise an eyebrow. “Because you’ve never changed, y/n. It’s always appearances with you— for everything.” You rolled your eyes at that, scoffing under your breath. What did she know? “Little-miss-perfect… Always has to do the right thing— not because she wants to, but because she wants others to notice that she does.”

Her words sounded familiar. More put together, but familiar.

“It’s fucking pathetic, babe—“

“Get hell the out of my room.” The words came from you like a whisper with pinched lips, clenching your fists at your sides. Her and her name-calling.

Ellie stood up, chest nearly touching the towel that wrapped around you. Chest to chest. “Can you think about us for one second?” Her fingers tethered to your bare skin, dancing up your arms. “Cat’s makin’ our karma come quick— embarrassing us in front of our family. And, yeah, we did a fucked-up thing. I can admit and make peace with that because I wanna be with you.” She squeezed your shoulders, examining your tight features. Ellie reached her hand to grace your cheek, but you turned away.

A sigh fell from her lips, pulling away from your body. “And all you can think about is your parents… What they would think?” Ellie scoffed, running her hand through her damp strands. “You’re an adult—! And you, certainly, made an adult decision to fuck me the other night— so this is your fault as much as it is mine.” She lectured. Ellie Williams was lecturing you. Oh, how the tables turn.

“Fucking stand in it.” The artist grit, pointing her finger to the ground. “That’s you’re fuckin’ problem. Always wanting to be perfect— but you’re not! Not even close.”

Tears began to build in the corner of your eyes, lips quivering at her words. Heart wrenching at her stern tone. “And I fucking love you for it…” Ellie appeared dejected, gliding toward your door. Adhering to the command you gave her: Get out. “But if your parents’ opinion weigh heavier… Fine.”

A beat meandered through the room, while Ellie’s hand hovered over the handle.

“I realized… After Cat found me in the barn that…” She chewed on her lip. “I’m not ashamed of what we did— which is why I don’t mind telling the truth. It may be a threat for her but… it’s a release for me.”

A sob shockingly came from your throat, plopping onto your reading nook. The strength of your neck unable to hold up your head—it dropped into your hands to cover your face. “Please,” Your breath hitched, peeking through your fingers. “Ellie, please, don’t say anything. Don’t ruin tonight over something…Something fickle.”

Fickle?

She deepened her eyebrows in offense before pulling open the door. “I’m telling them whether you like it or not. Shape up or ship the fuck out.” Ellie pushed through the door, making sure to shut it light enough not to cause a stir, but heavy enough to unsettle you further.

To Ellie’s core, she was a pusher; a person who liked to push others—for better or for worse. Just depended on the day, and the person. Now, in her past, she’s made the mistake of pushing you into a worser version of yourself. And she almost did it again, but she revised her actions efficiently. She corrected it. Switched it around like a puzzle-piece placed in the wrong spot.

You needed to learn how to stand in your decision—good or bad—and not cowering within them. There’s no point in begging for a person’s forgiveness once you’ve done something wrong. Accountability and apologies are all a person has. And your parents—pssh; you shouldn’t be worrying about that so much.

Tommy and Maria loved you more than life itself, and Ellie understood why because she did, too.

There was nothing you could do to scarlet letter your persona. Absolutely nothing.

Even after titling the love you and Ellie embraced fickle; she could never turn her face from you— not for long anyway.

Dragging her feet down the hall, old converse sliding against the wood, eyes watering with warm tears in the corner of her eyes; a door creaked open. An aged pair of brown eyes, pushing though the slot. “Everything all right, kiddo…?”

Slowly, she turned her head to look at him. Olive eyes attempting to blink back tears at the sound of his softened, gravelly voice. Sniffling, her legs carried her toward him, wrapping her arms around his soft abdomen, tucking her head into his chest.

Nothing came from her but soft, stressed cries. Fingers clenching onto the fabric of his flannel behind his back.

As much as this situation was a lot for you, it was a lot for her as well—just in a different way, for a different reason.

In your room, you were still on that reading nook in your towel. Your body was was dry, so the old cloth scratched and tickled your skin. It was deserving for you to be uncomfortable. Ellie was right; you were a little pathetic—for lack of better word.

You spent so much time wanting to fix yourself. Be the best version of yourself. And that wasn’t Tommy or Maria’s fault, it was your own. When you were first adopted, sent to a new school, you had a full out meltdown. Some kid had been picking on you for being quiet, and you escalated the situation to a place that it didn’t need to go. As in: using your fists to defend yourself. From then, you were thrown into therapy and had to relearn that fighting wasn’t the answer. Maria aided that by drilling into your head that violence was something that could get you into trouble.

So, how did the way people perceived you become such a focus? Well, Maria’s scoldings of your behavior translated in your head—along with trauma of past foster homes and neglectful parents—that what people saw of you mattered more than your own conclusions. They thought, therefore you were.

You failed to fact-check. You failed to have a personal understanding of your own behavior. It was rare for you to make peace with your own actions—good or bad. You were always stuck on what a person would think of you; especially, your parent’s. Perhaps, there was still a part of you that felt you needed to prove that you worth caring for. Worth supporting.

That pressure continues and continues and continues to shove your head underwater no matter how many times your flail and beg for air.

It was obnoxious. It is obnoxious. You’re obnoxious.

Love isn’t conditional. It’s a feeling that tethers people to one another despite anything. Despite flaws and self-guilts—it perseveres. That concept shouldn’t be difficult to grasp because, after all Ellie had said on that one unfaithful afternoon, you still loved her. You loved her at seventeen, and you love her at twenty-five. Nothing has changed. Nothing will change.

And the same applied for your parents to you.

It was fucking physics and you were a prodigal humanities student who looked at STEM in contempt.

Solemnly, you dressed into a pair of comfy clothes. Attempting to replace the frown that stuck to your lips, although your body was already weakened from your emotions. Surprisingly, a cigarette couldn’t cure your overthinking mind—not this time. There was no point in pulling from one.

After squeezing eye drops into your eyes to eliminate the irritated veins in your sclera’s, you stomped down the wooden stairs. When your mother noticed you, she smiled. Her sparkling white teeth glimmering in your eyes—warm and kind. “Ellie and Joel are gonna be baking the pie at the guesthouse… So, the kitchen is ours.” Maria chuckled to herself, kneading the dough for her legendary biscuits.

“I know how much you hate overcrowded kitchens…” You respond, grabbing the apron with your nickname stitched on the front—Bug. She did a double take, looking from the dough in her hands. Noticing that unfortunate look on your face, and that blandness in your tone.

Maria sighed, setting the dough aside, leaning her flour covered hands against the counter. “Not you, too… What the hell is in the air today?” She shook her head, averting her eyes to you with intensity. “What’s goin’ on with you— Ellie had just come down here with that same look on her face.”

“What look?”

“That look.”

You pressed your lips into a line, looking around in thought. It was easier to lie and say something unrelated but that was fruitless idea. So, you said nothing, walking over to the cornbread she left out to begin working on the stuffing.

Raising an eyebrow, she followed you with her icy irises. She then called you your full name, which sent chills down you spine.

You sucked your teeth, meeting her stern eyes. “Ellie and I had sex…” You mutter, peering down to your shaking hands.

“What…?”

It was difficult to say aloud to your mother, but that the rest came behind swiftly. “And Cat found out because I had a run-in with Joel— he heard, and I wanted to let Ellie know… So, I private messaged her on MySpace, but turns out, she wasn’t the one responding to me; Cat was.” You puffed air from your lips. “This morning, she came by to ask where Ellie was, so I told her she was in the horse barn. Come to find out, she confronted her, threatening to air all of our shit out to you and dad and Joel as a consequence.”

“Tommy, get in here.” She asserted to her husband focused on the television, keeping her wide eyes on you.

Another sigh came from you, watching as your father navigated into the kitchen. “After my shower, Ellie was in my room and that’s when she told me. We got into it a little bit… Uhm, because she told me that she was gonna tell y’all that we slept together and that pissed me off— because why would she do that?” You scoff, not noticing the glances your father was making to your mother as you unloaded this heavily detailed bundle of information. “How could she be so quick to admit that we had sex to our family that has known us since we were children? That we committed fucking adultery while her girlfriend was only, like, ten meters away—“

“Honey,” Tommy tried, but you held up a finger.

“Let me finish.” Your eyes welled with tears, looking at your fathers aging features. “I couldn’t understand how she was so okay with it, but, now, I do. I think I do…” You glance between the two people hovering around you. “The only reason why I came up with the idea— yeah, I’m the one who came up with it… To hookup. Sue me— was because I wanted to see if what was happening between us was real. And it fucking was!”

“I know what we did was wrong. I knew it was wrong when I decided to go through with it… I begged Ellie not to say anything— which is ironic considering I’m the one talkin’.” You chuckled, wiping a warm tear that slipped from your eyes. “I was afraid of what you guys would think of me. That you wouldn’t love me anymore because of what I did— because you didn’t raise a liar…” Pausing, you released a shaky breath. “Verbatim: she told me to shape up… Or ship the fuck out. I chose the latter because… You didn’t raise a coward either.”

They blinked at you.

“I love Ellie. I really do, and yeah, we should’ve gone about this differently— but we didn’t. And I’m sorry.” Curtly, you nodded your head, adjusting your shoulder to stand up straighter. “I’m so grateful that you guys are my parents— you chose to be here and support me. The least I can do is be honest with you. Even if that results in your disappointment.”

The tears had dried up in your eyes sometime amid your ramble of humility. Confidence growing with every word that you spoke. Ellie’s words rang through your skull about your consistent jig of morality. Fuckup’s don’t make you nor should they break you.

Shit happens!

Their quietness made you tremble out of that shell of confidence you manifested, making you breathe a little heavier and feel a little more uncomfortable within your skin. You watched as they looked at each other. Maria sporting a mixture of concern and disappointment on her features—more disappointment than concern. And, Tommy, the complete opposite.

“You know, what? I’ll let you two… Sit on this.” You walk past them, toward the fridge. In the door, there was both glass bottles and cans of beer—Miller Lite and Heineken. You grabbed the green glass bottle by the neck, “I’m gonna have a beer…” Walking toward the back door with horse barn on your mind.

It was like a weight lifted off your shoulders after you confessed. Being honest with your thoughts about the whole situation made you feel lighter—feather allowing the wind to guide her, type of light. It was freeing to stand in her truth.

The cool breeze of autumn bit at your exposed arms, and the sliver of skin between the hem of your top and the hip line of your sweats. But because you were riding on the high of your confession, you didn’t feel the chill. You never were much of a beer person—it never made sense for you to drink. Yeast was never your thing, but after your confession, you had a craving for it. The beer, not so much the yeast. You overcame something big—you cried yourself into a new you. A better you.

And not that surface-better person you were trying or pretending to be.

When you arrived at the barn, you didn’t forget to pet the grazing horses near you before entering. Remnants of Ellie’s work lingered around, but there was no sight of her. Perhaps, it was for the best. Reaching for one of the bridles hanging on an iron hook, you used the belt to pluck off the tin cap that topped the bottle.

Settling in scattered hay, you plopped onto the ground, taking a large sip. Gritting your teeth at the flavor—still, wasn’t much of a fan. Although, she lingered close to her mother, Sarah began to drift toward you. Curiosity ruling her developing brain. You reached out to her, scratching the short tufts of her blonde hair.

She leaned into your hand, huffing air from her nostrils. It made you smile, her comfortability with you after knowing her for such a short time. “Oh, Sarah…” You sighed, wistfully.

From behind her, in the distance, you see your mother’s figure approaching you. You take in a nervous breath, preparing for her, potentially, harsh words.

Maria’s boots crunched along the sprawled hay, taking her time to sit beside you. Leaning her against the same wooden wall you did. She ran her hand through her short blonde hair, sighing as her shorter pieces of her hair fell right back into place. “If…” She began, thoughtfully. “I’ve ever given you a reason to think that I— we could ever stop loving you, y/n; that was my mistake. I wanna start there. Out of everything that you said in there… That’s what disappointed me most.”

Your eyes flicker to hers, briefly. Sarah had retreated back towards her mother. “Yeah, I must admit… I don’t wanna see my daughter, my kid, doing something worth regretting— no parent wants to see that.” She shook her head, glancing back at the horses. “And, yes, I am disappointed that you did something of this nature… But I know your heart, honey.” Maria reached her hand to your bent knee, caressing with her thumb.

The heat in your cheeks and eyes increased with emotion. “I’ll never forget that look on your face when we surprised you with those papers.” She smiled at the memory, and you leaned into her as if it were muscle memory. “You were… Relieved. And, from that day forward, Tommy and I promised to do right by you. To love you how you deserved to be loved— to prove that you deserved to be loved despite what the world had already managed to convince you.”

You wrapped your hand around the one on your knee while tears dripped from the corners of your eyes. “You think something like this would change my mind?” She looked down at you leaning her shoulder.

“Yeah… I guess…” You insecurely blinked at her. Feeling like the very thirteen-year-old she was referencing.

The blonde woman shook her head, placing a hand on your cooling cheek. “Well, that’s the farthest from the truth, Bug.” Her lips plotted against your forehead, comfortingly. “Your father and I will love you until we’re cold in the ground—“

“Mom, don’t say that.” You whined, sniffling.

“Probably, beyond that—“

“Mom!”

She snickered, peeling the beer from your fingers, and taking a sip for herself. “I don’t know how they tolerate this stuff.” Maria grimaced, shaking her head, setting it aside. “So… What’s the course of action now that everybody knows this big secret?”

You pull from her, leaning your head against the wall. “I don’t know…” You sighed, shutting your eyes. “Ellie is pissed at me—“

“For…?” She perked a slender eyebrow.

“Because… I called our situation fickle to get her to not say anything, but clearly, that didn’t work.” You shook your head. “I guess, I’m the impulsive one now.”

Maria hummed. “Looks like you have a lot to clear up.”

You inhaled, peering at her. “Looks like it.” With another breathy sigh, you shook your head.

“Fuck, and Cat.” You slapped your hand against your forehead.

“Ah. You know, she has every right to be upset?”

“Of course, I do. But, to be fair…”

“Nope—“

“Ellie came up here to get away from her— that’s what she told me!”

Your mother scolded you, calling you by your full name—because that was her super power. But, you ignored her, sitting up straight to prove your point. “She was living in the biggest, most creative city in the world and felt crowded? How does that make sense?”

She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Maybe… Maybe this is what they needed.” You shrugged.

Maria stood to her feet, offering you a hand. “Let’s not get caught up in the little details— you have some apologizing to do.”

“Ugh! I know, I know…” You took her hand, hopping to your feet. She bent down, picking up the beer bottle by the throat.

“But before that, you need to cover up those arms, and get to work in that kitchen— because, we have guests.” As your mother ushered you back into the house, you dragged your slippers against the ground, finding your way back inside the house with a newfound comfort.

Almost an hour earlier, the guesthouse was bluntly silent. Nothing but the slight huffing of Joel kneading dough and the crunching of breadcrumbs from Ellie. There wasn’t much conversation; only the actions of their priorities fr dinner. Cat had locked herself in the bedroom, probably, plotting her next attack.

Joel made a point to keep his eyes on Ellie—and Cat—to make sure nothing crazy happened. Cheating situations made people a little tense at times.

“So… Ellie, what song are you planning on playin’ tonight?” He tried, beginning to roll out the dough; flat to place in the round tin pan.

She sighed, glancing at him with a dismissive glare. “I’m not playin’ tonight…”

“Come on, it’s tradition—“

“Fuck, tradition! I’m not doing it. Can we move on?”

He huffed, placing the wooden roller on the floured counter. “I think you need to cut her some slack, kiddo. She didn’t mean to—“

“I don’t care what she meant—“

“Can you let me finish?” He raised an eyebrow, pointing an index finger that was caked with white flour. Ellie bunched her lips together, rolling her eyes. “Now, Ellie, I know you’re upset with y/n, with how the situation panned out— I get it. But don’t let your frustration cloud your judgement.” He told. “I spoke to her long before you did. I don’t believe for a second that she truly thinks that your relationship is fickle.”

He inhaled, scratching the back of his neck. “Sometimes we say things that we don’t mean— I’m sure you know about that.”

She ran her tongue over her lips, tapping her foot against the floor. Thinking back to a few years ago when she exploded on Joel and you. Ellie was good for that—saying things she didn’t mean. “I mean, I’ve said a few things to Tommy in my day.”

“Joel…” She shook her head. “I don’t even know if it’s that alone— I…” Ellie struggled to verbalize, gesticulating with her hands and fingers as words attempted to materialize behind her teeth. “She’s always choosing her parents over me— over everything and everyone. Really, it’s doing her a disservice—“

The artist began to rant like her life depended on it. Of course, in a low enough tone where her girlfriend in the other room couldn’t hear. Joel just watched a listened, as her features contorted with annoyance. But, within her big, earthy eyes, Ellie told on herself. Her claims didn’t come from hatred, or even contempt—it came from her adoration of you.

In the corner of the room, relied the piece she’s been working on since the day of her arrival, or rather, the night of. It was no longer covered with a white, paint-stained sheet. Her work had been exposed to the light due to a quick argument between her and Cat before Joel came to save the day. It was a colored-in image of you in front of that old shed. A joint rested between your index and middle finger with a look of relaxation was on your smoothly stroked features. Ellie made sure to depict you in your most comfortable state.

If only he could see her sketch book.

“Ellie, you have to break up with her.”

She paused, mid-sentence. “What?”

“Matter of fact, you need to break up with Cat— now.”

Uncomfortably, she shifted on her bare feet. “But… The pie…”

He chortled, averting his eyes to the art piece at the corner of the room. “Priorities, Ellie. Priorities.” Joel leaned his hip against the marble counter. “Go in there, break up with her— as kindly as you can. Then, offer to drive her to the train station. If she declines, insist. If you go now, you should make it back before dinner. You know Maria will have a cow if you’re late.”

Briefly, she thought to herself. Ellie was never the type to be afraid of confrontation—she may have hesitated a few times… But she was never afraid. She never expected her actions to be thrown into her face so quickly, though. The memory of Cat approaching Ellie in that barn sent chills down her spine, because she had an inkling that something was wrong the minute she had appeared. Her dark brown eyes were squinty and boring through her as she approached. At first, Ellie didn’t notice Cat’s slender frame walking up to her—as she were hyper-focused on tending to the small, blonde-haired foal.

They have been together for nearly a year, so of course, the freckled artist knew when she was truly upset. Cat was a woman of subtly, despite her tattoos and silver piercings. Her anger pressed through with an even tone, and a stiff posture; rather than, expression through loud voices and firm fist curls. They are polar opposites in that way. That is what originally attracted Ellie to her—but in that moment, she shivered.

It was like whiplash, comparing how she woke up to how she appeared in front of Ellie in that moment. Making her wonder, if that happy act was all lie? It most certainly was.

Cat somehow surpassed a level of straightforwardness that Ellie was comfortable with, telling her exactly how it was: Why she made breakfast for her this morning, the MySpace conversation (why she pretended to be her), her certainty of her infidelity, and the official threat that set everything off the rails. Easily, her intention was to embarrass Ellie and you. She sensed the timidness that you hid behind and wanted to use it against you. She assumed, based off the history between you and Ellie, that the only way for Ellie to be affected is to make an example of you. However, she imagined that it would be more difficult for her girlfriend to confess her actions first.

You weren’t particularly obvious with what happened between the two of you, but she would have to be stupid to not assume that it was a sexual thing. But when Cat approached Ellie with the statement: You told me you were going on a run. She didn’t expect to be met with immediate truth. Her olive eyes had grown wide for only a second, before words began to just flood from her like an open dam. Ellie couldn’t stop herself.

Perhaps, it was the complaints of you echoing in her head. Your fervent concerns about going back to Cat—it made her feel guilty; so, she confessed as if she were bribed to tell the truth and was content with the consequences. All the while, brushing the soft, blunt hairs of Sarah.

Ellie assumed that was why Cat made a threat to support her dominance. That made her hesitate a bit—admitting to her family that her and an old flame, that ended horribly in their teenagerhood, had secret sex in the middle of the night? Despite having a girlfriend—who could ever do such a thing?

Apparently, Ellie.

Straightening her shoulders, she didn’t back down, though. She took full accountability for her behavior, claiming that she would be the one to tell them what she did—although, she did find that to be dramatic. It wasn’t until Ellie was checking off the chores list in the garden, when she realized her fate had a drastic connection to you.

You weren’t the type to stand tall in defeat or mistake. When the things you did wrong were brought to you, you quivered and coward away because it made you feel more than you preferred. Faulty. It made you want to sequester—the total opposite of Ellie.

She could never forget how you hid away after the fight on her seventeenth birthday. You didn’t go to school for a week. Ellie offered to bring you schoolwork, like the waving of a white flag, but you declined—or, rather, your parents declined. One of your academic friends made visits to the farm every day to give you the missing work. For a moment, after not hearing from you, Ellie thought you moved abroad or something. You were the closest thing to a true hermit.

That worried her because this is the last thing you’d ever want to admit, and it was Ellie’s fault. She may not have felt a lick of regret for loving on you like she used to, but she felt bad for putting you in a situation you couldn’t seamlessly get out of. It was a nightmare to see you flail, but the only way out is through. Ellie learned that a long time ago. Maybe, it was your turn to reassess that motto.

The only way out is through.

So, Ellie made her way to the bedroom they shared, knocking before she entered.

Cat had her back propped up against the wooden headboard; a pair of headphones covering her pierced ears as she typed on her own computer. Her bags were packed and ready in the corner of the room—that’s what she spent her time doing this morning… Packing her bags. When she wasn’t issuing theatrical threats. That’s already one concern out the window. She was ready to ship out. When she noticed Ellie, her soft features fell.

“You’re already packed…” She acknowledged, rocking on her bare feet. Cat removed her headphones with a sigh. “Let me take you to the train station—”

“Before you tell your family that you boldly cheated on your girlfriend? I don’t think so.” She dismissed, tilting her head to the side. “If this is your way of getting out of—”

Ellie groaned, slapping her hands against her thighs. “I’m not trying to get out of anything, Cat. I just don’t want you paying a fucking grand to get back into the city.”

“What do you care?” Cat challenged, setting her laptop aside. “Hm? You told me that I had nothing to worry about. That’s what you said… Turns out that was a stupid fucking lie.” She ground out, pressing her lips into a disappointed line. A cruel laugh came from her, while she shook her head in disbelief. “And now, you’re saying you care about how much I’m spending to get back home? Are you fucking with me?”

“I’m not. It’s the least I could do—”

“No… The least you could’ve done was not fuck y/n—that’s the least you could’ve done.” The scorned woman argued, meeting her eyes with intensity. “I’m not going anywhere until I see the looks on Mr. and Mrs. Miller’s faces when they find out what the two of you did— I have a feeling it’ll be memorable.”

The freckled artist found her attitude to be draining, even if it was sensical for her side of things. Her fingers rubbed between her eyebrows. A raspy sigh fleeing from her throat. “Look, I get you’re upset, Cat. But dontcha’ think you’re doing, I don’t know, too much?”

“You think this is too much?”

“Uh, yeah, I do. I said I’d tell ‘em what happened— that should be enough for you.”

Scoffing, she threw her legs over the mattress. “You expect me to believe the woman who cheated on me? How didn’t I know you were this idiotic before?” Cat scoffed, dryly.

She deepened her eyebrows at the insult, gritting her teeth. “You know, what? I’ve been really struggling to keep my mouth shut… But, clearly, there’s no point.” Ellie huffed, blinking her eyes. Perhaps, it was time for her to know the truth on why Ellie wanted to go home for a while. Her stiff words got Cat’s attention, causing her to narrow her dark eyes. “That whole thing about me having a hard time in the city with my art— yeah, that was because of you, not because of fucking Brooklyn.” The woman admitted, releasing the tension in her shoulders. “Truth is, your endless support did nothing but drag out my lack of inspiration—you made it worse! What I needed was to get out of that goddamn apartment, not get out of the city.” She continued, pacing around the room. “From the moment I saw her… Inspiration fucking flooded my psyche— all I could see was her. Her face. Her voice. Her body. She did more for me in second than you ever did for me in the year we’ve been together.”

She ran a hand through her hair, scoffing. A boyish smirk spreading onto her plush lips. “Who’s the fuckin’ idiot now?” Ellie muttered, flickering her earthy eyes toward her shocked expression.

A beat plotted in the environment, feasting on the spreading tension in the room.

That was mean; she matched her cruelty and then some. Ellie shouldn’t have, but she was only human. A human who just made her girlfriend—sorry, ex-girlfriend—cry. Her thin eyebrows pushed into a harsh furrow, tears streaming shown her flushed, hot cheeks. Her fingers danced in front of lips, trying to keep her sorrowful whines from being heard. It wasn’t working. Cat cried like a hurt dog, stuffing her face in her hands at Ellie’s restriction of consolation.

With crossed arms, Ellie looked down at from across the room. Family was one of the most important things to her. Despite her youthful, abrasive attitude, Joel decided to contractually tie himself to her—her adoption. But, even before then, she’s been a divine part of the Miller family. They meant a whole lot to her, you, more so. The fact that she was so willing to draw a wedge between the lot of you… Frankly, it disgusted her. It was repulsive.

“You have every right to be upset. I can’t take that from you.” She let up, lifting her eyebrows. “If anything… What I do regret is pulling you along this far out of convenience. To be honest—”

“Haven’t you been honest enough? Fuck, Ellie.” Cat blurted, peeking over her shoulder.

Her feelings might have been hurt; a simmering flame awaiting the impulsive pressure of Ellie’s old converse. The auburn-haired woman sighed, taking a seat on the bed. Away from Cat, not only to convey her sincerity in her processing words, but to respect Cat’s wired emotions. “I’ve kept enough from you, kitty Cat. My honesty is my apology…” Ellie casted her down-to-earth irises to the side of Cat’s face. When she turned to meet Ellie’s eyes, her smudged eyeliner and mascara became a spectacle. “And my good-bye…”

Cat scoffed in pure offense. “You do not get to break-up with me when you’re the one who fucked up.”

“Well, if you wanna be the one to call it… Then, feel free.”

“No!” She grit her teeth, more tears dripping from the corners of her eyes. “I don’t want to break up with you…” Her lips quivered.

Ellie chortled, leaning her palm into the mattress. “Uhm, one of us is gonna have to do the breaking, Cat.”

They apparently have walked themselves into an impasse. To make a decision, or to not make a decision—that was the question. The response, the answer, was far simpler than Cat was making it, though.

Sighing, the freckled artist looked to the side. Ellie could use this to her advantage—getting her on that train back to the city. “You don’t have to right now…” She began to offer. “How about you mull it over on the way to the train station? I still don’t mind driving you there.” Her fingers fiddled with themselves, hoping she’d finally accept her invitation to leave.

She looked at her frowning, blinking away her tears. “Fine…” Cat stood to her feet, wiping her makeup-stained cheeks with the backs of her hand. “Why don’t you be a doll and bring my bags to the truck. It’s the least you could do.” Before Ellie could respond, she walked into bathroom and locked herself behind the door.

Releasing a long breath of relief, Ellie got up from the bed. As silently as possible, she pumped her fists into the air. Cat was leaving with only a little bit of resistance. That whole dramatic scene she was hoping for wasn’t happening—thank God!

Ellie stuffed her feet into her sneakers, before grabbing her rolling luggage and bag, hoisting the large purse over her shoulder. She left the bedroom, eyeing Joel on her way out. He was covered in flour and sugar, like the chef that he aspired to be. She gave him a thumbs up on the way out the door, snickering to herself.

Joel clapped his hands, forgetting about the flour stuck to his hands. It puffed into the air and down his throat, causing him to obnoxiously cough—away from the food developing in front of him. “Goddamn,”

Ellie peeked her head inside, pushing the luggage to the side on the small wooden porch. “Please, survive until I get back. Wouldn’t want another tragedy on Thanksgiving.”

“Oh, shut it, Ellie.”

She snickered again; her mood instantly heightened. However, as she maneuvered off the porch, her eyes caught sight of you and your mother. Maria’s arms were around you, guiding you toward the house. You didn’t have a jacket on and sported a pair of slippers—you weren’t dressed for the brisk afternoon air, dragging your feet against the ground. Ellie had stopped in her tracks. Shoes crunching on bumpy gravel. She couldn’t help but wonder what led you out the house. Was it her? Did she unnerve you so bad that you ran away from the warmth of the house?

Also, did you mean what you said when you used fickle as a description of your relationship with Ellie? Boy, did she have so many questions. This ball was filled with kinetic energy, rolling as it should have. She was just going to have to keep the momentum of its roll. For how long? The inspired artist didn’t know—but what she did know, was that she had a woman to make hers again.

This time, in a sustainable way, instead of a chaotic one.

taglist: @autisticintr0vert , @liasxeatt , @hopingforgoodblogs , @lia-winther , @macaroni676 , @tobiotruther , @anewkindofloove , @fatbootymuncher , @maiaska , @culuvr , @0phantom0 , @onlinelesbo , @bbnbhm , @lovelaymedown , @lamorenita , @scatapple , @elliewilliamsblunt , @goddessofchaosss , @mikellie , @emmanetalias , @sevyscoven , @lluvbk

#🪅#millersfinest #ellie williams #ellie tlou #ellie williams x reader #ellie williams imagine #ellie williams smut #ellie williams series #lesbian #muheheheh everything is falling into place

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wxwrites · 3 months ago

Text

Lightning Bolts

Sevika X Reader, angst & fluff. (f!reader)

While she can recognize her own strength in certain aspects, sometimes she really struggles with recognizing it in other places. You catch her frowning at her own appearance in the bathroom mirror.

men dni

Sevika has always kept herself guarded and closed-off, rarely ever displaying vulnerability or affection. In her mind, all of that made her weak, and that was the worst feeling she could ever experience. She has always been the protector, the one who sacrifices herself for Zaun and those she’s loyal to. Due to her irrevocable nature, that is what led to one of the most traumatic moments of her life.

So, now she has to cope with one of the biggest insecurities that she has ever had to deal with. And it’s not her new arm, she actually really appreciates the look and how it makes her feel. The men that used to intimidate her as a kid, now cower in fear as her loud boots clank through each building she enters and every street she walks on. She finds the new strength dependable, fascinating, and addicting.

However, she catches herself staring at the deep scars that streak across her cheek and down her neck. But she’s not just looking, she’s criticizing how the blue glares beneath her skin, causing a different kind of rage to bubble. Her jaw clenches as she watches it glow and fade in little ripples across her dark skin, nearly fracturing the mirror in front of her. Always her own critic, always feeling like she could just be better. The only thing that stops her downward spiral is your sweet voice, calling towards the bathroom. “‘Vika?” She hears, and immediately drops her fist to the ceramic sink, cracking the corner slightly. You swiftly step towards her at the sound of the commotion, pressing a soft hand onto her shoulder.

“What’s goin’ on, baby?” you ask gently, rubbing over the tense muscle with your thumb. “Nothin’, I’m okay, sweetheart,” she replies, fighting every urge in her mind that is screaming at her to push you away. She huffs lowly and slumps over the sink, bowing her head slightly, subconsciously leaning into your soft touch.

“Talk to me, yeah?” you coax gently, scratching the tips of your fingers through her new undercut, smiling at her softly as you admire her new look. She shakes her head briefly before sighing, and muttering a quiet, “I’m just not a fan of… y’know,” she gestures to the deep scarring on her cheek and neck. You give her a sympathetic smile and move your hand from her neck to her cheek, gently soothing it over the marks. She flinches initially and wants to jerk her head away– and she does for a split second. But, she eventually leans back into your touch, letting you thumb over the scars.

You cock your head in confusion as you look at her pretty face, “You’re so beautiful, Sevika.” you compliment, standing up on your toes to press a kiss to her cheek. “They’re like… little lightning bolts.” you say, trailing your fingers down her cheek, to her jaw, and then to her collarbones. They continue further down her body, but they’re greatly concealed by the shirt and vest she’s currently sporting. “Beautiful, and bright, and so lovely.” You continue, pressing your lips to her collar softly, chuckling against her skin as she shivers at your touch. “I wish I could help you see yourself the way that I see you.” you mumble against her skin, keeping your lips and hand attached to the glistening cracks.

She sighs deeply at your comment and rests her forehead against yours, tilting your chin up with her hand as she presses a gentle kiss to your lips. “I’m getting there.” she replies quietly, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head. “I know, I know.” you repeat, smiling against her neck. “And I’ll be here for whenever you need me, yeah?” you state, reaching down to lace your fingers together.

#sevika x reader #sevika #arcane s2 #arcane #wlw post

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pintrestgrl · 4 months ago

Note

Okay, listen!! Being very angsty here

Kook!reader and Rafe are wonderful together— the it-couple of Kildare. They both love partying and going on boat trips and shopping on the mainland. Rafe loves her and she loves him, and it's been like that for years.

Now for the angst: during spring break Topper hosts a party and reader loses Rafe while talking to friends, so she obviously goes to look for him, a little drunk, a little horny too, maybe, and poor baby finds him doing lines in some room and she just doesn't know what to say or do...

— 🪼

aw poor baby. she probably thinks he’s like the perfect bf too. 🥲 anyways hi 🪼 anon !! i missed u ! i love this idea too send more pls

also, for your season 4 ask, it might be like terrible to say but i haven’t watched season 4 yet… ik shocking. but im currently rewatching all the seasons rn 😭

but i will try to do it once i get to season 4 !!

i’m so so sorry 😭

also this ask is from like weeks ago.. but i just now got to it.. anyways im terrible at posting

pls enjoy !!

sweetheart!kook!reader with boyfriend!rafe.

you and rafe had been together forever, and everybody knew it.

everyone knew that you were his girlfriend, and he was your boyfriend.

you two were perfect together.

you went on yacht trips on his family’s boat, shopping excursions to the mainland, and you both attended every party that the outer banks had to offer.

another party came, so naturally you went with rafe.

you arrived with him, and began drinking and dancing the night away as he subtly pulled down your dress from behind you.

you had been there for around 30 minutes, when you realized you had lost him in the crowd at some point in time.

you already were a bit drunk, and kinda needy at this point. so, you needed rafe. desperately.

you stumbled along the crowded halls of the mansion, accidentally opening a few sex-filled rooms a long the way.

you finally came to the end of the hall, opening the door.

you froze.

behind it, was rafe. which should have calmed you down.

but the sight made you want to run away from the whole situation.

he was sitting in the laundry room, his head down as he snorted a line of white powder off the laundry machine.

you guessed you let out a small noise of shock, because his head raised.

the look on his face, was nothing but one of shock. of fear. of shame.

he wiped his nose, quickly standing up from the chair.

you backed away a little, not able to find the will to speak right now.

he spoke to you.

“oh, fuck— god, baby. it’s not what it looks like, okay. c’mere.”

he attempted to approach you, but you only backed away. you didn’t know what to say, or do, or think.

all you could think of, was that you just witnessed your sweet boyfriend doing a line of coke.

you finally found it in you to speak.

“what— what was that, rafe? what were you doing?”

he took hold of your wrists, not allowing you to move. he avoided your eyes, his pupils blown out.

he spoke.

“nothin’, baby. don’t worry about it. just calm down, okay. listen to me.”

you nodded slowly, afraid of who he would become while he was on drugs like this.

he spoke again.

“let’s just— go home. i think it’s time for you to go home.”

you shook your head, rather quickly. you didn’t want to go. you wanted to be with him. you didn’t mean to see that sight, it wasn’t like you wanted too.

you spoke.

“‘no— please, rafe. i wanna stay. please, it’s fine.”

he grunted, shaking his head.

“no. you’re goin’ home, okay? just listen to me for once, god.”

you frowned. his words got so much meaner, and you could only blame it on the drugs coursing through his body.

he took a bit too tight hold of your arms, leading you towards the door, then to his car.

you got in, too scared to protest staying at the party anymore.

you were scared. very, very scared. you’d never seen rafe like this in all the years you’d known him.

he turned the car on, sloppily pulling out of the driveway.

he sped all the way home, his car going well over the speed limit.

you were frozen, and silent with fear the whole car ride.

you wanted him to slow down, but you were much too fearful to say anything to his face right now.

he arrived at your house, letting out a gruff noise that only told you to get out.

you reluctantly opened your mouth, and spoke.

“rafe, we can— we can talk about it. please? can we talk about it?”

he scoffed, rolling his eyes. he finally looks at your eyes, and you saw nothing in them. nothing but his dilated pupils. usually, you’d seen a hint of love or admiration in his eyes.

there was nothing.

he spoke, harshly.

“just— shut the fuck up. got it? get out. now.”

you sucked in a shaky hiss at his mean words, nodding and opening the door of his car, hopping out.

usually, he’d have the common decency to walk you to the door and say hi to your parents.

as you walked to the door, you heard him speed off. not even bothering to see if you got in okay.

you felt tears prick your eyes, as you rushed upstairs. avoiding the words of your parents.

you showered, and changed. finally sitting down in your bed.

you were so worried, so confused.

where did he go? did he get there okay? what was he doing in that room?

you thought about sending him a text or two, but deciding to drop the idea when the memory of his blunt words came in your head.

you took a shaky breath, rolling over and clutching the stuffy that rafe had gotten for you a while back.

you had many questions.

how could he just dismiss you like that? and treat you so much different then he usually did?

you hated what he had done. hated what you had witnessed. hated what he said to you.

but yet, you couldn’t quite find it in you to hate him.

you loved him, with everything you had in you.

and he had been hiding half his life away from you.

you let your tears soak the plush animal, as you let every bad thought consume your mind.

before you finally, succumbed to a deep slumber.

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jjscrybaby · 1 month ago

Note

A request for JJ!!

I was thinking something kinda angst. So JJ hates the reader and she hates him. They both think each other has a great life and is jealous. But maybe one day on her usual bike ride around the cut, y/n sees JJ’s dad get aggressive with him and realises how JJ’s life is hard. But she doesn’t go to help because she was scared. Feeling bad that she didn’t help she wonders around and she goes home late which results in an argument with her mom. At that time JJ was doing a delivery with Pope and hears and sees everything and when y/n is outside walking around trying to calm herself down and distract from the pain she accidentally bumps into JJ and they have a talk.

jj maybank x fem!reader | hurt & comfort | (luke maybank being an ass, reader’s mom is also an ass, overall just bad parents!)

not proofread and written at 6am so my bad if there’s any mistakes 🤗

︶︶︶ ⊹ ︶︶ ୨♡୧ ︶︶︶ ⊹ ︶︶

One of the main differences between you and JJ were your social status’. JJ came from the Cut, he grew up catching his own food, roaming the streets at the age of seven without a care in the world, stealing just to get by. You grew up on Figure Eight, you never had to lift a finger, your parents never had to worry about where their next pay check was coming from. He was jealous.

JJ grew up with freedom, with a group of friends he called his family, he never had to worry about grades or being perfect because no one cared if he was. You grew up with snobby rich kids as the only people you could hang out with, your mom dictated everything you did down to the clothes you’d wear to the mall, you felt embarrassed to even leave the house if your hair was slightly greasy. You were jealous.

You’d known JJ Maybank since you were a kid, you went to the same Elementary school and then over the years you’d see each other at parties or at the club where he worked. There wasn’t ever something that happened that gave you both a reason to hate the other, you just did.

Something your parents were definitely not aware of was the route you’d take on your weekly bike ride. You needed an escape from the ‘perfect’ life, so at least once a week you’d take your little pink bicycle and you’d ride around the Cut. You weren’t sure what it was that drew you to it in the first place, especially after the horror stories you’d grown up hearing, but you always felt calm when you rode around with your AirPods in.

It was about six o’clock, you were supposed to be home for dinner in an hour because your father had some clients coming over and you were wanted as well. You were about to head back home when the sound of yelling caught your attention. You turned round the corner, standing still at the end of the street.

“You smell like a damn bar!” It was JJ. You didn’t know he lived here, but then again why would you? You weren’t friends. There was an older man stumbling after him, following the blonde down the porch steps.

“Ain’t that rich comin’ from you?” The man, who you assumed was non other than Luke Maybank, snorted.

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” JJ scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest as he turned to look at his dad.

“Means you ain’t better than me, kid. It’s in your blood, you’re a Maybank,” Luke mocked.

You could see JJ shake his head, a scowl on his face that was hiding the hurt he felt. “I’m nothin’ like you. And I never will be.”

“Say whatever you want, don’t make it true,” Luke shrugged, taking a sip from the beer that you hadn’t noticed was in his hand. “Where the fuck you goin’, anyways? Ain’t been home in weeks.”

Weeks? You had heard the stories about Luke, the robberies and the bar fights, but you didn’t think he’d treat his own son like this. He spoke to him as if he was a stranger, as if he couldn’t care less about him.

“Yeah, and I shouldn’t have bothered coming back at all,” JJ stated, turning to continue walking away. Luke grabbed his arm, yanking him back and holding him in place. “Get the fuck off me, man!”

“Gotta show some respect, Jay!” Luke yelled, making you flinch.

Why were the neighbours not coming out? Why hadn’t anyone done something about this? You felt sick, and you felt even worse when you got on your bike and rode away before you had to see how this ended.

︶︶︶ ⊹ ︶︶ ୨♡୧ ︶︶︶ ⊹ ︶︶

“You alright?” JJ hated that question, especially when he knew why it was being asked. The shiner that he sported now. Pope looked at him sympathetically, a sad smile on his face.

“I’m fine. Ready to get some good tips,” JJ shrugged, taking the grocery bags from his hands. “Who orders food at eight o’clock?”

“Rich people,” Pope muttered. “Don’t lose any of that shit.“

“Yeah, yeah.”

JJ walked to your house, he knew it was yours from the last name above the slip of paper Pope had given him. He was starting to walk up the driveway when he heard the noise coming from the open front door.

“I told you to be here by seven! It’s half past!” Your mother exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air.

“I— I got held up, I’m sorry.” He’d never heard you sound so small. Usually, when the two of you got at each other’s throats at a Kegger, you’d stand your ground without a care in the world. It was one of the only things he respected about you.

“Held up with what?” Your mom scoffed. He could see through the cracks in the bushes that she was shaking her head, looking disappointed.

“It’s just dinner, mom. I don’t need to be here,” you tried to argue.

“Well, I’ve already told the Henderson’s that you aren’t home. So, therefore, you will not be home. Don’t come back until they’re gone,” she stated.

“What? Mom. I haven’t got anywhere to go,” you exclaimed, voice wavering.

The door closed in your face and you let out a shaky sigh. You’d been preoccupied, feeling guilty for not sticking up for JJ, so you’d gotten home a little later than planned. Was it really that big of a deal? Tears fell as you wandered back down your driveway, trying to think of where the hell you can go.

“Uh, hey.” You flinched in shock, turning to see JJ lurking by the bushes with two grocery bags.

“What’re you doing here?” You asked quietly.

“Delivery,” he explained.

“Right, well, I can’t take it,” you muttered. “Just go knock.”

“Wait there.” You weren’t sure why you did what he said, but it wasn’t like you had anything better to do. You stood and waited, watching as he left the bags on your front door step and knocked before coming back; he didn’t even wait for a tip. “C’mon.”

The two of you walked through Figure Eight in silence, him puffing on his vape every now and then whilst you tried not to burst into tears. “I saw you and your dad, earlier.”

“What?” He turned to look at you in confusion.

“Outside your house.”

“Why were you outside my house?” He asked.

“I wasn’t, I just happened to be going past,” you explained. You bit your nails before speaking again, letting out a quiet sigh. “He’s an ass.”

Surprisingly, JJ let out a chuckle. He nodded his head. “Yeah, he is. So is your mom.” You giggled, agreeing with him. “Guess we both have shitty parents, huh?”

“Seems like it,” you shrugged. “Never thought we’d have something in common.”

“You know, my friend, John B, his house is sorta the hangout for kids with shitty parents. Did you want to… you could come over, until you can go back home,” JJ offered. He sounded anxious, as if he was asking you on a date.

You found yourself nodding your head, shyly smiling at him. “Yeah, just until I can go back home.”

You didn’t go home, instead you spent the night chatting shit about your mom with JJ whilst he rambled about his dad. You ended the night in his bed, laid on his chest as the two of you shared a joint. You didn’t feel so jealous anymore, and you were certain he didn’t either.

#jj maybank #outer banks #jj mayback x reader #jj maybank prompt #jj mayback imagine

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dixons-sunshine · 6 months ago

Text

Cravings | Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Daryl Dixon wouldn’t consider himself a picky man. It was the end of the world. Good food was extremely hard to come by. You ate what you could and you didn’t refuse, or else you’d go to bed hungry. There was no in-between, and Daryl understood that more than most.

However, as Daryl watched you reach into the jar of pickles to eat the green vegetable with the homemade ice cream Carol had somehow managed to make for you, he was beginning to realize that there were some lines regarding food he straight up refused to cross.

“Ain’t no way the ice cream tastes good with them pickles,” Daryl voiced after a few minutes of simply observing you devour the odd food combination you had been craving for days at that point in time. “Ain’t no way in hell.”

You looked up from the book you were reading while relaxing in bed, your hand stilling its motion of rubbing your baby bump, your eyes locking with Daryl’s cerulean-coloured ones. You nearly snorted at the expression on his face. Never before had you seen him as grossed out quite like in that moment. “Don’t blame me for this. It’s what your kid wants, apparently.”

“S’disgustin’,” Daryl told you, a shudder rolling down his spine at the mere thought of what the odd food combination could possibly taste like.

“Says the guy that literally once ate a worm,” you reminded him with a playful smile. “And dog meat, if I remember correctly, which you absolutely devoured.”

“That was different. We were on the road and didn’t have nothin’ else to eat. We didn’t have a choice,” he retorted. “‘Sides, s’not like I paired the meat with cake or somethin’. I ate it as is, so it wasn’t nearly as disgustin’ as this.”

“Sure, whatever you say, Babe,” you laughed and popped another pickle into your mouth.

Daryl grimaced when you added a spoonful of ice cream to your mouth without even swallowing the pickle. When you simply sent him a smile, he chuckled and shook his head. “Ain’t gon’ argue with ya ‘cause I know there ain’t no point and I’d rather not piss ya off.”

You giggled at him. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” You looked down at the pickle jar and frowned when you saw that it was empty. You looked up at your partner and gave him your best puppy dog eyes. “Could you get me some more, please?”

Daryl chuckled and shook his head. “Yeah. Jus’ give me a minute. Need to do somethin’ real quick.” Daryl leaned forward and lowered his head to your bump, pressing a soft, tender kiss to it. “Yer makin’ yer mama real crazy, lil’ one. Messin’ with her brain, makin’ her believe that she’s got somethin’ delicious goin’ on here. M’beggin’ ya to make her stop. She’s killin’ me with these weird cravings’a hers.”

You laughed and gently pushed him away, eliciting a small, fond chuckle from the archer. “My brain’s just fine, thank you. Now I believe I was promised more pickles.” You grabbed your empty bowl and held it up for him. “And possibly more ice cream?”

Daryl shook his head with a smile and took the bowl, getting up from the bed. “Yer lucky m’so damn fond’a ya, woman,” he mused while heading towards the door.

“I love you,” you laughed and picked up your book again, getting comfortable against the pillows.

“Yeah, I love ya, too.”

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om-nom-snom · 8 months ago

Text

[Morning Routines]

Rika x reader, Milo x reader, Piers x reader

Rika <3

Rika is very rarely in a rush in the mornings

Waking up at sometime between 7-8am on a normal day, you'll often be stuck in bed with her snuggling you until then

Once she is awake you'll both be out of bed pretty quick, however

She's up pretty quick each morning to feed clodsire, the Pokemon's bottomless stomach getting it into trouble otherwise

After making sure all your Pokémon are sorted, Rika insists that the two of you make breakfast for yourselves

Usually still in cozy pyjamas, she pulls you into the kitchen and insists on 'helping' you to use a knife for anything

Rika just wants to wrap herself around you from behind

Once a very relaxed breakfast is over, she's finally ready to get dressed for the day

If you ever have any issues picking clothing, Rika is happy to pick for you

Though, she makes a few less than innocent comments in the process

"Those clothes look great on you babe, but you'd look better if they were on the floor-"

If you want to make your girlfriend quiet then you do have a secret weapon

Do up her tie for her

Rika can't look you in the eyes when you do, blushing, hardly able to hide how much she loves it

The precious pout on her face as she turns away is everything

With a couple kisses at the door, Rika tries to delay her departure to work, only leaving when you push her out of the doorway

Milo <3

Milo has always been an early bird in the mornings

Growing up on a farm will do that to a person

Before it's even light outside, you'll feel the rustling of your boyfriend getting out of bed

The soft sounds of of wooden drawers opening and closing, Milo attempting to get himself dressed in the near complete darkness of your room

He always tries not to wake you but he can't leave in the morning without giving you a quick kiss on the forehead

Overall, he's very quiet and efficient in the early morning

When you do get up you'll notice there's coffee waiting for you in the pot and some breakfast being warmed in the oven

Milo is always doting on you, even in ungodly hours of the morning

After a simple but relaxing breakfast it's not long until your boyfriend is back from the fields

A bit tired and already covered in dirt, Milo is more than happy to give you another kiss before washing up

After making himself the sweetest cup of coffee you've ever seen, the two of you finally have a bit of time to sit down and chat

"C'mon, six sugars are completely normal in a cup of coffee."

When Milo next heads out into the fields, expect an invite to come join him and his wooloo

Piers <3

Good luck getting out of bed anytime in the morning with this guy

Piers refuses to wake up before midday, and considering he spends all night on the stage or writing songs it's hard to blame him

You'll find yourself stuck wrapped up in the gym leaders arms, with his grip tightening every time you attempt to get free

He's quite content soaking in your warmth and catching up on sleep

He's a very heavy sleeper too, so if you want to try and wake Piers up you'll need to enlist help

Obstagoon

Your boyfriends ace pokemon is more than happy to weasel himself under the blankets before dragging a now half asleep Piers out of bed

The dark type does expect to be paid back in both breakfast and treats but it's worth it

With a grumble, Piers without fail always tries to run a hand through his bed hair before feeding the pokemon

It's somehow even wilder than it is usually, visible knots almost making you wince with the thought of getting them out

Piers is always a slow starter 'in the morning' and after settling the pokemon he's always happy to corner you in the kitchen for a few kisses

"We've got nothin' goin' on Doll, let's go back t' bed."

#pokemon #pokemon sword and shield #pokemon swsh #pokemon scarlet and violet #pokemon x reader #pokemon swsh x reader #pokemon sword and shield x reader #pokemon scarlet and violet x reader #elite four rika #gym leader milo #gym leader piers #pokemon rika #pokemon milo #pokemon piers #rika x reader #milo x reader #piers x reader

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daryl-dixon-daydreams · 6 months ago

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You were carrying the fawn in your arms as Daryl walked beside you, one hand on the strap of his crossbow. He couldn't stop himself from glancing sideways at you, taking in the way you were cradling the baby deer that had already fallen asleep in your arms.

Finally, you looked over at him as he stole another glance and you laughed lightly, the smile lighting up your face. "That's like the fifth time I've caught you glancing over here! What is it?"

He shrugged, ducking his head. "Nothin'... s'just... I dunno. Ya just ain't like anybody I've ever met," he said nervously. He hazarded a furtive glance in your direction to see one of your eyebrows cocked up in a question.

"Because of this baby?" you asked, looking down at the sleeping fawn. "What was I supposed to do, just leave her to starve? Those walkers killed her mom." You lifted a hand and ran your finger gently over the soft fur down her back.

Daryl shrugged. "A lot of people would've left it... or—put it down," he said. "Ain't gonna be easy to keep her goin'."

"We'll figure it out. I'll find some formula or something somewhere. Besides, she's not a newborn. Eventually she'll start grazing."

Daryl smiled at you again. "It ain't just this. Yer just—different, I guess."

You laughed again. "Okay... Hopefully in a good way."

He ducked his head again. "Yeah. Ya just—despite how the world is now, ya do little things that make it... better."

You hummed a thoughtful noise. "Well, you do too. A lot of us do, to keep each other going."

Daryl scratched thoughtfully at a spot on the back of his neck. "Yeah, but—it ain't just that. I—I ain't good at tryin' to explain it..." he trailed off. In truth, he could have, but his nerve was rapidly diminishing. You were the person that treated him with the most softness, the most kindness, the most steadfast belief in him as he was and you were strong at the same time. He didn't understand how you did it... and he was quickly figuring out that he'd fallen for you a long time ago. "Let's just get that little one home and warm, yeah?"

Prompt: "You're not like anyone I've ever met."

#soft!daryl #daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon twd #the walking dead #twd fanfics #daryl dixon drabbles #daryl imagines #daryl x y/n #fanfics #writers of tumblr #twd drabbles

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janeyseymour · 1 month ago

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Love Languages

Summary: You're the music teacher at Abbott Elementary, and you find that Melissa Schemmenti's love language may be not-so-gentle bullying- in Italian.

WC: ~2.8k

After accepting a music teaching position in one of the rougher areas in the greater Philadelphia area, it’s safe to say that you aren’t quite sure what’s going to be coming your way. Still, you persevere and head into Willard R. Abbott Elementary School’s professional development week with a smile and your bright and sunny disposition. The only way that you think you can make it as a teacher in a less affluent area with harder backgrounds than what you’re used to is to remain as positive as possible.

You quickly learn that there are about two teachers in the school who attempt to stay as positive as you when you walk into the library for your first meeting of the school year: Janine Teagues and Jacob Hill. The rest of the teachers are older and a bit more seasoned- jaded and attuned to the situation that you’re all in. It’s an underfunded school with students who don’t necessarily come from money with a principal who can poorly manage the building at times.

Still, as the meeting drags on (you feel like you don’t actually know what you’re walking into; most of the presentation has been pictures of Ava during her vacation this summer), you attempt to stay focused. Eventually, the topic shifts into more educational topics, and you take down a few notes despite the fact that benchmarks and other state mandated tests are not a part of your curriculum. And at some point towards the end, the principal introduces you to the rest of the staff.

“She our new music teacher,” Ava tells your new coworkers. “Don’t go scarin’ her off the way you scared off White, you hear?” She actively points at one teacher in particular with her perfectly manicured nails. “Schemmenti, I’m talkin’ to you.”

Your eyes follow the direction of Ava’s hand, and sitting there is a beautiful redhead who looks like she hasn’t been paying attention to these staff meetings for the last seven years. Striking green eyes are rolled, and Schemmenti scoffs.

At lunch, you’re just trying to heat up your meal when you’re practically bombarded by the two younger teachers who still seem to have a childlike wonder to them.

“You should sit with us so we can get to know you!” Janine smiles. She had already introduced herself and Jacob to you earlier in the day, and it’s quite clear she’s taken with your bright, yet somewhat shy, personality.

“And why would she do that, pipsqueak?” you hear a low voice growl. “I thought we had our group pretty filled out- and that was before Greg even wormed his way in.”

Your eyes search for who that voice belongs to, and it’s none other than the redhead from earlier. Damn- it’s sexy the way she speaks.

“Because, Melissa,” Janine gestures wildly. “It’s important that she feels comfortable at this school! I want her to feel just as welcome as I did my first few days here.”

“I didn’t do nothin’ to try to make you feel welcome,” Melissa states. “And I ain’t goin’ out of my way to be nice to someone who’s just going to leave us in a few days anyway.” Then she turns to look at you. “Ain’t that right, newbie?”

“I guess you’ll have to wait and find out,” you quip as the microwave signals that your food is finished. You smile at the group warmly before sighing. “While I do appreciate the invite, I have a few things I still need to set up in my room and get together. Have a nice day though!”

You exit, but not before you hear Melissa grumbling, “She’s just another leccaculo. Ass kisser.”

You aren’t, but you suppose that she doesn’t know you yet, so you let it slide and silently head off to your classroom to pour over lesson plans while you eat your meal.

That’s only the first time she calls you that. As time goes on, she gets more confident and starts insulting you in Italian to your face. The first time she has the courage to call you a leccaculo directly, you have to bite back a laugh. She has no idea you know what she’s saying- you had taken Italian all throughout high school and studied abroad in college.

“I’m not an ass kisser,” you chuckle, and your laughter only grows when emerald eyes widen with realization that you understand her. “But thanks anyway.”

She calls you a myriad of other insults in Italian as the days pass by, whether it be in the staff room or while she’s dropping off or picking her kids up from music. Occasionally, it’s when you have the unfortunate lunch duty, and she does too. And each time she does it, you just roll your eyes playfully and laugh before letting her know you know the translation, refuting her claim, and thanking her.

It almost becomes like a bit of yours- and inside joke to a certain degree. Sure, she calls the others Italian insults from time to time, but yours seem to be almost daily, if not every day. And you’re the only one who actually knows what she’s saying, which makes it all the more hilarious.

It’s not like you really mind either. It’s quite entertaining to you to see that even when she starts to switch to Sicilian slang, you know what she’s saying. It’s keeping the language alive in your mind.

“Don’t you care that she says all that stuff to you?” Janine asks you one day after Melissa has left the staff lounge.

You shrug. “It doesn’t phase me.”

“But you know what she’s saying to you,” the second grade teacher reminds you. “And it’s never nice.”

“I do,” you chuckle. “Listen, I know she’s mean, and she’s rude, but her voice is so lovely. I’d listen to her call me names all day. And I do. Even at home.”

“At home?” Janine gives you a look that tells you she’s clearly confused, but you just shrug her off with a smile.

“I live like… seven doors down from her. When I go on my walks after school, she’s pulling into her driveway just in time to throw an insult my way. And why should I dwell on it when I know at this point, she doesn’t mean what she’s saying? She just likes speaking her language and having someone who understands what she’s saying.”

And with that, you exit the staff room to head to the bathroom before your whirlwind of an afternoon starts.

To a degree, you’re right. The fiery Italian second grade teacher loves that she can speak in the language she used to talk in growing up. Someone finally understands what she’s saying. It’s nostalgic. But at this point, Melissa just likes hearing your voice. She likes to see that dumb smirk that you give her as you reveal that you know exactly what she was calling you, before it melts away into that bright smile of yours. Melissa Schemmenti realizes that she just might have some feelings for you.

Once she has that revelation though, she doesn’t change what she does. If anything, she lays them on a little thicker, challenging you to fight her back or tell her she’s gone too far with a few of her insults. But of course, you’re a champion and you can only laugh at some of the insanely creative insults she comes up with in a foreign language.

“You have quite the imagination when it comes to what you choose to say,” you chuckle as she hurls one at you while picking her students up. “I am indeed not… that, but thank you.”

She’s about to say something else while her students wait for her at the corner of the hall, but then Barbara is coming down with her students, and you’re forced to turn your brain back on to work with kindergarteners.

“Well, Miss Schemmenti,” you smirk. “I can’t wait to see what you come up with next.”

“Neither can I, Cagacazzo.” The redhead chuckles.

“Not that either,” you playfully roll your eyes before turning to the kindergarten teacher. “Why, hello Mrs. Howard!”

“Hello dear,” Barbara greets you warmly, a hand stretching out to gently squeeze your arm. “How are you today?”

“I’m wonderful,” you smile. “But I think my day is about to get better, now that I have your kiddos.”

“I do hope they behave for you,” Barb tells you, although she gives a few of her more rowdy students a pointed look.

“They always do,” you assure her sweetly. Only then do you realize that Melissa is still standing there. “Miss Schemmenti? You there?” you tease.

The redhead begins to flounder for words, but Barbara steps in to save her. “Melissa and I were going to chat on our ways back to the classrooms, dear. Don’t mind her.”

In all truth, the second grade teacher just loves how your voice sounds. It’s amazing the way that you can switch from a lower register in your vocals while teasing her and bantering with her before raising your pitch and sounding like an angel to speak with Barbara and her students.

The two head off once you explain to the small class what they’re to do upon entering your classroom and ushering them in.

The pair is a few paces away when Barbara leans in and quietly whispers, “Girl, you have it bad for Y/N.”

“I do not,” Melissa grumbles her denial as she gestures for her students to continue on down the hallway.

“Don’t act like you don’t,” the kindergarten teacher hums. “I see the way you look at her, mmm, yes.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Not as crazy as you are if you don’t notice that you want to court the music teacher,” Barbara chuckles lowly as she turns into her own classroom.

“Barb!” Melissa rolls her eyes. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, this ain’t Bridgerton!”

“It may not be,” the kindergarten teacher quips. “But I know what my eyes see!”

“Sei pazza,” Melissa calls back as she too enters her room. “Crazy!”

Barbara Howard is a lot of things, but crazy isn’t one of them. And both veteran teachers at the school know it.

A few weeks pass, and the routine that you find yourself in with the redhead continues on as usual. The routines that you find yourself in with the others soldiers on. Melissa is snarky and hard to read, often times brushing you off. You still allow her to insult you with a smile and a laugh, refuting every name that she calls you. You settle into easy conversation with the others at lunch, always excited to hear what they’re doing in their classrooms that week, or to just converse about whatever could be going on in their minds at that moment.

You find that you quite enjoy having this odd little group as your work family. You’re not quite sure how you managed to weasel yourself into their very tight knit group, but you aren’t complaining. It makes working at Abbott a lot easier than when you were working in a school where homeroom teachers essentially told you that you weren’t a real teacher. How they could treat you like that baffled you then, and it baffles you to this day. You’re just thankful you got out of there and are now being appreciated at your new place of employment.

“Have a nice weekend,” you tell your colleagues as you go to leave the staff room. You smile brightly and wave at them before smirking. “And no, Melissa, I am not whatever you were going to call me this time.”

“Damn, taking my fun away,” the redhead grumbles. “I’ll just save it for when you’re on your walk later.”

You actually don’t see the redhead pulling in while you’re on your daily after school walk to decompress. Her car isn’t in the driveway either, so you know she isn’t home. It’s odd, sure, but once you’ve passed, you don’t think much else of it.

The weekend is here, and you thank goodness for that. The kids have been amped up what with the holiday season about to kick off with Halloween before leading into November and December.

Once you return from your walk, you’re showered and changed into sweatpants, takeout is ordered and eaten; you’ve allowed yourself to indulge after the hectic week. You have no plans other than to curl up with a glass of wine and a good book. If you drink enough, you may just end up at the keyboard that you have set up, or perhaps you’ll bring out the guitar that sits in the corner of your living room. But you know one thing for sure: you are not leaving the comfort of your own home.

You’re about two-thirds of the way through your small bottle of wine and getting a bit restless laying on the couch with your book. You sigh softly as you put your bookmark in place and stand to head for the keyboard when your phone lights up.

Melissa Schemmenti is calling you? It’s… you glance at the clock on your wall. It’s nearing eleven. Why is she calling you?

“Melissa?” you answer, clearly confused.

“I- I don’t know why I called. Sorry. Have a good night,” the redhead’s voice crackles through the phone. And even though you aren’t with her, and you really have no idea why she’s calling this late at night, you can sense that there’s something off with her. She doesn’t have the same bit that she usually does- she almost sounds… scared?

But before you can react, the call disconnects. You shoot her a text asking if everything is alright, and when five minutes go by without a reply, you run a tired hand over your face before pulling your shoes on.

You’ve never really noticed how eery the area that you reside in is at night. You’re rarely out this late, and when you are, you aren’t walking the streets. Still, you head in the direction of the redhead’s house. It doesn’t take you long. Once you’re at her front door, you take a fortifying breath before knocking gently.

You shouldn’t be shocked when she opens the door wielding a weapon: her precious baseball bat.

“Seriously?” you ask. “I knocked so gently, how could you think someone was trying to hurt you?”

“I never know,” Melissa answers. “I bet you’re an idiota who answers the door without a bat, aren’t you?”

You chuckle softly. “I am not an idiot, but I can say with confidence that I don’t have a baseball bat with me when I open the door.”

“Well, you should,” the redhead counters. “Why are you here?”

“Melissa, you called me at eleven at night sounding terrified and then didn’t answer my text. I do care about you. you know. I wanted to make sure you were okay,” you tell her as she sets down her baseball bat.

Your coworker hums gently. “I thought you were barely tolerating me this whole time. I mean, I’ve seen how you are with the others- and I’m not like that. I can’t be like that, even if I wanted to.”

“I know,” you smile softly. “You’re not easy to know, and you make it hard to like you sometimes. But I’ve always liked a challenge, and sometimes you have to meet people at their own pace.”

“But I didn’t expect you to come all the way out here. I wasn’t thinking; I just woke up scared and calling you was the first thing I could do. You didn’t need to check up on me.” Melissa welcomes you into her house.

“No,” you sigh as you make your way into her house. “But I wanted to. Thank you for letting me in.”

“You’re thanking me for letting you into my house?” the redhead quirks a brow.

You chuckle. “Well, that. But also for letting me in and past your rough exterior. You’re finally starting to meet me halfway.”

The redhead just rolls her eyes. “Just because I called you in a moment of weakness doesn’t mean I don’t still think you’re a barbone.”

“I can’t be a bum,” you smile cheekily. “I have a job, a house, and I came all this way to check on you in the middle of the night.”

“Only an idiota would venture out at eleven at night without a baseball bat,” Melissa counters. “You know I ain’t letting you walk home alone now. So, how about a glass of wine, and maybe a movie before I shove you in my guest room for the night?”

It only occurs to you after you wake up the next morning (on the couch, with Melissa using your chest for a pillow), that she could’ve just driven you home.

Tags

(and let me know if you want to be included!): @schemmentis @thesapphictimelady @marvel210 @itisdoctortoyousir @morgana-larkin @doesthatsuggestanythingtoyou @sweetcheeksschemmenti @megamultifandomtrashposts @lemz378 @http-sam @melissaschemmentisbranzino @imaginesmultifandoms @sexysapphicshopowner @lilfartbox1 @maybe-a-humanbean @imlike-so-gaydude @a-queen-and-her-throne @notinmyvocab @melanielaufeyson @dvrkhcld @cosmichymns @sasheemo @m1lflov3rrr @ricejucie @temilyrights @emilynissangtr @squinnchy @dopenightmaretyphoon @emeraldoceansstuff @shinyfaerielights @blkmxrvel @marvelwomenrule @sarahjohannson @casualfoxwitch @babytakeittothehead @schemmentits

#abbott elementary fanfiction #abbott elementary #abbott elementary fanfic #lisa ann walter #melissa schemmenti fanfic #melissa schemmenti #melissa schemmenti x reader #melissa schemmenti x you #melissa schemmenti fanfiction

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netherfeildren · 9 months ago

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FABLE OF THE DOG : 1. The Two Headed Calf

Series Masterlist;

Pairing: Joel Miller x FMC

Summary: Welcome home and buck up, cowgirl.

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: Cowboy/Heiress AU; Slowburn(ish); Original Characters; Alcohol & Drug Use; Discussions of Grief; Daddy Issues; Graphic Descriptions of Vomiting; Description of a Dead Body; Death of a Parent; Parental Neglect; Older Man/Younger Woman; Jealousy; Past Teenage Crush; Unrequited Pinning; Yearning and Longing Galore; Boss’s Daughter; Complicated Family Relationships; A Home is a Place but ALSO a Person!; Found Family

A/N: Disclaimer, I know nothing about Wyoming and it’s geography, ranching, or being a cowboy and just made all this up. Any and all misrepresentations are fallacy of my laziness.

The FMC tag was decided because she has a last name. It was just too difficult for me to speak in depth about her father without giving him a name, and thus her one too. After that decision was made, she kind of went away from me and devolved into her own person who I have come to be quite obsessed with. It’s still written in ‘you’ format, anyhow.

I’ve been having a whole lot of fun with this, I hope you do too.

Word Count: 10K

Read on AO3

1: The Two Headed Calf

“She’s been shut up in that house goin’ on three days now, Joel,” Tommy says as the two brothers make their way across the lawn.

The ride had been long and hard, and Joel is tired—he levels a dark look at him. “Just sayin’. Nothin’ you find in there’s gonna be pretty to look at.” He raises his hands in surrender at the brooding glare, that non-confrontational shrug that’s set Joel on edge since they were boys.

“One of you’s should’a gone in there. Made sure she’s okay.”

“The housekeepers’ve been keepin’ an eye. And Frank tried to go in there and check on her himself, but she’s angry as a barn cat. Hissin’ ‘nd yowlin’, and just bein’ downright scary as hell, to be honest. You should be prepared is all I’m tryin’ to say.”

“Her father just died, Tommy. I’m not expectin’ pretty sights right now,” Joel gruffs, trying to swallow the panic that flutters in his throat as they crest the final hill up to the big house.

The beautiful stone, oak, glass monstrosity that’s stood as monument to this place, this home that is not truly his, for over a decade now. The Kelly Ranch. The sky above is still a sultry, yawning blue, deep and tired, basking in the throes of dawn as the sun just now makes its way over the crest of the Tetons in the distance so that the house sits for just a moment longer in its pool of shadowed blues.

Joel pauses on the border of that somber darkness, afraid suddenly of what awaits him inside; boots glued to the ground with the gum of cowardice. He doesn’t want to see her broken. He doesn’t want to see her hurting. But there’s no other recourse, he knows this. The death of the estranged father she’d fought with all her life, the inheritance of this world that seems suddenly too big for just one orphaned girl, all alone now.

He’s afraid that he’ll walk into that house he’s always seen as other and home all wrapped into one—that Olympus that was so far removed and out of reach even when he walked through it’s halls to the man who’d given him sanctuary and salvation, to the man he knew mistreated her sometimes, didn’t love her enough—and not have the capacity to recognize her, this girl who’d always been familiar and stranger all in one also.

Joel Miller suddenly feels afraid of the memory she exists as in his mind, in the face of the woman he knows she is now.

When he lets himself in the back kitchen door, it’s still nighttime within. The cool dryness of the AC cranked up to inhuman temperatures makes him shiver once while sprouting a damp sweat along his nape. He should’ve showered before coming, should’ve washed the ride and the days of camp off his skin before walking into her presence, but all he’d managed were his hands and face. There’d been panic to make sure she was well, if not then alive, at least. But he should be more presentable for her.

Hell, he should’ve been here for her when she came home for the first time in two years to the house where her father had died. He should’ve been here when the man died.

But the herd had needed moving. He hadn’t thought it’d all happen so quickly, thought he had more time, that they all had more time. He’d hoped she wouldn’t return at all, if he was being honest. There was nothing here for her. Nothing except memories of a gilded and loveless, already motherless childhood. The reality of all she was set to inherit. The truth of an aloneness Joel didn’t know if she was prepared for.

He moves through the house slowly, afraid to disturb the ghosts and the silence. The interior, immaculate and beautiful and solemn. Something out of a movie picture or the gloss of a magazine. Something covered not in dust but in sadness. The stairs are silent as his spinning mind makes up for the creak, the boots she’d sent him on his last birthday hit the richly piled rug at the top, and the hallway to the bedrooms yawns long and frightening in front of him. Two grand a pop, the boots—Lucchese, he’d looked them up on the iPhone she’d sent him the year before. A gift giver, generous to a fault, kind to a detriment. She sent something to all the ranch hands that’d worked for her father since she was a girl. Something for the entire ranch at Christmas. And all he managed each time was a perfunctory thank you card, like he did every year because he remembered, years ago, in her little voice, polite people send thank you notes, Joel, my grandmother told me so. Last year he’d written that they were too much, that she shouldn’t have, that he was grateful. There wasn’t much else to say.

That was the extent of their communication, familiar and stranger in one, the far removed golden child of the Kelly. They’d all called him that, the Kelly, for as long as he’d known the man. As if he was some Scottish laird of old, ruling over his clan and half the world. Egotistical, was what it really was. He’d thought himself a god among men, in the face of his only child. Ridiculous was what Joel saw it all for, a put on play, a farce.

And wonder of wonders, she was entirely unlike him because of course she would be. Of course a man ruled by nothing more than ego and narcissism had been sent his polar opposite in the form of his only child. Kind hearted, was what she was—sending him a birthday gift every year. Remembering them all here always no matter how far she’d gone. He sent her a thank you note for each benevolence in return, a word of respectful gratitude for the fact that a person like her could ever remember a dog like him.

Sometimes, Joel had wanted to go to him, the old man, Oswald Kelly, and ask him where his daughter was, why he wasn’t looking for her, keeping her closer, caring for her. He wasn’t the sort of man that could’ve ever understood such callous behavior towards one’s child.

The last time she’d been here, over two years ago: less than forty eight hours that had ended in screaming so terrible they’d all heard it down from the barn, sitting in uncomfortable, swollen silence, the spinning of tires ringing as she yelled at her father that he was never going to see her again, the man’s echoing laugh as she’d fled him.

Joel hadn’t seen her on that visit, it’d been so quick and angry. Flying down on the jet from New Haven for her father’s seventieth birthday and not even making it long enough for the festivities. This was what her life was, as he’d observed it from a distance for all these years, the singular daughter of this great house, coming to her father, attempting joy and finding nothing but disappointment at the end of him.

She’d been right, a knowing streak running through her. Kelly had never seen her again, and Joel didn’t know if the old man had regretted it or not, the anger and the estrangement and the lack of love. But the last time he’d spoken to him, hours before setting off on their move, the herd always came before everything else, the ranch was all that mattered is what the man had always said, with death scratching at the window, his frail and withered body licked down to almost nothing from the austere and imposing figure Joel had always known him as, he’d asked for her. His only child. Do you think she’ll come, Joel? The dying man had asked him. My girl, do you think she’ll come see me? Joel had lied a lie he hadn’t known was one, said she would, that he’d call her as soon as he was back.

In the end, he hadn’t even afforded her that decency, a personal call.

He comes to her open bedroom door now, pitch dark as grief within, and the stench of sorrow and liquor seeping from the living grave. He looks down the long and empty hall for a brief second, wishing it didn’t have to be him, that again, he didn't have to see her any way other than okay. And he realizes that there’s something about her, as she will exist now, that makes him cowardly. Something about this house without the man who’d granted him the absolution of a hiding place all those years ago, who’d understood and sheltered Joel in the midst of his own past grief, that makes him cowardly. The house feels wrong without Kelly within it, wrong with only her as its holder now.

Joel steps into her dark, and it’s a battleground—

—You are silent and motionless in the blue room.

Nothing of the gleaming splendor that dresses the rest of the home sleeps in here. There are clothes everywhere, an exploded suitcase lies open and massacred in the middle of the plush white rug, a turned over bottle of red wine bleeding into your clothes. Shredded pages with scratched on writing slashed across them, the dusted white mounds of crushed pills, as if you’d smashed each one individually beneath the thumb of your grief. The sight makes him more afraid, the scent of weed and cigarettes heavy in the air, as he takes the final step towards the wrecked bed, and a single small foot hangs limply from the edge.

He stares at it long and hard for a second, afraid, afraid again, still, of what he’ll find. He says your name once, short and gruff like a dog’s bark. It’s what he feels like. Animal, bestial, lacking any sort of cognizance amidst this minefield. His heart beats against his spine, and he thinks he should do something else, shake you, check for a pulse, his bones throb inside his skin. He needs to fucking move, but the smell of smoke is so cloying he’s choking on his own tongue.

Your ankle twitches.

And Joel sucks in a sigh of relieved air without panic, saying your name again. His voice is level now, maybe gentle, no more barking dog. His eyes move up the length of one pretty leg, and then quickly, he averts his gaze when he gets high up enough he’s met with soft-creased asscheek covered in silk. Swallowing his tongue, his eyes roll in their sockets, looking for anything else to look at besides the sight of panty clad ass. He steps closer again, gripping the edge of the sheet to pull it over your scantily clad body, eyes flitting to the silver spun clock on the nightstand, the warm glow of the hall light shows that they have two hours to get you sober and presentable before the funeral.

Joel should have been here. He does not feel that he is even here now. And the guilt eats at him like acid. The fear too.

“Darlin’, you’ve gotta get up now,” he says softly, taking hold of your shoulder, scalded by the feel of fragile skin, realizing with the suddenness of a gunshot that you’ll be the Kelly now. He gives you a gentle shake, “We’ve gotta get you ready,” and his heart pumps blood like a machine. The sight of the dry liquor bottle toppled on the nightstand, the shattered glass glittering the floor in crystal, the empty pill bottles, it all taunts him. His guilt is a cacophony in his mind. He knows he’s going to have to stick his fingers down your throat, make you spit it all up, that you’ll hate him for all of this afterwards, but when his gaze meets streaked rust, dark and shocking against the white sheets, he’s kicked into terrified action.

He turns you over, your head lolling sickeningly in unconscious stupor, hair a tangled mess strewn about your face so that he has to dig for your eyes, parting the curtains of your fringe to uncover you. He focuses on your closed eyes, the too long lashes clumped together, lips cracked and parched.

He should’ve fucking been here.

Smoothing his fingers along the lengths of your arms, he keeps his eyes on your face and averted from all the skin that keeps peeking out below, searching the divots and slopes of your arms for hurts. When he gets to your right hand, battleground of a long ago broken hurt, he finds the drying crust of blood, the ragged split in the soft, small palm, thankfully shallow.

His eyes smart, looking down at the broken glass, feeling the tear in you.

Gripping you gently below the elbows he pulls you into his arms, cradled like a child, light as loss. Your head lolls again, neck crooked at an unnatural angle as he carries you into the restroom, careful of your head, knocking the lights on and putting you down in front of the toilet bowl. He pulls your camisole to rights, making sure everything is covered, and gathers your mess of hair as carefully as he can, trying his best to not snag the fragile strands in his too rough hands, but gripping you firmly in position. And ignoring the sound of your awakening cry, he sticks two fingers into your slack jawed mouth and down your throat until he feels the hot rush of vomit.

Crouching behind you, his thighs bracket you, keeping your form from slumping over as you empty the poison from your belly, flushing the alcohol soaked bile as you struggle. He wipes his messy hand on the leg of his jeans and rubs soothing circles on your back, his fingers woven through the soft silk of your hair to keep your head in place and your face clear. His heart thumps in rhythm with your heaves, your too quick, panicked breathing. There seems to be not enough oxygen for the two of you and your grief in the too small room of the commode, and Joel gasps like a dying fish, trying to swallow calm breaths.

When you finally stop your heaving, you rest your arms at the edge of the gleaming porcelain, head hung low, defeated, wracked with shivers or silent sobs, he isn’t sure, a strange and horrible keening noise, so small he barely catches it, held in your throat. There’s the finest down of peach fuzz that covers the tender slope of your vulnerable nape, and it makes Joel feel suddenly, just as vulnerable, just as unprotected. At a complete loss for how to help you.

“Finally decided to show your face,” you croak, voice ragged with your sick.

His fingers tighten once around your shoulder, a panicked tick of reminder that he’s here now, that he’s him. “I was moving the herd. It had to be done. Your father, he—” he stutters, trying explain, tripping over his own guilt ridden words. “I didn’t think it’d happen now, so fast, that you’d get here so soon. I thought we had more time.”

We.

Your skin seems to cool by the second beneath his fingertips, and then you’re shrugging his touch away, huddling closer to the porcelain bowl, further away from him.

“Get out.”

“Let me explain. I—” And he’s begging now. He can hear the note of it in his voice. Begging for forgiveness. For a chance.

“I don’t want to see you.” You don’t say his name. “Get out.” It feels worse than anything.

“I’m here now. I didn’t know— I didn’t think.” He reaches to grab for you again, but you turn to face him suddenly. Wiping the back of your hand against your mouth, pushing your heels at his shins to kick him away. Your eyes are red rimmed, the hollows beneath bruised with lack of sleep. But fire spits from the deep color, all anger and hurt.

“Go deal with your fucking ranch,” you fling the words at him. “It’s all you care about anyways.” And they weren’t shivers, he sees now, they’re tears tracked as proof of all his guilt, all his lacking, along the slopes of your fine grained cheeks.

Your, you say. As if this place and anything in it has ever been his. He’s never wanted any of it like that, only ever seen a thing that needed taking care of, and him, with the ability to care for it.

“I needed you,” you whisper as if the thought comes along on a second wind of anger, a realization that sends your voice breaking, hitching, your chest caving in on itself as the tears come faster and faster now. “He’s dead, and I needed you.”

“I’m sorry,” he begs. “I’m so sorry.” His voice breaks now too. He thinks he’ll cry now too, for the man who he also lost, who despite it all meant something to him, as well. For you, who’s lost even more. For Joel’s own guilt.

But he doesn’t think you see any of that, not his apology, not his regret, not his own grief. You turn away from him again, laying your temple down again on your forearm. “Get out. I’ll be ready soon.”

And so he goes.

Your father is made small and withered in death.

One of the wealthiest men in the entire world. A stranger, a titan, a nightmare of a man.

It wasn’t something you’d ever considered, that a human body could look so colorless and frigid and not alive. Like a shock or a ringing bell, it’s a realization that you’re an orphan now. That you’re all alone.

You feel something like a memory of regret. Or something that’s like the idea that you should feel regret, that you should feel guilt for how it was between the two of you. But all that is overshadowed by the reality of what you weren’t. All you feel even more, or in actual reality, is the old loss of what you’d never been to each other. That, you realize, is the seed of your grief. That long ago wound, that child’s understanding that he wasn’t like all the other fathers, that he’d never care for you the way other children were cared for.

Looking down at the frozen face that looks nothing like the one he’d worn the last time you’d seen him, the wispy thatch of hair that hadn’t been so jarringly white before sickness had ravaged his body, you realize that this is no new loss, it is only a continuation, a reopening of a very old one.

The cavernous cathedral at your back is silent, vacated by the sea of people that had congregated here earlier. And with sickening curiosity, you uncoil an arm from where you’ve got it wrapped around yourself, reaching out to press a finger against the ice cold back of his hand. Shockingly not alive; he feels made of rubber.

Everyone that’d been here to bid farewell to this behemoth turned slip of a man, to catch a glimpse of you, packed like teeth into Jackson’s grandest cathedral; business men and heads of state from around the world, the oldest family names in the country, figures of the highest echelons of wealth and society, vipers circling the barrel—half the world here to see this person who was supposed to have been your father but was really only a stranger.

You take your hand back, and you don’t say goodbye as you turn away from his body. There’s no farewell to really tell.

And at the back of the church, hiding in a bright ream of sunlight, Joel stands propped against the face of a saint. Dark and silent and maybe even more far removed than your dead dad. Watching sentinel. Oswald Kelly’s hovering man—come to watch over him one last time.

The silk of your stockings slide against each other at the junction of your thighs, the hiss of your skirt around your calves as your reed thin heels click against the stone, and you pull your armor as tightly around yourself as you can. There’s a hollow echo inside of everywhere and everything, your mind like a gong, reverberating, and his gaze is so steady, hazel bright, deeply shaded by the lip of his dark hat, beckoning you towards him from beneath the brim.

Large and strong and steadfast, your heart gives a painful, longing thump—stupid, writhing thing—and you can only bear to look him in the eye for a second, and if you were to really think about saying goodbye to that father that never really was, lying behind you, slipping further and further away, you’d say it to the man that always stood as his shadow before the world, before you ever said it to the man himself.

The drive back home is cast in frigid silence and made all the more uncomfortable because you can practically hear Joel’s brain clicking and ticking away with worry.

He’d sent your car and driver away with a harsh word while you collected your final goodbyes and words of respect from the last smattering of people congregated and waiting for the newly birthed heir to one of the greatest fortunes in the world.

Hovering over your shoulder, he’d kept anyone from stepping too close or getting too friendly, so close you could feel the heat of his chest through the silk of your blouse, and then going suddenly full on aggressive when a reporter from the New York Times had approached, fishing for a quote on the future of the Kelly empire. Ushering you away with a hovering hand at the small of your back before the man could get half a question out, he’s opening the truck’s door for you as a haze descends over your eyes, the distant shutter and flash of cameras bursting in your peripherals, a latent hangover and sleep deprivation and not enough to eat in the last forty eight hours causing you to sag in his hold. Then it’s only his big fist wrapping around the span of your wrist as he lifts you into the truck, your eyes downcast and unable to take in sight or sound, vision all a blur. You murmur a barely there thank you with his hand fitting at the dip of your waist, big body blocking yours entirely from prying eyes trying to catch a glimpse or a stumble, and for a single second, your entire weight is suspended in his hold, allowing you to bypass the struggle of balancing your high heel on the step up, and then you’re sliding onto the leather of the seat, the whisper of your cashmere and silk rustling around you as he handles you like a child being spirited away from the scene of a crime.

The door shuts gently behind you, face turned away from the flashing lights, the watchful eyes of the whole world, and worst of all, the assessment of his concerned gaze. All you’re afforded are thirty seconds of privacy to let out a single gasping sob.

And now, an hour and a half of silent purgatory.

You slip your heels off, flexing your smarting toes against the damp of your stockings and tuck your folded legs beneath you on the seat. Paying the frantic energy of his anxiety and lodged words no mind, you consider instead: your new reality. The burden of it all means very little to you now. The last of your worries is being readied for entombing as the two of you speed down the eighty nine, zinging past the bright Wyoming green. The thrum of his truck drowns out your thoughts, brand new, probably over a hundred grand, only the best for your father’s right hand man, and the Kelly Ranch insignia emblazoned proudly on the sides. A brand for the whole world to see just who exactly is being whisked away to her old home turned brand spanking new grave.

You might be feeling a little bit dramatic. But then again— you’d just put your last remaining parent in an actual grave, surely that provides you some allowances.

Out of the corner of your eye, you can see his big paw gripping the leathered steering wheel in a death clutch, knuckles white with his frustration at the dilemma you pose, his own discomfort. You’re sure if he thought you wouldn’t catch him, he’d be squirming in his seat.

You do something to him sometimes, you know this. Not in any way you’d like, not in any interesting way, that of a woman affecting a man, but something respectfully harrowing. Maybe something a little bit like fear.

There has existed between the two of you, always, that strange intimacy of two people who’ve known each other for a very long time, and yet, have always remained at a far removed, arms length distance from one another.

A professional intimacy of sorts. Your father’s foreman, shadow, fixer. The man who guarded that treasure trove you’d inherit one day, today; the thing your father loved most in the world. Two people who’ve known each other a long time, and yet, don’t really know each other at all.

There has always been, however, the fact of the birthday.

The birthday. Your birthday.

The way you’d latched onto that small, immense, detail when you’d first discovered it at fourteen, when he’d newly arrived at the ranch and the true weight of your first real crush had really hit you, it was probably not entirely healthy. But you’d thought yourself in love with your father’s man, the first figure of the male species who’d ever drawn your attention in such a way.

He’d never paid you any mind; you were the boss's daughter, a figurehead or a responsibility, maybe a nuisance, although he’d never ever treated you as one. But the day someone had let slip it was his birthday, on the same day as yours, your teenage heart had swelled with the naive hope of fate. It was meant to be, the two of you were connected, so on and so forth, swallowed by girlish innocence and made buoyant by fantasy.

But you’d had something to share with someone, which was what really mattered. Something tangible, even if only in your inexperienced little mind, something to wield as comfort so that the first time your father had forgotten your special day, fifteen, and what a tender age it had been, you’d had something to cling to. That's when your gifts to him had started. It was your way of making sure there was at least one person in the whole world who’d remember that was your day too. That you were alive, that you mattered. A reminder of yourself. And as the years and birthdays passed, sometimes, when he sent those coldly gracious notes of his, you’d wished you could’ve written back with honesty. Said something like, I’m so lonely, wish you were here, wherever it was in the world you’d found yourself at the time.

And of course, he was gorgeous and older, strong and patient and capable, entirely unattainable. Impossible to forget. You’d gone so far, traveled wide, gotten yourself an overpriced education that would probably serve you for nothing, had lovers and parties and splendor, and always, you remembered your gifts for him, you remembered him. It was the single most important detail of your birthday every year.

The leather creaks beneath his fist again, chapped knuckles set to burst before he flexes his fingers out, long and straight. Thickly built hands, strong, made for working or hurting, on a man who you’ve never seen be anything but stoically patient.

He was strange in that way, neither wholly impulsive nor precisely intentional in his mannerisms. More so, it was that there was something extremely neutral about him, a middle buoyancy of personality. Strict with the cowboys, exacting, wielding his title as ranch foreman with an iron fist and your father’s blessing, and yet still, quiet, serious, with that patient gentleness about him. You’d seen it in the way he’d handled Ellie when she’d first come to the ranch, young and skinny with that hollow look of trauma kids who’d seen things they shouldn’t have shamed adults with. She’d been a little older than you, and with an air you’d not understood, a sort of lived past you’d been naive to the existence of, frightened when confronted by it, and yet inevitably, the two of you’d become fast friends eventually.

You’d even experienced it yourself, on two treasured occasions, that gentleness that you’d held onto for years. Nurturing the memory of him in your mind like a delusional bloom.

He stretches his hand again, wheel caught between his thumb and forefinger, cinching it there, back and forth. His nails are meticulously clean, cut to the quick, and you imagine he must spend a great deal of time cleaning himself up when he works so hard at getting himself so dirty most days.

You can see him sneaking glances at you, and he coughs once, a clearing of his nervous throat. Averting your gaze, you turn your face away so that you’ll be able to watch him through the reflection in the window. He monopolizes the space in the cabin of the truck, broad shoulders and hulking form, all the fine leather smell washed away in the scent of him. That bay rum aftershave he’s always worn, the one with the distinctive notes of bay leaf, cloves and citrus. An old fashioned scent, masculine and crisp.

You’d snuck into the bunk once with Ellie, before he’d moved into the foreman’s cabin, before Switzerland, when the two of you were still girls running rampant and free through the ranch, clutching desperately at the last vestiges of any sort of happy childhood you could scrounge up for one another. You’d peeked in his things, found a whole world of Joel shaped curiosities. The glass etched bottle of aftershave, a hole spotted t-shirt with a burnt orange longhorn across the front, Flannery O’Connor’s The Complete Stories—something you found comforting, knowing he could read about the small, the freakish, real life; thinking that perhaps he was homesick for the comfort of the South, hungering for a taste of the life he’d had then, through books. And then, in a spine cracked copy of Suttree, the pages almost falling apart beneath your fingertips, dog eared and well loved, her picture tucked between the pages.

It had been the first time you’d done something you knew you shouldn’t have and actually regretted it, looking down at that green eyed photograph.

You’d run back to your room after that, ashamed and something a little bit like jealous, desperate to know who she was, desperate for someone to keep a picture of you like that—as if they loved you. And years later, you’d found the scent for yourself. The little molasses glass bottle you still have and pull out on occasion, when you’re feeling extra bad, extra lonesome, extra far away from the whole world, just for a reminding of home.

Beside you, he sighs again, coughs again, brings you back to himself and the present. Just spit it out already, you think exasperatedly, say something, anything else besides how sorry you are.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” he starts, and you roll your eyes, scoffing quietly.

“You already said that.” Sullen. Mullish. You wish you were a child who could still throw a tantrum and get away with it. Letting your eyes go unfocused from his reflection in the window, you brood at the sight of everything that’s yours now as he turns off the highway, passing below the iron eave of the Kelly Ranch entrance. Eight hundred thousand acres of pristine Wyoming land nestled into the deep valley surrounded by the Grand Tetons mountain range.

“Well, I’m sayin’ it again.” He’s driving too fast, and you refuse to turn and look at his face. Your heart beats blood in your ears, and you screw your eyes shut to the dizzying blur of green legacy, not wanting to see any of it—him.

Your belly swoops, going slightly nauseous and gurgling.

“I didn’t think you’d get here so quick.” He swallows, “Hell, I didn’t think it’d all happen so damn fast.”

“I was already in New York,” you tell him, voice clipped with breathlessness. “I left Paris last week.”

“What? I didn’t know— I—”

“Why would you?”

“I would’ve called you. I would’ve gotten you out here quicker.”

“Ellie called. It’s better like this, Joel.” Finally letting yourself say his name out loud, it feels wrong and molten on your tongue, a heaviness being spit up from the depths of your stomach. “We don’t have to pretend anymore. He’s dead now.”

“There’s no pretending. He wanted to see you—”

“Please, stop.”

But he urges on unheeded: “He told me so before I left. Told me—”

“Stop,” you snap. Finally turning to look at him and hating him for it. For how gorgeous he is, for all the things he’s always made you feel for as long as you can remember what it was to feel something for a man, for all he did or did not have with your father when you had none of it or so much of an entirely different thing. “Stop. I don’t want to hear any of it. It doesn't matter anymore, Joel.”

“But you should know. You deserve to know that—”

“What?” Because that one hurts. “I deserve to know what?” That he actually had loved you but had just never been able to show it? That now it was too late? That the only person the great Oswald Kelly had ever been able to speak to of the supposed care he had for his only daughter was the hired help? You’d read once that one should never let their parents anywhere near their real humiliations. You’d tried your damndest to follow that as soon as you’d grown up. “It’s not your place,” you seethe with teeth bared, an animal shoved into a corner and made to fight for its life, deciding you won’t ever let Joel near them either.

He spits a cursing, growled sound of frustration, but doesn’t continue. The two of you find yourselves at an impasse, and you turn back to your windowed mirror of him, eyes pinching hot, filling with tears. One of the things your father disliked most about you, your easy tears, and a single salt marred inadequacy tracks down the slope of your cheek, dripping off the edge of your jaw into the bandaged cup of your palm, and you breathe slow and measured through your open mouth, watching the fog cloud grow and shrink against the glass obscuring your vision of him.

The last time you’d missed your mother, the one you’d never known, in any sort of real and true way, you’d been eighteen. Returning to an empty house after celebrating your high school graduation in a far off school, alone.

In the midst of your sophomore year, you’d been sent away to a Swiss boarding school. It had been something worse than devastating, losing your life in Wyoming, the only home you’d ever know, Ellie, the other people on the ranch… But it was far removed enough that you couldn’t bother, where you couldn’t ask for things like attention or consideration. The education had been excellent, the upbringing desperately lonely ending on a whimpering sigh despite your many accomplishments. You’d wanted her very badly then indeed, your mother. To have been there, to have helped you pick your dress, kissed your cheek after watching you walk across the stage. To have wiped your tears when she told you that your father wasn’t there because he was busy managing the whole world, but that he was proud of you, that he’d have been there if he could. You’d wished she could’ve been there to lie to you so that you wouldn’t have needed to lie to yourself.

Peering down from your balanced perch atop the deck’s bannister, you survey the deep bed of Lily of the Valley, destroyed beneath the vindictive soles of your bare feet. He’d planted them for her all around the house after she’d died, her favorite flower.

You’d always hated them.

And that was the thing of it all, which you’d learned when you grew old enough to recognize such things like disdain. He couldn't stand you because you reminded him of her. Clichéd and old and tired. An excuse for being a neglectful father. The daughter who was too much like her dead mother, and thus did not deserve to be loved.

You tip your head back, nursing at the lip of fine aged Macallan, and the sky is a glass mirror of blackened silver streaks. You’re almost positive that all the stars in the Milky Way are visible from right here at this very spot in the heart of Wyoming. The sight makes your broken heart feel full and falsely mended.

You’re certain you’re painting a pretty picture right now: tipsy on a bottle of your dead dad’s sacredly hoarded whiskey that probably cost as much as someone’s house, staring up at the stars in your newly inherited home with a whole unappreciated life full of possibilities ahead of you. Basking in the title of your newly minted— orphan-hood? Orphan-ness? A peer of the orphans.

You snort softly, sucking on the bottle again, letting the heat of it settle in your belly, smolder in your heart. Your head feels full of bubbles and sugar and sad.

There’s a part of you that feels a little ridiculous, despite the circumstances. You’re good at compartmentalizing, good at being objective of your realities. Obviously: sad because your father is now dead, and it’d been nine months and eleven days since you’d last spoken to him. Sad because he’d never given a shit about you. Sad because you’re alone, dumped by the stupid French jockey boyfriend who you’d not even liked very much, just a few days before this whole pathetic ordeal of acquiring your orphan-hood, yeah, that’s what you’re sticking with, had occurred. Not to mention the army of looming lawyers and financial advisors and various heads of business vying for your attention, waiting for the what next?

And Joel.

A one man army of looming Joel.

So you’re feeling morose, blue, maybe a little spoiled, but brought low and cut short. Depressed and unsatisfied with your life thus far.

Poor little rich girl. Poor little orphan. Poor little me.

What you want?

Someone to care.

Someone to love you.

Hard to come by. Impossible to buy.

The stars gleam purple silver, winking at you. The bracketing black so dark it swallows the eye. Another taste of the nutty bouquet of smoked apple oranges, and soon you’ll be tipsy enough you won’t be able to balance your butt on the bannister’s ledge anymore. Maybe you’ll go humpty dumpty over the edge and crack your skull against your mother’s valley of destroyed Lily’s.

You laugh again with sound now, not crazy, only an orphan, ha, but you think that it’s only that it feels shockingly as if you’ve fallen through the surface of your life. As if you are still falling with nothing and no one to grab on to, to help stabilize you. A really terrible, shit-out-of-luck feeling.

Your eyes continue their infernal leaking, and you blow your nose loudly on the inside of your sweater. You’ve given yourself three days to do whatever the hell you want, be as disgusting as you may. When the three days are up you’ll plan to get your act together, take responsibility and hold of your life and become the woman you should be.

Who that is? Still being decided.

You think that maybe you’ll buy another jet before that time’s up. Or an island. Something ridiculous. Maybe you’ll sell the goddamn ranch.

You eye the dark rolling hills of the valley with seething suspicion. Let’s see what Joel says about that. You, marching up to the highway entrance and spearing a For Sale sign in the dirt of the largest privately owned cattle ranch in the continental United States. Way more than that God forsaken surly frown is what you’d get.

So long, Joel, it’s been swell. I’m done with this place. It’s time to pack it up and find some new hunk of land to care about more than you care about me or anything else.

Maybe you’ll be real funny and put up a Craigslist ad.

And it isn’t that you don’t love this place, the only home you’ve ever known. You do. In a way that is passionate and consuming and irreconcilable. Everything about it, the serenity, the guarding mountains and the deep woods, the home you’d been born in, that both your parents had died in. You do love it in your way.

It’s only that every man you’ve ever loved—loved—had always cared more about the place than he’d ever cared about you.

For the longest time, most of your youth until you’d decided that you officially felt an adult, you’d thought you’d hated your father. There was just so much anger and resentment and the resound of his ever furious words and insults and endless disappointment. The echo of no mother ringing so loudly in your ears that the confounding feelings had all been mistaken for hatred. But with age and distance and life, you’d realized you didn't hate him. You never had. You thought, actually, and this was a very good and mature thought of yours, that you were the only person in the whole world that had ever seen him as only a man and not a god.

He was only a man, full of greed and grief and missing the mother of the child he’d probably never wanted. Nothing more or less.

Maybe it was that you felt sorry for him. Not in the way of pity, but in the way of one person feeling empathy for another in a clinical and helpless sort of manner. And a numb, detached sort of sadness. A longing for something that you’d never had and had always wanted but eventually learned to live without.

Ultimately, his disappointment had turned on him, and now it was all you felt you had for him at the end of it all.

But, for some reason, and an annoying one at that, you do think that, if you try very, very hard, you could bring yourself to hate Joel Miller. There’s satisfaction in that possibility, vindication—resentment that even now, as practically strangers, you know he’d be able to pull that sort of feeling out of you which could result in hatred. Something strong and overwhelming and not easily escaped.

Your stomach rumbles, and you smile blithely at all your inherited legacy, filling the hollow with more drink. Three days to behave very badly, as badly as you can. The whiskey is so good, and swishing it around in your mouth, you tip your head back further, gurgling it loudly at the back of your throat.

“What the hell are you doing?”

You jerk, scrambling to keep your balance, choking a little on smokey apples and your own spit. A trickle of the golden amber liquor drips out of the corner of your mouth as you find him hiding in the dark across the deck. Accustomed to drooling over him, you wipe it away with the back of your hand.

“Having a party. Would you like to join?”

“Are you drunk again?”

Tough crowd. Ugh. “Never mind. You’re not invited. Go away.”

“You need to go inside and go to bed.”

You tip your chin at him, putting on doe eyes. “Alright. And are you going to be my new daddy also?” You say in a baby voice.

Fucking Christ, you hear him whisper under his breath, turning away to run an exasperated palm over his mouth. Frustration seethes off of him like sulfur. He’s tired. Of you maybe. Of the whole circus this place has become in the past few days—and rightfully so.

“What do you want? I’m extremely busy, if you can’t tell.”

“Just thought I’d check on ya.” Courteous, always the gentleman, bullshit. You roll your eyes at him.

“I don’t need you to check on me.” And you, ever the child. One day you swear you’ll grow up.

But it can’t be said that you’re entirely selfish either. You have considered the fact of Joel’s own grief at the loss of your father. After all, they’d been much closer than you’d ever been to him for many years. And maybe, in his own cold and removed and superior way, your father had seen this man who you’ve thought yourself in love with since you were a teenager, as something like a son.

Probably, that’s just your own wishful thinking: that Oswald Kelly had ever been capable of such tender feelings.

Maybe the fact of Joel’s own grief is the thorn beneath your nail bed that’s making you so angry with him, so needing of his attention. Maybe it’s that he’d failed to fulfill your silly and girlish fantasy that upon receiving the news of your only remaining parents death, he’d have been here waiting for you, at this home he’d guarded for you for so long, ready to take you into his arms and console and care for you.

When instead, he’d been off doing what he’d always done for as long as you’d known him. Protecting your father’s interests, his legacy.

“Is this how it’s going to be?”

“How?”

“You, being difficult.” Driving me fuckin’ crazy— he adds again under his breath.

“I’m an orphan now, Joel.” You’re becoming quickly addicted to the word. “I think I should be afforded a tiny bit of leeway to drive people fuckin’ crazy,” you mock his Southern drawl. Enough of your time had been spent in Europe over the past two years, kissing Europeans, that you’d sloughed off the last of your American twang; something of a vaguely European lilt peppering your words every now and then that Ellie likes to tease you for whenever the two of you speak on occasion.

A muscle under his left eye twitches at the jab, and you take another deep swig of the bottle, provoking him with your gaze. Wishing you had whatever it is a woman needs to entice this man. Like the fucking vet. Fucking world renowned, brilliant, highly coveted, beautiful veterinarian. You know about her. You’re sure he thinks he’s been discreet over the years with their whatever they’ve had, Tess, but you know.

Maybe you’ll be insane and irrational and possessive, taking advantage of your three crazy days, and fire her with your new found power. See what he has to say about that. Ha.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Obviously not.

Despite your current hysteria, your goal is not to send the ranch head over heels into a tailspin.

But the imagining is soothing.

“Want some?” You hold the heavy crystal out towards him in a peace offering, held precariously between two sweaty knuckles. “It’s probably worth as much as your truck. Would be a waste for me to finish on my own.” You eye what’s left of it, about half, and give him a sheepish grin. It really is very good.

He looks at you for one long, solemn moment, always so silent and pensive, this strange enigma of a man. You get to watch in real time as he loses whatever fight it is he’s trying to fight against you, victorious when he shrugs and comes over slowly, resting his butt against the bannister—a carefully respectful distance away from you.

When he takes the bottle from your swinging clutch, gripped from the base, careful not to touch you in any way, you see the real sad in his eyes. The dim lights bleeding out through the big windows of the family room without a family shine on his face in strips and bursts. A shadow here, golden warmth there. He’s got more lines around his eyes than you remember from the last time you’d been this close to him. Smile lines made bright white in the center and gold burnished at the edges from too much sun. There’s little bursts of silver threaded at his temples now too, a gleam here and there in his dark beard. Forty four years old, he’d turned on your last birthday.

You dig your nails into the soft meat of your palms, and your belly smolders as he brings the bottle to his lips, tasting the exact place your own mouth had just been moments ago. You press your knees together as hard as you can, head a little woozy with the color of his eyes; the most gorgeous green, caramel hazel.

You’d graduated two years ago with a degree in art history and had done absolutely nothing with it since. It was just that everything appeared boring and pointless and shallow. Your whole life had one day suddenly seemed just a little silly. Useless, overpriced degree, nothing to be done with extensive knowledge in color theory when your world is expecting such different things from you now.

But you sure as hell can appreciate the color of his eyes in extensive and meticulous detail. There is that.

Watching the slow slide of the amber liquor down the bottle-neck, the long pull of his lush mouth, the ripple of his strong throat, and the way his eyes go a little wider, shocked at how good it is. You laugh soft: “I know, right.”

He takes another pull, another swallow. That’s what you want to be—swallowed just like that. “Damn, that’s good.” His mouth is a little wet, bottom lip shiny with thousands of dollars worth of your father’s favorite whiskey, and his eyes are sad.

You’d said you were going to be bad, but you don’t want to be bad to him. “I’m sorry,” you whisper.

He swallows again, tipping his head towards you, trying to catch your too soft words—he’s got a bad ear, you know why—and turns to peer at you from beneath his low pulled brow, the tip of his tongue peeking out to swipe at the drop of liquor you wish you could suck off his tongue.

“You’ve got nothin’ to be sorry for.”

The first time he’d shown you that gentleness of his: You’d fallen from your horse at school in your junior year. Something had frightened the beast, and she’d bucked you, sent you flying ten feet in the air, ragdoll-like, before you’d landed badly on your right arm, a comminuted fracture in your radius that you’d needed surgery to fix. At your insistence, and with only a few weeks left to spare, you’d been sent home for the remainder of the semester. Your father had been incensed but eventually allowed it. He’d been away from the ranch on business, after all, at no risk of being truly disturbed by you. But when you’d been readying to return to Switzerland at the end of the summer, arm healed, courage not, you’d not been able to get back on a horse no matter what you tried. Joel had helped you, before they’d shipped you off again. Trotted the corral with you for hours and hours before you’d finally been able to relax and sit on your own without tears and vertigo. No questions or admonishments, nothing but the quiet burr of his deep voice, guiding you and the mare along.

It had been a kindness unlike any you’d experienced in maybe your whole life.

“I’ve been bad.”

“Nah. You couldn’t ever be.”

The second time: “Did today make you think of Sarah?” Years after you’d found that green eyed photograph, he’d shared her with you.

His gaze turns suddenly sharp, but you’re not worried you’ve stepped in unbreachable territory. “Yeah.” The echo of her name rings around the two of you.

“In a bad way or a good way?” He takes another long swig, a low whistle through his teeth and a shake of his head before he’s handing the bottle back to you—again, carefully.

“Both.”

You take your own swallow, slicking your tongue all around where his just was, and you’re drunk for real now. Drunk on a man.

“Do you ever regret telling me about her?”

“Nah.” He tips his head back, looking up at the thick beams of the deck’s awning. He’s got the longest lashes you’ve ever seen on a man, thick and curling. The deepest voice you’ve ever heard too, sultry, a bedroom voice. A voice for fucking. Your belly swirls and dips, and you want so much you’re dizzy with it.

Heart beating like it’s about to burst, out of breath on the verge of hyperventilating, you can taste his mouth in your mouth, the imagination flavor of it. This is what it must feel like to die. This is what your father must have felt like three days ago, this agony.

His Adam’s apple bobs, and it’s so pronounced, the skin of his throat sun pebbled. There isn’t an inch of him that isn’t all rough-hewn man. “You needed to hear about her then, I s’pose.”

Yes. “You told me when I needed you to.” After that lonely graduation, the last time you’d missed her really very badly, longed for a mother. Alone, alone, alone little girl.

“You were missin’ your momma somethin’ fierce. Needed to know you weren’t the only one that felt like that sometimes.”

You laugh a not-laugh, butt scraping against the railing, slipping off your perch, socked-feet thudding beside his gifted boots. The pleasure you feel whenever you see him use one of the things you’ve given him is indescribable.

“Silly,” you say with barely any sound, his bad ear reaches for your voice again. “At the time it felt like I was the only person in the whole world that had ever felt like that.”

“We all feel like that at one point or another, I reckon.”

“Will you miss him a lot?” You ask looking up at him, the beautiful profile, the strong jaw. You’ve always wondered how he sees you. If he’s ever thought you were beautiful. Other men do, it’s a common thing, a nothing sort of thing. There are always men, there will always be men. But this singular man—this one is not like the rest.

“Maybe. Can’t tell yet, don’t think. But it felt wrong earlier, walking through his house without him in it.” His house, not yours.

“Do you wish he’d been your father?” And he turns to look down at you at that, gaze snapping, and you can tell you’ve shocked him with the question. But you’d always wondered.

“No. Never,” he says with such assuredness, an uncompromising shake of his head.

And the answer doesn't necessarily shock you in turn. You don't think anyone could have ever wanted a father like that. But it also doesn't help you understand what it was that lived between them either.

He sighs, perhaps reading the confusion in your gaze. “He helped me at a time when I needed it real bad. Gave me a place and a purpose and a thing to do and take care of. You get me? It was gratitude—maybe. He saved me in a way, after Sarah. Nothing more.” He thinks for a moment, and then, “Perhaps it was that we understood each other about certain things.”

You gaze across the sprawl of dark land as far as the eye reaches, that point of no return where the earth shoots up into the sky, purple blue behemoths in the shape of mountains.

From this spot, rooted to the deck of your family home, it seems like the whole world is yours to keep. Also, like you’ll never be able to touch any of it with fingers or taste or meaning.

Your love for this place is complicated—tied up in the people, the memories, the could’ves and should’ves, the whole dreamscape idea of the monument of childhood and all it’d really never been. The time away had felt eternal, like you’d never really been here to begin with, like the young girl who’d grown up on this land had never really existed. But you’d not forgotten them, this, despite your distance. Your home, the father that wouldn’t want you, Wyoming and all its splendor, the people you’d left behind, Joel and Ellie and shared birthdays that meant a secret world to you. Morsels of small happinesses interloped amidst a largely lonely and sad childhood. That’s what it was at its core.

“Would you be angry with me if I gave it all away?”

He thinks for a moment, maybe you’re making him sadder, but then finally says with a swallow, “No. It’s yours to do with as you please.”

You eye the quarter of whiskey left, but your belly isn’t hungry for its warmth anymore. You want something heavier now.

“Could you even do that—legally—sell it or somethin’?”

“Probably not. He probably tied it to my fucking life. Sell and die.” You mime your name in an imitation of your fathers deep voice, frowning at yourself the way he’d always frowned when he looked at you, but it pulls a laugh from him, and the painful memory is worth it. “But I have a billion dollars to spend now. More?” You tap your chin—you want to make him laugh again. “Gotta think of something interesting to do with it all.”

His mouth slides into an easy half grin. Like the moon—that beautiful. And he turns to face you fully. “You’re gonna be just fine. You know that, right?”

You turn to face him too, gripping the bannister for dear life. “What? Will you make sure of it?”

“That’s my plan.”

“How’re you gonna do that, d’you reckon?” The American twang bleeds back into your voice, and you’re all swollen lush on the inside, heart a beating fist in your chest.

“Haven’t gotten that far, if I’m bein’ honest with you.” God. His eyes, the strong bridge of his nose, his mouth. He’s so tall your head has to crook back to look up at him. “I’ll figure something out.” And after another pensive second, and still with that soft, sloped eye smile, he asks, and nicely, “Will you stop drinking now—for me?”

“Maybe tomorrow,” you say with the same sort of smile in return.

And then suddenly, like vomit again but maybe more humiliating this time: “Did you respect him?” Because you don’t know all the things about him that there are to know, but you do know that Joel Miller’s respect is a thing hard earned.

He clicks his tongue, and you hear the pop of his jaw as he shifts it like he’s chewing on an honesty. His eyes, his eyes, they’re serious, mercurial, warm and deep also. You worry he won’t answer, that he wouldn’t want to disappoint you or something, but then: “No,” said real simple like.

“Why not?”

And the way he looks down at you, you know already, and it makes that falling through the surface of your own life feeling rise up inside you again, makes your ears pop with embarrassment. Ah. “He never did a very good job of hiding the way he treated you, sweetheart. I couldn’t ever respect a man like that.”

This is reality right here, this is you falling through your life, this is the realization that it wasn’t only you imposing yourself, your existence, on someone with gifts they didn’t want or ask for. Joel had seen. Joel had understood.

Someone else had noticed that you exist, and it had been him.

What else had you ever wanted?

And in the blink of a desperate, yearning eye, drunk on a man still, you’re throwing yourself at him, pressing your mouth hot and heavy to his, kissing him full on the way you’d dreamt of since you knew to dream of such things.

Chapter 2; Sugar, Not so Sweet

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#fable of the dog fic #vic fic #joel miller fanfiction #Joel Miller x FMC #joel miller smut #Joel miller angst #the last of us AU

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simplyzeeka · 3 months ago

Text

Ruffian

Part.1

Summary: Ryan has been living a lonely life on her farm for a decade now. With no family to seek company from, she developed a routine with just her and her animals, something that soothed her loneliness. Until her happiness came back a little earlier than expected.

Warnings: MDNI!!! Cussing, chaotic animals, oral (m and f receiving), dirty talk, p in v(no protection), face sitting if you squint. They just missed each other y'all 😔

A/n: So, uhmm. This was supposed to be straight fluff, nothing nasty at all. But sometimes, characters have a mind of their own.

5k+

Ryan always believed life in the countryside was much more peaceful. Although she hasn't even licked the city streets, she hears enough to have a clear and unbiased opinion about it. But that did not mean that the countryside did not have its chaos. “Daisy… Daisy! Come back here girl, where you goin’?”

And most of this chaos came from her small little farm, especially her Great Dane. If it weren't her chickens causing a ruckus, her sheep and goats were raining ditsy havoc. Her only peace came from her Friesian stallion, Ferris, always chewing on a bunch of hay in his stable away from the blasting heat.

Despite all this, Ryan loved her little farm. It was a place with many stories. Tragic and happy alike. She inherited the small plot from her grandmother who raised her into the woman she was, her parents having moved to the city since she was young as a way to send money back into the farm.

Ryan shook her head at her dog’s antics before turning back to the task before her. “Okay, Ro. We’re all done girl, you get some rest.” She spoke quietly to her cow, applying a post-dipping solution on each teat when the spotted animal did not have any more milk to give. Ryan took off her gloves and offered the cow a batch of hay, then left the stable after checking on Ro’s calf.

It was a rather long day, helping a cow give birth was the least of her expectations, luckily her grandmother had always prepared Ryan for such a situation. She carried the bucket of colostrum filled milk that would be used to feed the calf, but stopped to check on her Stallion. “What’s up big guy? Your water still good?” Ryan checked the stable for any irregularities.

Once satisfied she left the stable, securing the lash before a smooth velvet voice caught her attention. “That sissy still standin’? Thought he woulda been long dead.”

Ryan whipped her head behind her, there occupying the entrance of the shed. Worn out timbs and a pair of denim jeans that matched in condition. White wife beaters and a denim jacket over his shoulder, his signature silver chain hanging around his neck. Terrence Richmond was still as handsome as he was all those years ago.

“You lyin’ to me.” Ryan shook her head, eyes blinking slowly, there was no way he stood in front of her currently. It was too early, he wasn't supposed to be back until a few weeks. See, Ryan knew that she should stop smoking the pre-rolls that Willow always brought, they tended to leave her more paranoid than relaxed.

The smile he let out from her quiet whisper was enough to spark a flamelet to her, he really was here. Years and years of being separated and finally, he was in front of her. , “I’m right here, baby.” He dropped the bags in his hand and opened his arms.

It took a while for Ryan to react, rendered speechless just by the mere fact that he was here… with her and near her. Next thing one step turned into two, then three before she was spriniting in his direction. Ryan wasted no time locking her body around his, legs around his waist and her arms wrapped tightly around his neck. Terry held her even tighter, his hands gripping at her thighs so he could hold her up. A soft scent of cinnamon and peaches invaded his nose so delicately that he brushed his nose against her neck to inhale more of the sweet scent.

“I thought you was gon’ be out in a few weeks. I aint even prepare nothin’ for you, coulda held a party or somet-.”

Terry didn't allow her to finish, “Ry baby, I dont need a party. This is good, this is perfect.” Terry protested, honestly so because there was no better way than for him to celebrate his return than with his fiancé.

Ryan held his face, a small pinch between her brows as she inspected his face. “I coulda bought you somethin’ nice at least.”

Terry laughed, knowing that Ryan always wanted nothing more than to please. Her heart plummeted at the sound, she missed it… thought she'd never hear it again, but Terry had a way of always coming back to her. “God, I missed you, like a fish outta water.”

Their noses nudged as she spoke, until the distance between their lips became a little too much to bear and Terry pressed their lips together. He swallowed the sound of her content sigh, felt her relax as she leisurely responded.

The small flame in her heart spread to the rest of her body, little embers flicking off her body when his hands grabbed at her supple flesh intentionally.

Ryan grew into her womanhood, everything about her screamed ‘grown’ and Terry loved every moment of that realisation. Ten years… he hasn't seen his woman for ten years, didn't watch her grow and grow with her. But he had time to spare now, and he would be damned if he didn't spend it on Ryan.

It took being placed on a block of hay and Terry stepping between her legs that made her push him away gently. “Mmm wait baby, we can't. Ro just calved.” She explained breathlessly while playing with the charm on his chain.

“Ro? As in little Ro?” Terry asked shocked, “She getting down and busy?” Ryan rolled her eyes and smacked his shoulder with a laugh.

“Ro ain't so little no more. And, she been gettin’ down and busy. This her third baby.”

Terry immediately moved his body away from Ryan, running her fingers through his short curls. “Somebody got my baby pregnant?” He frowned at the declaration, no longer in the mood to get acquainted with Ryan’s body. This was big.

Ryan huffed at his Oscar winning antics. “Terry, please. She damn near eleven years old, and also a cow. Breedin’ is what they do.” She explained, not that she thought they had to, he knew what it was when he bought Ro.

“Yeah, but not my Ro.”

Ryan cackled at that, he never failed to treat all the livestock on this farm like children… except her horse of course. She couldn't blame him, Terry and Ryan bought Ro off a cow breeder before he left for the military. They were only twenty years old, freshly engaged and had a dream to grow a farm together… their farm. Ro was their first cow, a big accomplishment because cows were expensive as hell.

“Okay, Soldier. Calm down.” Ryan got up from the hay and walked over to Terry. “How bout you help me carry the milk to the kitchen?” She suggested, pointing at the half full bucket of milk behind him.

Reluctantly, Terry obliged, he picked up the bucket and followed Ryan to the kitchen. She did some work to the small area, it looked different from the last time he saw it.

“You recolored?” He asked, placed the bucket on the floor before looking around. It smelled like freshly baked cookies, which didn't surprise Terry, he knew how much Ryan loved to bake.

“Mhm, got tired of the grey.” Ryan grabbed the bucket of milk and poured it in baby bottles for the calf when it woke up, she had fed it a while before it went into a deep sleep.

Terry couldn't help but to watch her, like really watch her. Her face, her hair, her skin. Everything about her. Dressed in a plain shirt, the front of it tied in a knot, showing a bit of her stomach. Flared jeans that hugged her thighs enticingly. As always, Ryan wore a low cut, stetson hat on her head, she wouldn't leave the house without one on.

She looked good, damn good and Terry found himself unable to keep composure again. A few tentative steps was all it took until he was behind her. His hands placed on her hips while his fingers dig into her belt loops as to pull her hips into his.

Ryan let out a soft laugh when she felt tickling kisses behind her ear travelling to her neck. He smelled like he always did. Honey and a hint of musk. “I'm tryna concentrate, Terrence.” Ryan began, not detering from her task, just as stubborn as Terry was on his because he didn't let up on her.

“You can do this later. Come on, Ry. I miss you.” Terry countered.

Ryan shook her head, this was important, the baby needed their milk. “And I got you later. Gon’ make you dinner and everythin’.” She turned to face him, arms wrapping around his neck, fingers playing with the little curls on the nape of his neck.

Terry sighed and looked down at her. She was so pretty. Her cheeks softly filled out, cheekbones lifting as she smiled. He bit his lower lip to stop himself from letting out a soft grunt of frustration, how was he supposed to hold off when she looked this good.

“Alright, I'ma hold you to that.” He nodded, sending a small smack to her ass and a kiss to her plump lips. “Anything you need me to help with?”

“Can you check on Ro?” Terry nodded in agreement, pecking her lips one more time before retreating from the kitchen.

“Yes ma'am.”

Time passed slowly, that when evening rolled in, Ryan was already spent from her day. She made sure that Ro and her calf were settled in for sleeping as all her other babies. As usual, her chickens gave her more of a run around, but Terry helped put them in their coop.

She had just finished with dinner, opted for a bit of a full plate as Terry's first proper meal since being back.

He was currently in the shower washing the day away while she got the table ready. She had Janet Jackson playing in the background, something she always did to decompress from a busy day of farm work.

“Terry! Come on now. The food gettin’ cold.” She called out, impatiently seated, waiting for him so they could eat.

“I'm here, I'm here.” He rushed down the stairs. His heavy steps creaked on loose floorboards. He marvelled at the effort that Ryan put into making such a vast dinner for him. Terry couldn't remember the last time he's had a proper meal straight out the pot.

“Smells good baby.” He complimented, landing a peck on her cheek before he took a seat in front of her. “Looks good too.”

Ryan smiled in appreciation, “Thank you, baby.” She did a little jiggle at the compliment, causing Terry to laugh endearingly. “Alright, let's eat. I'm hungrier than a tic on a teddy bear.”

And at that they dug in. Ryan and Terry caught up with everything they have missed together. Ten years, and Ryan still couldn't help but feel like a giddy school kid around Terry. He always had that effect on her, and something told her that he always would.

Terry ate like a man starved and Ryan used this time he was distracted to admire him. He gained muscle… a lot of muscle. While he wasn't necessarily a man of small stature, Terry came back with his clothes stretched out. She eyed his prominent veins pop out everytime he flexed his arm even the slightest.

He trimmed his beard out and kept his goatee. It was a small change, but a nice one. She remembered constantly calling him ‘patchy’ back when he was trying to fully grow it but it wouldn't grow the way he liked it.

Once dinner was done, Terry offered to wash the dishes since Ryan cooked. “You go get the bed ready, pretty. I'ma be up there in a few.”

Ryan nodded and her small feet pattered up the stairs to her bedroom. She made sure to turn the ceiling fan on, the heat making her a little irritated. “Hotter than satan’s crack.” She mumbled lowly, naive to the presence in the room.

“Wouldn't be feeling so hot if you got out those jeans.” Terry commented from behind her, arms wrapping around her torso. “You tryna get me out my clothes, Mr. Richmond?” She turned to face him, hands rested against his ripple chest.

Terry playfully shook his head, nudging his nose against hers. “Nah, I wouldn't dare, Mrs. Richmond.”

Fuck she loved that, she couldn't wait until she could become that formally. Ryan landed a kiss on his lips, missed that. Missed kissing him so much, touching him and loving him.

The kiss picked up pace. While Terry had always been an impatient man, the time they have spent apart left him with an insatiable hunger. Ryan breathed him in, cupping his lower jaw as to pull away slightly for some air. Terry chased her lips, not giving a damn about breathing with Ryan this close in his proximity.

They crashed together again, then stumbled everywhere in the room. Terry tapped her thigh twice, before he rested his hands on the underside of her thighs and picked her up with ease, and on the bed he laid Ryan gently.

Her hands fumbled with her belt buckle, not wanting to waste anymore time talking and laughing. She wanted him, in every way he came to her.

Terry took over, gently removing her hands and undid the buckle himself, except he took his time. Once the leather was gone, he unbuttoned her jeans with his teeth, sliding them down her thick thighs along with the orange lace panties that he wished he had taken the time to appreciate on her.

Ryan was breathing heavily, watching as Terry kissed on her exposed stomach. He was serenading her with his lips, silently telling her how much he missed her.

The pillows of his lips moved from her stomach, down to her pelvis. He kissed the visible scar on the soft skin, one she got when she tried shaving without any guidance for the first time.

By the feel of his lips moving lower, Ryan was too anticipated to let him do what he wanted. She wasn't in the mood for foreplay.

“Terry, I don't need that now.” She whispered as she rested on her elbows, looking down at the earthiness of his eyes. Fuck him for being so beautiful.

“Hm? What you need then?”

Ryan shook her head, she knew what he wanted. He wanted her to explicitly tell him what she wanted. But how could she so boldly tell him that she wanted to be stuffed with his dick.

“Closed mouths don't get fed, baby. Gotta let me know what you want so I can give it to you.”

“I can't, T.” She reasoned softly.

“Yes you can, I know you can. You know why? Cause you're my baby, and my baby listens.”

Ryan sighed heavily, unable to understand why he couldn't just fuck her and call it a night. Now he was bringing all this Military obedience bullshit to her at the worst of times. It frustrated her.

“Terry, come on. Please.”

He noted her frustration, sighed in disappointment before he stood to his full height. “Okay baby.”

“We'll fix that some other time.”

And she knew that was a promise he was going to keep. Ryan smiled in relief, gasped suddenly when he kissed her feverishly.

This kiss was sloppy. They nipped at each other's lips before Ryan granted him access into her mouth.

And inevitably, allowed entrance into her leaking folds as well.

It wasn't just his muscles that grew, his dick seemed to have gained an extra pound as well because it laid heavy inside her, stretching her out that she knew nobody would ever be able to fill his space, not that she wanted anybody to.

Ryan struggled to take it, regardless of the fact that he was going slow, she still couldn't take it. The mushroom of his tip brushed carelessly at the soft tissue of her spot at every thrust, it had her recoiling away everytime he pulled out.

“Don't piss me off, Ryan. You wanted this right?” Terry gritted out, his grip on her hips tight as she rolled his hips up into her yet again. Slow, deep strokes. Just as she liked. “Hm? Answer me, baby.”

Her pussy was gold. Always has been, always will be. Ryan had no right to grip at him like that and expect him to let her run. You couldn't offer somebody candy and expect them not to indulge, it was inhumane, at least to Terry it was.

He had her holding her legs, presenting herself to him so she could watch where their hips met without obstruction. Ryan's essence pooled around her thighs and Terry's, leaked out everytime he pulled out the piping heat of her pussy to where his tip is all that stayed, before he dove his heavy dick back inside her so he could kiss her insides.

“Fuck. Y-yes I did.” Ryan managed to respond, her brows drawn together, her eyes too stuck on where they connected. Watched as rings of cream coasted the thick base of his dick. “Fat fuckin’ dick. Oh my… yess.” She whispered softly, throwing her head back, her grip on her thighs tightened ever so oftenly.

“And you love me, hmm baby? You love me don't you?”

“Yes yes yes yesss. Love you so much. Oh my God.” Ryan looked up at him with teary eyes.

“So don't run from what you love baby, don't run from me. Take this dick, there you go, girl. Pretty fuckin’ pussy.”

He fucked like a grown man now too. Before he left, Terry and Ryan had good sex, she wouldn't dispute that. But it never felt like this, he definitely missed her, and he sure as fuck was showing her just how much.

“So deep, so fuckin’ deep, T. Just like that.”

“Yeah? In your stomach baby?” Terry watched where his dick poked out on her stomach.

But Ryan shook her head dumbly, he felt way beyond that. “In my- shittt. In my heart.”

“In your heart?” Terry laughed, the sound causing Ryan's walls to pulsate around as they clenched. That drew a hiss out of Terry before he continued. “Dick got you talkin’ dumb baby.”

Ryan moaned at that. Fuck she liked that, she liked that a lot. It made her ooze more of her juices, down her ass and onto the bed.

“Ease up mama, let me in.” Terry groaned, struggling to dig her out the way he wanted to because she gripped at his dick so tight, sucking him in with every thrust. “Open up, Ryan. Let Daddy in.”

“Shittt.” She creamed at that. Fuck he was so sexy, so so sexy she wanted to give him children. Ryan tried to open up more, but the heaviness of his dick made it hard. He was impaling her, and he expected her to make that easier for him?

Terry wrapped her legs around his waist, leaned lower, his elbows near either side of her head. Their foreheads touched and Ryan wasted no time touching on him.

He was angled so much deeper like this, but that wasn't what had her heart pumping. The way he looked at her, while slowly pumping her full of dick had her reciting her love for him all over again.

“I love you, love you so fuckin’ much, T.” She spoke with her eyes stuck on his, hands caressing his jaw as her mouth fell open at his pace. “Fuck yesss.”

“Fuck this pussy magic. Wanna die in it, wetting me up so good. Pretty baby, you so pretty Ry. You hear me? So so pretty. Love you, till death yeah?.”

And she believed him, believed that he would die for her because Terry has shown her his love, showed her that she deserves that kind of love, and that kind of love deserved her.

“Oh my God… I'ma cum. I'm cummin’ baby.”

“I know, I feel it baby, I feel you. Let it go, cum on your dick mama.” He coached her, leaving kisses on her face as he maintained the pace of his hips. He whispered profanities and sweet everything's in her ear as Ryan squeezed around him.

“Fuck fuck fuhhh. Oh my God, I love you.” She gasped when she gushed on him heavily. Her cum leaked out of her, damn near pushing Terry out of her walls. He fucked her through it, kissing her slightly sweaty skin.

He pulled away from her, rubbing her thighs lovingly and watched as she caught her breath. “Turn over, I ain't done.” Terry sent a small smack to the side of her thighs and laughed when he heard her whine but still as obedient as ever, oblige to his command.

On her elbows and knees, Ryan spread her legs slightly, earning an appreciative hum from Terry as he gripped at her plump ass.

“Look at you.” He said, eyeing the slick that covered her heat before blowing on her swollen bud. “She missed me, hmm?” he asked no one in particular, yet still, Ryan responded with a silent “Yes, Sir.” that had Terry grabbing the base of his dick. The sound of her accent didn't make this any better.

He sent a long stripe from her clit to her pulsating hole. Sucked her bud into his mouth and gave her pussy lazy kisses that left Ryan leaking again.

Ryan gripped at the sheets in front of her. This man was insatiable, and she knew that there was a long night ahead of her, if not a few days as well. “Shit shit shit, like that. Just like that.”

He hummed against her, the vibrations creating pressure waves inside of her, amplifying the pleasure that was being sent to her brain. “Taste so fucking good, look at this shit.” Terry said and spread her lips apart, before diving back in, slipping his pink muscle inside her and exploring more of her taste.

Ryan's thighs shook, almost causing her to fall out of the position. “Keep that fucking arch, Ryan. You hear me?”

She whined in response, pinched her eyes together from the slight overstimulation.

Terry was a noisy eater, slurping and slipping. Didn't even mind moaning at her taste, occasionally praising how much she got wet, how pretty her pussy looked, how much he loved her.

Once he was done with his oral loving, he teased Ryan's entrance with his tip. Slapped it against her clit a few times before sliding it between her folds.

Once he slowly plunged into her slowly, he threw his head back and whimpered shamelessly. The sound made Ryan smile to herself, loving how he expressed himself freely in that sense.

“Fuckk, not sure if I can hold off mama.” She muttered, pulled out then plunged back in again, the sight made his dick twitch. “Can't believe I went ten years without this pussy. Never again, okay baby?”

Terry began the relentless thrusting. Pulled her hips back against him, watching the recoil of her ass in appreciation. “Never again. Gon’ die in this shit if I have to.” His bottom lip sank between his teeth, watching himself enter her with more and more cream decorating his veiny dick.

Ryan was at a loss of words, couldn't speak as tears filled her eyes. Dick couldn't be this good. She understood now why women often fought for their men, there was no way she's ever letting up on this. Terry would get fucked up for even doing something as stupid as think of getting with another woman.

Naturally, she threw her ass back on him, because she missed him. And he deserved this, deserved so much more. “Fuckkk that's it, show out mama. Take your dick, just like that. Taking me so good, it's yours ain't it?”

The sound of skin clapping and squelching could be heard in the room, accompanied by the sound of their persistent moans and whimpers. Their declarations of love and praises.

“So big, stretchin’ me so much. Fuck, let up Terry.” Ryan cried out, reached behind her to push against his stomach. Terry ignored that, instead, he just slid back in deeper. He angled his hips that made him kiss her cervix with so much pressure. Ryan opened her mouth agape and her arm fell forward to grip the sheets.

"Why you fucking me like this?" She moaned out elongated, using the leverage of her elbows to pull her hips away from him.

"Cause you deserve it. You deserve this nut, baby." Terry gritted out, so concentrated at the work he was putting between her thighs, watching the mesmerising waves on her ass every time their skin slapped.

"Working so hard every damn day, takin' care of the house, the farm. You don't gotta worry bout that no more though, cause Daddy's home. You hear me, Ry?" Terry angled his hip in a way that dug her out in a way that would have had her promising babies, but she held off.

All she could do was nod, grip the sheets harder. Her moans leaking out her mouth like the faucet between her legs. "Mh mh, say it. Say Daddy's home baby."

“Daddy’s home… fuckkk daddy's home. I'm bout to cum.”

“Right behind you baby, cum with me baby. Hold it just a little longer.”

Ryan tried, she tried so hard to listen but she couldn't hold it. She began squirming on him, yelling chants of ‘I love you's’.

The feel of her clenching sent Terry over the edge. “Fuck fuck fuckk, I'm cummin’.” He grunted before he spilled inside her then fucked his nut inside her.

The two gathered their breath, catching a sense of time and space while coming down their highs.

Once Terry pulled out, Ryan believed she was done. “Sit up baby.” Terry called out gently, rubbing her back gently as she moved around the bed.

Once she was sat on the bed, she was face to face-to-face with his slick covered dick. He definitely was bigger, and the sight of his cum mixed with hers had her mouth watering.

Ryan looked up at Terry, the corners of his lips lifted slightly. “You okay?” He asked for assurance to continue first, the ball was in her hands.

Ryan eagerly nodded. She wanted this, needed this even. “Clean me up then.” he ordered.

Hesitantly, she wrapped her hands around him. Even with both hands, his head still peaked out. The weight of it felt tantalising.

“Don't play around with that shit, Ry. Eat it up.”

Immediately, her lips wrap around his head, sucking gently. Her eyes met his when her tongue poked out to lick from her shaft to the base. They tasted good together, like a match made perfectly in heaven.

Ryan slid her mouth around him, sliding her lips lower as she inhaled. Her hands wrapped around what she couldn't fit into her mouth. He felt heavier on her tongue. “That's right, nice and slow. Ain't goin’ nowhere mama.” Terry watched with his lip caught between his teeth.

His brows furrowed as she took him with skill, just as he taught her all those years ago. Ryan began bobbing her head, her eyes already getting teary at the way he stretched her mouth open.

“Just like that. My baby getting me right. Take what you need.”

Ryan picked up the pace, slurping at his dick like it was her last meal, slowly easing him deeper in her throat, her nose slowly inching towards his pelvis.

“Look at you. Nasty ass, you love this dick Ryan?”

She nodded her head, hummed in response as well knowing that would drive him crazy. By now, she was damn near deep throating him, his tip kissing the back of her throat.

Ryan clenches her throat around his head which causes Terry to buck his hips forward. Ryan pulled away to get some air, breathing loudly as her hand twisted around the weight of the muscle.

She tapped the head against her tongue before sliding it back into her mouth.

Terry laughed, he wanted to be gentle, wanted to let her do her thing. But now she had him worked up, teasing him as if she wanted him to show out.

Gripping the back of her head, Terry pulled her away from him, before guiding her back towards his head.

“Breathe, baby. Breath.” He instructed, watching as Ryan nodded in understanding.

Terry slid into her mouth, watching her jaw relax as she breathed, right until her nose touched his pelvis. He heard her gag and relieved her by pulling out.

Tears adorned her eyelids, falling when she blinked up at him with spit running down her chin. “So good baby, you think you can do it?”

Ryan nodded her head. “Yeah, I can, promise. Please.”

“Mhm, ‘course you can.” He said before siding back into her mouth. “Love being slutted out, don't you mama. Mi get yuh, baby.”

The patois, fuck the patois. It wasn't often that she heard it before he left, only ever when he was angry. Then he spoke in patois, but during sex? Ryan has never heard it, and she's not sure she wanted him to stop.

Ryan hummed around his dick. He used her mouth for good measure. “You so pretty like this.” He praised as his thrusted into her mouth gently, loving the sight of her lips wrapping around him.

Ryan did a few tricks with her tongue, drawing him closer to his orgasm. “Fuckkk Ry. Fuck baby, I'm bout to nut. You gon catch it?” He asked breathlessly, brows pinched together as his grip on her head tightened.

Ryan moaned around him, her hands rested on top of his thighs. The room filled with sounds of gagging and Terry's moans.

It didn't fall unnoticed to Terry the hands that rested between Ryan's legs. She was playing with herself, smearing his nut between her fold as she rubbed leisure circles on her sensitive bud. Perhaps she liked Terry in her mouth more than she thought she did.

Terry laughed at that sight, pulled out of her mouth and heard as she gasped to take a breath. Ryan chased the head of his dick, clearly not happy with how soon it ended, he didn't even cum yet. Despite all the spit running down her chest and the tears that filled her eyes, she still wanted more.

Terry teased her, pulling her head back everytime she got close to having him back in her mouth. “Terry, come on.” She whispered desperately.

Hr knew she could get down and grimey if she wanted to. Terry knew that Ryan could fuck him to sleep if she wanted to, if only she could stop being so shy. They'd get there though, he'll make sure of it.

“It's right there baby, go head and take it.” He urged, tilting her head to see her face better. “Or you want me to give it to you?” Ryan immediately nodded her head, she liked him being rough, taking what he needed because he knew she would do nothing but give.

“You lazy as fuck Ryan. Daddy gon get you right, though.”

His hand let go of her hair, wrapped his hand around her neck instead, squeezed just enough to slow down the blood from going to her head.

Ryan felt a little lightheaded when Terry pulled her up to where she stood on her feet. Her hand wrap around his wrist, her eyes crossed eve so slightly when he squeezed tighter. “Fuck.” She whispered.

Terry pecked her lips. Once, twice, and a few more times. “You okay, baby?” He asked, releasing some tension on her neck but kept his hand there.

“Mhm, I'm fine. Thank you.” She smiled tiredly.

“Good. Cause I aint finished. Come sit on my face.”

“Terry. I'm tired, I got a lot of work tomorrow.” She shook her head incredulously. There was no way he could possible have that much energy. What water are they giving these men in the military?

“And ain't I say Daddy's home?. I'ma help with all that.” He tapped her thigh.

Ryan sighed and climbed over him on the bed, hovered over his face slightly, clearly worried about suffocating him.

“Don't play with me, Ryan. I said sit.”

Ryan rolled her eyes, happy he couldn't see her. “Sir, yes Sir.” She mumbled before lowering on his perfectly sculpted face, his eyes gazing up at her as he munched away between her thighs.

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